Rosemary Egabor: Ready to explode with Urban 10

Rosemary Emesomiade Egabor is the CEO of Urban 10 Hub Limited, a fast growing public relations firm. In this interview with Guardian Woman, she explains what it takes to build a good public image and why she loves the Naija brand.

Shortly after the New Year, Princess Rosemary Emesomiade Egabor, the last daughter of his highness, George Oshiapi Egabor, the Okumagbe of Weppa Wanno Kingdom in Edo State, took selected media practitioners to an upscale restaurant in Lekki, Lagos, for media hangout, from that moment, the fair complexion lady etched herself in the minds of journalists present.

After quitting her job as client service manager at QuadrantMSL, the CEO of Urban 10 Hub Limited, a public relations consultancy firm that has been connecting her clientele to the media, giving organisations and brands necessary buzz through quality material and online campaigns, she says, “I’m inspired to do more.”

How did she prepare for this?
Her eyes roving like that of an eagle, she says, “a couple of years ago, I worked at NN24 as a marketer in charge of adverts and sponsorship and handled a bit of public relations for the station.”

She pauses, breathing excitedly, “it was different working at NN24. All reporters and presenters went through extensive training, the presentation style was different, brown envelope was a ‘no go area’, and we were just doing things differently. It was a thing of pride to say I worked at NN24. We were highly respected, but unfortunately, the TV station went under. It was the first time in Nigeria that we had a TV station broadcasting news 24 hours a day, a station that was determined to be different by being objective with its news and telling both sides of a story, a station that refused to align itself with any political party, for me, I was proud to be part of the team that drove that vision. Its entry was a game changer, good competition for the broadcast media.”

From NN24, she went into full public relations working with QuadrantMSL, where she managed multinational brands such as, Google, Microsoft, Dell, Coca-Cola, Unilever, PMI and others. It was while working in client services that the idea of media hangout came to her.

“I had opportunity to interact with media personalities (OAPs, editors, presenters) on a daily basis, I became close to some of them and listened to their complaints, and discovered that their challenges were lack of resources to carry out their duties, little or no salary, foreign media getting exclusivity to important stories and training, unfortunately, brands also had their complains about the media, it was either their stories were not properly transcribed and reported, media statements were poorly written poorly and reports were not investigated, and I thought to myself that the media needed an initiative that brings together personalities across all platforms to network and discuss issues faced in the industry and seek for possible collaborations to solve them,” she says.

She continues, “it is an initiative driven with the passion to change the negative perceptions about the Nigerian media, through training of journalists in partnerships with educational institutions, social media campaigns to educate media personalities and involve them in daily discussions.”

For Egabor, the mediahangoutng, an initiative of Urban10 Hub Limited, is not just another networking platform, “we are addressing key issues. We envision a time when all Nigerian journalists will be proud of who they are and what they do, so that the sentence is it because I’m a journalist shouldn’t be in their vocabulary.”

Born in Lagos, Rosemary had her primary education at Chrisland Primary School, Ladipo, and later went to Chrisland College for her secondary education. She attended Covenant University, Ota, where she studied marketing. She is currently running a postgraduate programme in Media & Communication at the Pan Atlantic University.

The Weppa Wanno princess says, “it is only when the Nigerian media becomes one and each platform not seeing itself as an independent entity, can issues be addressed more effectively.”

So far, two events have been organised, the first was in partnership with Primi Piatti Restaurant, where 70 media people were hosted. “The management of Primi Piatti were kind enough to give us their venue for free, because they understood what we were trying to accomplish,” she explains.

According to her, “it was an opportunity for newspapers editors, radio personalities, bloggers and TV presenters to sit down together and have healthy discussion on their profession. Sincerely, funding was the problem, but because of the passion, we funded other items from our personal pockets. We also celebrated Women’s Day by hosting 10 media women to a spa session in partnership with Oasis Medspa.”

Recently, her outfit launched a media campaign online with the hashtag #iamthenigerianmedia. The campaign was part of Urban 10’s commitment to promoting professionalism in the media industry and influencing the younger generation of journalists. The campaign engaged the media community to discuss issues in the industry from poor reportage, zero investigative journalism, high level of illiteracy, news falsehood in social media, social media used as a tool for attack, job security, and thereafter, proffer solutions.

She adds, “getting the media personalities to feel free to discuss their challenges openly online, hosting the media personalities without sponsors and getting educational institutions to offer their training services for free are major challenges. One major problem we picked out was lack of insurance for media; no journalist will agree to go in to Sambisa when his life isn’t insured.”

The campaign was also set out to educate upcoming journalists on the rules that guide the profession, to make the Nigerian journalist see reasons why he should be proud of what he is doing and see collection of brown envelopes as a degrading act to the profession.

To achieve this, 20 selected media personalities across platforms were chosen to educate the upcoming about what their job entails and challenges, so people do not get in to journalism for the wrong reasons.

“The interviews, which are on all our social media platforms, gave the personalities opportunities to air their views about the state of the industry and proffer their independent solutions,” she says.

A believer in the Naija brand, Rosemary says, “Nigeria is such an interesting place, very rich in culture, and there are so many stories to tell about the country, especially, to the outside world. Foreigners know little about Nigeria, because they see negative stories on foreign media platforms and so it is the responsibility of the Nigerian media to tell the positives of our country with support from the PR practitioners.”

She says as part of the vision for Nigerian media, “we will be offering a lot of free trainings for media practitioners, by partnering with educational institutions and using well-experienced journalists to train the young ones. We are partnering with Poise School of Communication to train journalists on business etiquette for media professionals, understanding thinking styles in communication (Emotional Intelligence) and delivering difficult messages and managing perceptions (tact and diplomacy).”

The training will help professionals build confidence, inter-personal skills, strong relationships and prevent misgivings with important stakeholders. “Considering that media practitioners are called in for both local and international events that are very important, the training will help enhance their cross-cultural sensitivity and professionalism,” she says.

As a young entrepreneur running a growing PR company, she says it is wrong for people to think PR is no longer relevant. “As the world evolves, you will only notice that the platforms used by PR companies have changed, but the profession hasn’t. Earned media today still has a great impact on brands and corporate image. A full page feature article some years ago carried a lot of weight and still does today, but an article placed in an online platform will carry more weight depending on which is used, because there’s an opportunity for it to be tweeted and retweeted, stories can be shared with friends which means more eyes reading the article.”

She adds, “PR companies use bloggers and influencers now to create awareness, so, if your brand is targeted towards the young group be sure your story will trend, especially, if the content is good. Even the usual media statements by many are still good PR tool, but the problem is most organisations request for press releases when they have little to say. For a press release to be effective, you must have something concrete to say, visual is very important not like what we see now. What about extending the release to online platforms.”

She continues, “so, if you look at it, PR is a part of our everyday lives, PR companies just need to advise their clients on the most effective platforms to use depending on their target audience and what their campaign stands to achieve. An article I read said PR tells and advertising sells, which is true.”

So, let’s go a bit social, what is fashion to you?
“Seriously, fashion is anything simple (pants and a nice top), comfortable and quality. I’m not a die hard for big fashion names. You can never find me wearing a crop top. My bag and jewelries are favourite fashion pieces.” 

Rosemary’s fashion icon is Jennifer Lopez. “If she isn’t on the red carpet, she’s quite simple, nice pants/jeans with a nice top and she still looks gorgeous.”

Her favourite author is Sidney Sheldon. And now, she is reading Master of the Game. “A very old novel. I’ve read it four times, and I’m reading it again.”This afternoon, after spending hours talking to Rosemary, I couldn’t but agree she’s ready to explode with Urban 10.