‘Our Predecessors Did Not Lay The Right Foundation’ ‘Tolucomms’ Indicts Generation Of Communications Practice
Tolulope ‘Tolucomms’ Olorundero, founder of the Public Relations Women Foundation and Lead Consultant, Mosron Communications has issued a blunt verdict on the structural failures of Nigeria’s PR industry, arguing that decades of positioning the profession around implementation rather than advisory counsel has left the current generation of practitioners fighting to reclaim relevance and commercial value that should never have been surrendered.
One of Nigeria’s most vocal voices in public relations has delivered a pointed indictment of the profession’s founding generation, arguing that an industry-wide failure to establish PR as strategic counsel rather than media relations and content execution has left practitioners in Nigeria and across emerging markets in a structurally weakened position that will take a lot of effort and time to reverse.
Tolulope Olorundero, founder of the Public Relations Women Foundation and principal of Mosron Communications, made the remarks in a frank interview with Brand Communicator, in which she spoke with characteristic directness about what she sees as a foundational error that continues to haunt the profession today.
“Our predecessors did not position PR as advisory, and now we are trying to reposition it,” she said. “In North America and other developed markets, communication advisors are on speed dial to business leaders. Where are those advisors here? We stayed on implementation. Now everyone is struggling because anyone can publish content.”
Olorundero’s contention is that the Nigerian PR industry, in its formative decades, built its commercial model around what was immediately profitable like media placements, press releases, event coverage, and content amplification, and in doing so, allowed the profession to be defined by its outputs rather than its thinking. The consequence, she argues, is that businesses learned to see PR as a production service rather than a strategic resource.
“Public relations is not media relations. Businesses think PR means media coverage because PR positioned itself around implementation for years. Publish today, publish tomorrow. That was where the money was, and it shaped the profession,” she said. “But media is now decentralised. Everyone has access. Editors are on LinkedIn and Twitter. You don’t need special connections to get coverage. So, the industry must return to advisory, because the implementation model is no longer defensible.”
The implications, she argues, are generational. “If all we focus on is making money through implementation, what profession are we leaving for the next generation? In the next fifty years, will people still make money as PR professionals if we do not change? Probably not. Anyone can implement, but advisory requires capacity and strategic thinking.”
Olorundero is careful to frame the critique not as an attack on individuals but as an industry-level reckoning, one that the current generation of practitioners has an obligation to engage with honestly. She draws a direct contrast between how PR is perceived and deployed in developed markets versus Nigeria and comparable emerging economies.
“In North America and Europe, communication advisors sit alongside lawyers, accountants, and financial consultants at the boardroom table. They are not called after a decision is made. They are part of making the decision,” she said. “Here, a business takes a decision and then says, PR, come and implement. That removes us from strategy. That removes us from value.”
At her own firm, Mosron Communications, Olorundero says has structured client engagement to resist that pattern, insisting on direct access to the business leaders and decision-makers rather than the implementation managers, and framing PR counsel explicitly as a consulting service. She points to the firm’s executive branding practice — a service provided exclusively to business leaders — as one example of what becomes possible when PR is positioned at the advisory level.
Her remarks are likely to provoke debate within a sector that has made some remarkable strides in recent years toward professionalisation and where many practitioners may push back on the characterisation of the industry’s foundational generation. But Olorundero makes clear that the critique is offered in service of a goal she shares with those she scrutinizes, for an industry that commands the respect, the fees, and the institutional access that the quality of its thinking deserves.
“If we succeed in repositioning PR as advisory, the profession will not be devalued in emerging markets,” she said. “We will get the value for the skills and capacity that we have. But if we continue to restrict ourselves to implementation, we are handing anyone with a phone and an internet connection the ability to do what we do. That is not a profession. That is a service anyone can render.”