Isabelle Alenus-Crosby
At Gong we work with companies in Africa, across a range of sectors, to raise their business profiles beyond local markets. In parallel, we position investors, focusing on Emerging Markets, at the forefront of international business reporting. We are a trusted partner that delivers high-quality news coverage, marketing materials, websites, advertisements, and content, resulting in excellent return on investment. However, we believe that the Top 3 advantages of working with a boutique agency are:
- Personal touch – you’ll be working with a select, very carefully chosen team whose raison d’être is to get the job done.
- Know your client – the team that pitches a piece of new business to you is the team that you’ll be working with when you become a client.
- Well connected– a necessity, because the world is changing so quickly. At a boutique agency, your team is always very flexible, nimble, and in the know.
If we look at the statistics for Africa, we can see that it is taking off much like China and India were a couple of decades ago. Africa’s collective GDP was USD 1.6 trillion in 2010, roughly the same as Russia, and by the end of this decade it will have grown by another trillion dollars (IMF).
Every other statistic is improving and increasing too: stability, consumer spending, discretionary income, urbanisation, population. PR professionals need to be able to take on the world at a moment’s notice. We bridge the gap between client and public by continuously keeping up with new trends and developments. The spending power of the newly emerging middle-class affects all companies in Africa, and it is important to know how to communicate to an audience that is becoming more sophisticated by the minute.
In newly emerging economies, the companies we work with are often setting the example: They are the trend-setters of a brand-new age. Often, they are playing catch-up, and in order to compete globally, with the ever increasing importance of the internet and social media, they need an experienced partner keeping all their fingers on every pulse. Ever since public relations agencies came into existence, boutique firms have had to cope with fewer layers of bureaucracy, and therefore move deftly through the phases of a brand-new campaign, providing services at a better price thanks to lower overheads. Need we go on?
