Holding a press conference in Ouagadougou on December 17, Burkina’s Professional Association of Communication Agencies (advertising partners) affirmed that “Burkina’s political parties were not using communication as it should be”.

Advertising partners claim the communication market of individuals and political parties. The claim follows an observation the association made during the recent presidential and legislative elections. Indeed, the group said that “most candidates trusted their communication to non-professional advertisers”. As a result, its members were shocked by the “shortfalls” in the various candidates’ communication.

President of the Association, Abdoulazize Bamogo, identified a number of shortcomings namely: the poor quality of images, lack of creativity in visuals and concepts, monotonous and unattractive slogans, shortfalls in the infographic, the shaky presentation of some political leaders, etc. Abdoulazize Bamogo thus invites politicians to from now on, trust their communication to professionals, so as to “optimize the impact of their investment in communication”.    

To win this market, advertising partners suggested reforms that aim to better structure the communication industry: the effective implementation of Advertising Code, reviewing statuses of communication and ministerial press directors, multiplying efforts to overcome the unfair internal and external competition, associating a communication component to all action taken by governmental institutions, adapt reference terms and modalities of public communication markets to advertising’s specific characteristics, trust communication professionals with the organization of at least 70% of significant events.