Global media and public relations organization, BlackHouse Media Group has launched the Nigeria PR Report – the country’s first-ever annual report on PR, dedicated exclusively to chronicling data on trends, perceptions, challenges and prospects within the industry.

Ayeni Adekunle, CEO BHM Group, disclosed that the Nigeria PR Report is done in collaboration with independent research unit—BHM Research & Intelligence (BRI), digital agency ID Africa, and Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN).

 

“This publication is the first edition; we expect the Nigeria PR Report to be an annual fixture in our country’s public relations landscape,” he said during the public presentation in Lagos.

Ayeni revealed that the project brought together BRI staff and consultants in Germany, England and primarily Nigeria, with work on the 106-page publication taking nearly up to a year to complete. Over 200 Nigerians across major Nigerian cities were surveyed, resulting in a publication replete with informed commentary backed by case studies.

 

The highlight of the report is an empirical analysis of Nigeria’s PR agencies, covering parameters including revenue, staff strength, clients and contracts, as well as average budget.

 

The report is targeted at chief executives, brand managers, students, institutions,   journalists, consultants, regulatory bodies and researchers within the marketing communications sector.

The initiative is the latest in a string of successes clocked by BlackHouse Media Group – a chain of businesses that manage strategic communications, with a specialist bent in entertainment, media, consumer and technology and a client list of prominent multi-national and home-grown brands.

 

In 2014, the group conceptualized and built Nigeria’s first PR mobile application – the BHM App, going on to launch ID Africa, its pan-African focused digital agency to widespread acclaim.

 

The launch of the maiden issue of the Nigeria PR Report, which took place at Protea Hotel, Lagos, Nigeria on January 29, 2016, drew notable members of the media, creative and communication community.

 

The report can be downloaded for free on the BlackHouse Media website, as well as on Amazon and iTunes.

 

Here are 10 quick facts you can deduce from the report:

 

1.     Digital dexterity of staff paramount in coming years: In China (one of thelargest battlegrounds for spending on social media), the percentage of companies which stated that: “that they did not do any digital marketing” plunged from 13.5% in 2013 to just 3.5% in 2015, showing an increased uptake of digital skills among the workforce. The Nigeria PR Report shows that the trend is similar in Nigeria, with multimedia content, social media management and measurement & analytics ranking among the top desirable skills for PR professionals.

 

2.     PR agencies’ annual fee income band can be better: Companies surveyed report income figures well below quality and volume of work undertaken. The disparity is more glaring when results are juxtaposed with the Best Practices Benchmarking Survey, which covers hundreds of PR firms throughout USA and Canada. Here, the lowest earning agencies have their average income pegged in the region of $3 million (USD), a figure which is several times over that earned by their peers in the Nigerian PR Industry.

 

3.     Despite increasing Internet use, few Nigerians see a need for differing campaigns: Even though there is a proven advantage in using various strategies for different media, less than a tenth of Nigerians surveyed offline realize the need for segmentation in the deployment of advertising and PR strategies, placing the onus on PR professionals to constantly anticipate and meet the public’s needs.

 

4.   More members of the public would rather spend on solely advertising than PR: The reasons noted include immediacy of advertising, as opposed to the possibly sublime, and longer-duration option of PR.

 

5.     Lagos is where it’s at: Well over two-thirds of the action in PR is happening from Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub.

 

6.     There is a wide disparity between sectors in the society serviced by the PR industry: The construction sector provides the least business for PR firms, with hotels and tourism far behind the rankings, yet still well placed before spending on PR by State governments.

 

7.     Social media is a top earner for PR firms: A healthy percentage of revenue for the Nigerian PR industry for 2015 came from work carried out online, on social media and PR professionals are in tune with the trend, with notable practitioners highlighting digital media as the major vehicle to propagate their work in their responses. This is in tune with earlier global projections for 2015: advertisers worldwide were expected to spend $23.68 billion to reach consumers on social networks for 2015 according to eMarketer, a 33.5% increase from 2014.

 

8.     PR practice has been around in Nigeria for decades, but this fact does not seem to be reflected in the average age of PR and advertising firms.

 

9.     Retainers are not the norm: The Nigeria PR Report reveals the scale of project-based contracts undertaken in the industry, with its consequences for staff employment and retention noted.

 

10.  Most sought-after services determined by socio-political climate: Thirteen services were commonly sought-after by clients from PR and advertising agencies in the period surveyed. The top two being government relations and media relations. It will be insightful to revisit this line of query next year and discover what the trend will be considering it is a non-election year.