Adebayo Shittu, Minister of Communications, has confirmed his participation at the upcoming Marketing Edge Summit. He will be keynote speaker and special guest of honour at the event scheduled to hold June 16.
The minister says he is excited and willing to be a part of the yearly event especially given the theme of this year’s award, ‘Brand Marketing and Marketing Management in a Recovering but Restructured Nigerian Economy: Challenges and Implications for Marketing Services Providers’, adding it is a fallout of industry’s appreciation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic recovery and restructuring plans aimed at making Nigeria a self-dependent and self-reliant country.
The summit scheduled to holds at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos also has Ekwunife Okoli, former managing director of Guinness Cameroun and founder/CEO, Advantage Consult, as guest speaker, while George Thorpe, renowned marketing guru and managing partner of Market Space, will chair the occasion.
Confirming the minister’s participation at the event, which is expected to attract over 400 industry players and gladiators, John Ajayi, publisher of the leading brands and advertising magazine, said, “The minister gave his consent early in the week as a way of encouraging and assuring industry operators of Federal Government’s genuine desire and intention to make everybody key into its newly released economic reform agenda, while also promoting backward integration in critical industries as it is no longer business as usual.”
Ajayi, who is also the convener, further stated that the event, a two-in-one-initiative, is intended to promote the brand idea while further expanding the frontiers of marketing and advertising knowledge. He disclosed that the theme for this year’s summit was adopted as a result of the need to create conversation around the current economic realities in the country as a way of opening up new opportunities for industry players.
“We adopt the theme for this year’s stakeholder’s summit because we are not unmindful of the changing mood of the nation both at the micro and macro-economic levels. Specifically, we are committed to showing our support to the Federal Government’s reform and restructuring plans, hence our commitment in charting a direction for those in the business of brand management and the management of brand business,” Ajayi said.
Discussants expected at the occasion are top marketing and advertising professionals with renowned pedigree and outstanding antecedents. They include Iquo Ukoh, former marketing director, Nestle Plc and founder/CEO, IQ Food Platter, Patricia Jemibewon, marketing director, Coca-Cola International, Emeka Okeke, managing director/CEO, Media Fuse Aegis Dentsu, Folake Ani-Mumuney, group head, marketing and corporate communication, First Bank of Nigeria, and Ikechi Odigbo, managing director, DDB Lagos.
