“Clients need to give PR companies the freehand to do something creative”.
H+K Strategies Nigeria CEO, Tokunboh George Taylor
In recent times, Hill & Knowlton has been one of the outstanding PR agencies in Nigeria. It has defied the many challenges that has plagued the PR industry in the country and maintained a consistent growth trajectory by winning lucrative briefs, including Visa, Canon and LaLiga, which it started working on last November. Tokunboh George-Taylor who has led the agency through this growth phase reflects on why the agency remains strong and why advertisers need to trust PR agencies more.
How would you assess H&K’s performance so far this year, seeing the first quarter is almost gone?
I think our performance has been good. I feel more companies are realizing the importance of PR to enhance their brands. So we have kept the clients that we had and obviously we are also growing, we are stretching ourselves, seeking newer opportunities and shaping relationships.
You said your performance has improved, is it in terms of billing or brand portfolio?
You can’t look at your billings alone; you also have to look at the brand portfolio and the kind of clients that you are servicing. We have expanded our clientele base across different sectors. For example,this year we have done a lot more work for clients in the financial space compared to other years, we have also grown our ICT and entertainment clientele and also we work now work for SMEs, individuals and large corporate. Therefore, it is important to measure growth based on all billable, currentportfolio and the quality of clients.
In trying to diversify your portfolio, did you have to beef up your competences?
Not reallybecause the competences needed for PR are pretty much what we already have in house, I believe we have some of the most fantastic hands in the industry in terms of experience and competency. However, We have had to embrace digital PR a little moreas we have realized that many clients are reaching out to us for more work in that space.
What component of your operation is digital?
Everything is digital now because all news come up online. So you have to balance print with online. Almost all print publications have online versions. We are speaking to more blogs, we have various influencer programs, video marketing is now so prominent, social media (Twitter and Instagram) have become feedback and engagement platforms. We are embracing it all and incorporating it into our operations on a daily basis.
Could you shed some more light on your digital offerings? That seems to be one area where the PR agencies are yet to catch up with other arm of the IMC?
There is nothing you want to do with regards PR that wouldn’t need digital. You issue a press release it goes online. When you start a campaign, you engage influencers. You engage them with the type of content they should be producing. We actually generate a lot of content to suit the online platforms that we use. If you take a campaign and you want to reach a certain demographic, you engage the influencers and educate them about the product or services.
It seem like the PR agencies in Nigeria needed some nudging before they could embrace digital?
I disagree with that notion. Digital adoption is a gradual process and the Nigerian PR scene has been through several transformation and since most campaigns and work done is based on KPIs it is understandable that it has taken some agencies longer than others to embrace digital. It is important to note that there is no campaign without digital in the new age and many agencies have already embraced digital PR.
Yes, a lot of them have embrace digital, but five years ago, not many of them had digital competences even though digital was already mainstream?
Access to data then was not what it is today. Data is getting cheaper by the day. I don’t think we should focus on what we didn’t do in the past. Let’s focus on what we are doing now. If we didn’t do it then, we are doing it now.
H&K is a global agency with a Nigerian office. How do you adapt your campaigns to suit the expectations of the Nigerian audience?
First of all we are all Nigerians in this office. Some of us have international exposure, but we are all Nigerians. This is our market. This is our media. We are international and totally local at the same time. Being a foreign company doesn’t mean we do things in a foreign way. We do things in Nigeria for Nigerians. Yes, we might have new methods of doing things that come from foreign office, but they can only enhance the way we do our work.
But what advantages does it confer on you, over your competitors?
First of all we have access to so many resources. We have access to global clients. Most clients that come into Africa want to work with one agency across the markets, like South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria. Guess what, we have offices in all those places, instead of them looking for an agency in Kenya and South Africa, they can actually work with H&K to unify offerings. So we offer that advantage for clients. Even for clients in Nigeria that want to go into other markets, again we can assist because we have offices there.
How would you benchmark the performance of the Nigeria PR industry with the global PR industry?
To be quite honest, the Nigerian PR landscape has gone 360 degree in the last 10years. That is why people are appreciating us more. I think the Nigerian PR landscape is more visible now, because we are complimenting the integrated marketing communications approach. You will see more PR agencies doing campaigns. So we have gone past just issuing press releases. We now do bigger campaigns that people can feel. So the industry has really grown in the last 10 years.
But there still exist a big gap between the Nigerian PR industry and the global PR, in terms of adaptation of technology, creativity etc.?
I differ. I think we have a lot of creativity in the PR market here. I think again, you will see a lot of PR agencies in Nigeria winning awards for the campaigns that they have done. I don’t think there is anything they are doing differently that we are not doing.
If that is the case, why do clients still trust more in their advertising agency for brand building initiatives than they do PR?
That is because they don’t understand the difference between advertising and PR. That is why we keep educating people that PR, advertising and marketing even though they are closely related they are completely different. Most people don’t know what PR is. That is the honest truth. Maybe it’s because the PR people are often times reluctant to come up with the big ideas and they live it up to the advertising agencies to do that.
PR people come up with a lot of creative ideas too to make news. The creativity in advertising is more of the campaign idea, but in PR you develop a lot of creative ideas for campaigns. There is also the issue of clients short handing PR, clients need to give the PR companies the freehand to do something creative.
So why are they not doing that?
I think we just have to be bold enough to convince our clients.
Does that not just suggest that the PR agencies themselves are not bold enough to come up with big creative ideas?
Sometimes the PR agencies come up with these ideas but the clients have to imbibe it.
Why are they scared to devote big budgets to PR like they do for advertising and activation and even digital agencies?
It’s the lack of understanding of what PR can do.
So whose fault is it?
It’s about educating the society that PR can help build brand loyalty, because PR at the end of the day is earned media not paid media. And people believe more in earned media, so they just have to be a lot bolder. And if you look at it, a lot of the FMCGs are doing a lot of these campaigns because they are targeting the consumers. If you look at all the FMCG brands they do big PR campaigns and they do it year in year out.
Giving that the industry is evolving at a fast pace, what do the PR agencies need to do to remain relevant and find new growth opportunities going forward?
You have constantly redefine yourselves. Imbibe digital in everything and everyway. And you have to be storytellers and content creators. You must also know the right content to reach your audience on.
Recently, H&K Nigeria won the LaLiga account, what strategy did you adopt to win the pitch contest?
H&K as a whole is strong in sports, amongst other things. And I think when a lot of people are looking for an agency, they are not looking for the quantity of coverage, they are looking at the quality of coverage, they are looking at processes of reporting, they are looking at monitoring and evaluation and being a global organization, we tick the box on all these requirements.
How much work have you done on the account so far?
We have been working with them since last year November and we have done a lot of work in getting them share of voice in the market. Nigeria is a football country, so they want people to know a lot about them, about their game. We have been able to increase their share of voce and promote their game and individual players, especially Nigerians that play for them. We are trying to educate Nigerians that it is not just Real Madrid and Barcelona that play in LaLiga, there are other clubs.
Why is LaLiga so much interested in Nigeria such that they will hire a PR agency?
As I mentioned earlier, football is national pride in Nigeria and LaLiga wants to reach out to football fans in Nigeria to communicate the unique experiences available in LaLiga and how it is more than just football.
Because they know we love football and we have the population.
The EPL is a monster in Nigeria, so it’s a huge challenge for you?
There is competition in every business. So you can’t just say because your competitors are big so you give up. LaLiga has some if the best players in the world, evidenced by the number of world footballer of the year awards and European trophies and we are here to communicate those unique statistics.
How would you rate your performance against your competitors in Nigeria?
Unfortunately I would not access my performance, I let others do that. However, I would like to say that the industry is constantly evolving and I would rather campaign the PR industry than compare and I feel the industry is in a state of upward trajectory.
Then how would you assess yourself to know if you are doing well or not?
As an agency we have a target we work towards, so that is how we measure our performance. Everybody’s target is different. Our target is to provide quality PR, quality communication services to our key clients.
Who are your key clients?
Some of our clients include Visa, Procter and Gamble, Canon, LaLiga, Cisco, OVH Energy and Eko Atlantic City.
In working for these clients there is a lot of demand for quality talents. How do you attract these talents and retain them?
Because we are a global agency, we get people coming to us, so that helps us. We retain talents we also send our staff for training at other H&K offices globally.
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