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At Book Launch, Practitioners Canvas New Ways Of Doing PR

By Shaibu Husseini
07 February 2016   |   3:56 am
THE need for Public Relations practitioners to help the public understand the profession through education and publicity was emphasized by most guest speakers at Friday’s formal presentation of a book ‘Nigeria PR report 2015’ at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.
PR-Report

Mr. John Ehiguese (left); Mrs. Nkechi Ali-Balogun; Yomi Badejo-Okunsanya; Ayeni Adekunle; Moji Saka and singer Dara Art Alade at the presentation of Nigeria PR Report at Ikeja last Friday… in Lagos

THE need for Public Relations practitioners to help the public understand the profession through education and publicity was emphasized by most guest speakers at Friday’s formal presentation of a book ‘Nigeria PR report 2015’ at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.

Speaker after speaker at the well attended presentation of the 93-paged book published by Black House Media (BHM) Research and Intelligence stressed the need for PR practitioners to be more creative in their business development drive and to be more interested in outcomes rather than output as clients globally are more interested in outcome of PR campaigns than in the content of the campaign. ‘’We need to start rethinking the practice of PR in Nigeria. We need to re-evaluate the structures of PR and be more interested in sharing information and data gathering’’ said Yomi Badejo-Okunsanya, Managing Director of CMC Connect/Burson-Marstellar who commended BHM for the idea of the PR report which he said ‘have put the Public Relations profession in Nigeria on the world map’.

President of the Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) Mr. John Ehiguese described the book as a worthy and valuable contribution and a useful resource material. ‘’One thing this report has done is to affirm that the PR industry is not in a state of decline as roundly perceived. We at PRCAN consider this publication a great service to the PR industry ’’ he said.

Earlier the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BHM Group Ayeni Adekunle Samuel had stated that the goal of Nigeria’s PR Report which he said was inspired by the World PR Report otherwise called the Holmes Report is to draw attention to the state of PR practice in Nigeria and to produce annual analyses that will provide insights into tools, trends, campaigns and issues that the PR industry should pay attention to. ‘’We can never be able to tell the real situation of the industry except through annual surveys and genuine data from the agencies themselves. We have yearly been excluded from the World Report on PR because of the lack of information on our industry. This is the gap we intend to fill with this report which we have prepared for use by agencies, students, regulatory bodies and researchers and it is going to be annual going further’’ he said.

Reputed as the first ever published report of the Public Relations industry in Nigeria, the Nigeria PR Report is divided into four parts. Part one examines the state of public relations in Nigeria with a special focus on how practitioners view the practice of PR and advertising. Part one also focused on a campaign that was anchored by BHM on whether PR was dead and the deductions from the campaign. Part two was devoted to a report on the state of the PR industry in Nigeria.

It detailed indexes like revenue, average PR budget, most sought after services in 2014 and 2015, challenges and opportunities. There are also suggestions for improving the Nigerian PR industry. The other parts of the book provided insights into the operations of regulatory bodies like the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) and the Public Relations Consultancy Association of Nigeria. There are also graphic highlights of the Nigeria PR report and a directory of PR agencies in Nigeria.

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