The Chief Executive Officer of Chain Reactions Africa, Mr. Israel Jaiye Opayemi has advocated the fusion of the regulators of advertising and public relations in the country to reflect the increasing convergence of advertising and public relations professions.
While featuring on C-Suite Café, a podcast hosted by seasoned journalist and bestselling author, Mr. Ikem Okuhu, Opayemi, who leads one of the largest public relations firms out of Nigeria, noted that the demands of the practice have seen public relations agencies being increasingly assigned briefs which were traditional advertising projects. He further said that the fusion might help avoid possible situations where public relations firms would have to need the approvals of the advertising regulatory agency to run some of its campaign materials.
He made a forecast that regulation would be the only challenge, and projected that that would come when the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations and the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria would morph into one regulatory body for the entire marketing communications industry.
‘The age of convergence is here. I still spoke about this at a conference recently. We have been in it longer than we realise, especially in Nigeria. The truth is that as far back as 2014, some of us caught this revelation about the reality that was dawning on us – that we were now fully in the age of convergence, and for me, it was a significant, life changing experience. We attended a conference in Miami in 2014 and during the course of the conference, there was a session on the convergence of Advertising, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, et cetera, were all coming together to become one in what is todays communications industry’, he explained.
Opayemi also noted that was that the skills and talents needed for the practice of public relations have changed, adding that the practice has become more multidisciplinary than many people are willing to accept.
He added: ‘At that conference in Miami, some of the works that were presented by PR agencies could pass for works from our A-list advertising agencies in Nigeria; They looked like TV commercials, but they were telling stories and passing strong messages designed to engage the audience in specific ways.
‘When you even look at the most fundamental definition of advertising itself, which says it is a paid form of communication meant to elicit action, then you also look at the PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned) model in public relations, you will realise that the first pillar of that model is “paid”, and it is meant for public relations. This means that public relations is also not just about earned media alone; it is also about the Paid Media, the same way advertising does’.
A former President of the Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria, Opayemi said that public relations agencies now have need for the positions Marketing Directors, unlike what obtained in the past because the demands of the practice and the expectations from those who hire public relations services have changed.
‘I made the industry understand that we needed to future-proof our business, and I started talking about the new types of talents that was needed by the industry, that we need infographics specialists, data analysts, sociologists, political scientists, economists. I went as far as advocating the need for not just consumer neuroscientists, but also psychiatrists, and I can tell you that the only talent Chain Reactions is yet to recruit is a psychiatrist. However, we are going there gradually’, he revealed.
On managing the divergence of talents in an industry in convergence, he said: ‘The beauty of convergence is in the diversity of skills it enables on the job we do, we have different people coming from different backgrounds with such diversity of skills and perspectives.
‘There is the need to have diversity of skill to form the potpourri of the talents needed for the industry. The public relations practice needs the services of expert cinematographers, creative designers and all the others. Those were talents that were found only in advertising agencies decades ago. So, we need those talents and will recruit them because those different talents will form the core of the convergence of talents needed to make the practice what it should be. They help the industry to see things from totally different perspectives and will enable our output be more impactful’.
