PR lacks personal touch in the digital age – Experts
Godwin Anyebe
Experts in Nigeria’s Integrated Marketing Communications industry have decried the inability of Public Relations as a profession to create that personal touch between its professionals and its public to enable them to derive the needed results from its campaigns.
This was made known recently in Lagos during the 2019 Lagos PR Week themed: “Harnessing the Synergy between PR & Digital Influence”.
They lamented that in the 21st century where digital has disrupted every sphere in the business world, PR in Nigeria was beginning to lose grip and personal touch with consumers.
According to Gbenga Sogbaike, CEO, Plaquad Limited, PR still operates mostly in the traditional sphere in this clime where it lacks to connect directly to the consumers on a one-on-one basis.
According to him, digital is thriving today and disrupting every aspect of our lives that it connects directly to us and can easily influence an individual as a person.
“PR needs to move from the traditional sphere to digital for it to become relevant in the digital age. With that it can create that personal touch with the consumers and facilitate the success of its campaigns,” he added.
Speaking in the same vein, Head, Corporate Services, Leadway Assurance Company Limited, Bunmi Adeleye, lamented that PR was losing that personal touch with its various audiences.
According to Adeleye, PR dwells a lot on the traditional platform and should rather move from that sphere to creating a personal touch with its public which is achievable with the help of digital.
To Adeleye, because of the individual touch digital offers, successes and failures of a campaign can be measured.
“You need to talk to me as if you know me. As PR professionals we need to talk to the audience so that they can understand us and that can only be done when we have that one-on-one touch with them.
It is that personal touch that digital is brining to the table which has served as an edge over Public Relations in the 21st century,” Adeleye said.
She further encouraged practitioners to embrace and make good use of digital in carrying out their jobs perfectly.
