Monday, July 11, 2016

Leveraging Public Relations to grow the Kenya Rugby brand.

Every so often, I get opportunities to shed light about PR as a profession and the opportunities that this practice can provide to many organizations. For the longest time, my presentations were always for aspiring PR practitioners in schools thank to the Public Relations Society of Kenya that has been spearheading this initiative of knowledge sharing with upcoming practitioners.
However, one week ago, I got a totally different assignment. The Kenya Rugby Union, which is the governing body for Rugby in Kenya, was hosting their second National Rugby Conference.   This is an annual conference that brings together all the rugby stakeholders across the country. Essentially, this delegation meets to deliberate on issues that revolve around the growth of Rugby in Kenya. This year’s conference came at a time when Kenya is preparing to make the maiden appearance into the Olympics with our Rugby Sevens team. This team has been awesome all through the season bashing many renowned nations in the World Series before walloping other African teams (apart from South Africa) to book a slot in the cherished competition.

Yet, as a nation we have not optimized our efforts in building this Rugby bran. All people think when they see Kenyans is a group of long legged athletes ready to conquer another marathon.  From a PR perspective, the Kenya Rugby Union has an opportunity to profile this sport as a Kenyan brand.  That’s all I was tasked to talk about at the Rugby Conference. Feel free to share your views too.