AKONTE EKINE, LEAD STRATEGIST/CEO OF ABSOLUTE PR STEPS UP HIS GAME...THANK GOD FOR THE JOURNEY SO FAR

AKONTE EKINE

 
Believe if or not, Akonte Ekine is one of the top reputable PR gurus in Nigeria that came into the industry with positive impact and contributions has changed the life-span of most top rated brands in the country lately. And, unarguably he has played his part well as the lead strategist and CEO of Absolute PR Limited. He shared his experience and journey with us in building a leading brand like Absolute PR...

 It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog...Mark Twain

It is just grace and not my skill. Looking back I couldn’t have come this far if not for the grace of God.

First doing business takes almost everything from you. So today I am on a memory lane recalling how I started the Absolute PR Ltd journey.

My colleague in DDB Idiare Atimomo was beside me in the open office (DDB Lagos on Joel Ogunnaike street) way back 2006 when we did a search of a name for a business and ended up with Absolute PR primarily out of the Success recorded for DDB Lagos on LG Electronic PR front where we won two great awards at Global communication forum award of LG Electronics in 2004/2005. Aside the awards, I was adjudged the best PR person for LG Electronics in Middle East and Africa as well as the number two global PR person.

So I ended up registering the company which came through in 2007 as I was about to leave DDB Lagos as Associate Director Public Relations. It was a painful exit but man must continue to push to get to that lovely destination.

I left DDB Lagos and behold my late friend of blessed memory Tunmishe Adekunle informed me of the desire of Mr. Kolawole Ayanwale to start or restart a PR firm. It was just information but alas I went for a meeting of days after the information and saw the man and we exchanged pleasantries.

That was all but the need to get the PR Company on ground running must be pressing for Mr. Ayanwale and I was invited for a chat to consider the opportunity of partnership. 20% equity in the FCB Redline in 2007 was all I needed to get into a position of Managing Consultant, an opportunity to learn how to do so many things at a new level and till date I am eternally grateful to Mr. Ayanwale for that opportunity.

Between 2007 and 2009, my life was on a great speed working in such a way that I cannot recall ever working like that even though I had one of my best moments at DDB Lagos.  From banking, through FMCG we had things to do and those two years came so fast that I am yet to recover from it.

As the music of FCB Redline was playing louder, the challenge of 20% equity became a major issue based on assumptions and expressions that didn’t materialize and again I was at a cross road so I decided to travel to Benin in Edo state while I sent my resignation letter to Mr. Kola Ayanwale .

Three days in Benin after my assignment I came back to Lagos only to see that the decision didn’t go down well with my oga so things began to unfold. My wife set up a small space form me in my house with a plastic table and chair and place on the door MD ABSOLUTE PR OFFICE. That became our first office where we operated between May and December 2009.

Eventually I had to leave before the due date but I was warned to stay clear Skybank and MoneyGram. I did but the truth was that I got a brief from Skybank to do something in Port Harcourt and I had to do it. The next brief came in from Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency so I moved into Port Harcourt for some weeks with my Friend Seun Ogunbayo and Hassan Bakare, the first man that trusted me with his life as an enabler of dreams. April and May 2009 were all I needed that if I could just stay I might get the right chain of business so we stepped into June 2009, then I got my first car (big boy Camry) since my status car went with my last position, I used my wife’s quest van to move around.

On the 5th of June right in the heart of Alimosho at about 5PM I was stopped by some young boys which I considered being policemen but alas these boys had guns with them that I was very obedient to carry out the instructions from them. “Just open the boot of the car” and I did, I felt the metal of the gun as they asked me to go into the boot while one reminded them that the instruction from oga “was to kill him”, the third said he is a Lagbaja man (because I was listening to Lagbaja music) let us leave him to enjoy the music in the boot. So I became part of the gang as I just stayed in the boot for God knows how long until I was asked to come out in the middle of the night where till date I am yet to figure out the location. It was dark and lonely, a night I will forever remember.

What they did with the car, where they went I don’t know, I was just in the car thinking and wondering what could have led to this situation. Could it be Absolute PR, could it be business, maybe it was pure coincidence. All the same as I was asked to run toward a point they drove the Camry in the opposite direction. I was shoeless and topless at that point, but I think I ran farther than I could have done ordinarily.  Eight Hours in the boot of a car, thank God for the gift of life!

Prior to this time (about a week ago) I was preparing for my first pitch as Absolute PR. The Multilink Pitch so on Monday barely 24 hours after the incident I had to leave for Multilink on Adeola Odeku and behold, I met YBO. Very pleasant man, he must have heard about my experience over the weekend because he just said “don’t worry it is the best way to start just stay there and be strong”.

So we had the presentation after YBO’s team left and I got another challenge of the business because I took it for granted that Multilink will have projector. There was no projector, I did the presentation with my laptop and right in the middle of the presentation a member of the panel said we will give this guy something. That was all I needed to finish the presentation.

We (Damilola Jimoh, John Falana and I) left Multilink with a modest goal that we will buy a Projector. That became the 3rd item of the company. As at this time John Falana and Damilola were yet to be fully engaged as a staff of the company. Eventually Damilola became a staff and John moved on.

In the course of the month of June, I had Hassan, Damilola and I in the system working with my “I better pass my neighbour” in my Atunrase Estate apartment in Gbagada.

However, I got a call from a friend asking if I will be interested in meeting some Italians that came into the country for a film festival (ION Film Festival). We met the Italians the next day at queens drive Ikoyi. One week after we made a presentation to them on how best to build awareness and credibility for the first ever travelling film festival to come to Nigeria. They signed us on in July at a fee of 750,000 monthly (our first retainer fee paying client). That was one big lift for me and the team because I sold my stocks and liquidated my insurance policy to get some of the things needed by the two personnel that just joined.

So between July and December 2009, we were sold on the film festival, by the time we finished the festival in December we had enough to get ourselves a proper office space in Jabita Court Gbagada.

34 square meter space on first floor and within two month as we settled down into the place. There was a reason to take another 34 square meter space ground floor. So with a 64 meter square space we started running with a single goal to be better than we were 24hrs ago. We got into eternal oil through Hassan Bakare, we got into Oxford, and we were moving at an interesting speed, my brother Lanre Adisa of Noah’s Ark through Victor Oyarero (another brother from another mother) called us to be part of them through provision of PR service for some of the Noah’s Ark clients. We had Dulux account and others.

Two years ago we got into bed with Capital Media, my brothers and sisters in that place led us to USA, Hong Kong and London to work (it is a story for another day). What else can I ask for except to be grateful to God for where we are presently and where we are going.

In 2010, the year of the world cup, Mr. Kayode Olatawura of Ecobank asked for a small favour for a customer with a Promo idea. “Help complement it with PR” and behold we ended up doing the Ecobank world cup promo (come with us to SA)

Again, we needed to expand office so we got additional 90 square meter space in same Jabita court.

The Ecobank assignment increased the pressure to be better and we tried and are still trying. We saw the advert for Unilever request for registration and we did and we kept our fingers crossed, a man called KDS became an angel with words of encouragement (KDS of Brand regimen was such a good man that we worked together on a Unilever brand that kept us awake all through the night at the Tafawa Balewa Square. That brand got into the Guinness Book of World Record based on that work).

My friend Slim (Lekan Oladejo) of Cross Marketing tried to link me up with some cool contacts but above all he bought the first TV of the company. This same Lekan was the first to give me One Million naira loan interest free when we needed money to handle some projects and all the banks could do was tell us the story of our birth.

We didn’t give up, we continued and we are still at it. In that same year we got two foreign agencies attention and they paid us visits but we could tell what was wrong as they left. So we got a new dream to have a place we can stay together as one- one building!  Whilst thinking of that, we started having the challenges of cash flow (at a higher level); and I cried to my elder brother Frank Ekine. He sent in One million naira (interest free) into my account.

From these two people we were able to raise funds to attend to our financial needs based on projects until I was introduced by our auditor to a good hearted Alhaji Agbonmagbe in the heart of Ikeja who was God sent to us in the area of financial support until Ecobank could help us and then fidelity came with a better deal and now first bank is in and all the banks came with some huge conditions.

So along the line we got Pharmacy Plus, WSI, WDC, Ecobank, Grey Media, Sun City, New Heights, Afribank Saving promo was done with DKK and a long list of other clients that kept us afloat till date.

In the last five years, we are grateful to God we know we can do better and we will do better. We have clients: corporate and individuals and we appreciate them and we know our future is better. I leave the rest in the hands of GOD!!!

Come April 2015, we will be celebrating our sixth anniversary.

This story is not unique to Absolute PR. Every one of us chasing excellence will pass through something like this. The size will be different but we will all have stories, at times I am afraid to enter my office because I will always ask who send you work?

We lost pitches and they were painful. We went for a major presentation that after the presentation everybody said we love it but the MD of the company said we don’t know them, so the job didn’t come to us. We are always learning and it was a huge opportunity to learn. It is not a rosy journey but I am sure that at the end of the day we will be better and happier. Saying it makes it easy but honestly everyday it is by His grace. Absolute PR is about people around us and people inside the company, we are a group of people with dreams and aspirations.

Akonte Ekine, Lead Strategist/ CEO Absolute PR.