For six years, he made waves at the Corporate Communications of Oando Plc, before setting up his own business, Modion Communications, a thriving Public Relations firm, two years ago. Odion Aleobua, in this interview with Akin Adewakun, bares his mind on his career journey, Public Relations practice in Nigeria, while insisting that the nation’s economic recession also has its own positives; since it makes clients open to new ideas, even from start-up agencies.
Career transition
I think it is pretty simple. For every stage of my movement, what was required was capacity and creativity. Of course, the norm is that industry players usually move from agency to client. But for me, it is the other way round, from media to client to start an agency. The training I had from Oando Plc actually prepared me for agency work. We were cracking our own briefs then because it was difficult for agencies to do that for us. We were, therefore, operating almost like an agency. We were brainstorming consistently. The subsidiaries of Oando Plc were our client. Customer relationship, ideation and cracking brief which form what obtained in the agency, were common place in Oando. I did that for six years and excelled in it and it actually prepared me for today’s challenges.
Building the business
For us, it has been two years of fantastic journey. We started at zero level, started business when Nigeria slid into recession. It was really a tough time doing business at that time. For us as SMEs or start-up, it was an opportunity, because clients became open to new ideas from anybody including us. Unlike those days, when briefs were for bigger agencies, but with budget cut, they had to rely on people who could match their ideas with a budget meant for start-ups. In real terms, I will say recession actually created strong entry for us and open doors such that where we showed up, all that was needed was to show capacity. I think that the clients’ reduced budget meant a lot to us, even though for big agencies, it could look like crumbs. But for us, it means a lot because for every time we show capacity, it gave us opportunity to do more.
Why PR practitioners should up their game
Creativity is at the heart of any communication. Story telling is at the heart of what we do. The reason why story tellers need to be grounded in their craft is that there are different ways to tell a story. There are times they have to show optics and use music in giving the right narrative. That, in its own, is creativity. You need to realise that telling the truth is not straight jacket .It is the same principle of how you sell the advertising product, or the same way you sell narrative. Take for instance, in selling a product, I have to get your attention, hold it, convince you with my message, move you with that message. All these are geared towards building equity or making purchases. Creativity is something that the human minds love. So, there is no way in any form of communication, be it advertising, PR, or whether you are tactically using social media or profiling narratives at the point of PR, or engaging stakeholders at experiential level that you don’t need creativity. Creativity is the crux of your messaging
On quackery
I think it is Nigeria’s biggest problem. I think it is not peculiar to PR. You have it manifested in different professions. We see them in professions that require high level of trainings. For instance, we have people who have been bold enough to own hospitals yet lack no single training on health care services. It is a problem in Nigeria but the only difference is that in PR, there is always a day of reckoning. You can easily identify that when there is a crisis. In such situation, it is much easier to know who understands the theoretical base of PR as well as the practical experience as against someone who lacks either of the two or both. If you understand both, it will stand you out. If you don’t understand it, you are likely to put your clients into deeper trouble. When quacks undertake such, the crisis could escalate. If you don’t manage a crisis well, it could get you or the client out of business.
Reasons for agencies’ apathy towards public sector
The issue of working with public sector is that it is structured in ways that you would know that it is anathema to business. We all agreed that the greatest problem to ease of doing business is the public sector. The reason why agencies are happy working with private sector is because it is almost business to business. So, it is like you are speaking the same challenge, they understand your challenges and understand what it takes to run a business. But with public sector, they don’t really know or feel the pinch that you experience. So, in dealing with them you must understand the compliance level as well as the pitfalls. Public sector has a lot of strained dynamism where policy can change overnight. And if you are caught in policy change, you are likely to lose money. I think as a business, it is in your best interest to protect yourself and ensure that you have a tight contract when dealing with the public sector.
Winning laurels within two years of starting the business
It is a testament of how much we’ve already pushed ourselves for industry recognition. If the industry does not believe that you are doing something laudable, they won’t recognise you. It is also our strategy of pushing capacity on your face before asking for money. For every client we have worked for, we have retained 90 per cent.