How campaign against rape, others earned agency medals
THE need to take corporate social responsibility seriously in driving a company’s growth and impact positively on the community has been stressed. Making this assertion were the bosses of 7ven Interactive marketing communications outfit. The agency’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign last year, tagged the Frixion Vodca, an anti-rape campaign, was rewarded for its social impact at Lagos Advertising & Ideas Festival (LAIF) 2017.
While giving the rationale for the CSR campaign, Chief Operating Officer, Taiwo Agbola, explained, “We felt there was need to sensitise the community in which we operate and the country at large on the evils of rape by advising people to seek consent first before sexual relationship.”
To gain traction at the teaser stage, the agency created a fictional brand called Frixion Vodca and deployed images and pictures of celebrities, musicians and actors without their consent, as models for the Frixion brand. This action sparked outrage and the agency was inundated with queries for lack of consent and ‘rape.’ It apologised while explaining that the idea behind the CSR campaign was “a good and worthy cause” for anti-rape campaign. Most of the “enraged stars” signed up to become the campaign ambassadors and were happy to be associated with the campaign.
“The campaign also won us a bronze at the 2017 Loeries in South Africa, making us the only agency in West Africa last year to be awarded any medal at the Loeries,” Agbola pointed out.
7even Interactive bosses further stated that passion for the advertising profession and the hunger to posi- tively impact the industry earned the agency accolades last year. While speaking at a session with the media recently, its Chief Operating Officer, Agbola, and the Creative Director, Ndukwe Onuoha, said the agency was able to move from 9th (2016) to 4th position at the Lagos Advertising & Ideas Festival (LAIF) 2017 due to hard work and dedication.
“We have a team of young and committed professionals in the agency,” Agboola said. “They are passionate about what they do. What we have done is to show what we can offer in the marketing communications industry and more important, in building brands along with our clients. When we were rated 9th in 2016; we took it up as a challenge to work harder. However, we are not there yet. We are aiming for the top of the ladder.”
Onuoha explained that the agency’s four gold, five silver and seven bronze medals won at the 2017 LAIF were courtesy of the digital campaign for Mainone and Uber among other clients.
For the duo, “competition is opium; it is what drives the business of advertising. The truth is, whatever industry you play in, if there is no competition, you would be lethargic and this is not good for creativity and business success”.
According to Onuoha, “Being creative does not depend on what one studied in school. We are mostly on the lookout for talents, who reflect our DNA. There are ample opportunities to learn and develop on the job.”
He concluded that the agency focuses more on trainings aimed at expanding the staff’s horizons, adding, “We look for people who think the way we do as a very young agency, looking at the fun side of issues and being consistently inquisitive,” Onouha concluded.