Communicators were asked to research, watch movies and read books to develop successful creative strategic PR campaigns.PR Fundi facilitators, NSSF’S Arimi and Henry Rugamba emphasised research, creativity, and innovation as key tools in strategic public relations during the first 2020 PR Fundi Masterclass on Thursday February 27, 2020 at Kati Kati Restaurant. The day’s facilitators known as Fundis were; Henry Rugamba(Fundi master), Managing Partner, Songa Communications, Barbra Arimi (Fundi Guest) ,Head of Marketing and Communications-NSSF. The event attracted over 70 Public relations practitioners from both private and the public sectors.
The first facilitator, NSSF’s Arimi shared why PR people must continuously innovate. Barbra discussed the execution process of PR and realization of strategy using “Friends With Benefits” and NSSF GO app campaigns. ”Our campaign name “Friends With Benefits” generated curiosity and worked in our favour as it increased public interest in the Show. ”Barbra
“Try to do things differently so that you bring freshness to your department. Innovate continuously, what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Your structure must support your strategy. Your PR strategy must be aligned to your organization strategy and business objectives.” – Barbra Arimi
Using Barcelona principles, Barbra explained the purpose to track input measures, intermediary measures, and output measures during campaigns. Barbra Arimi advised PR practitioners to track of issues in other departments and brainstorm with fellow staff on how to deal with them.
Henry spoke after Barbra. Henry Rugamba, Managing Partner, Songa Communications, shared with participants how to be more creative by reading books, watching movies and researching. He asked participants to start watching children cartoons to be creative.
“You have got to learn how to write. You guys are not reading widely enough. A lot of our PR people lack creativity. Reading stimulates creativity. Creativity is the only way. If your enemy pulls out a knife, pull out a gun. If your competitor pulls an event, pull a bigger event” Henry Rugamba, Managing Partner, Songa Communications
Using the cases of the blacklash following new education curriculum and Uganda Police alleged brutality, Henry explained how presence of strategic Public Relations planning could have saved the situation. Henry challenged communicators to deliberately simplify complex industry issues for media people and not fear to feed media with content. “Digest your business and translate it into consumable information” Henry
Henry recommended some books like Talking to strangers by Malcolm Gladwell and World is flat.
Both facilitators emphasized the need for talent development for the next generation of communicators. The event was sponsored by Equity bank Uganda, Xente App, Smart24TV, Songa Communications, and NSSF.
PR Fundi Masterclass is an affiliate of the NODE Group. The PR Fundi Masterclass is a 120 minutes programme focused on over 100 topics to give professionals mastery over PR tasks. PR Fundi also runs other customized sessions for particular Organizational staff needs.PR Fundi Masterclass targets PR people, Brand Managers, and Government communicators.
NSSF was formed by an Act of Parliament, CAP222 in 1985.NSSF’s membership comprises of over 2Million members in the private sector. NSSF is the biggest Provident Fund Scheme in East Africa with total assets valued at over 12trillion, this also makes it the biggest financial institution in Uganda. Since its inception NSSF has paid over UGX2Trillion in benefits to over 200,000 qualifying members.