"Super Bowl-worthy" - Nigeria's quest for creativity

The Always #LikeAGirl advert got us - better than Katty Perry's performance did. Again, that single advert reiterated the fact that there is something greater than outright selling of a product in a commercial. We could relate to that advert on so many levels. A lot of the commercials shown at the 2015 Super Bowl appealed to consumers' emotions. With the right amount of humour, they were crafted in a manner that would resonate with a lot of viewers.

The lesson: If my advert is going to appear on the Super Bowl, I want to do something "Super Bowl-worthy". But why should this not be an ambition that exists in everything we do, for every client we work on? Everyday we should be asking ourselves is this campaign I'm breaking my head over really "Super Bowl-worthy"?

Unfortunately, we don't think this way. But what exactly is holding us back?

There are various schools of thought on the cause of this death of Super Bowl-worthy adverts in my part of the world. They range from the perceived high cost of sending an entry, to our clients' culture of culling cutting-edge, creative work to the fact that Nigeria is indeed a difficult and unique market with censorship boards that live in another age, to some agencies sheer unwillingness to invest in the growth of their people.

Even though the demons to conquer are plenty and even though we may not have the luxury of working with clients who are bold and daring like our international peers do, the truth is, we have the ability and capacity to birth Super Bowl-worthy adverts and make our mark on the global creative map. I know this because we take our jobs seriously and the quality of work developed and sent in at our local award festivals keep getting better.

We will persist. We will continue to fight the creative battle with our clients and hope they appreciate great work - simple, original and globally relevant enough to compete with the rest of the world at the highly exalted Cannes Festival. Nothing in this world takes the place of persistence. Hopefully this year, our voice will sound stronger, louder and we'll raise our glasses to the plethora of awards that will be won by Nigerian Creative Agencies.