Wetherheads Advertising Group Limited, a foremost advertising firm recently hosted the best graduating students in Advertising from the department of Mass Communications, University of Lagos in its Lagos office on Thursday, March 9, 2017. Mr. Abi Iderawumi, the Group Managing Director while welcoming the beneficiaries and the HOD of Mass Communications, Dr Sunday Oloruntola said the One Million Naira endowment fund was initiated in 2012 at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos to encourage academic excellence and leadership ability among the students.
Mr. Iderawumi, who also is the Chairman of ‘Entrepreneur Today’, an online publication established for mentoring undergraduates and youths in the art of entrepreneurship, said the endowment fund is one of the ways that Wetherheads is giving back to the society especially the academic community.
The recipients of the awards Miss Nancy Ladehinde and Mr Tajudeen Oladimeji who graduated in 2015 and 2016 respectively expressed their gratitude to Wetherheads for instituting the award. In her remarks, Nancy Ladeinde on behalf of the awardees suggested that, in addition to the cash award, Wetherheads should also interact more with the academic communities by sharing real life advertising activities with the students.
Other CSR activities are the company’s sponsorship of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) prizes to ‘The Best Student in Media Management’ and ‘The Best Student in Integrated Marketing Communication‘. The prizes are to encourage scholarship and academic excellence in the advertising profession.
While reacting to the kind gesture of the organization, the Head of Department, Dr Taiwo Oloruntola expressed appreciation to the management of Wetherheads Advertising Group Limited led by its Chairman, Dr Christopher Kolade, CON for the establishment of the endowment fund at the department and seeks for more collaboration in the area of generating internship placement and full time career in advertising and marketing communications employment for students. He also suggested that Mr. Abi Iderawumi should share his wealth of experience in advertising through periodic interactive sessions with the students of the department.
Mr. Abi Iderawumi further addressed the guests present at the occasion that mentoring and entrepreneurship development is meant to offer creative and sustaining means of employment to the youths.
In his words;
‘’We are not only giving them prize – money, but also offering them internship with our organization during their course of study as well as offering employment. We believe that it is better in life to expose these students not only to the theory of advertising and marketing communication but also to the practical aspects of the business. We also believe that talent discovery is key and that is what we stand for as an organization that has been in the business in the past 23 years’’, he concluded.
The event attracted the members of the leading newspapers in Nigeria, the academic community as well as stakeholders in the advertising industry
