Getting accurate measure of PR investments is a global challenge, says APRA boss
President of African Public Relation Association (APRA), Yomi Badejo-Okunsanya has identified lack of means of determining accurate measure of investments in Public Relations and putting value to contributions of the profession in business growth as a major challenge facing practitioners in Nigeria.
Already, stakeholders in the profession at both local and international levels are presently putting heads together to proffer solutions on how to address the perennial data challenge with a view to moving the profession forward.
Badejo-Okunsanya, who appeared as personality guest at Marketing Edge on TV programme aired on TVC noted, however, that the data challenge was not strictly a Nigerian problem after all, but rather a global issue, adding that in Nigeria, PRCAN, the umbrella body of public relations consultants was meeting with a view to addressing the problem.
“The greatest challenge we have is determining what the value is that we bring to the table, that is, how we can justify the value that we bring to the table. So many times we find a situation whereby people don’t seem to know what we bring to the table.
“What we deliver is a kind of an intangible and it’s neither easily understood nor determined. So a lot of people feel that Public Relations practitioners or departments take money and don’t add money,” he said.
The veteran public relations practitioner who doubles as Group Managing Director at CMC Connect, a foremost Public Relations and Perception Management Company, offered fresh insights as to why multi-national client companies in Nigeria continued to trim down on PR and Marketing communications budgets.
According to him, clients companies were cutting down on PR and marketing communication budgets, and it was across the board. The trend he said was fallout of the state of recession in the Nigerian economy, adding that clients naturally would cut down marketing budgets, when they fall short of making significant profits.
“We all agree that technically there is a reduction in budget across the board. I am sure if I ask you at TVC you will probably tell me your advertising revenue has kind of declined, so it’s across the board and if the clients are not declaring significant profit or results it’s bound to affect our business.
“The economy was in a recession. It’s coming out of recession and 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 every aspect of the economy. The truth of the matter is that when there is a recession the first budget that is trimmed is promotions, publicity, and corporate image, even marketing and sales to some extent. Some clients are even closing shop.
“So, if you ask me, the only people who are smiling to the bank are the banks. When we look at those huge humongous profits that they declare every quarter, every half year and end of the year, you realise that really there is something wrong. If the economy is not growing, how come then they themselves are growing, so somebody is robbing Peter to Pay Paul,” Badejo-Okusanya explained.
Assessing current developments and trends Nigeria’s Public Relations industry sphere, especially the digital transformation process, the APRA boss observed that it was absolutely wrong to assume that digital was a replacement for PR.
He explained that the digital was only a necessary tool in the hand of PR practitioners towards achieving better goals over and above the traditional or analogue means of doing things.
“What we’ve done is that we’ve engaged digital to see how we can improve the services or the delivery of Public Relations in the public space. And there are other forms of things. How do we engage digital and get precise measurements? How can we be more accurate in our planning with tools like Artificial Intelligence? And I would say that it has improved significantly the service of Public Relations,” he noted.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Comment
No comments found.