A Company Director At 29, How Adetola Durojaiye Rose To The Top In Five Years

We will see fans who will say “If Rihanna is using this I definitely have to use it.

“Influencers have a large influence on the audience compared to what even your ad will get you. If you were to see a video about some random person, you would probably pay more attention to a video with a celebrity, especially the one you follow and love what they do. If you are following them for a reason, you will most likely buy into the brands that they endorse. Influencers are a mouthpiece for many brands. Some influencers would not also take up gigs or jobs from brands that they themselves don’t trust. What you see today in the influencer community is just the tip of the iceberg. The next five years in Nigeria in the influencer industry are going to be explosive.

However, society has become more sensitive than before. “…For example, if you were to create a video about Maggi and you place a woman in the kitchen, you could have people challenging it, “are you saying that only women are supposed to be in the kitchen?’ These are some challenges that the industry has had to adapt to, and it is doing so fairly well, but still way behind in comparison to the international industry. ‘I would say the industry has grown well but we are still behind international agencies. One of the reasons is that they have more things to work with; I will also say a richer audience to work with. The purchasing power in Nigeria is quite low. It makes it very hard to sell expensive products and hard to target the core audience for these expensive things.”

His approach to marketing is unique and tailored to the many brands he has worked with while taking into cognizance his team’s strengths and weaknesses. “I have worked with both local and international brands across different industries, mostly smartphone companies, I would say many brands have their guidelines that you have to follow in creating whatever strategy that you are creating. As a marketing strategist, I will take this and try to create what works for them. One of the stumbling blocks that you will face as a digital marketer is the brand guideline which often will box you into a place when trying to come up with ideas. Sometimes many of these people are also flexible.

“The biggest lesson is that what makes a beautiful campaign is your team. When you have the right team and your people are able to synchronise it is always easy. You never can tell who is going to bring out the best idea. It could be the intern. Most of the time it may not even be the manager that brings out the best idea. It is mostly the junior ones that are not thinking inside of the box because they are not as restricted since they have less communication with the client, for example. However, as the manager, you are able to take their idea and transform it or flesh it out in a way that does not violate any brand guidelines. I think your team is just as strong as your marketing campaign. The team goes into your deployment because many times when we want to execute a campaign, we need more hands than we already have and that is what makes a great campaign. One of my best campaigns was one where I had over 100 people on the team.”

Speaking on the Nigerian policy environment, Adetola opines that “The current policies are not exactly bad. However, there are rumours of the federal government trying to censor how people place their ads on social media. The government is not in control of social media. Hence, it is hard for them to monitor adverts on the different platforms because they are not Nigerian-owned or affiliated with Nigeria apart from the fact that they are available in Nigeria. The government is trying to police it and I don’t think it is necessary because we already have quality control where they check every ad to make sure you are not violating certain rules.

The other challenge is when you are trying to get approval for a billboard, you have to go through several approval processes. For example, if you are a food company, NAFDAC has to approve the video and you still have to get approval from APCON. It is just a long process. If it can be made easier we can have a more viable environment for people to succeed and it will eliminate a lot of frustration coming from government officials and clients. One of the things that NAFDAC has done on their part is that you can send them a script before you shoot the video so you do not waste money on your video. I think the government is doing very well but it can be better.”