The Advertising Practitioners Council of
Nigeria (APCON) lied to the public on the procedures leading to the lifting of its ban on Guinness alcoholic beverages certificates, according to the management of Guinness Nigeria
Plc.
Reacting to the reports making rounds that “Guinness complied by withdrawing all
advertisements that had been scheduled to run and apologized over the broadcast
of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout adverts on Digital Satelite Television (DSTV)
outside the prescribed periods allowed by the APCON Code of Advertising and
Promotion guidelines,” the management of Guinness said this was far from the truth.
ITRealms gathered from Corporate Relations
Director for Guinness Nigeria, Mr. Sesan Sobowale that
contrary to APCON’s claims for unbanning its advertorials, that Guinness in its
own wisdom had withdrawn the advertisement in question before the meeting
of the APCON Council, which endorsed earlier recommendation of the Advertising
Standards Panel (ASP) Committee to impose sanction on the company.
APCON had in a press statement reportedly endorsed by the Nkechi
May-Nzeribe on its behalf, claimed that “Guinness complied by withdrawing all
advertisements that had been scheduled to run and apologized over the broadcast
of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout adverts on Digital Satelite Television (DSTV)
outside the prescribed periods allowed by the APCON Code of Advertising and
Promotion guidelines.”
But setting the records straight, Mr. Sobowale explained that the purported
unbanning was on the heels of a meeting attended by Guinness plc, its media and
marketing agencies and APCON, which established that Guinness was free of any
breach according to Code of Advertising Practice and Sales Promotion.
“In fact, the decision by the ASP to recommend the withdrawal of the
sanction imposed on Guinness Nigeria Plc followed a meeting between the
management of the company, its marketing and media agencies and APCON in which
the company established that it was not in breach of the relevant provision of
the Code of Advertising Practice and Sales Promotion as of the date the decision
by APCON was taken,” Sobowale said.
He explained that at the said meeting, both parties agreed on the process of rescinding the
withdrawal of certificates of approvals granted to Guinness Nigeria for the
advertising of its alcoholic beverages including the submission of a letter by
the company stating its side of the story.
“As a matter of fact,
the draft of the letter was jointly agreed with Mr. Ade Akinde, who made input
into it and explained that, in view of the fact that the Council of APCON had
no scheduled meeting for another few weeks, the submission of the letter with part
of the content provided by him was the fastest and easiest way of correcting
the error which the ASP had misled the Council of APCON into by its decision to
withdraw the certificates of approval earlier issued to the company,” he said,
stressing that following approval of the draft letter by Mr. Akinde, it was
printed on the company’s stationery, signed and submitted to APCON.
Guinness Nigeria plc,
he said, also frowned at the breach of terms of settlement not to publicise the
erroneous decision of ASP in the media after all evidences showed that Guinness
did not err in this case, but the ASP promptly went to two media houses to
publicise the erroneous decision!
He further stated that
prior to the ASP recommendation to APCON to withdraw the certificates of
approval issued to Guinness Nigeria Plc, the company and the ASP had been in
discussions in the past few months on alcoholic beverage advertising during the
English Premier League (EPL) football matches on DSTV.
Pointing out that there
had been a difference of opinion between the parties on whether the watershed
requirement for alcohol beverage advertising in the Nigerian Code of
Advertising Practice and Sales Promotions affect terrestrial feeds from
satellite television stations based outside Nigeria.
“Following the
parties’ inability to reach a consensus position on this issue, Guinness
Nigeria requested for a moratorium to run the advertisement till the end of the
EPL having made substantial commercial commitments in relation to the broadcast
sponsorship. The ASP refused to grant this request,” he said.
Sobowale said that based
on APCON insistence, Guinness Nigeria duly complied with its directives without
further prompting. Adding that the medium on which the advertising materials in
question were aired is one of the most popular in this country.
He emphasized that the
change in the materials placed by Guinness Nigeria during EPL matches from the
end of March 2013 was quite obvious and noticed by millions of Nigerian viewers
of the EPL across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
“We were therefore
quite astounded that the ASP, which is tasked with regulating advertising on
all media in Nigeria and had been in discussions with Guinness Nigeria on the
issue for some time prior to that decision, and failed to observe or notice the
change of materials at the time it made its recommendations to the Council of
APCON to sanction the company,” he explained.
He accused ASP of
turning blind eye to similar advertising during the EUFA Champions’ League
which was placed by another player in the alcohol beverage industry before the
watershed period for alcoholic products advertising on television.
“As of one week ago,
this advertising still featured prominently during the airing of the European
Champions’ League matches. Under the circumstances, can we genuinely trust the
ASP and/or its Chairman, Mr. Ade Akinde to deliver unbiased decisions on
matters within its remit?” he wondered.
Guinness, Sobowale
said, recognizes that ASP and Council of APCON have statutory obligations to
enforce the rules relating to advertising in Nigeria, advising that the
obligation must be exercised fairly having due regards to the facts, must not
be applied in a clearly discriminatory and vindictive manner and must be
implemented with equal force to all players irrespective of relationship with
chieftains of the ASP.
“We find the content
of the press release issued today (May 16) by APCON as a face-saving attempt to
turn the facts on their head and designed to further deceive key stakeholders
and members of the public about the real motive of Mr. Ade Akinde, and his
sponsors in this untoward aggression towards Guinness Nigeria Plc,” he said.
Arguing that rather
conveniently, the press release ignored portions of the letter where the
company’s position that it was not in breach of any APCON regulation as of the
date of the sanction was clearly set out and quoted other parts of the letter
where the company purportedly apologized for its infraction out of context.
“Of course, the small
matter of the fact that the letter was drafted in concert with and with input
from Mr. Akinde was lost in the hurry to rush to the public with a fabricated
version of the facts,” he said.
Further, ITRealms was told by the director, that the management
of Guinness Nigeria, wishes to use this medium to emphasise that as a law abiding
corporate citizen with due regard for all constituted authorities, it remains
committed to responsible marketing of its products and strong self-regulation
that aligns with the letter and spirit of all applicable national laws, local
regulations and self-regulatory codes of practice to which it is a signatory.
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
