Nene Bejide is a seasoned communications professional and founder of Blanche Aigle Communications, a respected PR agency in Lagos, Nigeria. In this interview, Nene, known for her expertise in brand reputation management, crisis communications, and strategic communications planning, shares radical views on challenges faced by female professionals, and why stakeholders must empower young females in the industry. She also shares her optimism on the business outlook of 2025, and trends she believes will sweep through the industry.
PR Strategies the industry should look out for in 2025
Most of the things we noticed from last year that should be explored this year are: Purposeful events, which are something you will see from Blanche this year, we plan to have more in-house events for the community, and we will talk about issues affecting the society, and our industry in Nigeria.
There should be a focus on relevant events that will help grow the marketing communications industry. Looking at areas where there are issues and how they could be fixed. Another trend the industry should look out for would be the use of Nano influencers, this will be so because the big influencers are becoming too expensive.
Another trend that is already happening is the rise in using original content over produced content. Brands will be working with creators to create everyday content that’s relatable as opposed to paying a content creator to produce TVC-like content. Those are some of the things that should be explored in 2025.
How will you describe the IMC Industry in 2024 and how was it for Blanche Aigle Communications?
In terms of revenue, I will say we did 3 times more than we did the previous year. It was a good year for us. As a company, we learnt the season and saw how to tap into what was happening and adjusted quickly without being rigid. I think that not being rigid helped us to make fast decisions that aligned with the season.
It was a good year for us, we did well and were also able to internally expand and build some of the things that we wanted to do. It was also a year that we officially started looking at expansion. It was a year that opened our doors to other states and beyond the shores of Nigeria. We were able to create a team that’s based in Abuja. Get someone who will be with us from Ghana, we will work on projects together in West Africa and outside the continent. We will be opening our Abuja branch soon. We are looking to have our official launch in April.
I will also say it was a good year because we got a lot of attention from international agencies. Interestingly, we picked a lot of people’s interest and don’t know how it happened. These were the few things that made it a great year for us and by the grace of God this year should be better.
How can the IMC industry Retain premium talents?
I will say one of the ways to do this is to create a very comfortable and working system for the team. For example, here in Blanche Aigle, we work mostly from home although we meet at events, and it’s been quite efficient for us. Create a system where they feel part of the community and not just work and go, let people feel part of the company, creating access to ownership for them.
For us at Blanche Aigle, we are creating a system where we train people through our internship system and give them room to intern in our various departments like accounts, strategy or social media to find out what they like doing. We can then make them a full staff after the internship period. This is our way of retention plan. I believe if this is replicated, will help boost the value of the talents in the market.
Most people who apply for jobs are not as good as they think they are, so most agencies in the IMC industry should dedicate time to creating training programmes to train new talents. When people are trained, I believe will help fill up the gap of ‘japad’ talents have created. It is also a way of creating a new crop of talented young creatives in the industry.
What is your advice to young female professionals on how to get to the zenith of their careers?
For the young professionals who are entering or already in the space, they should be focused on their work and shut out all forms of noise of negativity around them. It’s okay for them to sometimes lift their heads to see what’s happening around them but what they see shouldn’t be allowed to inform their decision.
Growth is one thing that’s constant as long as we are alive. Be consistent, be open to trying new things and of course change. For me, I had to transition from a talent agency into a full PR agency, knowing that talent management had to be an alternative. I needed to have something substantial to offer my clients.
Give yourself time to grow. It’s okay to have slow seasons, to be honest, that’s when the seed that’s being planted will grow and become innovative. It’s in those seasons that God speaks to us. So it’s okay to have slow seasons. Remember that whatever season you are in is not permanent; these are some of the things I said to myself when I started. One other thing that also helps me to go through a tough season is that I am not fazed by it; I enjoy the process while looking at the bigger picture.
What can the stakeholders do to arrest the challenges and limitations faced by the few female professionals we have in your industry?
For me I do not see any dearth of female professionals in this industry, rather I see an uprising among female professionals in the marketing communications industry. I know more young women are now entering the space, and I feel in the next few years, there will be a lot more women doing PR in Nigeria or leading this industry as a whole.
I know more women-owned agencies are coming up than male-owned agencies so there’s no dearth of female professionals as such in Nigeria, but an uprising. I know about four female professionals who have reached out to me to invite their clients to some of my events. Sometimes if our hands are full with jobs, I push some opportunities to other women. One of them thanked me for always sending clients to her.
We are actually trying to create a system for ourselves the women, because you can’t actually do everything. When you are almost overwhelmed, and another client knocks on the door, you are to refer that client to any other agency in the system.
However, I really want stakeholders in the industry to look at what we all can do to empower more young females and encourage those out there to come into the industry. I feel like we can put out more voices and be more vocal about Women that are doing well and WIMCA is already doing that. For example, I may not know the top 50 women in marketing but because of WIMCA I now know them, I think that such programmes and recognition projects are the right path to go.
Core values and personal philosophies that have impacted the success of Blanche Aigle Communications
There is this popular saying, “The harder you work the luckier you get”, I’m a core believer in working hard and working smart. All I’ve done from my childhood days, down to where I am now, have always been about hard work. I don’t believe in some societal rules or systems. I don’t see systems, I see results, for it’s the results that matter. Hard work brings results.
My second core value is integrity, I am big on integrity and you can see that with the things we do at Blanche Aigle, we work and deliver on our promises.
Another thing I’m big on is excellence, people know me for that. The reason why excellence is being pushed to our top core values is because if we are truly looking to export the work that we’re doing in Nigeria then we need to be more than average.
If you look at businesses that are doing well around the world or countries that can bounce back their economy, there’s a level of excellence and efficiency that goes into what they do. And we need excellence in our lives, businesses and the country if we must excel. These are the mindset that binds my core values that we are big on.
The other thing we do not see as a core value but has also guided Blanche Aigle effectively is shutting out the noise. Once we are ready to work, we just shut out the noise and focus on what we want to do, we don’t try to look at what A or B is doing. Everything we’ve been able to create at Blanche Aigle down to our strategic documents, and how we onboard our clients was inspired by shutting out the noise.