Absolute PR is a perception management firm that undertakes various strategic communication activities across different sectors and subsectors of Nigeria’s economy. In this interview with MARKETINGSPACE team, the Chief Executive Officer/Lead Strategist of the agency, Mr. Akonte Ekine speaks on improving the Public Relations business in Nigeria and many other things. Excerpts…
You have been in the PR industry for some time, how can you evaluate the level of PR professionalism in Nigeria?
I think PR is still evolving as a profession in this environment. There is a very thin line of separation between PR and other marketing communication tools. These tools are almost the same that you deploy them interchangeably to convince and win over institutions, stakeholders and consumers. So, evaluating it will be subject to what I have seen and experienced with what is available. Generally, I know it is a great profession but there is a major room for improvement in the industry.
First and foremost, we need to be strategic and up-to-date in our approaches and we should consolidate more even beyond the business of Public Relations because the business itself is inside so many businesses. PR is a very big profession, just like the medical profession which is quite wide. Expertise will continue to expand and for us at Absolute PR, we will continue to meet the demands of our stakeholders and clients.
In recent years, Nigeria’s image has not been effectively managed. How best can PR firms come in to salvage this situation?
Someone once said that you cannot talk about a brief that you have not seen. Some people must have handled briefs responsible for that assignment. But I think what Nigeria as a nation should understand is that image management is not done in isolation. It is done in conjunction with so many factors. I have a classic example in the South Africa experience. The people that were involved in that exercise are not PR professionals alone. They are researchers, lecturers, sociologist, lawyers, just name the profession under the sun, they were all part of it as a national project.
To shape a policy, you must understand communication. The subject of Nigeria’s image is left in the dark. I have never seen any government that has come to push forward a vision and say this is the vision we want to achieve. We are just a nation that is not serious about our image. If we are serious about our image, there should be some certain fundamentals that should be in our educational system right from primary school.
For instance, it is mandatory for American citizens to know the history of America. If you know the history of your father or community or society, it will help you to know where you are going to. A country that does not care about its history can’t be regarded as serious. In those days, they say culture is passed from generation to generation but today, culture is not passed from generation to generation. Now, it is passed through social media and traditional media. You don’t wait for another generation; you do your own thing based on what you see. How are we influencing that?
Those countries that are beautiful today, that are celebrating beauty have policies that ensure that certain things work. Those policies are embedded in their lifestyle and behaviour. We cannot talk about Nigeria’s image without talking about how we function as a society. Someone came up with a campaign about the change subject. You cannot change a man from just saying ‘stop doing that’.
There are things you need to do consistently that will make it work. PR practitioners in this case need to develop a blueprint for the government to consider in the process of laying the frameworks for managing the country’s image. We need to come together and realise that we are all equal.
What can be done to raise the bar of the profession?
For me, we can only encourage people to create more time for self-improvement and self-development. The law is there that says you have to do this and that. But in doing that, the law will not tell you to go for courses or attend seminars. In essence, you have to engage in things that will enhance professionalism.
Your agency just clocked eight years, kindly share some of your success stories?
For me, eight years is a milestone. Some people say it is a new beginning and some say it is a new era – the end of and the commencement of another. But for me, every year is worth celebrating and our primary desire is to be seen and known as the best organization in public relations. Our hope is that, from the point of strategy thinking to the possible execution we will be relevant to our stakeholders, our partners as well as the end users of our offerings.
We have worked with beautiful and great brands. All jobs, all clients and all we do with people are very important such as the launch of close up 8. We gave life to Pepsodent into the Nigerian market. It was fantastic for us because today, everybody uses Pepsodent. We put together series of activities to position Pepsodent in the market. We put together one thousand dental practitioners to march against cavity. Though, we went through some interesting challenges in trying to get the strategies right for consumers to have a mind shift towards the brand.
Again, we were privileged to work with another agency on Power Holding Company. That job took us to Hong Kong, UK and the US. It was a great job for us. We are actually as good as our last job. So, we have tried as much as possible to throw in our best to every client that has come in contact with us.
Working on Spectranet and Total are also interesting, so all the brands come with something unique to address and that is the exciting part of the work.
What is your projection for the industry in next five years?
I see knowledge growing more in the industry. I see partnership growing a lot among advertising, public relations and activation agencies. I foresee a situation that, one day the industry will merge with the other ones because at the end of the day, what we are all doing is communication. It is just a classification when we say marketing communication.
In South Africa, the advertising and public relations industries are under one body. If I work with you as a business and I want to engage your stakeholders, ultimately, there will be a need for certain things like advertising. So, I have to grow skills and invest in that area.
I see a lot in the future where our path will continue to cross then, eventually, the regulators will wake up and say, why don’t we have one body that will oversee all the industries. The sub regulators will be in existence but they will still report to the overall regulator. If we have one body that is overseeing everything, at the end of the day we are likely to be better in managing the entire communication industry. That is my humble submission on the future of the industry.
