Leading Public Relations (PR) stakeholder, Mr. Victor Anyaegbudike has advocated the training and certification of all practitioners of Public Relations to curb quackery and institute professionalism in the discipline.
Anyaegbudike, who is the External Communication Coordinator, Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) gave the indication while delivering a lecture on “Developing a brand in a hostile environment – Brand building as a PR tool” at a workshop organized by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), FCT Abuja chapter as part of their 2018 conference and Annual General Meeting.
He quoted the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) as defining PR is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behavior adding that it is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.
In his submission, he described PR as a fundamental aspect of brand building, as it encapsulates the essence of reputation and relationship building which are critical for performance of any organization or company.
Using copious examples from the product and service marketing perspectives, he emphasized that organizations can build their brands if they leverage the value of research, build brand awareness, leverage digital marketing/social media and develop strong company culture.
He also advised corporate organizations to sustain the customer promise, build trust, embrace innovation beyond the familiar and train company’s executives and spokespersons.
“Companies should strive for innovations. As famously accentuated by Peter F. Drucker: Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation and innovation is potent to enhance brand personality if managed justly,” he stated.
While stressing that branding building is a discipline process and brands should be ingrained with quality, promise, authenticity, trust, value and other characteristics, he averred that branding involves analytical, prescriptive and futuristic approach to business development and therefore require PR practitioners to possess high leadership propensity, mental vitality, finesse dexterity and intellectual curiosity.
