Cheap Philantropy As Publicity Stunt Is Mischievous - 2008-06-23

With the rising challenges in marketing communications as indicated by the clustering of the marketing place, Public Relations has continued to take on more relevance especially as it is seen by experts as a tool for dialogue with the consumers and hence the credible source of business to consumer communications. Phil Osagie, CEO/Head Consultant, JSP Communications Ltd, a Public Relations firm, takes on various issues as they affect PR and businesses in general in this part of the world. He speaks to M2’s team of O'Lekan Babatunde and Ofuma Agali.

In view of the current development in the global market, what role is PR taking now?

Well, let us first define what the global developments are. The good thing we are seeing now is that Nigeria is rapidly being embraced into the supposedly global village we have been hearing about for so long. And Nigeria has been so compelled to play the way the world play. We have strategic department plans for Nigeria to be among top twenty economies. It means that our economy has to be as large as that of Belgium, for instance. If we could play along these lines, there are so many systems and structures and infrastructure we must put in place not just in terms of government and general infrastructures, but also in terms of things generally and the way the business is done. So, I believe we have taken the right course.

The challenge for business is that business is compelled too often to play differently. Fortunately or unfortunately, Nigeria is still largely a sellers market and competition is targeted at its peak. Competition is not fully ripe yet. You know, there are still several monopolistic tendencies. There are also new modes of fair practices. There are still signs of underdevelopment and signs that the economy is developing. But the trend and the direction are clear and strong, such that we are going to play it the way the world plays it. And that means we are going to play it the way it is best, the way the most developed countries play it.

Going back to our industry-PR, advertising and communications-what the clients are out to see is a kind of competitive strategy. When they get to Europe and America and see things there, they expect to see the same things in Nigeria. The clients that we are having now are those that are naturally inquisitively demanding. They are just simply used to the best. You know, certainly the best is normal. It is no big deal. So more and more Nigerian players are going to think along this line whereby we must start seeing the best as normal. So that is how it is. That is just my quick definition of global trends and how I see things going now. So it is a very interesting development. The good part of it is that if you are able to play along this line, if you are able to allow your service, if you are ready to push yourself up to deliver along this factors then you just know that the market will not contain you. However, if you are not able to play along this line, if you are not able to deliver those services to people at best practice and at such high quality standards, over time, you are going to be driven out of the market. The, market will sort itself out and as more and more shortcomings come up for change, it is going to be very difficult for players. The Nigerian market is so big and so robust that there is still room for more players, but I see a situation whereby in both advertising and PR, 80% of the meaningful business will be run by 20% of the service providers. That is what I foresee.

You mentioned something like monopolistic tendencies and those who are not actually playing according to the rules. How does this effect PR?

For me, I hear a lot of stuff about underhand practices. I hear a lot of it. But I still believe that when you are able to provide full, outstanding world class services, you rise above that. That is what I feel. That is what I see. But for us, the road to overcome that is to be sure that that does not affect us. And I believe that is how a good professional should be. As a good professional, it does not matter who the referee is, how the referee is, it does not matter how he feels before he begins to strike-you just drop it there. But those practices do exist. You cannot run away from the vibe. I hear about it a lot in the industry. And the way to over come it is that as a good professional, you have to define your own rule, set your own standards, set your own benchmark of excellence and best practices. You define it over time, the client that picks that will naturally gravitate to you. The clients that do not will naturally gravitate away from you. That is the way it is.

Now if you are looking at the businesses today, what would you say about the quality of human resources or manpower that we have at present?

In terms of manpower, we are not where we should be yet. What makes the industry thrive is just the quality of its people. The smarter PR practitioners are, the more intellectual they are, the more conscious they are, the more public driven they are, the more they can balance even the their position of service and the better they will be appreciated by client.  PR practitioners must have the ability to match their clients intellectually. Because, again in developed market the clients depend on the consultancy for direction, for advice, for strategy and for development. The client and the consultancy depend on each other. So, for the clients to thrive, it really depends on the agency. And the same thing has to happen in our market place. But right now, there is a bit of scarcity of expert manpower. I would say, it is not available in large numbers. That is why if you probably look at the top PR agencies, they are probably a handful. You can actually count them all. And that is because in the game, there is scarcity of skilled manpower. So it is not just about having PR agencies. The course of goal you have determines the course of service that you give. So there is a scarcity and we are hoping that in the next few years, that will change and improve. But right now that is not what it is. It is still scarce. And I believe that if we have more PR professionals, if we have more experience and intelligence, that will be delivered into the market eventually.

 Those are the fundamentals of the business. Just turn your mind to that direction. Anybody that sets his mind to greatness is already half way there, in my view. But it is just for people to begin to set their mind to greatness and for engaging young people coming up to look at what is worth doing to get to that form of greatness. There is an urgent need for us to come closer to our people and ensure that we have a constant, a steady stream of suppliers of top PR people.

Companies have been accused of using cheap philanthropy as CRS and then they generate huge publicity out of this. How can there be a balance between philanthropy, publicity honest CRS?

Also a very good question. I just do not give up to people who defile the strategy. If you have seen the direction you want to go, then follow it. If, for example, I want to be seen as environmental friendly company, because that is how I want to be projected I would want the whole world to know. Maybe I have campaigned that people should check global warming. So what I do in my own effort to plan awareness in that direction helps the whole company. So if I draw attention, I want everybody to know, because the more awareness I create for environmental protection and global warming, more the people will know about it. So that is why. However, it is one more thing to say that I am giving something to motherless babies home, I will not call that CSR, that is just donation. This is also compulsory. It is still responsible because it is also corporate social responsibility. That is helping people who are helpless. So it is socially responsible. It is now the responsibility of PR to ensure that they do not trumpet. A token and you go trumpeting. That is a mischief. However, if you give several tokens consistently, everyday, then you can do the trumpeting. But the token does not justify your trumpeting. So that is where the PR person has to really stress upon and ensure that maybe the trumpeting should be in only one paper. Can you do a series of things as you did this? That is why PR has to play their role, and like everything else, CSR must reflect genuineness. There must be a nature of sincerity. The public will see through it over time. If there is not, they will also see through it. They will just say look at these guys. If there is a notion of sincerity, they themselves will go about talking about it. People will talk about it that this company is really kind. So a genuine CSR must be based on a sincere desire to uplift the standard of living of the community it operates in. That is the underlying principle of CSR. So that is not what a company is doing, then it is very cosmetic, and its not going to be sustainable over a long time.

What will you say is the role of the PR associations like FAPRA and NIPR? And how well have they played these roles?

Well the role of FAPRA and NIPR in my view is to create an enabling environment for the industry. Part of that is to come up with general training, come up with lobbying government, making sure that PR is on its forefront of the thinking of the industry. Definitely, they have a greater responsibility of ensuring that this industry that we practice in is dominated by people who understand the business and whatever role they can play to enhance skills and they must be ready to do that.  They have too many items on their agenda. I am not sure training and development would be a comfort. So in my view, I think that training and development is too important a function to leave in the hands of the association. The PR agency that is smart will see it as a bonus, will take advantage of it but must not depend on it. That is how I see it. It is just too bad now.

Does that mean they do not have the know-how especially as similar associations abroad focus more on training and development? And how does JSP manage this?

I think it calls for a complete rethink in terms of every organization defining its own priorities. Like I said, NIPR and FAPRA have so much in their crafts. They have so many things to grapple with. They have the industry to regulate, they have issues with government, like government irregularities and the way it should be. They are also concerned about whether there are PR agencies that should not be there, whether there are over hand practices, and if there is anything they can do. So they have so many questions to fix. They have many potatoes on their plates. This is why I am not sure they will have the resources or the time to give training the attention it deserves. So, again, that is just inevitable. That is why again the responsibility now rests on the practitioners themselves and the PR agencies themselves. Infact, you can improve your skills by 15-20 percent every year, so there is some kind of criteria. Some of our other criteria are how you provided value to the agency; how you provided value for the clients, how have you developed yourself? Those are the two scopes we look at. So if you have a goal, you will discover that everybody should develop at the end of the year. At the end of the month, you must say I have improved. If you are able to do that, if you are able to grow by 50% percent every year. Minimum. In five years time, you can double your business. We have to be always positive that our growth is going to be tied to the expansion of our human resources because again, it is a good business. My business will still expand, because the business is there to be taken, the market place is full of opportunities. There are so many businesses out there but it takes skilled mind set for you to see that. So we have 10 clients and we have very ambitious growth target. We prefer to grow our clients business by say 50 percent or by 100 percent than acquire 10 more clients. So if our turnover is X amount, if I want to double it, I prefer the increase comes from growing the existing clients. And how do you do that? You try and get some business and bring home some ideas also. What can a client do to improve his business? Because the more profitable the client is the better for you. If you got an idea and help the client save the money, you help the client and in the same process you also make money. But the purpose of coming up with an idea for a client is not for you to make money. The purpose is for you to find out how you can improve the client's business, how do you make his life better and how you can put the money in accurate environment for them. So that is why people are so crucial. That is why we have to come to make substantial investment, stable development and in fact keep passing it down the line. There must be a developmental plan. We believe that anybody that comes in here must be the person that has a potential in him to become a CEO. So we believe that no matter who you are, you develop yourself, you improve, and you have it. Everybody must grow their potential. That is it. I feel that our industry is gradually moving in that direction whereby players are looking at the possibility of acquiring more people and train more people. It is all about experimenting with expertise? You can grow expertise so we prefer the mission of growth because we lean more towards growing expertise. That is the way you can just improve the total offering available.

Quite recently, there is this school of thought that came up with the position that it is not proper for the TV and radio houses to always charge for what they call “business news” What is your position on this?

I will give you a yes and no answer. Let me start with the 'no' answer. Ideal PR is unpaid for communication, so the fact that the TV and radio stations charge for news defeats one of the fundamental principles of Public Relations. So that is what it should be-unpaid form of communication. So genuine news should be portrayed, it should be good. It should be genuinely newsworthy. TV and radio stations should actually be begging you for that news, if it is really a genuine news story. As long as it is something new, as long as it is a new trend or something spectacular, it is news. The challenge that TV and radio have is under funding of some of the TV stations in the past. Now they are getting better. But just because of the under funding, they are compelled to look for other means to supplement their income. So it is not a healthy development. TV and radio stations must still be able to see through what is genuinely news worthy. And be willing to carry this news even if it is not paid for. That is the challenge. That is why some do not pay for it. They just feel it is not alright even though it is not under the table trading, but it is straight forward, on the table, free of charge. They do not just sometimes feel comfortable with it. So, I think the radio and TV stations must be able to strike a balance. Yet, they need resources to cover the whole, but they still have to make continuous efforts to sift through and find truly genuine newsworthy event and actually seek to cover it.

Now looking at the ideal situation, do you think this will in one way or the other affect their own listenership or audience whom they see as the public?

Yes, eventually, the public or the consumer is smarter in all sectors, both among industries, TV audiences, radio audiences, industry audiences, and customers. The customer is smarter than the industry itself and eventually, you pick on 50 customers across the market, in the long term, you will pay for it. You can cheat me now and get away with it but you cannot do so for long. Which is why for example in some products, you can reduce its size a bit, you can change the quality a bit, you do something that saves money, you just do some little things, then you think the customers does not notice. The customers will not notice in the short run, but in the long run, the customers will notice and you will pay for it. So it happens in all industries. Which is why companies that will do well must continue to invest in keeping the price the way you keep the product. So with TV and radio stations, the same thing happens. Take for example, the radio. So many stations are heavy on commercials. That is my view point. There are just too many commercials and it defeats the purpose of radio. And there are few listeners due to that fact. That this how eventually, they will pay for it.