Beverage giant, Nestle Nigeria Limited, Black House Media (BHM), Teksight Edge Ltd, a fast-rising public relations firm, others clinched various awards at the Lagos PR Industry Gala and Awards (LaPRIGA) 2022 held Friday night at the centre of excellence, D’ Podium International Centre, Ikeja, Lagos.
Out of a pool of about 120 entries, the organisations and 13 other brands and PR practitioners emerged victorious for their outstanding contribution to the growth of their field of operation, from 20 categories at this year’s event which attracted heavy representation from the public relations space of the integrated marketing communications industry and allied sectors.
While Nestle won the Best Social Responsibility and Excellent in Community Relation Awards; Black House Media (BHM) clinched three awards- Agency Of The Year, Rising PR Practitioner Of The Year (Enitan Kehinde, General manager, Lead Consultant, BHM, UK) and PR Practitioner Of The Year Award (Adekunle Ayeni, MD, BHM) and Teksight Edge emerged Best In Entertainment PR and Best In Technology PR.
Other winners were Mouka Foam, Best In Crisis and Risk Communications, P+Measurement, Best Use Of Research and Measurement, Nigerian Breweries Plc grabbed Best In Internal Communication and Employee Engagement Award, Jeremiah Agada won The PR Journalist of The Year Award and Dangote Group won The Reputable Brand Of The Year Award.
Speaking during her welcome address, Comfort Nwankwo, Chairman, Lagos NIPR, organizer of the event said LaPRIGA has attained a strong brand status gauging from the immense interest it is generating all year round.
She noted that, the award celebrates practitioners and stakeholders to challenge “us to boost professionalism and invest more in the practice”.
“We want to engender healthy competition among professional colleagues in the PR industry. We want to make it the most sought after and the beauty of it is that, any practitioner in any industry with outstanding, verifiable track records, who has put forward innovative PR campaigns from concept to execution, has a chance to win,” she said.
Also speaking during the event tagged, ‘Hall of Fame’, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu advised PR practitioners to be intentional in their practice and to discourage the spread of fake news especially via the social media.
The governor who was represented by Gbenga Omotosho, Commissioner of Information and Strategy in the state said: “We need to consciously fight the scourge of fake news. In the past, it use to be people posting fake news to cause panic everywhere but now people do it professionally.”
“The social media is a two-edged sword in which if we use it well, we benefit from it but if used negatively, it get its own effect,” he said.
The governor therefore charged all present to always verify every information before engaging them.