Brand Nigeria: Shobanjo, Other Experts Brainstorm at BrandiQ Symposium

Stakeholders, scholars and experts within the Integrated Marketing Communications sector in Nigeria will gather under one roof on Friday, 25th of October, 2013 to examine Nigeria’s image challenges at an event that will also witness the formal public presentation of the country’s flagship Marketing publication, BrandiQ Magazine. The thought-provoking Symposium themed, “Brand Nigeria @ 53: Opportunities, Challenges and Prospects” will take place at the prestigious Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos. It will feature distinguished experts from diverse fields who will brainstorm on major reputation issues confronting Brand Nigeria.

Among the distinguished personalities billed for the event are: Former Director General Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Apostle Hayford Alile, who will serve as the chairman of the occasion.

According to Desmond Ekeh, Editor-in-Chief of the publication, doyen of Advertising in Nigeria and founding CEO of Nigeria's largest marketing communications conglomerate, Insight Communications, Biodun Shobanjo will be the Special Guest Lecturer at the symposium. Already, the entire industry is agog as brand analysts wait with great eagerness to digest the presentation of Nigeria’s ‘Advertising Man of All Times’.

Discussants at the event include: Prof. Emevwo Biakolo, Dean, School of Media and Communication, Pan Atlantic University Lagos. Prof. Emevwo would be speaking on the topic, ‘Culture and Morality in Nation Branding’. Another discussant, Prof. Lanre Fagbohun, a Professor of Environmental Law at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of Lagos, will also be speaking on ‘Environment and Nation Branding’.
Another discussant billed for this event,, Dr. Austin Tam-George, former lecturer at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and Executive Director of Institute of Communication and Corporate Studies (ICCS), Lagos, will also be speaking on the ‘Strategic Communication of a Nation Brand’.

Marketing kingpin, Idorenyen Enang, who is the Director General, Bureau Nigeria of L’Oreal Central West Africa, will bring his wealth of experience to bear at the symposium where he will deliver a lecture on ‘Strategy; A Critical Imperative for Nation Branding’. Mr. Enang is expected to bring a different flair to the event with his expansive marketing experience working with multinational companies like Samsung, Coca-Cola and Guinness.

From the entertainment angle, Madu Chikwendu, Regional Secretary of the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI), will also deliver a lecture at the symposium.

Apart from the various presentations on Brand Nigeria, the symposium will also feature the formal launch of BrandiQ Magazine, one of Nigeria’s most exhaustive journalistic explorations ever undertaken in the country’s Marketing Communications space. This expansive magazine is an interdisciplinary store house of knowledge. From inception, the publication has remained a must-read, not just for industry players but equally for students of advertising, branding, public relations and other areas of marketing communications.

The publication is designed to cover areas in marketing communication such as Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Media, Public Relations and its adjuncts like Event Management, Graphics/ Design, Marketing Research. “The magazine is fashioned after the intellectual heritage of Harvard Business Review, with the reportorial typology of the Economist and the Content patterned after Ad Age, brandchannel, bizcommunity.com, Adweek etc.

The Marcomm tutorial segment of the magazine is also designed as a specific tutorial package to meet the research and academic needs of the teeming population of students who really have the desire and need to understand the marketing communications world beyond the theories they are taught in school.