Nigeria’s Public relations industry is waiting for the result of the recent media pitch by Coca Cola Nigeria and IBTC. The two companies recently invited agencies to pitch for their public relations accounts.
For Coca Cola, three agencies, Brooks and Blake, Integrated Indigo and BHM are said to have qualified for the second round of the multi-million Naira PR account.
It was not immediately clear whether Africa Practice, another PR agency participated in the pitch as the agency’s contract with the multinational company was said to have expired last two months.
Industry source said the pitch process is on the second round of selection of the winner. “The pitch process is progressing” said another reliable source as Coca Cola is on the final stage of announcing the winner based on various factors including competence, experience, professionalism and fee which is based on negotiation.
Coca Cola, the global foremost beverage brand, early this year completed the acquisition of Nigeria’s Chi Limited, top juice company.
The value of the complete acquisition was put under wraps but in 2016, Coca Cola made initial equity investment of 40 per cent in the company estimated to be in the range of $300 m to $400 million while analysts as at 2016 put the value of Chi at about $1 billion.
On the other hand, Stanbic IBTC, according to industry source is yet to release the result of its PR pitch which it conducted recently.
Industry investigation showed that agencies that participated in the pitch included XLR8 which has handled the PR account of the bank for over 10 years. Others were Chain Reactions, MediaCraft, TPT International and H&K.
Industry sources said the bank may be looking for a new agency, perhaps for new ideas and negotiation of new fees. The bank is yet to announce the winner of the new account after few weeks of the competitive bidding.
Marketing communication budget cuts by many companies in recent time due to increasing operational cost has forced some companies to begin to re-negotiate fees with their agencies or engage new agencies.
Daniel Obi
