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By Beifoh Osewele and Chukwuma Umeorah
John Ajayi, Chief Executive Officer of Media Edge, publishers of Marketing Edge, is a household name in journalism. The native of Ijan-Ekiti, Ekiti State, is a pioneer in the brand and marketing sub-sector of the profession.
On June 12, he would roll out the drums to celebrate his 60th birthday. In this interview with Saturday Sun, he speaks about life and what it took him to attain success.
How does it feel to be 60?
Being 60 is spectacular in many ways. One of them is that it represents a major milestone in my own little historical trajectory on the surface of the earth. This is because I grew up as a rustic village boy in Ijan-Ekiti; someone who was least expected to get far in life, son of a great farmerDespite the fact that my father was a farmer, he believed so much in education. As he used to tell us, ‘No matter how hardworking or famous you are as a farmer, no government would hire you as agric minister.’ With that kind of belief, he made sure we went to school.
What was your growing up like?
I’ve always encountered challenges and difficulties in life, especially growing up in a typical African village setting in a polygamous setting with about five wives. My mother was the last. I’ve known how to struggle from very early in life. Since childhood, I’ve been addicted to reading biographies and histories of great philosophers like Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo, Great Zik of Africa. This made me understand that great men do not come with ‘silver spoons in their mouth.’ I have also come to realise that nothing is impossible to achieve with determination, focus, hard work, and consistency. I also believe strongly that among my age grades, there may be some who are more intelligent or luckier than I am but there’s no excuse for anyone to be more hardworking than I am. I have followed that philosophy for a long time and tried to do the best in everything that I do. Whatever I commit to do never ends in failure.
Was journalism an accident or conscious decision for you?
I graduated from the University of Lagos with a B.Ed in English, but I have always been passionate about journalism. Upon graduation, I told my brother who sponsored me that I wanted to do postgraduate work in journalism. He refused and said I should join the teaching profession instead. I had to run away from his house.
To where?
I rented an apartment in UNILAG from one of my uncles who was a lecturer then. From there, I started my PG diploma in journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ). I began my journalism career with The News and Tempo as a proof reader but I was also doing some reporting. I finished from NIJ during the period when Thisday newspaper came on board. I joined initially as a proof reader. I later became a staff writer. I even introduced the Media column in Thisday. I never wanted to work in any government establishment. I also never saw myself as someone who would continue to serve another person forever. I have always believed in enterprise promotion. So when I joined Thisday, I had covered different beats including business and the State House. At Thisday, I was given the opportunity to co-pioneer brand journalism in Nigeria. In doing that, I realised it is a genre of journalism that was not in existence in Nigeria or Africa, because we only used to see it in Ad-week published in America. So, I developed interest in coming up with something like a stand-alone. Of course, before I left Thisday, I was already a brand name in the Integrated Marketing Communications sector, which is the marketing and advertising industry.
At 60, do you have regrets? And what have been the lessons?
One of the greatest is the lesson about betrayal. True friends are difficult to come by. In my 60 years of life, I have come to see that the people you call your friends, in actual sense, may be your competitors, if not enemies. We are all operating in a competitive world. Even at home, sometimes, your wife and children can be your competitors. Most people who you call friends just want to listen to your story and use it to benchmark their own. They are happier to tell you how they are advancing than vice-versa. If your story is so clear that you are making more progress than them, they would not be happy. That you are surrounded by a lot of friends does not necessarily mean that they love you. They come around you because of what they aim to gain from you.
Why did your brother not want you to be a journalist?
He was opposed to it because he did not want the fate that befell Dele Giwa to befall me. So, he wanted me to go into teaching which was what most gentlemen back then were known for.
On the other hand, he wanted me to become a Customs officer just like him but I refused because I could not do any uniform job where I would be taking orders. I wanted to be a journalist or lawyer so I could be the voice of the voiceless.
Did he later accept your choice of career?
Life is full of ironies. Along the line, when he was unjustly dismissed from the Nigerian Customs, I became useful to him. I used my journalism career to pursue the matter and with the help of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, we fought it in court until justice took its place. My brother, alongside 12 others who were unjustly discharged, were later reinstated with all their salaries and entitlement paid to them. If I was a classroom teacher, would I have been able to do that? If there is anything that I have done in life that has made more meaning to me, it was getting my brother reinstated in the Customs.
If you can turn back the clock, would you still be a journalist?
Of course, I will. Being a journalist has taught me to be bold and daring.
It’s been two decades of publishing Marketing Edge. Looking back, what were your initial fears?
I never had any doubt from day one. After leaving Thisday, I started doing PR to sustain myself, but business was a little shaky. I then went back to Comet Newspaper where I introduced a weekly pullout. After a year of publishing the pullout, I initiated a special publication where I got some agencies to advertise and we made close to N4 million.
Looking back at how successful the pullout publication was, I said to myself, ‘I have gotten to where I am going.’ That gave me the inspiration to start the publication of Marketing Edge. The road was quite rough. Just before I started, I tried to consult some friends who were doing well in the industry to see who could invest in my idea. But the initial set of people that I approached thought that they could bring me under and hijack my idea. They almost succeeded but because they knew that John Ajayi had become a brand name in the industry and they could not control it, they had to pull out without committing any funds. That was probably the lowest point in my life. I thought that the end had come. Looking back today, 20 years after, I thank Almighty God.
Essentially, your job is brand-centred. How has the new media and technology impacted it?
It has its good and bad sides. It is both challenging and exciting. The advent of the digital age has created a lot of disruptions across industries and businesses. The face of business can never be the same again in the age of social media, and artificial intelligence. Professionals who used to remain stereotyped have become obsolete, losing job and relevance.
For instance, in the creative industry and advertising business, traditionally, we had copy writers, conceptualisers, art directors and others. These days, one man can function in up to five capacities with the deployment of technology. You can create an even better advert copy with artificial intelligence in seconds. So, the person that is running the traditional agency system would automatically become irrelevant. The same event is happening in the conventional media sector. Nigerian newspapers are not reinventing and creative enough. It is a question of ‘reinvent, innovate or die.” If the world is changing at a fast-paced pace as a result of technological innovation, you must learn to increase your pace, else, you would be left behind. I laugh when I see some newspapers that wait for adverts from brands. We deliberately carried out research by purchasing tier one and two newspapers consecutively for three months. After we did a page-by-page review, we discovered that very few brands still advertise in the national dailies.
So many brands have moved to other media channels particularly the social media and brand influencers that can give them maximum audience reach in a very short time. How then are the newspapers going to survive?
Again, the larger part of the demography that brands target are the youths and they do not regard the newspaper. They rather consume content on the new media, which in most cases is even far ahead.
To what extent would you say you’ve met the goals you set for yourself?
We are doing what we do at Marketing Edge because we want to promote the brand idea while expanding the frontiers of marketing and advertising knowledge. We are building capacity across levels. Then again, as an authority in the industry, we initiated an annual award event to recognise outstanding individuals, professionals and brands that have become legacy brands in the Nigerian market. To the glory of God, we have been very successful. We also have a quarterly summit where we engage constantly with industries at global level.
Are you fulfilled?
Yes. I feel very fulfilled.
