One-on-one with PR and strategy expert

Francis Ochieng (Pictured) speaks about PR and Strategy

NAIROBI, KENYA: The need for Public Relations solutions is rapidly increasing in the country and the East African region. Every organisation, no matter how large or small, ultimately depends on its reputation for survival and success.

This underlines the fact why many organisations and individuals invest extensively in reputation management. 

In today's competitive market, reputation can be a company's biggest asset – the thing that makes a firm to stand out from the crowd and gives them a competitive edge. Effective Public Relations can help manage reputation by communicating and building good relationships with all organisation stakeholders.

Public Relations is therefore the way in which organisations, companies and individuals communicate with the targeted publics.

His day-to-day work involves communicating with the targeted audience directly or indirectly through a number of channels including the social and traditional media with an aim to build and maintain a positive image and create a strong relationship with the audience.

You must be very familiar with the attitudes and concerns of consumers, employees, public interest groups, and the community in order to establish and maintain co-operative working relationships.

In over a decade, he has come to appreciate that Public Relations revolves around this universal truth: That people act based upon their perception of facts.

In managing, controlling, or influencing people's perceptions, Public Relations initiate a sequence of behaviors that lead to the achievement of an organisation's objectives.

Therefore when he successfully creates, changes, or reinforces opinion through persuasion, his primary objective is accomplished.

As a Senior Account Manager at Ogilvy Public Relations, he creates strategies in order to achieve success for corporate brands.

The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) student at the University of Nairobi says that most of his campaigns begin with the identification of the problem or challenge, then moving on to setting the public relations goal. This involves crafting persuasive messages and implementing key communication tactics while monitoring progress and fine-tuning as necessary.

For this to be successful, strategy is a big ingredient of the process. As Professor Michael Porter, the doyen known for his theories on Strategic Management and social causes; puts it - strategic positioning attempts to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by preserving what is distinctive about a company.

He says this implies performing different activities from rivals, or performing similar activities in different ways given that strategy is multi-dimensional.

Related Topics

Public Relations