Steve Babaeko is a rising star in Nigeria’s digital advertising/ marketing/branding industry. He is the group chief executive officer of X3M Group, made up of X3M Ideas, X3M Music and Zero Degrees, among others.
Though he has only been a chief executive for fewer than 10 years, his works speak for him, both locally and internationally.
His older colleagues respect his creative finesse and enjoy working with him.
Babaeko is also the vice president of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN).
As an entrepreneur with a sizzling drive, he has his eyes on Africa. He has expanded to Lusaka, Zambia; Accra, Ghana; and Johannesburg, South Africa, and South Central Africa. He still eyes other African countries, notably those in East Africa. But what is motivating the entrepreneur to move into these markets?
“I sat down and compared the rate of intra-continental trade in the world and I noticed that Africa is the lowest,” he says.
“The continent is not going to grow unless we take our destinies into our own hands and shatter those barriers to be able to trade with each other, create values and reduce poverty,” he explains.
He says the only way to pull a country like Nigeria out of extreme poverty is by enhancing intra-continental trade.
“If we go to South Africa and Lusaka, how are we able to set up businesses to give our brothers and sisters opportunity to earn a living and give them more skills?” he asks.
“I think if we have more money, these are the big ideas we have for the continent. If this continent takes its true seat in the comity of continents, you even find more people travelling and coming to display their skills and helping us to develop the continent. But we have to be drivers of our own destinies,” he notes.
South Africa’s economy is in crisis and is hard hit by xenophobic attacks on foreigners. How do these affect Babaeko’s business in Nelson Mandela’s country?
“This is even the time to go there, because if you go there and play by the rules, you won’t have any problem,” he replies.
“Once you are ready to become a good corporate citizen, any other challenge you face is just business and you can always overcome them. It is in our doing business together that we can reduce the adverse effect of xenophobia. Once you remove the roadblocks, it is just two people talking and exchanging values. I think that is what we are not really doing on this continent,” he elucidates.
Is he making money from South Africa? He says the business is still at an inchoate stage.
“Business is like a human being. You give birth to a child, you nurture the child, the child starts school and grows. Business is about adding value,” he states.
This year, Babeko has been invited to sit on the panel of Cannes Film Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals on earth, which takes place in France. This privilege has not been given to any player in his industry in the country before now.
“I am really excited to be going to Cannes this year,” he says.
“I am going to be on the panel that will be talking about the authentic African story. It is something I am excited about. I don’t know how many Nigeria CEOs that have had the opportunity to be speaking at that level. As usual, I will be flying the flag of Nigeria that you see in many works,” he elaborates.
For him, his participation at that level gives Nigeria and Africa an opportunity to tell their stories.
The entrepreneur says Africa needs a voice that can tell positive stories of what the continent and its people are doing well.
“Africa is one of the most significant continents on earth,” he says. “Youth population is strong here, while other continents have their youth population depleting. Having I.2 billion people on this continent is huge. Somebody has to be telling this story and we feel privileged to be somewhere we will be sharing this story with the rest of the world.”
Only recently, the entrepreneur was invited to sit on New York Film Festival, which shows that the world has noticed his industry prowess.
He says his greatest takeaway from the event is the quality of the organisation and award.
“It does not have to be an elaborate event for you to have a big award. Secondly, it is an opportunity to learn and see what Nigeria can learn. It is a great thing for me to go there and interact with other judges,” he tells Start-Up Digest.
Babaeko says Nigeria’s advertising industry is the next big thing to happen, even though many may not see it that way.
He explains that lot of new generation agencies are getting it right as they know that they must bring big ideas on the table and think out of the box to survive.
It is often said that Nigerian agencies are not winning global awards because of poor quality work.
But Babaeko dismisses this notion as untrue.
“No African country has won the World Cup, but it does not mean African teams have been terrible at the World Cup,” he says.
“There are lots of reasons they are not winning. Those reasons are personal because I don’t have any empirical data to back up my claims. First of all, it is a very expensive award to enter into. You are paying in euro but earn in naira. The purchasing power has already put the Nigerian agency at a disadvantage. For some agencies based in Europe, they can enter 50 works, but you may not be able to enter 50 works as a Nigerian agency,” he elucidates.
“Most Nigerian agencies enter five pieces of work, which are like a spit in the ocean. Two, I don’t think Africa is represented well enough at that judging level, which means that the cultural nuance represented here is lost on the judges there,” he adds.
However, he urges agencies to package their works better.
“An agency could have a better idea but may not be able to put it better. With the jury which will see thousands of works, if your case file does not come fully packaged, nobody will look at it.”
He points out that Nigerian agencies are not relenting as a lot of them are fighting very hard to ensure they fly the flag of Nigeria.
“Nigeria is the next big thing to happen on the continent as far as advertising is concerned. At the Cristal award, where I had the privilege of being a judge, Nigerians did well. A Nigerian agency won a top prize and X3M Ideas (his firm) won 17 or 20 awards there,” he discloses.
Babaeko is increasingly being sought after at the moment. What is the secret behind this?
“There is no local agency or business anymore,” he says.
“Any part of the world where you are, you are global. In that digital space where you put your ideas, everybody will see what you are doing. This is why I can be here and the New York Advertising Festival, which is probably one of the oldest advertising festivals in the world, will call me or any other Nigerian to be a judge. All they need to do is to Google top advertising or creative agencies in Nigeria and names will pop up. If you are doing the right thing, there is nowhere you can hide. The world will see you,” he says.
He further explains that the only way Nigeria’s advertising industry can be stronger is through mergers.
“It is definitely the next big thing in the industry. I always use the examples of banks. The banks, for example, do it regularly. They come together and see how they will make their brands stronger. Two banks just did that. In our industry, we must do it. It is something that must happen.”
The entrepreneur is already grooming his time for the next generation of ad men and his association AAAN is working on setting up an academy.
ODINAKA ANUDU
