After The Jingle: The Rules Nobody Told You

Ghana's advertising industry generates billions each year and operates with almost no legal framework to protect brands, agencies, artists, or consumers.

In this episode of MAD Conversations, Andrew Ackah, CEO of Dentsu Ghana and President of the Association of Advertisers in Ghana, breaks down everything the industry won't say out loud. The Ghana Advertising Bill that has been stuck since 2012, the FDA regulations that kill campaigns before they launch, the celebrity alcohol ad ban that makes no sense, the charlatans on digital TV that no one can legally stop, and the billions flowing through influencer marketing that nobody is taxing.

This is the conversation Ghana's creative economy needs.

This is MAD Conversations. Marketing. Advertising. Digital. Design. Ghana's commercial creativity - documented.

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 Chapters
0:00  Intro 
12:20  Ghana's Advertising Regulatory Framework Explained 
14:31  How the FDA Approves and Rejects Ads in Ghana 
21:41 What Gets an Ad Rejected 
49:53 The Celebrity Alcohol Advertising Ban 
54:31 Digital Advertising and the Regulation Gap 
1:00:18 FDA's 8-Second Rule 
1:05:39 Charlatans on Digital TV
1:11:06 Ghana vs Nigeria
1:21:22 The Bill's Journey Through Parliament 
1:29:49 Ghana's Billboard Problem and the Wallpaper Effect 
1:37:21 Disrupt and Inspire
1:39:26 Consumer Loyalty, Competition, and How Brands Must Adapt 
1:47:28 What Keeps Andrew Up at Night 
1:52:32 The Future of Music in Advertising: AI, Copyright, and Original Scores

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Do you know what is interesting? What do you want me to say? Actually, I guess I'll be first. And then if you let me copy in half that red place, anything can happen too night. And I need I need to craft the message. Otherwise I can sell. And if I can sell, that is my business going down, right? And if it's my second. So if I need to prepare the kitchen, I spend uh spend four weeks five weeks. They want to prepare the time. They have been given a mandate by the things that told me they want to protect consumers, they want to protect the vulnerable, so they have a job to do, which they do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

A probably who has a massive youth following can freely promote dominated drink, um, can promote adult copy tests, same vulnerable population, same influence mechanism, same health risks, even worse, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

But different regulatory treatments for all of these, if you're not disrupting, if you're not inspiring, if you're not looking at a business model and changing based on technology happening, how many changes, Madam Minister? What the problem uh is uh welcome back to Mad Conversations.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Uh and today to help us unpack our con our topic, we have a very big man here. Um his name is Andrewaka. It took us very long to get him here, if you know what that means. Uh big men don't have time like that. So we are very privileged to have him here today. Um, Andrewaka, as you would understand or you know about as the conversation unfolds, is currently the CEO of Densu Ghana. Uh, he's also the president of the Association of Advertising Advertising Advertisers in Ghana. Um, he's been running this position since 2023. He's there's been a lot of advocacy from his side, and today we are going to unpack all of it. But today it's going to help us understand how some of the regulations around some of the ads, some of your best ads that you've heard in this country, uh from whenever to now, um, how what goes through it, uh, the process it goes through, and then how it finally gets to you. Some of the ads get rejected. We will ask him what gets ads rejected and what gets ad ads approved, amongst many other things. You want to stay with us, Mr. Aka? Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. Comfortable calling you Mr. Aka? Because you look very young. They call you Dre. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

That's a that's a very young name. Yeah, because I belong to the Gen Z. So hey. Are you 23? 40, no, 30, 34. 34. Yeah, it almost slipped out. People, okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

So 34. Let's let's take it. I'm 34. People, you know, you know he's not telling the truth. But you know what? We are nice people, so we'll believe him. Andrew is 34. Welcome, Andrew. Thank you, thank you very much. Andrew, we have several talking points that we'll be going through. Okay. But the first talking point that we want to explore is essentially understanding Ghana's advertising regulatory framework, the laws, the enforces, and how they interact. So, my first question I'm going to premise it on the FDA derives its mandates from part six, seven, eight of the Public Health Act 2012, especially, specifically part seven, uh, which covers the organization and responsibility of the FDA regarding food and drugs regulation. From this foundation, the FDA issues guidelines for guidelines for advertisements in food or food that would actually govern what brands can do in advertising. So it's not people think they see an ad and it just came out of nowhere. But actually, there are guidelines that regulate it. As president of the advertising association of Ghana, where does your office sit in all of this? Are you enforcers? Are you advocates or are you intermediaries? Um, what we are trying to uncover is that when FDA creates new rules, what do you do? What's your role? Do you tell them no, my people can't do it, or do you help shape it? Or do you advocate for the for the FDA so that your people would, or do you help them enforce it? We want to set the premise on that before we really get into the rest of the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Okay, thank you. There are so many facets to this question. I don't I don't even know where to start the you know, start answering the question uh from. So let me start from a place where we can start unpacking, right? So uh in every industry, the the you need regulation. Men need law, and that's why we have law that governs our behavior, otherwise, we're going to uh not misbehave, but we'll behave out of sort. So laws are there to guide how we live, what we need to do, how people are protected. So regulations are there uh purposely in every industry to protect consumers. Why? Because the assumption is that consumers don't have all the knowledge about products and services and about stuff. So they can be gullible to brands who claim things that are not true. So regulations come in to protect consumers. Again, there are there's specific vulnerable people in our society that the regulation would also want to protect. For instance, children and and and weaker people, the poor, again, they're also gullible. Um either they do not have the mental acumen to make decisions for themselves, or they're in a situation where they don't, they can't cater for themselves. So the government has a certain, you know, um a certain uh right or certain power in there uh inherently to protect such persons. Again, it is also to help guide some sort of to regulate the competition between people, right? So uh, you know, you you take two, I don't want to mention any brand here because we're gonna give them free advertising, but you take two PISA companies in Ghana and they're they are a neck and neck at each other, everyone is looking for the same customers and all of that. They might want to do things out of uh their way to tarnish the image or to try and you know diminish the the value of the other brand so they can take advantage. The regulation is there to help with all of this. Um because the regulation also knows that we are in an environment where things are harsh, uh times are tough, uh, the money you have must be protected. So if you're not going to spend your money to buy something that you don't need, you lose. So regulations are good in themselves, um, you know, to protect all these sets of people uh that um that need to be protected within within the law. Um and so Food and Drugs Board in Ghana, as by the Public Health Act that you talk about, their mandate is restricted to to food drugs, uh I think home chemicals for home and a few other things. I think um, you know, skincare, all those stuff around the the use of you know such uh um such um uh uh food drugs and any chemical, anything within that space uh must be protected. So that is the only sect that the FDA can have the mandate from the advertising point of view. But advertising as our country defined, there are too many things beyond that. I mean, there are shoes, their gamers, yeah, you know, other stuff. So FDA, because there's a lack of regulation in our in our country, and this is where I say that it's it's quite complex in the question that you asked. So I'm breaking it down. So because of the lack of regulation in our in our country, in Ghana, uh, and I'll reference Nigeria because Nigeria is the one closest to us. Nigeria had their first advertising uh bill in 1988. That's how far they've done that. And uh and they've been able to manage and one protect agencies and and and protect everyone, same thing as as regulation. Uh, so in Nigeria is the reverse. The Food and Drugs Authority is sitting on the board of the of the advertising authority rather than the board sitting on the FDA. Ghana is reverse because we didn't have that regulation. So um, so we are now sitting on on a board, you know, at the FDA to help to, you know, to uh to to review some of the adverts that we have to see if if they fit the right criteria. We'll come to the criteria and all of that. So regulations are great. Um the unfortunate thing is that we do not have a law that governs advertising end-to-end in Ghana. So lack of that law, FDA through the public health, now has been given the mandate to regulate only for food drugs and other chemicals within this space, uh, you know, to do that. I I think they've done a great job. Um I only worry and some of the, you know, some of the concerns from members within the association is that um their first mandate is that they're they're they're pharmacists, they're pharmaceutical, they're chemists, they're scientists, right? Um, and if you look at science and and marketing, there's a certain way we look at things. Marketers are using metaphors and synonyms, things that are not true but would would evoke certain feelings in you, right? So sometimes that there's conflict between um, I'll mention the brand's like a brand that says that uh brand A gives you wings, right? They'll be able to say that people will literally say that it would you grow wings when you drink it. But in marketing is a metaphor that we use. Wings is supposed to give you freedom and strength, you know, to sow higher. So but we're we're telling you that, or the advertising that once you take this to it gives you that inner strength to fly higher, to be bigger than life, to soar over your problems and just be who you want to be. That is what marketing wants you to believe and feel. But because they're scientists and and they look at things the way they look at, they literally might communicate that to me, you would grow wings, right? I don't think that they mean that, but they think other people will be vulnerable to that message. So people go and drink that drink just because to grow wings. I mean, for me, it's it's it's it's it's it's um it doesn't speak well of the intelligence of Ghanaian consumers, right? So those are the gray areas and the conflict areas that we think we can work, but we've worked with them in the past, things are things are good. Uh, we also do not appreciate the timeline it takes for them to review all the adverts. Thank you. Because you are not experts in that field. And I and I would say that boldly. FDA is not an expert in the marketing industry, they have a mandate to protect consumers. So uh they would go by their timelines. And we've we've told them over and over and over again marketing is such a fluid, you know, uh space, marketing communication that anything can happen tonight, and I need I need to craft a message tomorrow. Otherwise, I can't sell. And if I can't sell, that is my business going down the train. And it is so fluid, it changes by the minute, by the day, by the second. So if now I need to prepare communication, uh spend uh you know, uh spend two, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks for you to go through the approval. By the time the approval is come, the campaign is over.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So so not to cut you, because my follow-up question was going to be about uh the process of reviewing from FDA. Yeah, but from everything you've said earlier, uh my understanding is that AEG sitting on the board, FDA, you essentially help shape some of these guys'.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

So we sit on the committee that reviews the advertising. We pushed for that. They didn't have that. So we pushed for that and said, look, we are also pushing for the advertising bill, which will be all encompassing. Uh, it's gone through uh, it's seen two cabinets in the in the in the first Muhammad presidency. Yeah, um, it went to parliament, first reading. We will get there. I have questions on that.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Okay, so I did a bit of research on some of the things that we push together.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

So, so so we we don't have the regulation yet. So we we push to FDA and and you know, after several minutes said, look, let us sit on that committee that reviews it because the way the eyes we have and the mindset we have in marketing, this is our craft, and mind you, uh we spend time, energy to go to school. If you look at a designer, uh if you look at you know a copywriter, these guys are spending their time, it is their craft. So you cannot use science to diminish their craft. Absolutely. So work with us so that we can help to shape that thinking. So it was great they got us on that committee, and we have a representative on that committee.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Wait, you are not the representative of the community. No, I'm not the representative. This there's someone who does that. Okay. And then and they and he brings reports once a month on where the issues are. But they're still, you know, gray areas. And it feels there's a lot more discretion on their on their end to decide when your advert is and and everyone, but most agencies do feel that. Um, which then brings the question do they have the capacity to review all the adverts in good time so brands can move? See, they now let me let me tell you where the where the mindset shifts.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

They want to regulate, they do not care about the business of advertising. It's not their mandate. They are they have been given a mandate, but the things I told you they want to protect consumers, they want to protect the vulnerable, so they have a job to do, which they're doing. But businesses also have a job to do. Yeah, right. But but the the the they feel the regulation is fun because it's you know, they have the right, they have the power. So they utilize that at their discretion a lot more, which, you know, you know, with very little consideration for the personality. I wouldn't say very little consideration. So I would say that maybe because of the of the of the um of the I wouldn't call the inefficiencies. I think that the they're they are not one, they are not being efficient in churning out a lot of adverts, or maybe they're not putting a lot of resources behind that to vet the adverts. Because all that they are making money through adverse vetting. So it's the resources not the issue. So why don't you get a lot more people in the industry who can who can help you to review those adverts? And do you know how many adverts go to them? A thousand and one. I can imagine. So if if you don't put resources in the committees uh per week, that's what I mean. If you don't put money in the resources, they're going to take their time and review what, seven, eight ads per day. By the time it gets to your hundred or a hundred and fifth uh review, it's been six weeks already. You know, so uh I know I know they have a fast track process and all that, but what I'm saying is that we need to review the system because the system doesn't seem to be effective. We've lost a lot of businesses because we couldn't get the client to launch the campaign at the right time. We've lost a lot of money uh through agencies, and the client has lost a lot of businesses uh because uh it's the same thing if I don't get my advertis on time, and if I if I can be on air on time, uh then I can sell, you know, then then it's costing me and all of it. So there must be that that we we must try and work a lot more you know to ease whichever friction or conflict it is in there that doesn't allow the efficient churning out of of adverts as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Let us understand this. We on the consumer side, what we see is usually if it's a radio jingle or whatever it's sometimes billboards, what we see is this advert has been vetted and approved by the FDA. Yeah, this pre-approval process, yeah, we understand, is sort of the gatekeeper for every single jingle or ad that we would see related to related to food and drugs, of course. How does the pre- the pre-approval, you've spoken about it that sometimes it delays because if I have a campaign coming up for Val's Day and I have sent in my campaign to FDA um 1st January, what how long does it take? Is there a specific time does FDA tell you, okay, this is going to take five weeks, so you have to wait for five weeks. And if they they've given you a time, um a pre-approval time, say five weeks, it means that you, the agency or the business, must submit um way ahead of time. Yes, yes, I agree. Now, there what leads me into the next question is what makes an ad get rejected? What happens if the ad gets rejected? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah. So so so if you look at the FDA regulator, there are things that would have to be in protecting you know the vulnerable and consumers and competition and all of that, there are things that are quite specific, right? Claims are very important, right? So if you claim that your product is endorsed by the best dentist in the world, where is that proof? So anything you claim in an advert, and and and uh that advocate, they have to do you must prove it. But they have they have claims that are factual and they're claims that seem to be metaphorical. Metaphorical, right? So if you say this is this is the toothpaste, which is endorsed by the best dentist in Ghana, you want to see something on paper with all dentists, best dentists in Ghana, who best even determine who the best is an issue. That, okay, so Ghana Dental Association do endorse that. They would want to see some sort of endorsement. Otherwise, you can't use it wholeheartedly. What it also does is that then everybody can go and claim that this is used by the best dentist. So you see the confusion that there's so there's any claims that they want to take your like things like you know, virility and you know how viral you know you can be in alcohol, right? You can't claim that because the essence of alcohol is not to give you that. But people imply that. Yeah, so so so that is what they are guarding against. So they are guarding against you making the actual claim and implying that it gives you it, you know, it gives you that that extra edge. So you can imply, but not make an alpha. Even in application, even in application, that's why you need smart creative guys to be able to pull it together to tell the same story because you want to tell a story. That's that's our job. Yeah, you need to find a smart way of telling the story, and there are ways we're gonna go about it when it comes to the case that was lost at the Supreme Court. I I have an opinion on that, and I and I give you my thoughts, my thoughts on that. So you need to find a way to craft your message. See, the fundamental, the the basis of adverts, right? And advertising is paid for, right? So if I go to joy of them and I pay that I have an advert, I pay, put a spot in there and let my consumers listen to me. You're paying for the essence of that is to help give you information about the product, it helps persuade you to take a certain action, right? Or not, usually it's to take a certain action than not to take an action. So advertis is paid for, and you craft it in a way that it would stimulate a consumer to take a certain action, right? So if that is a foundation, then and the regulation says that you can't claim ABCD. And there's science behind why they can't claim that. There's real science. There's research that says that there's nothing in alcohol that gives you that extra strength that you need as a man to do that. There's several research that that can prove that. So they take all this research, they go to Parliament and say, look, from all the research from WHO and all of that around the world, these are the facts, the scientific facts. So you cannot claim this in your product. You cannot claim this in your product. It goes to Parliament, and Parliament says, Yes, we do agree because we've gone through the research and you're right. They put it into a law. Once it is a law, you can't change it. Because the same people who made the law have given you the mandate to protect these vulnerable groups and these consumers and these, you know, all the other stakeholders with this with this law. So you can't do much about it. Now, you as an advertiser will need to find smarter ways of telling the same story as storytellers. So you need to find smarter ways of telling the same story. Neglecting the fact, in fact, facts in advertising usually doesn't even matter. In branding, facts don't matter. It's how you make the person feel. So you can take the functional thing about, you know, about that and tell another story and then go score-free. But some brands don't like that. They like the, especially when it comes to local alcohol bearing. They like the the, you know, they want the functional, you know, but you can tell so many beautiful stories about the brand, you know, about what the product does without and circumvent the whole factual thing, which FDA tells you that you cannot say in your in your in your advert. So that is one way that I think that brands need to, the regulations are there. You can't do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

But you have to be able to find ways around it, you know, find ways around it.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Or or sometimes you test the law, right? And that's why somebody went to Super Court to test the law. Test the law because there are loopholes in the law. I've seen loopholes, right? Because the law, if you get there, I'll give you my thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, I I I I have I have I have quite a number of questions here. Yeah, my thoughts on the loopholes. They're talking about protecting the vulnerable. Yeah. In fact, this season we're talking about music and advertising, yeah. How it evolved, how it came to the country, how we've used it in the past, how we've used our own music like high life to promote um uh um products, several products. There is this particular music that has been used in advertising over the years. Yeah. Akuba, Minaia, you've heard that. Yeah. Mobile advertising. There's this car, van with a megaphone on it, and they're playing Minai Meya, Mitsia meya. Most of the most of this particular um advertising is targeted at the vulnerable. They're often less educated. Is there any regulation around something like that? Before we get into the deeper ones, like the celebrity advertising and all that, is there any regulation around mobile advertising? These people with selling to local people. My grandmother is vulnerable. So if she hears any van working around me, TMIM, and she knows she doesn't have to go and buy um Panador, she doesn't have to go and buy this to fix several problems that she's facing within her body. And one person is claiming to have one medication that would fix all of it. We both know that if we're talking, you've spoken a lot about scientific truth that or scientific research that parliament um follows to pass some of these laws.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

No, the research that have been verified. Verified. So it goes to Parliament. Parliament reasons say that look, these based on the research. They pass it. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

There's no, I don't think that there is any scientific research that any one single medication can solve multiple illness. I do agree.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

And it is it is in the FDA regulation. So how are these local advertisers being regulated? Okay, so we we have, I will tell you then I'll tell you the bigger problem that we have. Okay we have in in this country. Uh so before we come to the advertising, let's look at the product itself. The reason why you have to go to FDA to get a permit to even produce it is you go, I mean, the process is pretty simple. You have a product, it does one, two, three, four, five. So you need to list them. Uh you must prove that from scientifically what the ingredients that is made of, what it does, A, B, C, D, FGH. You take the product to FDA, they're going to have they have a whole team that will review the product based on what you claim that this product does. And the ingredients, because the ingredient would determine, they know the scientists. They know when you put this chemical and this chemical, this is what it is for. You put it on your skin, you're going to bleach. So they know. So if you say this percentage is high and it is low and it is high and it bleaches, they will know. They won't approve the product. So before you have approval of a product, know that it's gone, we can assume that it's gone through the right scientific process. And FDA has given you a permit to produce, meaning that the product is good to go. That it is not supposed to harm people for the very reason why you produce that uh product. So you're encouraged to have your FDA number on the product to verify that it has gone through the scientific process and it's good to go. And you also have an inscription of the use that one of the ingredients, because mind you, every ingredient reacts differently with people. And we also encourage that consumers to educate ourselves before we buy the product. So you're mandated to put all the ingredients uh on the label. Uh, you're supposed to describe the usage, how the product is supposed to be used. Because even though parasitism cure headache, you drink six is going to cause you problems, right? It's going to have issues on your on your on your on your on your liver or your kidneys or whatever it is. So these are all the and they're strict, anything to do with with medicine, and they're very strict. So you're supposed to go through that. Now, if you claim that the product can relieve you of one, two, three, that is what FD is expecting you to do. So when you come and you claim 7, 8, 9, 10, they won't approve it because the original product is supposed to cure 1, 2, and that's it. Or you can use it in the third situation if ABCD happens. But you're claiming that you have success, so they will not approve it. Now, for those who who do that, um outside of the regulation, they are the ones that I believe and we all believe the FBA should go and pursue.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Do they have the resources to do that, to go have boots on the ground to do that? I don't think so. Um, and and they're doing their best. Sometimes they do massive swoops in Macola and other places to you know to seize a lot of drugs and medicines and stuff like that. They're doing a great job, but uh do we have enough to be able to manage those in in Trotros and those in buses and who are claiming? And look, I've been in Trotter before that, as educated as I am, I bought some of those things because the guy what made you buy it? No, because this guy was so smooth in it. Sounded very convincing. And it felt like he was talking to me about something that I needed, right? And it convinced me. And did it work? I didn't even use it. But I bought it, I didn't use it because I was scared of using it. But I bought it because he was he sounded so sweet. He's a typical sales marketing person, right? Uh, that you should be hiring, you know, for your for your sales and marketing um manager. So people like that would have to be protected. And there should be tighter regulations, uh, you know, together with enforcement police and all of that, to be able to rid this. It's difficult to rid everyone off, but there must be that regular, you know, checkup to make sure that we get we get these people, you know, off of the streets.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I wanted to talk about the implications, uh uh some of the the guidelines, what some of the guidelines say. But let's you touched on the Supreme Court case. So would let's get there. But before we go to the Supreme Court case, before 2015, yeah, when the the law was passed that celebrities can't advertise alcohol. Yeah, Ghana had certain iconic alcohol campaigns, yeah. Uh like uh the Guinea's Made of More with uh yes, there was Chatawali, there was um Yel, there was Michael Esau, quite a number of celebrities. Club Deer also had a redition of um CBC's Athiopa Tapa B ye dear no one club. How did the 2015 celebrity band change the creative landscape? Give us that perspective for alcohol advertising. Did brands lose anything? Yeah, and what did they gain?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

So so the the the fundamental principles of using um well-known uh artists or stars or celebrities is is because it brings consumers closer to the brand. Right. Because you're known, they like you and they know what you do. The moment they see you with the brand, it's almost like you're endorsing the brand. So it's there is an easier path if you look at the consumer purchasing funnel, you know, the traditional say, you know, create awareness and let me consider the product, and maybe next time when I see it, I'm gonna drink, and I'll taste it, and if I like it, next time I'll buy it again. Right. And so if you look at back in the day where this linear process of purchasing decision was was made, it was easier for that um known artist or an actor or musician to shorten the process of the decision making for the consumer. Because once I see David Donto in a club advert, if David Donto is bringing club and he brings in his this must be good. You know, I'm gonna buy it. I mean, I'm just gonna go backwards and you know, back to the backyard and buy because even David Donto is drinking is drinking that. So so that that is a science behind uh the consumer behavior because people that they hold high in esteem, that they like, that they, you know, they regard in the society shorten their decision process for the brand. So brands will use them to shorten their process. Uh, and so it works for the brand, and it works for the brand for a long time. Uh, but in recent times, and I don't know which particular research, you know, the same research that goes to, I have my issue with a lot of Western research, uh, even though I like them, but I have question marks somewhere about some of these things. But but it is what it is. So let's go, let's go by that research. The same process that they went through to advocate the banning of cigarette smoking and all that, because it came from a long research that showed that smoking is not good for any human being, right? And um, and so cigarette advertising was banned. You you couldn't advocate, you couldn't, you couldn't do anything. In fact, to the zero, you can't, there's nothing that you can do with cigarettes apart from go to the streets and buy it and smoke it because of the rising, you know, uh uh uh lung diseases and all of that from UK, from from the US and all of it so they've gone through a lot of research, medical research. It proves that. So it is right for them to do for the regulation to say, then let me also protect my people. I won't wait till we conduct our own research to determine that people are going to die. The same thing that alcohol is also going through, even though the same Western researchers today are saying that weed is good and that we should go out there and smoke it. You see, you see where the for me the irony is you you ban cigarettes because you claim that it is not good as killing people. But the same researchers, doctors are saying that smoking weed is good. Yeah, and now you find weed everywhere, and it doesn't make sense to me, but it is what it is, so let's deal with the law. Uh, I think the same way, and people believe that they are cartels who put money behind to kill some of these businesses. I I'm not I'm not uh a conspiracy theorist, so I'm not going to go into that. People believe that that is the same way they want to deal with alcoholic beverages. Um, but research also sees that the impact of alcohol on the human body, uh, behavioral um attitudes of people who take it in excessive and all of that affects one, your being, affects the way you live in your environment, your behavior, and all of that. So, can we coil that use of alcohol? So they started with 18 plus, right? And pregnant women, because you need to protect the vulnerable. Uh, but it's getting to a point where it becomes, it becomes the norm, right? So if if you travel elsewhere, 16, 15, they're drinking alcohol already, are pups and all of that. Um, you know, so so the the regulator feels they have a right to protect the vulnerable. Now, the reason why taking for you, you're old enough to make your decision, right? So when they put an artist in there, yes, it will shorten your decision, but because you're 18 plus, they don't, they don't, they are not bothered by that. The regulation is actually to protect young kids in high school, senior high school, who also love these artists. They love the music, they love what they do. In fact, if they tell them to go out there and do something, they do. So when they see, and and I was, you know, I was I was there with the agency running uh the Michael Asian art, put it on Billboard. Beautiful art stuff. And then we're asked to pull it down. That was the first time that FDA came. Yeah, and we pulled we had to pull Michael Asian and Guinness down. This was the was it 2000 and was it African African Capital Nation?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah, this is around 2010.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah, yeah, thereabouts so we had to we had to pull it down uh because I think at that time they were getting to a point where it was becoming um and see they they I I I don't want to speak against what they do because they also have research that prove that would prove that this these things are happening, that alcohol intake in in persons younger than 18 is increasing in high school. They they have all these facts. So in protecting them, they want to say, okay, if celebrities are shortening the purchasing decision of consumers, then why don't we clip that so that we don't bring any artists? You can bring anyone else, they don't look up to them so it would elongate the decision making. Because if I don't know you and you're telling me to go and buy a product, I want to think about it a bit more, consider it a bit more. Maybe I believe, maybe I don't believe. So you have to go through the regular. So that in itself is secure the shortening of your decision making uh in buying, in buying uh call. So, and you know, as I stated earlier, it is to protect the vulnerable those be below 18 years old. If it was only advert that you're you're you you know, your advert adults you're advertising for, then that is great. But you put anything on television, you cannot be sure that a kid will not be watching. So now they created the watershed, you can you can advertise like all the beverages before nine o'clock. Yeah. Um and in some, I think radio, radio, you can do it before, I think before four o'clock. Before four o'clock, yeah. Something like that. So these watershed are also in there to again to protect. So when you pull down that Michelasian ad, what did a brand lose? The brand, uh Diagio at that time wasn't happy at all. Uh, because the essence of us using uh Michelation was for, you know, the reason a brand will pick an ambassador or a brand will pick um um you know um an advocate, right? Um is because we look at your person and your personality. You know, a brand is seen as a person. Every brand is seen as a person, whether your gender, your gender, your attitude, your aspirations, a brand is seen like that. So if you understand marketing, for every brand, I can tell whether this brand is a male, is a teenager, you know, is a first-time kid who's seen a mobile phone. I can define that person based on the archetype. Yeah, based on the on the archetype. Their personality means before the archetype, their personality first. So the same way, if you want, we choose um uh ambassadors based on and advocates for a brand, based on the personalities of the brand and that person being similar. Similar. So once we mash it together, we know that there's a perfect union, right? So when this person speaks for us, again, it shortens the purchasing decision and it builds whatever it is, like whether it's brand love or you know, all the other matrix in marketing or for the brand, it builds it up quickly, you know, and they pay them big money, you know, for them to be brand ambassadors. So the essence of that is to match the personality. So Michael Asian will pick because he matched the essence of Guinness then, what the campaign we're running, you know, uh, about the power, about the strength of the biggest. But he was a footballer. I know, but if you look, if you look at what Michael did on the field, it was about his grid, his power, his strength.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

But the question, energy, the question here is that footballers, athletes in general, are not encouraged to take in alcohol because of the how it affects their performance on the field. Yeah. So I understand the personality matchup. Yeah. Guinness took Michael Power at the time. I was I was younger at the time. I don't know that guy's full name, real name, but we knew all knew as Michael Power. Yeah. They I believe that Guinness made him popular.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Michael Power didn't have an existing personality. Yeah. They created that personality. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Can't brands do that rather than brands can do brands can do it, but it takes time and it doesn't shorten, like you're saying. It doesn't shorten it's a lot of money. I mean, Michael Power was made a lot of money and he it was on the screen. So how many, I mean, if you if you tell you the cost of shooting one of those is five minutes, you know, four minutes, video, video skits. I mean, those you're talking about millions of dollars for every episode, right? So, not many brands will want to create a star from the scratch because it costs you a lot of money. So the thing is that instead of, and and it's long term, right? So instead of spending time, resources to create a new star out of nothing and putting brands, you know, money and resources behind them. Why do we shorten that process? Get somebody who's already well known. Because what we are doing is that it's like if I can buy a big tree and plant it and it will survive, why do I want to germinate one and spend years for it to grow, right? But now you have to pull down an ad because a regulation and it's you're losing. Yeah, so at that time it wasn't, it was not the regulation, wasn't that. There were loopholes around that.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

But you know, DiAgio, as it was, as a as a big, as a big uh uh global company, understood the essence. They didn't fight it, they disagreed, they didn't fight it because there was no point in fighting uh the regulator at that at that point. So they yanked it off. And I think that that that enforced the fact that we may and and from hindsight, you look back and say, you know, you're right, you know, he's he's a footballer, you're you're an athlete, you're not encouraged to drink account, so why you know engage somebody like that? But at that point, it wasn't because of his athleticism, it was because of his personality that the brand was trying to match so that it would appeal to his consumers that you know this.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

I have a problem with the current ad, and I'm not going to mention the brand's name, but a footballer is advertising uh pepper stuff, you know. Yeah, footballers. Um I was following, I used to follow Chelsea's dietitian because um for a few reasons. And in sports management, they'll tell you uh footballers are not advised advised to eat a lot too much pepper. But in Ghana, we have I and I feel like some of these education, it's either brands really don't care, and like you said, they take the shortcuts just to shorten their purchasing decisions. So they just if the person is popular enough and they have quite a number of following, then they bring them on board. But they don't they don't really care about their proper matchup or how it would mix things when you drill things down.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

You you are right in one sense. Uh, I think that we in the industry have have failed to live up to the highest. Look, we do some amazing work in the industry. I'm not I'm not putting the industry down. Yeah, we do incredible, incredible stuff, but not all of us. Uh I would say we have some of us who don't go any layer, you know, than just the topsoil, right? So they're agencies that are cheap, that are quick stuff, they just put something together and then and then you go. And they're those who really dig deep, you know, find the reason, find it where the data is, what is the data saying, find the right insight, build the right strategy for you. Uh, if in fact, there's several times that clients will come and say, Oh, this is the one that we want to choose as brand numbers. They say, No, no, they said, No, I want the service, okay. So give us the reason. You give the reason, oh, but she's everywhere, she she sells all the other services. No, no, you can't use this person because you're buying into the person's personality. You know, people see her and they like her rather than liking your brand.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

So why don't we change that and switch it up? And we go with data and facts and information so that the client will look at it and say, okay, you know what? I think you're right, because you build the right strategy for that. So I think we need to live up to expectation, just like the way we need to find uh smarter ways to circumvent the regulation from the FDA. We need to find smarter ways of getting deep into the client's business.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Uh for those of us who, you know, who cut our umbilical cord in this in this business right from school, uh, we understand the essence of being a partner to your client. You're just not, you're not an advertiser for the client. You're you're a partner. Yeah. Your client's business is your business. I I for it for most of our clients, I understand the business. I'm not a banker, but I understand the banking industry. I know when loans are going to go out, I know when they're gonna uh advocate for savings to come. But you wanted to be a banker, so that passion is not a good thing. No, not the the oil and marketing industry, I know exactly what is gonna happen. I know when when uh the competition I mentioned their names. I know when who is going to go up with oil, I know who's gonna go out with premium food, and we know because we have a pattern, we can understand that. Telco is even is being crazy. Yeah, I know that when the when this advert goes, I know that hey, then back in the day, now it's not as crazy as before. You know that in the next two, three days there's going to be a counter, right? So so we understand all of these things because we we we get closer to the client and we understand their business. Uh, because marketing is just there's a business first um objective, and and you have everything in between finance, and marketing is supposed to enhance that objective to find the markets for your product and services so that people can buy, so you can achieve your business objective. So we need to understand the RAF from the top and partner you well. So for agencies that are worth the assault, trust me, they they would do the research, they would they would seek the data, they will interrogate it, they'll get the right things that then go to the client and say, Hey, you know what? Uh maybe from an athlete athletic point of view, you don't need to have um this your ambassador advocating for pepper because it doesn't, you know. Yeah. So I in that case, I I would assume that again, because of the personality and what it pulls, then it doesn't matter what product the the personality is is uh is uh is is is selling out there. But but but you're right. Sometimes you need to be a bit meticulous and make sure that even though the personality fits, everything else around that ecosystem also fits. You know, so that's exactly you know, so it's like yeah, you can get the stimulus.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

I want us to go into the Supreme Court case. You had mentioned it earlier. Um in somewhere about two years ago, June 2014, uh sorry, 2024, the Supreme Court upheld a BS ban um on celebrities in a call advertising in a 5-2 decision. The case was brought was brought by one Marcosai um who argued the ban violated Article 17 of the 1992 constitution. The guy went prepared, which spoke about equality and non-discrimination. Uh, we also heard artists like Shatawali, Wendishi, Kwame Yujin, you know, the FD had come for their back. So they had to speak up. They were calling it a livelihood issue, right? You were AAG president at the time when the ruling came down. Yeah, when not when it started. No, when not when it started, but when the ruling came in 2024. Yes. I want to know what was your immediate reaction and what did it mean for your members? One. Yeah. Two, from your office as CEO of Dangu, how did you advertise? Sorry, how did you advise alcohol clients when their preferred brand ambassadors immediately or instantly became off limits to uh their brands?

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah. So so first of all, I mean I will I'll I'll uh I'll attempt to answer your question from the point of view of our relationship with um with our partners in in the creative art industry. Um Because we work with them a lot, whether it's the music, whether it's you know, is their presence in in our campaigns, whether they are brand ambassadors or advocates, uh, whether they're influencer uh for our brands. We work with them a lot. Um, I would say that it's been great, but I also say that we we've had challenges in the past where artists and and uh and code do not truly understand what the brand is looking out for. And and so, you know, they do things that are not endorsed by the brand, even though they're brand ambassador. We've had several instances uh on that. Um and and so we we like to work with them. When there's an opportunity for us to educate them, we do. Um sometimes, you know, artists have lived in their own bubble. So there's there's no there's no argument for a closed mind um in those situations. But but we like to work with artists um in that in that sense. So so they are partners. Um in this particular case, if if they were to come and consult me and ask me for my opinion on this, I don't think that you should you should have gone, the plaintiff should have gone with with, you know, you don't pray to the court on issues on discrimination. That law has nothing to do with discrimination, it has nothing to do with the livelihood of people. It has everything to do with the research, as I told you, that went to parliament to claim certain things that artists and and popular people influence the vulnerable to take stuff that they're not supposed to take. So that is a fundamental. Now, if you look at the the particular clause that they went in there, that a non a non popular person or you know, a popular person celebrity should not, you know, uh the the the the the operative word there is advertised.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Yeah, they said no well-known personality or professional shall be used in alcoholic beverage advertising.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Okay. So if you come to me and advertising is advertising, and I define what that means, I define it there, I define it again. Advertising is paid for. PR is not advertising. PR is not advertising. So if if you you claim that because you can't advertise and put an advert an artist in your in your in your in your um uh advert in your advert, which you are going to pay and put on TV on reading, you can use the artist in different ways. There's several ways that you can use the artist, several ways. It can even be for your corporate uh responsibility. There's several ways. Why should it always but again the brands want the shortcut because they want you know they want liquid or lips, they want people to consume. Yeah, so they won't pay money for the long haul, right? They want to pay money, see you drink again, you know, you advocate or you see you endorsing it physically, and then people go. But the the operative world is advertising. There's several tools within the marketing and communication ecosystem that you can use. Like I said, PR. Yeah, right. You can use your own platform, which is not paid for, which is you created it. So you think if I woke up and I took Guinness and I drank it, because I'm AG president, every is going to sue me that as somebody who is known, of course, I'm not I'm not a known person, but you are a known person. And I I am on my own page. I'm not talking a YouTube page, I'm on my own page. And I drank uh, you know, an accord beverage and I doesn't know what this is great. You think that I'll be arrested or I'll be sued for that? So there's crafty ways of going about this, you know. So you you're going to seek a relief for discrimination. No one is saying that don't work, they're saying they're fine smarter ways of working. That is what the judgment is saying. That the regulation is the regulation unless you want to go and overhaul the and one of the one of the uh points that he was praying, he was seeking relief for was for them to repeal that act. That was not going to happen. It wasn't going to happen, but it's an overstretched work. Yeah, I think that was an overstretch. The whole thing is that you're not making them make money off the hard work they've done. But there's several ways of them making money with the same alcoholic beverage. If they sat down and found loopholes within the law, and and brands, for me, that's the hard work that no one wanted to do. Everyone wanted the the shortcut, is get him here. Everyone is now putting an ad, but hey, let's go. Company is running, we are running a promotion, everybody's drinking the beer. But brand, as I know, it's a long-term thing. Sales is a short term just to get a certain batch out.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

A lot of brands don't like to build brand equity.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Yes, so the brand equity, as you know rightly, it's it's it's a year-on-year thing. It's it's it's a lot of hard work, and everything else will build into that. So you can have brand ambassadors who would not necessarily be drinking the beer, but they could advocate for things that the brand does. You just don't sell alcohol. You know, you're shaping the minds and thoughts of society, you're doing something for the society. Every brand that I know has a brand for good um program or CSR program. Yeah, why can't you use brand ambassadors there? Right? Because the law doesn't prevent you from using that. The law prevents you from using in advertisement. But like it's advertisement. So if you had sought the right advice for me, if you had sought the right advice, you would have gone with the right with the word advertisement. If I have my own page and I'm drinking my my you know, anything that I want, because I have the freedom to express anything that I want on my own page, as long as it's not affecting you know uh the rights of anyone else. So you could actually be the advocate of that brand on your own page. Go to Supreme Court and let's say the moment you get paid. No, but who knows that you've been paid? Who knows that you were paid to drink a brand. If the law court is not there to investigate whether whether you've been paid or not. FDA cannot the law is there to interpret the the court is there to interpret the law says advertisement. Advertisement is strict, there's a strict definition for advertisement, unless they are claiming that that they have redefined advertisement, which maybe we need to interrogate. But advertisement that I know, advertising that I know is paid for. So if you don't, meaning that you you've crafted a message in a certain format and you take it to radio station, TV station, press essay, play for me. If I have set my own page and I'm doing my own thing on like TikTok, can you can you go? Have you seen any if they're going over anybody on TikTok for promoting anything?

SPEAKER_01 50:30

So, Andrew, yes, if you did that, yes, and I am brand manager for Dia Joe for Guinness. Yes, you drank Guinness, you put it on your page, oh, this is Guinea Smooth is great. I think their latest product is Guinness Smooth, yeah, it's great. I see it, I think, oh, and then maybe what you put out got millions of views. It's great advertisement for me.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

We don't call it advertisement.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

It's it's great, it's good goodwill for me.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

It's it's it's an exposure for the brand, but it is not advertisement. Okay, perfect. So but the opening word in the in the law is advertisement.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

If I came to you as a brand manager, I came to you and I said, listen, what you did for me is really good. I want you to keep doing it, keep doing it, and then I give you some sum of money. Nobody knows it about it, but I've given you money, and you keep doing it. And FDA thinks, ah, this thing is fishy. This guy is always promoting this particular brand. Why? And they investigate and they find out I give you money. It's not their mandate. So understanding.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

But let's say they want to be petty. Understand what it is. I have my following, right? You know, social media is there. Most social media is advocating for you to, you know, are you 18? Like they know who it is, right? And let me tell the algorithm underneath all this TikTok and Facebook and all of that. If they know that you are not 18, the advert will not be served to you. If you're a TikToker and somebody is following who is 15, when you're doing that, it can filter things. The reason why they ask you all this information when you're signing up to social media is to make sure they can filter set the information from you. Right. So they can filter the content out. I'm not advocating for good or bad. I'm not, I'm not uh I'm not a moralist here. Yeah, I'm just giving the facts of the law. And of course, what what what you know what people can sit down and look at the law and find the loopholes and circumvent if they still want to make money of the of the of the brand. And I think the smarter ways, you know, innovative ways that you can still use artists, you know, to advocate for your brand, but not necessarily liquid on lips.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

So you're saying that um as your as a as the person who runs density or the backstops with you at Dinsu, if you were to advertise advise your alcohol brands, yes, clients.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

I will find smarter ways. We'll find smarter ways.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Yes, like getting them to use P.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Yes, I'll I'll find smarter ways of doing it. And the smarter ways, the thing is that the law is the only thing that we can go against. Apart from that, we are not here to serve moral. If we're this is morality, then alcohol wouldn't even be served. Yeah, right. We are not talking about morality, we are talking about the law and how you can circumvent the law. So if the law talks about a particular operative word, it's specific, and they say advertisement, advertisement means one thing. It doesn't mean everything else. Exposure on my own page is not advertisement. You can't say that that is advertisement.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

So if they had said they had used the phrase marketing communications, that that's broad.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

No, no, market communication is not even a thing that you okay. It's it's it's uh it's an ecosystem. They know that the law had to be specific. That's why they specified advertisement. Mind you, lawmakers know exactly what they want to put in in there. So if it is not advertisement, you could crash something within the ecosystem and still let the let the artist or let you know your brand ambassador do something to the thing without necessarily being in an advert. Because that is the operative word.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

You're absolutely right. Um, because when the court ruled, the ban was not the court ruled that the ban was not excessive and unreasonable. Yeah. And it served public health interests, which you've you've spoken to. But you know, the the judge at the time, Justice Tokuno's decision didn't address influencer markets or indirect promotion, as you've said, clearly. Um, so if a celebrity featured um alcohol in their music videos, or like you had said, social media posts, or they had a concert because it is not an advertisement. An advertisement. They had a concert and it's there, like the brand is there. But how is the regulation keeping up? Maybe there's a question we should have. This is a question we should probably ask.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

You can't keep up, you can't keep up because see, understand the reason why they're doing this. I told you they're supposed to be protecting vulnerable people and X, Y, all the things that we talk about. Now, vulnerable people go to concerts. I get it. But we if you're going to Shatterwale's uh uh concert, don't you know that you need to be 18 class?

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Some very young people go to Shatterwalk.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

But do you think that Shatterwale's concert is in any regulation on how you should perform during this concert? No. You can't stop him. He's at the con, you should know what you're getting. So when you get there, and of course, that means that Shutter can't even use certain languages because the kids in there, right? You know, at that concert. I think the fundamental thing is not to worry too much about what FDA is assuming should be happening, but rather focus on the law. The law is talking about advertisement. I am a popular person. I wake up in the morning, of course, not in the morning, in the in the evening, before I step out with my friends, I come, I don't talk. I take a product, I show it to the camera, I put it out. That was great. And I go. You think the FDA is going to come back to me and say that, hey, you're endorsing a product, so we're suing you. I I who says that I'm endorsing a product? It is not in their mandate to do it. This is an advertisement. Own platform, and these are some of the some of the new, because we know there's a new law that they're bringing in there. And there's a there's even a stricter rule that you're bringing, which would, you know, uh they published it during the last administration. Okay. We looked at it, we've we've had a lot of uh back and forth with them. Uh the association met them. We shared our concern, uh, our concerns with them in terms of, you see, you if if you you want to tighten it, I would say that work with us, right? When you're making rules, work with us so that we can help to advocate that. The thing with digital advertising is that you cannot be a gatekeeper of digital advertising or at all. You can't. At all. Somebody could be in in South Africa running a campaign for a product in Ghana. Who are you going to arrest? The one in Ghana? Or you're going to go to South Africa and arrest them? Because the advert will appear here. You want them to bring it to you to approve. How is that going to happen? You don't understand how the system works. Yet you're putting laws in place to stop people from doing that. You know what that happens? Once the law is passed, you're only going to sacrifice a few that you can go and grab and say, I will use your scapegoat. But the fact, the real fact of the case is that you can't stop anyone from advertising in Ghana unless you go to NCA and try and find ways, and it's going to cost you millions of dollars to want to filter adverts that come through Ghana that have not been approved by FDA. You have no business doing that. So let's find ways that we can work together and see how we can come back to the main purpose of protecting children. So if it means that children being online and all of that, you cannot be online unless you've signed in, you know, your age, your work, it can be verified so that we can take you out of the algorithm, you know, and force people like Facebook and Code to say, hey, these are people you can't serve. If an alcohol ever happened to be on a kid's phone, we hold you accountable because, you know, these are it's tough, it's a long process, but these are some of the things that we can start talking about. But if you don't handle it from the suppliers' point of view, your Googles and your Facebooks and your TikTok's and social media platforms point of view, but you want to handle it from the from the from the owners of the brand's point of view, you've lost the plot because they don't control what happens on the internet. You understand? Anyone can do anything and put it on the internet. But you you can't come to me and say that we didn't seek approval. What if I told you that I'm not the one who did that, right? How are you gonna prove that? And I know nothing about it. I know nothing. How are you gonna prove that? Yet they have breached the law. So so these are the the, you know, the some of the um points that we've raised that let's have a bigger stakeholders agreement. You're the regulator when it comes to food and drugs, we agree. Let's have bigger stakeholders and let's sit together with NC, with the people who are gatekeepers of of um internet and and all over in Ghana. Let's sit down, let's have stakeholders' museum, figure out how we can cure. Show us your facts and your figures and and and your research, and then let us discuss how we can help to cure the very fundamental worry, reason why you want to tighten you know those screws. Let us know.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

We can sit and have you know, we'll we'll go on to um some of the inconsistencies that we have identified. But I want to ask this briefly. Did they consult the association when they they were coming up with their whole celebrity ban? Uh was there any consultation at all? No.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

They just no, there was no consultation uh on the and and they will tell you that they have the facts. And you see, so they're factual. All the government institutions. See, they so they invited us after the facts. After they they got the law, then they invited us to interpret the law to us. Um did you find that a bit? Yeah, no, we raised concerns. See, we we understand why the regulator has to work. I like regulation, otherwise, we will not be advocating for the advertising bill to be passing the law. Yeah. So the regulation would have to be there. But you also need to find, you know, that path between it it shouldn't be inhibiting the progress of society in in one aspect just because the law is there. So you need to find a situation where the regulation works, but you also you're listener to persons, and if they come, you know, I would say this a good idea must of necessity give way to better ideas. So if we come with a plan, and I'll give an example. I am paying, it costs a lot to place an advert on on radio station, right? Yeah, if you want me to use eight minutes, eight seconds of my time to advert advertise FDA, I told them it does not make sense. Yeah. If you're saying that I should just mention my code, I can understand. But I cannot be paying eight seconds. This is an FDA. We've doesn't so fast. No one does that anywhere. Yeah, there's a shorter way or smarter way of going about it, right? But they can't give me all this length of by the time you're done. You know that we sometimes we do five seconds adverts. So how am I going to put eight seconds of FDA? The advent would have been over. Yeah. How do I do it? It raises concerns over and over and over again. And for me, what sometimes gets worried is the fact that we are not even heard. Because as we've seen with most regulators, once they have the power, they want to utilize that. Yeah, and sometimes that discretion seems high-handedness. When we in the industry are explaining smarter ways, and and they'll throw it, okay. Go and figure we can't, this is all we can do. If there's anything else, come back. They say, look, you don't have to do that. If it's a television station, I don't have to see it, I can scroll it. But if it's radio, you don't expect me to buy eight seconds for FDA. It costs a lot, but they're the regulators, and that's what they said. So they double down on it. That is what you have to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

So, Andrew, let's get into a very important part of this conversation where I am particularly passionate about. We've spoken about celebrities not to be allowed to promote alcohol beverages based on a lot of premise. Sha Tawale has been the ambassador and it's been one of Ghana's most successful music advertising partnerships on the premise that it won the marketing campaign of the year in 2018. But the inconsistency that we find here is that the FDA banned celebrities from alcohol advertising specifically to protect the vulnerable, like you said, like the youth from celebrity influence. Yet I have seen, I'm sure a lot of people will agree, that energy drinks also pose serious health risks to the youth. Almost the same or far worse than alcohol that's cardiovascular issues, um, abuse, mixing alcohol with other substances. We've seen the effects all over the news. Same vulnerable population, same influence mechanism, same health risks, even worse, maybe. But different regulatory treatments for all of these. What's your position? Have you I first of all, have you identified this inconsistency and what is your position on it?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

Yeah. The reason why we are advocating for um the advertising bill to, you know, to uh to be passed. And it will cure all these issues that we are talking about. When people say advertising, they think that we, the agency, are advocates advocating for it because it's going to benefit the age, it's going to benefit everyone. If you look at the proliferation of all these digital televisions, do you know what happens on that television? It's absolutely appalling. And no one is talking about it. You have charlatans, and we have a whole chapter within that AG bill that talks about, you know, charlatanic stuff. You have people on radio, on television actually taking advantage of vulnerable to send money. They're advertising a product, a service of hope or spiritual, whatever it is, to people collecting money, sending Momo. In fact, they will have to see the Momo now before they pray for you. And they ask you to come so they can do something for you. That is a form of advertising. Why is no one talking about FBA can't do anything about that? Right? Um, NCA can't do anything about that because there's no law that does that. The broadcast right is also not in. That is why these guys have a free reign to do whatever it is that they want, selling anything and everything from hope to drugs to faith to whatever, they're selling everything and everyone to everybody. So there's a higher conversation that we need to be had beyond FDA to the government itself. Your mandate, you know, in in you know, I read economics and public finance. The mandate of the government is part of it is this you have the power and the law to protect your citizen, your citizenry. And for what I see on digital television, it's such it's such a shame. It's so appalling. Um and you know, for those who don't, you know, who don't who don't follow the FDA, the products are not even registered. But you only see the product only in Kumasi. You can't even find it because there's no look, there are too many things happening that I think if we were to focus all our energies onto the advertising bill, whether it'll be an authority, that looks as everything end-to-end, it would work. It has worked in Nigeria. Now let me tell you, I will answer your question, but I want to paint the the gloomy picture that we have been in Ghana for a moment. I appreciate that. Because we don't have any regulation, everyone does what they they want because there are no penity measures. Have you seen anyone being sued anywhere because they say they say something as forget that it's food is food and drugs? They said something in the adverts that we, as an authority, assuming we had an authority, are saying that you cannot say in your advert. Everyone goes court free, everyone does whatever they want to do. There are no Ghana in Nigeria. You can't do that to the extent that just a couple of years ago, Nigeria, in fact, they've done three reviews. The last review says that there's no advert in Nigeria that is allowed for you to have foreign acts in there. So every advert in Ghanai in Nigeria, if you shot it in South Africa, keep it in South Africa. In Nigeria, you have to shoot another one. You know what it's doing? It's booming the creative industry because you're going to get a lot more shoot, a lot more creative directors. So when you go to Nigeria, you look at the advertising industry, you look at ours, you come and you cringe. Like, what is happening to us? And all we need is the law. And we've been pushing this advertising bill for a long time. Feels like no one cares. Okay, let's come to the substantive uh uh matter on uh on the on the energy drink and and alcohol. So I I want to put it in, and I'm using my my little common sense to break it into perspective. The effect of alcohol on the person, um, the everything that you take in from my understanding of basic science and biology, everything you take in has an effect on your on your body, yeah, whether for good or bad. So if you eat good food, you get healthier. If you eat bad food, you're gonna get sick. So that's what I understand. Um, so in one sense, what one sense, it's it's interesting that you say people don't have to smoke because they mess up their lungs. But people can eat fatty foods and you've given them license to operate, and they're adding a lot of carbonated um drinks, which you have you have approved, but you're saying that they shouldn't take it together because that would give them a lot more health implications that anyone can endorse, but because it affects other parts of their bodies, right? But if smoking affects my lung because you have a lot more research, then do a lot more research in other areas. Yeah. But I'll come back to the conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory, they are gates in this world who protect certain industries. Yeah. I think the smoking gate for their own interest. I think the smoking gate lost their plot because the pressure was too much. The gate on carbonated drinks and the and the gate on other things that we know, the energy drink, is so there. I mean, Red Bull has probably the largest TV um um coverage as a product TV in the world. And they're doing incredible stuff, and and they're helping break records and inspiring people and all of that. You understand? So now it's no longer about the drink, it's about you know what the brand stands for, right? Um so it's it's it's very difficult to argue this case whether the impact of one product on a person negatively should be matched with the similar impact of on that person in another way. I think the thing of alcohol is the behavioral thing, right? Um, which they don't want kids to, I mean, no matter how much you drink energy drink, you still would have a certain consciousness, right? Let's assume. But a little bit of alcohol can can get you off, right? And is this a feel is this is this whole social behavioral behavioral thing attached to alcohol? Because the impact will be the same thing as as, in fact, some carbonated drinks have worse impact than even alcohol. Uh, but it's been taught that alcohol is like that. It comes from the powers that be. They determine this. The whole the world power, they decide, I don't know who controls it, but they decide how these products. No, they decide how these products are done, and it comes all the way from the top, from WHO and all of that. So we can't argue much uh because that is the situation that we're in. So I would say let's use the regulation, right? They don't think caffeine is that bad. All the things in in in in uh energy drink, energy, they don't think it's that bad. Because guess what? They endorse it. They endorse, and the CB will also endorse um alcohol. It is the promotion of one over the other where the issue, where the issue is. So um if it is not alcohol, then it's good to sell. So, yes, shutter and stone, I think Stonewall also has his own uh energy drink that is uh is promoting. So if it is not alcohol, uh you can you can promote the rest. That is what the regulation says.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

The regulation says nothing about how to promote energy drinks, drink that it talks about, but it's not they were even saying that you can't advertise it as a substitute for rest, uh remedy for fatigue, sexual non-performance, and other physical non-performances. But I think Adonko did a very brilliant job by coming up with a whole new product, the same name. Yeah, so there's Adonko BTS, which is alcoholic, we all know, and there's Adonko next level, which is energy drink. So they keep the same name, but um the you still have their brand in your face.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:47

Energy drink on one side, and then also creating that space in your head that Charlie Adonko Deo, you know, exactly Adonko. Yes. There's smart ways of going about it. I I think it's a smart way, and look, I give stamps up if that's what they've done and it's working for the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

Okay, Andrew, yeah, the advertising bill has been pending since 2016. I'm not sure if my memory serves me right. But it's 2025 February. Sorry, in 2025 last year, June, somewhere June, the government promised to reintroduce it to the parliament. Yes. But as of today, 2026, February, it's still not been passed. Yes. What's the holdup?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

I I think it goes it goes way beyond um because I remember 2011, 2012, uh 2012, 2013, I was actually in studios advocating uh my my brother Ken uh uh Kenauku, um lawyer now who was in the industry. Uh, we're advocating for the passage of the bill. Because we spent time, energy, and had a lot of you know, smart lawyers and industry players invited people from across the world to come to help us put this bill together so we can we're doing the work for the government, so we can get because the bill would have to be passed by the government and owned by the government, because the government would have to set up the institution called the Advertising Authority of Ghana. It is not we who have the mandate. So we spend the time, energy, raise our own internal funds to put this document together. And as KT Hammond, the the previous minister of trade and industry said, said, I've never seen a bill which is so comprehensive. But but let me let me go backwards. So we we started advocating for this. Uh that was during Muhammad's first term. And we managed to, you know, to pass it through cabinet, which we were grateful for. It went to the floor of uh parliament, and this is the process that it goes through. So it goes to the floor of Parliament, they have the first reading, but they'll read it, they'll set up a committee. The committee will now uh invite other stakeholders to come with their thoughts. So, you know, if you're a radio station and you think that it would have an effect on you, you have a say. So everyone would have to bring all their thoughts about the full bill that was sent to them, and then they'll go through back and forth, and then the committee will look at it and try and piece it together and blah, blah, blah. Then there's another second reading, then there's a final reading. Because the second reading might people might also raise other issues that the you know, parliamentarians may raise it. So you go through three readings where stakeholders in the industry are consulted throughout this process. Now, if you go to the final reading, which is the third stage, and it is deemed to be okay, it is endorsed by parliament and sent to the president for the president to accent it. In there would also have his own system of managing itself. Every bill would have its own way of managing itself. So it's all in there in the bill. We did all that work for the government. We did it because we knew that it would take a long time to for them to, for the government to, and or any government to do it. So we did that, we put it in there. Um during the year, and so and so, yeah, we we took, we did Sickle's engagement at Sing Chi, parliamentarians came, we invited a whole lot of people. Um, got in there, everything was right. First reading. Unfortunately, it was an election year. So it didn't see the light of the no second reading, no third. No one would no one got interested in it, and that is the fact. When the last uh uh MPP government came into power, we we pushed again and again and again and again and again and again. Not not to belabor the point you mentioned, but we pushed. It never happened at the Ministry of Uh Trade and Industries, um until until um KT Amon came. And you know, we pushed through Honorable Cojo Ponkroma, who's an industry player, and this understood it, yeah, and managed to have a seat in front of KTM. And then we reviewed it. The two of them are lawyers. They said, give us two weeks. They reviewed it, and we had them say, you know what, this is one of the most, you know what, it's gonna go through cabinet. And we're so grateful. It went through cabinet. The two gentlemen did an amazing job, went through cabinet. It was number one on the list. If you go to, if you check the parliamentary number one on the list, the bills should be considered. So what happened? Election yeah. No one comes to parliament, no one is interested, no one cares. So it didn't even get a first reading, even though it was on top list of of bills to have looked at. Right? This this time around, a new government is in there, they've taken one year to settle because you know how these things are. Uh we are pushing. Uh, very soon we're gonna get invitation from the for the Minister of Trade, um, you know, to come and have come, you know, we've already studied some underground work. But but what I want to use is media. I don't know how far this medium goes, but but I think that as a country, um, these are some of the things that we need to pay attention to, right? Not the loans that we are going to contract for someone, not um, you know, the road that I'm going to build in a certain village. We are talking about a multimillion, a possible billion-dollar industry that is unregulated. People don't pay taxes. The government has no idea. Because everyone picks up anything, they do, whatever it is. Do you how many influencers do you think pay taxes? Can I can I give you an estimate of the influenza budget in Ghana?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:09

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:09

And I can tell you a lot of them don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

What's the problem?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:13

I mean, a brand a brand can spend, one brand can spend close to two million Ghana cities on influenza marketing alone in a year, multiplied by how many brands that you have. So you're talking about possibly talking about 50 to 100 million Ghana cities that come through influencers every year, and no one pays uh uh taxes. If you structure this well and we had this authority, we are going to help all the influencers to structure their business properly, with the right guidance, with the right tools, with the right training, so that you can earn your keep and the government will also earn their keep. We're going to stop all these charlatans, you know, sitting on radio and TV, doing all because we have the law. Look, the president of the authority in Nigeria, when he comes, is more than the president of Nigeria. Because he's protected because the of the value that he brings, not to the society, but also to the to the part of the it's a it's I won't call it a money-making authority, that is not their mandate. But he can make decent money to cure some of the issues in the industry, to help train um, you know, young um, you know, marketers that are coming up. They have a school. If you don't pass that school, you don't get a certificate, so you can't practice. No client from anywhere outside of Nigeria can come and say, I am pitcher without paying a pitch fee. You have to pay a pitch fee. You can't come and say I'm going to TV, reduce it to adversaire directly. The law says that you cannot, you have to go through agencies, and if you have to go, you have to pitch, and if you have to pay, you have to pay for their time and energy. You are protecting the very people in the country who need to, yay, you know, they have to eat small. They, you know, they they need their work, the hard work would have to be paid. We don't have anything like that in this industry. So we are so vulnerable. Any client wakes up, puts a brief out, you take your smartest brains, put a plan strategy together. Uh, they claim somebody else won, but your plan is being executed on TV and radio. You can see your plan on billboards.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:11

What do you do? Are you going to sue them? Upon what basis are you going to sue them? So, this, if you look at the bill, and it's it's it's unfortunate that we don't have time to go through it, but I'll give you a copy. It is so comprehensive that you feel like everyone is protected, including the clients, including ourselves. I mean, there are clients who choose not to pay us for one year, two years. Some are in court, yes. In Nigeria, it can happen. You will lose your license of operation the next month. And as a matter of fact, you can research. So if agencies don't get paid, how are we going to go ahead and pay our offenders? In Ghana, clients do it as well. In Nigeria, it cannot happen. All you have to do is to write to the to the authority and say that client X has not paid me. That they are going to write that letter. They will find money anywhere in the world to pay you. And as a matter of fact, because we've gone to Nigeria to study that, we've invited the authority president to come to Ghana to educate us. So we know this. So every single person, player within the industry. So no one can take advantage of each other. Now, as a Yang Kong Leo, everybody does what they want.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:15

How can all these people whose names you've mentioned, celebrities, uh, influencers?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:21

Let me finish the process so that we can come back to this. So, so when, you know, so it went through and nothing has happened. Um, and then we've gone to the minister, and we are hoping that this time, you know, they will have, you know, the I want to choose the word, they would have the understanding of what this means to the society to help to advocate for us to push this through. I don't see, look, if I'm I'm being I'm apolitical, so I'm speaking on this dead. If someone says that we are resetting, why don't you take advantage to reset every aspect of the society if you have the opportunity? And here, the only way you can reset the advertising industry is to make sure the building space. And don't, you don't have to, you see, government thinks they have to do everything. You don't have to give the authority and the right mandate to the right people. This is an industry that even if we have resources, we can figure out how to raise our own, because index gives us how to raise our own money. We set up our own school. You don't have to, we are not waiting on you to give us money to do anything. It is in the bill. You see how we can we can raise money as an authority, just like the way FDA is also raising money from vetting advertising. There's so many things we can do. So give the mandate to the bright people, pass the law, give the right mandate to the right people, and you would see how they will cure the entire industry without you directly being involved. Because you can't. You have not been able to do it in the past, and there's no way you can do it now without any backing of the law. So this is to say that, you know, when um Madam Minister, when the bill comes to you, um, please um shrimp my hand. Shame my hand, help us, help us to get this through. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:07

Wow. I I feel very compelled to because one of the things that Mart Conversations is trying to do is to be able to, you know, fix some of these loopholes that help the industry grow um some way, somehow, in a very little corner, also help put it out. So we're going to make sure that um this episode gets to the right people. You've spoken a lot about the damage that this has done um by not having this framework in place, and we hope that we will get there. Every person that you've mentioned or every entity within the ecosystem that you've mentioned that this bill touches, have you engaged them? Have you engaged everybody from influencers to have you engaged them to help push this bill?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:52

So the only way we can engage them, uh, because again, the process is clear. You you can't you can only engage them when the bill has attention or when the minister has the bill. If the minister has the bill, they'll open once it goes to the floor of parliament, they'll open up and all these persons can come through. That was what we're pushing the first time. Uh, because it's and when parliament set up a committee, that's it's a beautiful thing. They'll set up the committee, write to all stakeholders who are interested. There's a mandatory thing that they have to do because the bill will have to touch everyone, or if it touches everyone. So they send communicate to everyone. The Society of Ghana, this, hey, this is the bill, come share. So all experts will be invited to come and share the opinion. We'll go and meet the committee. They ask questions. I'll give my opinion, they will give the opinion, they're taking their thoughts. Oh, I think that this is the best way because uh I'm a I'm a tech uh this year. I used to work at Facebook and Google, and this is how I think we can bring tech in there to help. Everyone is going to bring their thoughts, and then they're gonna collate all of that, try and, and they have sharp, smart lawyers at the Attorney General who would now recraft the bill to suit the purpose of all these thoughts. And then they will come for the second reading. The reason they do three times is that they don't want to leave any stone unturned. So they do that three times. So everyone would have their chance within these three times to be able, anyone who this touches, from our clients to they will have, but until we get this through cabinet, that is the most important phase. But we'll this this time we want to do it early. Because next year will be the year that you know we'll start the election. In fact, 2028, we should forget it if you don't participate. There seems to be the the the there never seems to be a right time for this. For me, that is what where the pain is. No one cares about this. It's about when the moment the moment, the moment, I don't know whether it's about I've that's I feel no one cares about this. Because when anyone comes, when any new government comes, they don't care about this industry. If they did, they would know. And we've been pushing and pushing and pushing. So we want this government to really show that they do care. What we are talking about, if you read, if you read the law and if you start and if you looked at what it the law is going to cure, it will bug your mind why no one, no parliamentarian is actually interested in getting this.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:16

I think the president will be interested.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:17

You know, he he has a communications background.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:19

Yes. So I think he would be interested in this.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:22

Then then please, Mr. Friend. And I've advocated through my platform. At the Gongo Awards, I did that. At any AGM, I do that. I do reach out to the president. Maybe I should go to Flax Around myself.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:34

But I do reach out to the to the government through the medium that we go to the president. That please, you you and you know, I met the president several times when AAG went to visit. I was I was then a young, a young practitioner. He was then the communication minister. I've I've, you know, we met a couple of times. Um he's a fight gentleman. Um, and and I think I think he should take keen interest in this. I think so. I think he should take keen interest because uh we we can't we can't move forward. Another issue, which I don't even want to go there, is with the billboards and how crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

You know, I I had a question about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:08

You had mentioned you're spoken about how it's it's a nuisance um to society. Uh again, we are working, we are working with the with the National Road, we're working with the committee and the local government to see how we can clean this up. We have the plan. Um what what pains me, really, what pains me, is our crowd gives us access to tools and information that they never have. I can tell you every single board which is in a crowd that matters on any major streets. I know their coordinates, I know exactly where they are. We have system and tools that can predict which board should not be where. We've done this work. You don't have those tools. We've done the work, we submitted to you. No one cares. That these are the billboards that you should take out. We've no, they're like, Because some billboards have caused the city. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know what it is. Forget people have died of someone has died of billboards, but you know what it is? You know why we all don't care?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:02

Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:04

In the human psychology of advertising, we call something wallpaper, right? So when you in your own room, you know you never recognize your wallpaper after the first week, maybe first month. After three months, you don't even recognize the wallpaper again because it's part of you, it's part of your environment. When these boards were coming up crazily, we're all complaining, but now nobody even cares. You became used to it. Why? Because we're used to it, it's part of our mental framework. So no one is talking about it. I dare you today, when you're going home, pay attention and count how many billboards. I've done that and I counted 250 billboards to the office. Do you know what is the interesting thing? My human brain is incapable of processing 250 communication or adverts before I get to the office. So guess what? About 98% of the things I see in the waste. I'm not interested. So why are brands still advertising in places that are cluttered? It doesn't make sense. You know why? The people who have the law, who are the municipal executives, they do not understand the science behind this. So we brought all this thinking and all of that together in a guideline on how advertising should be done. The guideline is there, no one follows the guideline. The human brain takes eight seconds to process certain information, thinks about it, and takes a certain action. So if I'm driving at 50 kilometers per hour, I will need at least 100 meters to see the advert because I'm driving 100 kilometers, 50 kilometers. I'm going at a speed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:39

So you need to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

I only have eight seconds to be able to. So if within 100 meters I see three billboards, how do you want my brain to work?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:47

So the the body and the brain biologically is so smart that it would automatically push things that you're that won't invite stress onto you. Yeah. So you would see, but you wouldn't see. Yeah. So your brain doesn't realize. So why are you wasting your money putting your billboards there? You come to a junction and you see ten billboards looking at you. Which one are you looking at? Does it make sense to you? The one that's Imagine it was just one. Do you know how impactful that advertis is going to be? And we give them, we're giving them plans. Could collapse all of them, increase the price, and see the impact that you're going to make. I've never been anywhere. And again, I'll use Nigeria. Five, six years ago, maybe let me take it about 10 years ago, Nigeria was worse than Ghana. And then the governor came in. Now when you land in Nigeria, in Lagos, and you drive all the way to the island, you would love the cleanliness of Nigeria just because there was proper, proper manage, proper part of the aesthetic of the city. I mean, I get it, 37, and I'm like, you know, I drive on the spinchess road. And people don't know that these things have effect. There's color effect. All these things have effect on us. It adds stress to us. We don't know, but it is the truth. Science will prove that. Because you're calling my attention, I'm not ready, I'm not interested. But you're pushing it down my throat. Right? So there's so many things that we can do. And we wish that, you know, the authorities would have some sort of attention to our industry and help us pass this bill and let the authority do the rest of the work. That's all. You don't have to do any heavy lifting. Your only heavy lifting is pass the bill. Pass the bill. And let the authority do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:36

You've already put the document together, which is the biggest part of the work. You've already done that. So they just need to be. Andrew, the in your inaugural speech, you emphasize the need for robust and accurate data. They have spoken about you knowing, especially speaking about these billboards, you know, in all of the coordinates, everything, that's data.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:57

And you you had also mentioned that the industry lacks open and standardized consumer benchmark studies. Yes. How does the data gap, briefly, how does the data gap affect regulatory decision making?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:10

It's not so much of regular regulatory decision, but it's more on um. Okay, so so for you to take any decision for any client, you need data. You need to analyze it, right? I know people think that the work we do is a lot of gut feeling, but a lot of gut feeling in brains, right? Because gut feeling is where creativity also comes from. But you need the brains first, meaning that you need the facts to be able to analyze. We used to have what we call GAMS, Ghana or BDM Product Survey. And that is a survey that would let anyone have access to that data to analyze consumers in Ghana. Because you need to analyze the consumers and their behavior, uh, demographic, psychographic, their interests, their aspirations, all of these things are important. Because that is that would give you the insights and be like, ah, okay, when they get to the hard moment, ah, so this is the reason why kids between the okay, person between the ages of 18 and 24, ah, because they spend 70% of their time on mobile phone, or because it because you're analyzing facts. That is why they like doing one, two, three, four, five, six. That is an insight. So we take all these insights after analyzing, and we use it to build strategy for the client. That strategy is what leads to, you know, because you can have your creative strategy out of that, you can have your media strategy, or they can have your PR strategy, all these ecosystem uh nuggets, you can have strategies for all of them. But they all should be rooted in data. It can't be gut for Afi like, or because I'm a designer, design anything, it must be backed by data. Now we don't have a universal um in the industry, we don't have a universal source of data to do that. Individual agencies like Dainsey, we have that we spend quite a bit. The first time we did our own consumer connections is we spent about $100,000 to do that. Version two, we spend less because we use computer-assisted questions, so we got people to answer questions via online. And it's quite comprehensive. Um, you know, but but we you know, it's it's a private thing, it's bespoke for us. So we need to spend a lot of, but other agencies don't have that. And I can say that that is why some of the quality of our work uh is questioned by clients and by by even you know, our community and society because it is not deeply rooted in facts, it's not deeply rooted in data. You don't see a lot of analysis. You see, you look at the advertising, you question who put this together? What is this side what like what are you trying to do? Our work is a lot of science, and I mean it's a brain work. It's like a surgeon going there, seeing what the issue is, and then surgically removing that uh, you know, that that thing there, that tumor, whatever it is. It's it's surgical, and it needs a lot of brains and stuff. And because, I mean, a surgeon will not be a surgeon if they don't go through the right rubrics, or they don't analyze the right data and all of it. The same thing as our industry. So lack of a feel, and not just me, the industry feels like, because we don't have the data, a lot of people use gut feelings and and what I call um historical experience and just observation because you need to interrogate observation to see if it's rooted in facts, right? So that's what people use to be able to come up with something close to let's shoot an advert, or let's go and buy um on this radio station, let's buy on this TV station. So this advocacy is can we come together as a body so that we can help revive this gumps? Or even restructure how we can because without data we can't do anything else. Digital is different because you can buy digital data online. Um, but we still have a traditional um um industry. You know, it's a TV, radio, process all king when it comes to advertising. So we need the data to do that. Uh, creators also need the data to reinforce uh some of their feelings and beliefs and about things. And and so we wish we could do that. Unfortunately, we've not been able to do that. I think that's one area that um, you know, this administration didn't pay much attention to because we're busy reviving Gongong and you know, busy pushing the advocacy for the billboard thing that we didn't look at that. But you're right, we should be able to have a certain consensus and get people to invest in it so that we can have a central data that anyone can interrogate if they want to.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:38

Speaking of Gongong, um somewhere last year, you've also touched on testing the law a little bit. Somewhere last year, Gongong Festival, you um the the the you launched the Gongong Festival of Creativity in 2014. Yeah. Sorry, 2024, right? Or 2025. Yeah. And the theme of it was disrupt and inspire. Yeah. Recognizing brands and agencies that are challenging the norm. Is that is it does it come from that testing the law a bit or pushing back against regulations? Where's the line that you're trying to draw between creating disruption and regulatory violation?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:17

Um the the reason is that if you if you look at the current um order, right? Um things are not what they used to be, right? And and and I'll and I'll give a few examples. Uh consumers are demanding more from brands, right? In terms of everything. Okay. They want cheaper stuff, they want quicker stuff, they want they want they want you to bring their what they want into their house. Right. They don't want to walk into your shops anymore. Why? Because it's proliferation of competition. So consumers have a stronger voice. They're no longer loyal. Consumers ain't loyal. They can be loyal to you in a day, they buy three crates of something, but guess what? Next day they're going somewhere else. So loyalty is a very rare commodity now, right? But loyalty is what also gives you your future stream of revenue, of income. So every every repeat purchase over and over and over is what is the fundamental of brand equity. So every brand is looking out to advocate for consumers to keep buying their products. So because consumers are not loyal. So lack of loyalty, consumers asking more, uh, economic pressures everywhere, our salaries are increasing faster than inflation. So so if you look at the system, things are tough, yet consumers need to make choices. So the only way that brands can actually break through this and be known to be successful is when they, you know, they challenge the norm, right? They look at ways of so if you have brick, brick and mortar, and you think that is the only way you can sell. My brother, there are people who are making millions on Instagram, right? If you think that going to China now was the way that you could sell things at Mark, my brother, Chinese malls are here, and people are doing their own marketplace on Instagram, selling, give, making margins or going to buy Chinese product and crafting it in such a way that you think that they're bringing from China, they're selling to you smarter ways of going about things, right? So if your brand and you cannot you cannot innovate, um is that disrupt or the title of disrupting? Disrupt and inspark. And in spark. If you're not disrupting, if you're not inspiring, if you're not looking at a business model and changing based on the fast pace of technology and how things are changing, how markets are changing, you eventually will die. Um there are institutional businesses in Ghana that that are struggling because the Chinese products, and first we thought they were terrible products, but now you're using it like, you know, diapers. Everybody said, Don't go for Chinese diabetes. Look, the quality can match any of those, you know, western global brands.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:53

Chinese cars now.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:54

And China yesterday I was looking back, I saw this uh BYD that felt like that looked like a push. I'm like, whoa, these guys. You know what? Things are changing. So as brands as uh as a classic traditional brand in this market, if you do not change your model um to inspire, because what you've done is what you've done over these years. If you don't change your model to inspire people, how how are how are the Chinese brand inspiring people now? Becoming sleek, the cheaper. They're giving you options, but they want electric or fuel. I mean, if I charge my car and I charge it for 120 cities, and I go and buy petrol, and it takes me the same distance, and I buy petrol with uh 200 cities or 400 cities, say 2.0, say 400 cities. Why why would I not think of electricity? So they're inspiring you, right? They're disrupting the model. So we thought this was a way, it was an invitation um and a call, a rallying call to all brands to you know to begin to think differently, right? Not just advertising, but your own business model will have to change because things are disrupting, brands are disrupting, brands are taking consumers away, and you continue to suffer if you don't change. Your model of high margins and all of that is gone. So, and and you would see them. I I won't mention names, but you know them. You know their names. You want to mention them or you want to mention their names. You can feel free to mention them. No, but but you can see, and sometimes you might think competition is good, it's not good. I like it. It's difficult, yeah. You know, because again, well, well, you know, our whole global trade system, you can't really restrict and you know, based on free market economy and all of that. So the only way you can survive, my brother, is when you remodel your system in a way that you take advantage of technology. Yeah, you're producing things quickly, you you are fast-tracking your distribution model. A lot of online um and online marketplaces would have to be created so people can have access. Because of me, you know, driving all the way to go and buy a product, is brick and mortar is is is is shrinking. So you need to find different ways, innovative ways of uh of producing and and making sure that uh it gets to the last mile of the of the of the consumer.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:19

I can sit here and have these conversations all day, but we have to wrap up. And in wrapping up, I have three questions. Yeah. Then we can bring this conversation to a close. We'll put it on ice, we'll have another conversation with you another time. It's 2026, let's just say the advertising bill is passed. Yeah, the digital landscape has evolved, as you've already told us. Yeah, new technologies like AI-generated music, I imagine. Now we are coming back to the theme context of our conversation. What does music in Ghanaian advertising look like five years from now? And what regulatory changes do we need to make to make it future-proof?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:55

I I I think the copyright law would have to be looked at it again. And and I give you, and maybe the process or maybe the implementation. I I'll I'll give a typical example. You know why why uh Shazam works? You know why it works. Yeah. Why why does it work? Um, it's you're able to pick up the sound from because every single sound which is produced by any label in this world would have to give a unique thumbprint. They call it a sound signature. And once you put that sound signature in that song, anywhere the song it's done in production, you wouldn't hear it. It's not audible for you to hear, but they put a sound signature in there, right? It's like a code. So once they put it in there, anywhere you play the song around the world, the signal can be picked up. And that is how people are making their money off copyrights because every radio station is piping through a certain pipeline, right? NCA has a system. Uh, is it NCA? Um, the one that give license was what's the name? Um the Media Commission. Yeah, Media Commission. No, not Media Commission, one of the authorities. They do have that system. So they pipe it through. So if you're in Ghana, this is how I think the copyright should work. Every radio station would have to pipe through that system. And then every single song released by Shatterwale and Kwame Yujin or whatever it is, would have to be recorded with a unique sound.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:21

Uh is that why Gamru doesn't uh isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:23

But I'm saying that that that is Gam, that is the rule, that's what they have to do, right? So that if you have them plays your song five times, they pay five times. But here, do you know what they do? At the end of the year, the media house will, I think they just they have to pay something to all of them and they share, share, share, share. It doesn't matter. So, and again, it also doesn't help in the ranking of songs and who is number one, number two, usually based on discretion. But if you pad all uh signals and all the signals are there at 3 and C pipe up because they issue the license, if you pipe all the signals to the pipe and they're all recorded, and we can build a huge farm, right? That can store all this information and you put that sound signature in there. I'm not saying they don't have it, but does Gamro have it? And for all musicians, I don't I don't think so, right? But if they do, why is it that they can't build a system that can pipe through so that people can get their money's worth and get their right copyright? I mean, a musician said that last, I think the year before he had 120 Ghana cities as as as the value of his copyright for all the music that is played during. And he's asking for all the stuff that went into this, you know. So I think while technology is changing, let's take advantage of that. I I also think that um we we we are going to see, or we should see a lot of our music's um our music musician, or if I say our music sector, uh collaborating with a lot of films, right? Because I mean producers and all these songwriters and everything, they're they're only most of them are uh in the music industry for that, but they ignore the film industry, right? The more the film industry develops, the more they need people to score, you know, the more they need to produce original songs and all of that. So while think when things improve, I think that that is one area that um we are going to see uh improvement um there. I also think that a lot of brands will begin to allow artists to create original scores for their brands, uh, rather than always taking a popular music and music and then you know and getting it done. Um yeah, so so for me, those are those are the few um the few things I see. Uh there's going to be a huge challenge from an AR point of view in verifying um uh I don't know whether we call it AI plagiarism or whatever, the verifying authenticity of what true music is. And it's already a challenge because all you have to do now is to put a couple of lyrics together and have a full song.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:06

And you choose whether you want it in radio, you want it in dance, or you want a country music, right? So uh real, real authenticity of music is going to be challenged. Um and I think we are going to be partakers in that. Um, but there has to be a system that actually can verify whether this is um this was human-generated or this is this is uh something man-made. And what if AI generates it for you, then you go to the CD and record it? Is this all authentic? Is it going to affect an award if you have to win? Like there's so many things that have been disrupted, even in the advertising space. Um, there are question on what craft is, right? So if you say TV craft, is it the stuff that you know, you know, your designers and all your motion graphic guys have done, or is something that you prompted an AI to come and to put it together for you? Because AI is also a craft, you need to give the real prompt. You know, so so these are all things that would challenge, uh challenge the norm. And it's just because of the pace of technology now, and once we get there, we we'll we we'll we'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:16

You you when you look at the intersection of music and advertising, I mean, considering the two hats that you wear, calling the shots at Tintu and being the president of AEG, what keeps you up at night? What are you most worried about?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:34

Um, I'm not worried about music or how it's growing in my general worry is is the fact that I I don't think that we spend a lot of time, or I don't think that we invested much in our music compared to the Nigerians. Um, you know, we we don't have a lot of songwriters, or don't have multiple songwriters who are innovating and earning good money in the space of this staying there. Uh but back in the day it used to be a pute and a couple of people um, you know, who produce beats and all of that. Are we having a lot more people who are who are earning their right value? I mean, I recently heard about uh Christiatha's issue with his producing all the hard work that has gone into it. He feels that he hasn't earned their keep. Again, it's one thing that I keep saying that the government should see when we call on government, people think that we're trying to respond to the response. Yeah, to shed response. No, we're we're saying that we we have this is our industry, we are vulnerable. Come in and put in strong system, come in and advocate. The moment Nigeria realized that hey, the music is making, I would challenge everyone to say that AfroBit actually started in Ghana. The current Afro-bean, you know, started in Ghana. Yeah, but we've we've lost that right now. But they saw that opportunity and now the government made the system, the environment great for them to do it. And people poured in millions of dollars and helped them to, you know, have you know leeway into other markets, the US market and all of that. Now look how big that Afro-bean industry is. So the government should be interested. I'm not the music industry itself doesn't keep me up at night. Um, my thing is that um are they being paid the are they earning the right value for what they're producing? And are they do they have the right people to negotiate? And and I'll limit it to advertising. Um, you know you can be paid anything between 5,000 and 100,000 for any brand using your music. Yeah. Do you have what it takes to be able to negotiate for the top end? Right? And are you being paid the right amount of money? Right. So these are things that for me, I feel if we could partner a lot more and have a lot more conversations and uh they can open up a lot more um for us to collaborate and decide how we shape the value of what they bring to our market, I think it would be great.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:56

And finally, Andrew, if you could if you could change one regulation or add one rule, um, that would make music inadvertising. Um again, I'm back to that because that's the context of our conversation in Ghana more specifically, um, to make it both more creative and more responsible um from your the position that you're in, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:19

I would say go for original stuff. Go for original stuff. I I I wouldn't say I don't like it, but you know, I I don't like remixing of of songs just so that a brand can can use it gain the attention, right? You can original scores are always important. I mean, if you and I'll give an example, you know the sunlight song? Sunlight, I still remember every single one of that of those because it wasn't anyone's song. Andrew, I'll show you at 34. Yes, I'm 34. I I watched it on YouTube. You know, that was an original song. Yeah, and it's so beautifully sung. It was composed right, and and it sent the right message. I mean, only Singing no words, and and I've seen a couple of banks who've also used you know original music, and those songs stick forever, right? If I know your song already and you use it for psychologically, do you know what it means? Yeah, I remember your brand only when I hear that song. So if the song is not there, it's likely I won't remember that. But if you create original collaboration, proper collaboration, it may be it may be a sick tune, it may be a proper song, it may be whatever it is. Uh I'm not talking cheap stuff that you put people together that are proper with artists and craft it. I think it would help to one bring a different level of creativity in these artists because they will not only be looking for commercial, let's go to the club, let's make a hit, but something that they would also contribute to society. Because these things would always be, you know, not just for the brand, but you know, for the for the good of society. I I think it would it would stir up a new commercial line of revenue for the artists to say that look, I can create, you don't always have to sing. My label or my team can actually create stuff for brands for them to use for us to earn money. We don't always have to be looking for hit music. Because the whole music is not just the hit song, it's an entire apparatus. So if brands need music for them to you know uh to grow and excel and propel and sell their product, why do we craft something different for them that they can use, you know, rather than come into our old songs. And and and for me, for me, that that is that will cost them a lot more, the brands a lot more, but it also has a longer lifespan than just taking my song and remixing it. And it's possible. It's possible. The reason why I don't like this is I can I can as long as brands are not in competition, I can I can give the right for my song to be to remix in your brand if you're telco, and also give it to somebody else, of course, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So what is it to perform the song?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:59

You don't own the original, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:01

You understand? Anyone because look, the the label would have to make money. So anyone who comes to them, they're good, they're not going to give it to you exclusively. You're only leasing, you know, the right for you to remix it those songs for you. So I think originality, getting original, uh, and and producing even original songs in different ways to make the right, you know, to make the right impact is is a different way of of opening up a new commercial conversation with with artists. Andy, thank you so much.