The Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, (APCON) has stated sanction will be mated out on Sterling Bank over the “Agege Bread/Jesus’ comparison Easter message.
In a terse statement made available to The Industry/789marketing on Monday, April 18th, 2022, the apex advertising regulator said that, “APCON will take necessary actions to ensure that Sterling Bank is sanctioned for the exposure of such offensive advertisement according to law and that no religious belief or faith is ridiculed or any blasphemous advertisement exposed in any issue.”
A statement signed by the Registrar/Chief Executive of APCON, Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo further stated that , APCON has observed with displeasure the insensitive and provocative Easter celebration advertisement by Sterling Bank Plc, which compared the resurrection of Christ with Agege bread.
Dr Fadolapo said, “The distasteful advertisement was neither submitted nor approved for exposure by the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP), the statutory panel charged with the responsibility of ensuring that advertisements conform to the prevailing laws of the federation as well as the code of ethics of advertising in Nigeria.”
Sources told The Industry that management of Sterling Bank has issued queried to the communications/brand management department of the Bank to explain how such advertisement was allowed to go out.
We also found out that the brand management/ corporate communications department engaged a ‘roadside’ consultant to create the copy that has been found to have breached the advertising law in Nigeria.
The bank has also run afoul of the law by not submitting the copy to ASP for approval before exposure.
