Marketing executives in Nigeria have been urged to go beyond their traditional role as brand custodians and reposition themselves as growth leaders by embracing generative artificial intelligence, governance, and new approaches to business transformation.
The call was made at the Advertisers Association of Nigeria Chief Marketing Officers’ Forum held recently in Lagos, where industry leaders assessed the growing demands on marketing professionals amid a rapidly changing business landscape.
Chief Enabling Officer of Newwaves Ecosystem Ltd, Olufemi Williams, said the Nigerian marketing executive could no longer be seen simply as a brand builder.
“He or she is a Chief Growth Architect, proving impact, optimising spends, and driving business transformation,” Williams said in his keynote address on the forum’s theme: ‘Growth, Governance and G-AI… The New Trinity for the Nigerian CMO.’
Williams noted that boards now expect marketing executives to prove marketing’s contribution to revenue, margin, and customer lifetime value, warning that vanity metrics such as clicks and impressions are no longer enough.
“Executives must show what directly impacts the bottom line. This is what CEOs measure,” he added.
He challenged marketing leaders to embrace what he called the “new trinity” of growth, governance, and generative AI, in place of the old trinity of budgets, campaigns, and agencies. According to him, governance ensures consumer trust, while GenAI offers an opportunity to scale creativity, insights, and customer engagement with cultural sensitivity.
The event, which brought together over 100 CEOs and senior marketing professionals, also featured a panel discussion with Founder and Managing Director of Nigerian Sino Trucks Ltd, Alfred Okugbeni; Industry Manager at Google, Damilola Abodurin; and Managing Director of Up Digital Ltd, David Okeme.
The panellists agreed that Nigerian marketing executives today operate at the intersection of three unstoppable forces that will either redefine marketing as the engine of business growth or reduce it to a cost centre struggling for relevance. They stressed that the marketing leader of the future must be a growth driver accountable for revenue, a governance champion protecting consumer trust, and an AI visionary leveraging emerging tools.
The experts also pointed to unique challenges facing Nigerian marketers, including macroeconomic volatility, stifling regulation, digital divides, trust deficits, and talent gaps, which they said must be navigated to deliver sustainable growth.
President of ADVAN, Osamede Uwubanmwen, reinforced the message, stressing that governance should not be stifling but enabling.
“Governance should be fair-playing; it means everybody is on the table, and all are welcome,” he said.
On the adoption of GenAI, Uwubanmwen said marketers cannot be left behind: “Marketing is not excluded from AI. It is what everybody should be able to use to improve function.”
Addressing why many marketing executives struggle to rise to CEO positions, Uwubanmwen said the problem often lies in how they market themselves.
“We market brands, but do we market ourselves?” he asked.
He added that ADVAN, as the only trade association of advertisers representing multinational and local brand owners, would continue to equip marketing leaders with the tools they need to go beyond brand building and drive long-term business growth.
