ARCON, Industry Leaders and Brands to Gather as Inaugural ASRA Winners are Unveiled
The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON), marketing communications agencies, brands, government representatives and industry leaders are set to converge in Lagos today, 23 October 2026, for the unveiling of winners at the inaugural ARCON Special Recognition Awards (ASRA).
The awards, which will be held at the Balmoral Convention Centre in Lagos, recognise contributions to advertising compliance, public- and private-sector communications, and the development of Nigeria’s marketing communications industry. Recall that industry professionals, brand custodians and members of the public submitted nominations through the ASRA platform. The nomination and entry process has now concluded.
The awards ceremony follows a media briefing in Lagos held recently at which ARCON Director-General Dr Olalekan Fadolapo described the initiative as part of a broader effort to support industry development alongside the council’s regulatory responsibilities.
“We need to change the narrative as a regulator,” Fadolapo asserted. “We are not regulating to strangulate. We are regulating to develop and grow the industry.”
He said the awards were created to recognise ethical compliance and professional excellence, while helping connect creative skills with business performance.
“When you have good, you need to motivate; when you have bad, you need to sanction,” Fadolapo noted, explaining that detailed research into existing industry awards revealed a critical gap between creative craftsmanship and corporate performance. “The award was created to be more of a bridge between skills development and corporate performance.”
ASRA is organised around four pillars: Advertising Compliance, Public Sector Recognition, Private Sector Recognition and Individual Recognition. Its compliance category covers 16 subsectors, including fintech, banking, fast-moving consumer goods and telecommunications. Brands and their creative agencies are recognised jointly in the category.
At the briefing, ASRA Planning Committee Chairman Yinka Adebayo outlined the awards framework and the role of independent audit firm SIAO Partners in supporting the process. He said the firm would help verify the information and compliance measures used in determining the awards.
“Nobody is going to keep quiet for you to be heard,” Adebayo remarked, emphasizing the need for creative standards. “This shows clearly that all of these things are things that the auditors are going to help us to verify to confirm the genuity.”
The awards also include Sectoral Frontrunner and Lifetime Contribution honours, intended to recognise pioneers and preserve the history of Nigerian advertising.
“This award is going to be more like a bragging right for the awardees and the recipients because it is going to come with stature, passion, and standing,” Fadolapo remarked. He added that the platform will serve to archive the rich history of the profession, charting its migration from “ground zero” in 1928 to the specialised, unbundled, highly sophisticated divisions seen today.
The initiative has received support from sectoral bodies, including the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN), the Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) and the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN).
AAAN President Lanre Adisa said recognition can help raise the industry’s profile.
“We can’t overemphasise the need for recognition in an industry like ours,” Adisa said. “One of the things that we always strive for is to create visibility for the industry. One good way of doing that is that we recognize what we have going for ourselves and celebrate that, then the world can see what we are doing.”
EXMAN President Tolulope Medebem said awards can reinforce professional standards.
“For us at EXMAN, we believe that recognition is important in every industry because it does more than celebrate achievements,” Medebem noted. “What it does is reinforce standards, reward commitments, and remind us all of the values and behaviours we want to see more of across our profession.”
MIPAN President Brenda Nwagwu said:
“Recognition matters because it encourages excellence. It inspires professionalism and reminds us of the responsibility we carry as practitioners to continually raise the standards of our industry.”
Babs Fagade, representing OAAN, said the awards could encourage stronger execution across the sector, describing recognition as a “catalyst for more outstanding productions, deliverables, and executions within the industry.”
