As part of its new mandate to perform oversight functions across the advertising ecosystem, the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria has restructured to birth the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria.

The council also unveiled a fresh statutory document known as the ARCON law to reflect its broadened remit.

Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos on Monday, ARCON Director-General, Olalekan Fadolapo, said the restructuring became necessary due to the high rate of unethical advertising in the industry.

According to him, the act should have an exclusive power to act upon, administer, monitor and ensure compliance by persons and organisations on matters relating to advertising, advertisement, marketing communication in Nigeria, whether of general or of specific nature.

Fadolapo said, “What we are trying to say is that we have the remit to control the advertising space. Recently, there was a judgment by the High Court which says that only APCON should regulate the advertising space. There is specialisation, there is division of labour.”

This act is saying that notwithstanding the provision in any other Act, because we know other Acts that give power to regulate advertising, but their remit is limited to their industry. This gives us a broadened, omnibus power across the advertising space, across industry, across marketing.”

He said the law applied to individuals, organisations, corporate bodies or agencies of the Federal Government, states or local governments, which engaged in, regulated, sponsored or took benefit of advertising services and marketing communication services and any person who sponsoree or took benefit of an advertisement or marketing communication service within the provisions

The ARCON DG also noted that under the new law, the terminologies – advertisement and advertising -were redefined to cover the loopholes that existed in the previous legislation.