DP Partnership: Six Years on the Professional Path

Odun Fadoju, sits at the helm of affairs at DP Partnership. He speaks with M2 on his long silence speaking touching on the bane of the marketing communications industry and how to move it forward. Seeni Durojaiye reports.

The rush by young marketing communications practitioners to set up advertising companies without thorough professional training and adequate on-the-job experience has been blamed for the prevalence of portfolio agencies in the country.
Such portfolio agencies prefer to stay out of the umbrella body of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) and engage in sharp practices by undercutting other agencies.
This is the contention of Odun Fadoju, the Chief Executive Officer of DP Partnership and erstwhile Publicity Secretary of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria .
Fadoju blames this attitude on some influential people on the clients’ side who often goad young practitioners into opening shops by promising them accounts. While berating such attitude, he notes that the end result is often that such hurriedly formed ad companies lack the requirements to become a registered member of the umbrella body of advertising companies.
“One of the challenges the industry is faced with is the prevalence of portfolio agencies. Many young practitioners fail to understand that advertising goes beyond drawing. A practitioner needs to understand the competition, clients and consumers. Before anybody can be talking of setting up an ad agency, he should have put in at least seven years in the industry, but it is not so today. The moment somebody somewhere can guarantee our younger colleagues one or two accounts, the next thing is, float an ad company.”
He posits that this is why cases of failed ad agencies/companies are quickly becoming recurring decimals in the industry. “But most of them eventually fail to meet the requirements for becoming members. I saw that and more when I was the Chairman of the Committee on Membership. When some of then come and we ask for their reel, what they present falls short of the minimum standard expected for membership,” explains Fadoju, who joined the advertising industry as a trainee with PAL Advertising in 1987.
Before arriving at DP Partnership in 2006, Fadoju honed his skill at Rock Forte Advertising, Blue Bell Communications and then Sunrise D’Arcy with the likes of May Nzeribe. He left Sunrise as Managing Director.
He justifies his argument on the need to adequately understand the competition, clients and consumer behaviour before setting up an advertising outfit with an illustration of how DP Partnership won the Honeywell Flour Mills account.
“I will say our break came about two and a half years ago with the Honeywell account. The account gives us the opportunity to practice marketing communications the way it should be. We built the brand from ground zero.
“We won the account through a pitch. We went for the pitch as a consortium and won it from STB McCann. Wining the account itself tasked our creativity as we had three months to prepare and we threw everything that we had into it. While doing our research, we talked to 100 bakers in Lagos. When we told them so at the presentation, they couldn’t believe it but they did when we showed them evidence. By the second stage of the pitch, there were just two agencies left and it was basically to harmonize cost and retainership.”
He maintains that the thorough training the DP team has been exposed to explains why the agency undertook such meticulous market research.
Even though the global economic recession cost DP Partnership two high profile jobs, the company has continued to grow. In its portfolio of accounts are Honeywell Flour Mills, Maydon Pharmaceutical Ltd, Accelon Nigeria Ltd, Union Trustees, Union Bank Nigeria, Tiger Foods Ltd, Nippon-Sinoki Ltd, and International Carpets Ltd, among others.