The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) has called for synergy between its stakeholders, particularly the academia and the professionals, to foster a well-structured industry.

The director-general of ARCON, Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, made the call at a media briefing on Friday in Lagos.

The event was organised by the council to announce the second edition of its Advertising Industry Colloquium (AIC), which will hold on June 27.

The theme of the conference is: ‘Harnessing Emerging Technologies for Sustainable Advertising Education and Industrial Excellence in Nigeria.’

Mr Fadolapo said that the engagement was to ensure that both the academia and professionals were on the same pedestal.

He said the lines of advertising and other courses, including public relations, were getting blurred by the day.

He added that technology was causing a major disruption in advertising, particularly the tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) being introduced into the profession.

“It is very important to us as an industry that is challenged with so many things to ensure that we bring everybody into the same space.

“Now we have a culture, we have religion, we have our peculiarities, how do we marry these peculiarities with global trends,” he queried.

Mr Fadolapo further said that the colloquium would give the opportunity to formally present the council’s ‘Advertising Industry Journal.’

The journal is a collection of research in different areas of advertising that have been done.

“They have interrogated the body of knowledge, they have come up with the findings, and they’ve come up with their contributions to knowledge.

“Now the book being published, the journal, is going to become an authority and will be cited in research,” Mr Fadolapo said.

Also, chairman of ARCON’s AIC committee, Prof. Rotimi Olatunji, said the programme would yield better outcome than its previous edition.

Mr Olatunji said that the colloquium would include a job fair that would allow participants to learn about opportunities in the Nigerian marketing communications industry.

(NAN)