In yet another initiative to boost the capacity of Public Relations practitioners in the country, the Public Relations Consultants ‘Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) has kick-started a new knowledge sharing series known as the PRCAN Monthly Breakfast Meeting where experts from the clients’ side are invited to share current trends with external consultants.
The maiden edition of the Monthly Breakfast Meeting was hosted recently at Adna Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, with the Corporate Affairs Adviser, Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc, Mr. Kufre Ekanem, being the first guest speaker, shared insights on what the expectations of typical clients were from their Public Relations consultants.
President of PRCAN, John Ehiguese while explaining the rationale behind the initiative, said the breakfast meeting was in furtherance of the commitment of the association to boost the capacity of Public Relations consultants in Nigeria so that they could better understand the clients’ point of view and thereby manage their expectations better.
He said: “Often times we find that the relationship between us as consultants and clients that we work for is not quite as it should be. Sometimes we have challenges managing our clients. I think that the cause of this is that we don’t empathise enough; we don’t understand enough the point of view of the person who is within the organisation. Most times things that drive them are different from things that drive us as external parties looking into the organisations from outside.’’
Ehiguese added that, “the whole idea of this breakfast meeting is to create a platform for people on the client side to come and share with us as consultants the way they see the relationship, their expectations from consultants and their concerns, so that we can learn from each other.”
In his presentation titled, ‘Culture: The Next PR Frontier’, the highly respected Ekanem said PR practitioners must raise the bar of excellence because in today’s highly competitive market, the kind of Public Relations consultants that clients are looking for are those that can develop and implement PR programmes that can help them break cultural barriers.
“In other words, the PR consultant must be able to achieve five things for the clients. These five things are PR that: hints, explains, liaises, permeates and sells. The PR must tell a good story of what the target consumers should expect, and explain clearly what the brand will do for them. It must also be able to liaise, that is connect with them; break down concerns, issues, obstacles that consumers may have or anticipate and ultimately sell the brand”, he said.
Source : Independent