Golden Cords from Fleishman Hillard Business Thought Leadership Session

On many occasions, the benefits of international affiliations in the marketing communications industry have been called to question. While many people have been definite in their stand that it is just a means of pulling rank among competition, some others have opined that there are indeed many benefits associated with this relationship model.

The proponents of the latter school of thought would seem to be on the right and ‘corporately correct’ side of the fence, using, as a basis, the relationship between Nigeria’s premier full service Public Relations practice, The Quadrant Company and its international affiliate, Fleishman Hillard International Communications.

A couple of weeks back, top management staff of Fleishman Hillard Africa were in the Lagos offices of The Quadrant Company, for the annual Fleishman Hillard Africa Week, hosted by Quadrant, as the Lagos-based agency is usually referred to. (Quadrant is the West Africa affiliate of Fleishman Hillard).

During this week-long session, participants were taken through international best practices in various areas of Public Relations. Kevin Welman, Managing Director, Fleishman Hillard South Africa , dwelt extensively on the following areas:

* Tapping into Fleishman Hillard’s global network

* Strategic approach to briefs

* Making winning presentations

* Media/Message Training

* Managing client relationships

Casey Monteiro, Head, Digital Practice, Fleishman Hillard Africa, spoke extensively on the vast opportunities that exist in the local and global digital space. He shared very copious insights on engagements on that platform. It was very obvious after his presentation that brands in Nigeria can do a lot more for themselves and their products and services in the digital sphere. In contextualizing this, Monteiro spoke on the topic, “Leveraging New Media to Bolster FDI in Africa.” Re-emphasizing the importance of the web as a source of information, he stated that journalists, analysts, C-suite executives and online buyers have the web as the best source of information available to them.This provides a whole lot of untapped opportunities for the African continent to sell its story, he said.

The Quadrant Thought Leadership Session, which held on July 1, 2009 at La Scala Restaurant, Onikan, within the lush grounds of the Muson Centre, was an opportunity for sharing some of these insights with Nigerian and international participants that cut across a wide range of professional disciplines.

In all, it was a good opportunity for learning and cross selling of ideas. One interesting feature of the Quadrant Thought Leadership session was the fact that it was also attended by key executives of the agency’s competition.

The second edition of the annual Business Thought Leadership Session was attended by captains of the industry, including the Chairman of the Troyka Group, Mr. Biodun Shobanjo; Adrian McCloy, Country Commercial Manager, British Airways; Tunji Seymour, Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, British Airways; Dr. Mike Okolo of the Lagos Business School, and representatives of banks and other financial institutions.