APRA, PRCAN initiate move to determine Public Relations business value
The African Public Relations Association (APRA) alongside its Nigerian counterpart, Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) have initiated independent moves with the objective to determine the specific value and contribution of public relation functions to business growth and development.
Specifically, the two regional regulatory bodies have constituted working committees to re-examine and possibly work out modalities on how to effectively communicate the value addition by PR practitioners’ business development
Giving indications to the effect recently was APRA’s President, Yomi Badejo – Okusanya, while speaking at Marketing Edge on TV programme televised by TV Continental.
“When you say that you are a journalist and I say what ‘is the evidence of your journalism’, you probably would show this program, you could show a Newspaper and so on and so forte. If I am an advertising practitioner, I’ll show you what things I put in the Newspaper, I’ll show you what I have on the billboards, I’ll show you my jingle, I’ll show you my TV commercial and so on.
“But what we deliver is kind of an intangible and it’s not easily understood, nor determined, the value that we bring to the table. So, a lot of people feel that Public Relations practitioners or departments, they take money and they don’t add money, as against marketing for instance,” he said.
“But the truth of the matter is that a journalist is trained to report what he knows or what he sees. We as Public Relations practitioners are strategic communication experts, it goes beyond what you see, we tell a compelling story, we help to shape reputation and manage reputation. So it’s different from you just reporting, what you are seeing. So, selling our business value is the biggest challenge we have,” he added.
Badejo Okusanya who also is Group Managing Director at CMC Connect, foremost Public Relations and Perception Management Company in Nigeria, however, gave fresh insights as to why it is that multi-national companies in country continued to trim down on their PR and communications budget.
“The economy was in a recession, it’s coming out the of recession, it’s not growing as fast as we expect, perhaps we will be lucky if it grows by 1.5 or something this year, so it’s bound to affect. The truth of the matter is that when there is a recession the first budget that is trimmed is promotions, publicity, corporate image, even marketing and sales to some extent, some clients are even closing shop,” he explained.
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