Media practitioners and followers of the Information Technology trend have been warned to join the digitisation revolution or be ready to lose their place in the ever challenging Nigeria business climate.

Bolaji Okusaga, Managing Director, QuadrantMSL Group, who gave the warning on Wednesday in Lagos said “the digitisation trend is offering everybody opportunities of doing things differently and in a better way such that any brand that does not take advantage of it will die in the next five years.”

Okusaga stated this at the second digital PR Summit organised by the Lagos State chapter of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

He spoke on the theme, ‘Building and Managing Relationships with New Media’.

Reacting to the argument that traditional media will die as a result of the new media, the PR expert said: “The traditional media may not die but will transform to something new.

“Everything is about the law of metamorphosis which will mop into something devoid of news print, news gathering and the editorial method will change to something new in line with the digital reality that is before us,” he noted.

He observed that the traditional media advertising revenue sources have continue to shrink because of the depleting patronage by business owners who according to him have realised better means of advertising their brands to wider audience and at cheaper cost. This, he said is one of the throw-away of the new media.

“It’s a function of crossing from the physical to the data world and who else can do it than the media because of its capacity. And that is why traditional media outfits are crossing into online,” he affirmed.

He was of the view that despite the presence of the new media, traditional media will not die as it were but the players will if they refuse to adapt.

Olusegun McMedal, Chairman of the Lagos State chapter of NIPR, organisers of the summit said the idea was to expose practitioners to opportunities and the app they can use to increase their deliverables in their practice.

“There is a thin line between traditional media and the Internet and you see that whatever activity you have on the main stream media without planning for it on the Internet level, one is going nowhere. So the question in our mind was how many practitioners can use the medium for practice.

“So, we designed the summit to create an opportunity where people who are already using these applications can meet industry players who were not aware of some of these things for education purposes, so that the players can put what they learn to bear in the performance of their duties,” he said.

On how the PR industry is reacting to the challenges in the harsh economic climate he said: “PR does not work in isolation. If the economy is challenged every other sector will feel it and the PR industry is not immune against the challenges.”

“This is why we feel that the time to create niche and specialisation is now.

“Firms are becoming specialised in this period. And you must drive that specialisation in the mind of the people and be revolving. More money does not necessarily mean more value. It is about value addition and cost management. At the end it is a win-win for the industry and practitioners. Any organisation that wants to remain must have a digital arm.

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