 | Opinion Leaders | | | June 30, 2011 | |  |
It is just about the time when prospective Kenyan presidential candidates begin to set up PR, communications and campaign secretariats. This brings something of a seasonal employment boom to the media sector.
I have personally tasted this boom in the past, when I worked as a key consultant for a presidential candidate who gave a very good account of himself in the 2002 General Election.
In 2005-2007, I oversaw a political intelligence coaching company that has produced 18 MPs, including some of the most brilliant in the tenth Parliament.
A publicist is, by definition, a communications careerist and, or professional whose primary task it is to secure positive coverage in the media for individuals, groups, corporate or other entities, including governments.
But the Kenyan power elite have this irritating and completely self-defeating habit of turning publicists on and off like electricity or tap water. Is it any wonder that some of the wealthiest, most influential and even most powerful Kenyans are suffering a PR profile and image crisis that was until a few years ago the preserve of Nigerian nationals.
Yet, today, the Nigerian banking sector enjoys an international good and sound reputation that was unimaginable as recently as the end of the 1990s - in fact, it has gone multinational, with branches as far afield as Kenya and Britain and not a whiff of scandal.
This is remarkable for a country whose nationals had not only become buzz-words for conman-ship but whose national airline was banned from flying into the United States because its crew had been caught too many times smuggling drugs.
Nigeria undertook a huge re-branding and reputation management campaign in tandem with an anti-graft drive that actually involved the repatriation of a number of stolen billions of naira early this century and it has paid handsome dividends for the country's perception indices.
Today Kenya is the largest consumer of some Nigerian products, with leading TV stations showing Nollywood movies daily. Of late, Nigerian movie stars have found a haven in Kenya. Structured and sustained country branding does not get any more aggressive than Nigeria is doing at the moment.
In mature democracies, members of the corporate and political power elite retain teams of lawyers and publicists 24/7 throughout all four seasons of the year.
The plight of the immediate former International Monetary Fund CEO Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a case in point. DSK, as he is popularly known in his native France, now faces charges that include attempted rape in a hotel suite in New York.
The first thing DSK did in his own defence was to gather around him two teams simultaneously - a team of top lawyers and a team of top publicists.
Well-heeled Kenyans who find themselves in trouble would do well to emulate him. But what do we see instead? The minute a super rich Kenyan is in PR trouble, the first and only set of experts he or she rushes to are lawyers. Publicists are rarely, if ever, consulted.
Kenyan VIPs with PR problems proceed as if they were not in need of expert advice and a media strategy. Navigating the treacherous waters of adverse publicity is every bit as complex as trying to chart the Constitution and the letter and spirit of the law without lawyers' expert guidance, perhaps even more so in some cases.
Publicists are communications professionals whose primary responsibility is to ensure their clients receive positive coverage in the media. Most publicists work for a public relations agency and have multiple clients in various industries and sectors in their countries and around the world.
A publicist advises a client, whether individual or institutional, on image and reputation management, particularly as projected through the media. A publicist's role and responsibilities do not begin and end with General Election cycles.
A good publicist will teach an individual high-profile client everything, from advantageous photo opportunities to strategic interviews and how to pitch your side of the story to journalists so that it is given the most prominent positive coverage.
A publicist will professionally draft press statements and releases for a besieged Kenyan VIP that will make sense in both local and international media, instead of those horrible untutored and unschooled reflexive responses full of see-through lies about vast international conspiracies against the VIP, his tribe and everything he or she owns.
A good publicist or PR firm will build and maintain a symbiotic relationship with the media, both local and international, on behalf of the client, with media houses and key individual journalists.
And, in this digital age of blogging and other social media networking, a professional publicist will network with the online community and on behalf of a client and generate the much-needed positive buzz and alternative perspectives 24/7 - and we are talking about a national, regional and global dimension.
A publicist can do much more, including organising intelligent, well-researched articles and features that actually throw light on such esoteric subjects as off-shore banking and the American national drug habit, the single worst mass addiction in human history.
An expert publicist, like a very good lawyer, can actually demonstrate reasonable doubt about the most high profile accusations against the most high-profile VIPs. Both courts of law and the court of public opinion are ruled by the reasonable doubt paradigm.
One of the world's most iconic advertising taglines belongs to the American Express Company, sometimes known as AmEx, the world's oldest credit card firm. The tagline simply says, "Don't Leave Home Without It". This is the same advice I would give Kenya's increasingly besieged political and economic power elite: Don't Leave Home Without a Publicist.
The writer is the Information Secretary of the Republic of Kenya email:emutua @information.go.ke
I have personally tasted this boom in the past, when I worked as a key consultant for a presidential candidate who gave a very good account of himself in the 2002 General Election.
In 2005-2007, I oversaw a political intelligence coaching company that has produced 18 MPs, including some of the most brilliant in the tenth Parliament.
A publicist is, by definition, a communications careerist and, or professional whose primary task it is to secure positive coverage in the media for individuals, groups, corporate or other entities, including governments.
But the Kenyan power elite have this irritating and completely self-defeating habit of turning publicists on and off like electricity or tap water. Is it any wonder that some of the wealthiest, most influential and even most powerful Kenyans are suffering a PR profile and image crisis that was until a few years ago the preserve of Nigerian nationals.
Yet, today, the Nigerian banking sector enjoys an international good and sound reputation that was unimaginable as recently as the end of the 1990s - in fact, it has gone multinational, with branches as far afield as Kenya and Britain and not a whiff of scandal.
This is remarkable for a country whose nationals had not only become buzz-words for conman-ship but whose national airline was banned from flying into the United States because its crew had been caught too many times smuggling drugs.
Nigeria undertook a huge re-branding and reputation management campaign in tandem with an anti-graft drive that actually involved the repatriation of a number of stolen billions of naira early this century and it has paid handsome dividends for the country's perception indices.
Today Kenya is the largest consumer of some Nigerian products, with leading TV stations showing Nollywood movies daily. Of late, Nigerian movie stars have found a haven in Kenya. Structured and sustained country branding does not get any more aggressive than Nigeria is doing at the moment.
In mature democracies, members of the corporate and political power elite retain teams of lawyers and publicists 24/7 throughout all four seasons of the year.
The plight of the immediate former International Monetary Fund CEO Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a case in point. DSK, as he is popularly known in his native France, now faces charges that include attempted rape in a hotel suite in New York.
The first thing DSK did in his own defence was to gather around him two teams simultaneously - a team of top lawyers and a team of top publicists.
Well-heeled Kenyans who find themselves in trouble would do well to emulate him. But what do we see instead? The minute a super rich Kenyan is in PR trouble, the first and only set of experts he or she rushes to are lawyers. Publicists are rarely, if ever, consulted.
Kenyan VIPs with PR problems proceed as if they were not in need of expert advice and a media strategy. Navigating the treacherous waters of adverse publicity is every bit as complex as trying to chart the Constitution and the letter and spirit of the law without lawyers' expert guidance, perhaps even more so in some cases.
Publicists are communications professionals whose primary responsibility is to ensure their clients receive positive coverage in the media. Most publicists work for a public relations agency and have multiple clients in various industries and sectors in their countries and around the world.
A publicist advises a client, whether individual or institutional, on image and reputation management, particularly as projected through the media. A publicist's role and responsibilities do not begin and end with General Election cycles.
A good publicist will teach an individual high-profile client everything, from advantageous photo opportunities to strategic interviews and how to pitch your side of the story to journalists so that it is given the most prominent positive coverage.
A publicist will professionally draft press statements and releases for a besieged Kenyan VIP that will make sense in both local and international media, instead of those horrible untutored and unschooled reflexive responses full of see-through lies about vast international conspiracies against the VIP, his tribe and everything he or she owns.
A good publicist or PR firm will build and maintain a symbiotic relationship with the media, both local and international, on behalf of the client, with media houses and key individual journalists.
And, in this digital age of blogging and other social media networking, a professional publicist will network with the online community and on behalf of a client and generate the much-needed positive buzz and alternative perspectives 24/7 - and we are talking about a national, regional and global dimension.
A publicist can do much more, including organising intelligent, well-researched articles and features that actually throw light on such esoteric subjects as off-shore banking and the American national drug habit, the single worst mass addiction in human history.
An expert publicist, like a very good lawyer, can actually demonstrate reasonable doubt about the most high profile accusations against the most high-profile VIPs. Both courts of law and the court of public opinion are ruled by the reasonable doubt paradigm.
One of the world's most iconic advertising taglines belongs to the American Express Company, sometimes known as AmEx, the world's oldest credit card firm. The tagline simply says, "Don't Leave Home Without It". This is the same advice I would give Kenya's increasingly besieged political and economic power elite: Don't Leave Home Without a Publicist.
The writer is the Information Secretary of the Republic of Kenya email:emutua @information.go.ke
Read more: http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Eblog/view/Why+the+elite+in+Kenya+need+publicists.html#ixzz1Qld7gHf1
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