OverviewTwenty-nine years ago Burson-Marsteller – then Arcay Communications – began its journey to develop its ‘stand out’ network of indigenous, in-country agencies across Africa. Its objective: to deliver world class, locally-relevant communications seamlessly across markets, while strengthening the communications industry on the continent.

StrategyPartnership has always underpinned our network and continues as we develop long-term relationships across the continent in a structured way. Our partner journey sees relationships moving from non-exclusive to exclusive affiliates to branded partner agencies and finally to equity-ownership. Today our network spans 53 countries, 36 served by Burson-Marsteller branded partners. We assist our African partners to grow their businesses through business referrals and joint new business initiatives, access to the expertise and experience of our global network and through skills transfer.

ImpactExpanding our ‘stand out’ footprint…In October 2016 Burson-Marsteller added another seven branded partners to the Burson-Marsteller Africa network – exclusive affiliates moving to branded partner agencies which began in February 2014 - bringing the total of 29 Burson-Marsteller branded markets to 36. These included Blast Burson-Marsteller in Mauritius, Reunion, Seychelles, Madagascar and the Comoros; MarketOn

Burson-Marsteller, Angola, and the extension of our partnership with Icon Burson-Marsteller, Cameroon, into Congo Brazzaville and Gabon. Today we boast in excess of 500 employees across the continent: local people

with local insights and local relationships who deliver market relevant work.

Helping our partners achieve ‘stand out’ business objectives…In December 2016, Burson-Marsteller acquired a minority stake in Engage Burson-

Marsteller, our branded partner covering Kenya and Tanzania. Engage Burson-Marsteller, founded just four years ago with start-up capital we provided to longstanding partner,

Desiree Gomes, has established a reputable, successful business in a competitive market in a short time and delivers ‘stand out’ work to an array of clients including CNN, MultiChoice Kenya, Nestle Kenya Equatorial Africa and the Privatisation Commission.

During 2017 we initiated discussions with another two branded partner agencies regarding funding to assist their business growth. These discussions

are ongoing.

New business referrals into Africa during 2017 – to the countries indicated in the map alongside – have included work for Colgate, Avaya, Vestergaard, SES, McKinsey, Vivo Energy, the Natural Resource

Governance Institute, the European Union and EQUIP Health.

25+ YEARS HELPING CLIENTS ACHIEVE THEIR COMMUNICATIONS OBJECTIVES ACROSS AFRICA

PRISM AWARD – AFRICAN NETWORK OF THE YEAR

February 2018

Tunisia

Algeria Egypt

Morocco

Sengal

Guinea

Ivory Coast

Burkino Faso

Ghana

Nigeria

Cameroon

Ethiopia

Niger Chad

Democratic Republicof the Congo

Angola

Zambia

Zimbabwe MozambiqueMadagascar

MauritiusReunion

Sudan(North)

South Sudan

Kenya

Tanzania

Namibia

Revenue referred from our Africa hub office into Africa has increased year on year and from 2016 to 2017 showed an impressive 50% growth. In addition, we have seen client budgets increase and the expansion of the geographies in which they require our partnership. The number of business referrals and opportunities between partner offices within our Africa network is also on the rise as is the number of Africa network pro-active approaches we are working on together.

‘Stand out’ leaders building the African communications industry…

Several senior network members are industry leaders dedicated to advancing the African communications industry, and thought leaders driving interesting initiatives in their own countries. • Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, MD of CMC Connect Burson-Marsteller, Nigeria, the current President of the African Public Relations

Association (APRA) appointed in May 2016, and who was awarded LaPRIGA ‘Bob Ogbuagu Leadership Award’ for positively impacting the Nigerian PR profession and inspiring younger practitioners by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations in December 2017.

• Robyn de Villiers, Chairman and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Africa, who was elected APRA Vice-President in May 2017 and is the long-standing training Chair.

• Bridget van Holdt, Business Director at Burson-Marsteller, who as the current ICCO Africa region president, drives collaboration between consultants across Africa.

In September 2017, brainchild Burson-Marsteller, Uganda, with the Public Relations Association of Uganda, unveiled its Innovation Series: thought leadership events which seek to bridge the current innovation gap in the country by inspiring business owners to invent and seek new solutions to their challenges and those of their consumers. The theme of the first event was “Packaging Products for the 21st Century Consumer”.

Recognition also plays an important role in advancing the industry, and after more than a year of negotiations between Paul Holmes of The Holmes Report and Robyn de Villiers and Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, the SABRE Awards Africa were launched in partnership by The Holmes Report and APRA in December 2016, with the inaugural awards held at APRA Morocco in May 2017. The second SABRE Awards Africa is taking place in Gaborone at the 30th Annual APRA Conference.

Recent awards testify to the network’s pre-eminence: 2017 African Network of the Year at the PRISM Awards; 2017 Adfocus African Impact Award, after having won the Adfocus African Network of the Year award in 2015 and 2016, and being named an African Consultancy of the Year finalist in 2017 by The Holmes Report, the only finalist in all nine years of the award and a two time twice.

‘Stand out’ training and skills development…

Communications training and skills development are synonymous with Burson-Marsteller Africa, and our contribution to skills transfer spans the continent. This is achieved through our Starting Blocks internship programme in South Africa and the internships

Several senior network members are industry leaders dedicated to advancing

the African communications industry, and thought leaders driving interesting

initiatives in their own countries.

implemented by our partners in Kenya, Angola and Mauritius, for example; our ASSET staff training programme and by welcoming local and international students seeking work experience; our annual Burson-Marsteller Africa affiliates’ workshop which always includes Burson-Marsteller global training programmes, and our participation in industry events and in-country training for the staff of our partners and their clients.

In May 2017, Robyn facilitated a stakeholder engagement workshop at the APRA annual conference in Morocco and in November she facilitated a training session with a group of CEOs on: “CEOs in the Arena”, ran a professional workshop for PR and communication practitioners; and presented on reputation building, stakeholder engagement and identity rebranding in a competitive environment at the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations AGM and Annual Conference in Abuja, Nigeria.

In-country training for our partners, their clients and their local public relations associations is helping to build the profile of public relations and its value across the continent. Our partner agencies create the opportunities and select the topics; we prepare the materials and facilitate the training. Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Morocco were visited during 2017 for this purpose. (979)

Doing ‘stand out’ work…

Burson-Marsteller Africa does ‘stand out’ client work, reflected in the bumper crop of international awards received in 2017.

Some of our 2017 ‘stand out’ client work, from across the continent, is illustrated below.

2017 EMEA Sabre AwardsGold Award: Educational Cultural Institutions – ABAIM & Blast Buron-Marsteller for “When the Ravann Makes its Way tot he Notation System”

2017 African Excellence AwardsGold Award: Content Marketing – Turner Broadcasting & Burson-Marsteller Africa for “ Be a Buddy, not a Bully” with Cartoon Network

2017 Africa Sabre AwardsBest in Show Finalist – PWC & Blast Burson-Marsteller for ‘NextGenFactor: Fishing for Talent’

Gold Award: East Africa Public Relations Campaign – Colgate Palmolive & Engage Burson-Marsteller for ‘My #ColgateSmilefie’

Gold Award: Public Education – Turner Broadcasting & Burson-Marsteller Africa for ‘Be a Buddy, not a Bully’ with Cartoon Network

Gold Award: Special Event – Multichoice Keny & Engage Burson-Marsteller for ‘Lion Guard – Return of the Roar”

Gold Award: Finanacial and Professional Services – PWC Marutitius & Blast Burson-Marsteller for “NextGenFactor – Fishing for Talent”

2017 PRISM AwardBronze Award: Business to business –SES and Burson-Marsteller Africa for covering 15 African Markets

EQUIP Health – the first African-led global consortium working towards helping Africans deliver differentiated models for rapid scale-up and technical assistance in the HIV/Aids arena. Our challenge: getting EQUIP onto the public radar primarily across Africa with South Africa, Namibia and Zambia being the primary focus during 2017. Our media relations activities reinforced brand awareness, showcased EQUIP technical experts and highlighted partnership successes in EQUIP. Quality media coverage (to the value of USD 74 378.49 in three months) and messaging achieved our objective of connecting EQUIP as the organisation helping countries expedite their reach towards the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets.

Natural Resource Governance Institute – In DRC, Ghana, Tanzania, Tunisia, Guinea and Nigeria our partners leveraged their strong in-country media and stakeholder relationships to draw attention to the 2017 Resource Governance Index, which examined the oversight of the oil, gas and mining sectors in 89 countries across criteria including their legal frameworks, reporting practices, health and safety controls and environmental management. The index garnered interest in all six countries, drawing attention to the country specific research findings and to problems in the sector. One hundred and forty-two pieces of coverage, which accurately reflected the sometimes sensitive local research results, were generated across print, broadcast and online platforms.

Nestle Equatorial Africa Region – In Kenya, our partner, rolled out its Nescafe ‘International Coffee Day’ celebration, a one-day campaign, on 27 September 2017.

Their objectives: to secure online publicity only for the Nescafe brand leveraging Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and blogs, and to give the youth market, influencers and bloggers a coffee experience from ‘farm to cup’.

In eight hours, the conversation around #GoodMorningWorld and #InternationalCoffeeDay reached an audience of 9 897 336 million receiving 17 088 4456 impressions online. This was as a result of over 336 posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Over the day’s conversations, tweets uploaded received 1050 retweets and 119 replies. Facebook posts had 180 comments and 200 positive reactions, Instagram had 100 likes and there were over 20 real-time posts on Snapchat. The client’s usual daily engagement activity on the social media pages grew by over 300 percent and their Facebook and Twitter pages had a 20% growth in fan base during the International Coffee Day road trip.

Turner Broadcasting – Cartoon Network Africa – For the second consecutive year, Burson-Marsteller Africa drove the publicity around CN Buddy Network’s youth-focused, pan-African anti-bullying campaign – Be a Buddy and not a Bully – on its DStv Cartoon Network channel. Working together, Cartoon Network and partners, Childline and SafeTNet , and brand ambassador, 14-year old Paralympian Ntando Mahlangu, imparted the ‘you are not alone’ message, informing youngsters about bullying, empowering them to speak out and putting them in touch with organisations for immediate help and support. We drove coverage in South Africa and Kenya, drove traffic to Cartoon Network’s digital and social media sites (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and cartoonnetworkhq.com) and encouraged youth to report cases of bullying. Our

42 pieces of coverage in South Africa, reaching 19 568 673, well exceeded our target of 18. Our social reach was over 9 312 930. ROI amounted to 17 167%. Childline received 21 bullying related calls on their crisis line and a request from a Cape Town-based author and anti-bullying activist to get involved in the campaign. A young Nigerian girl, Eze Daniella, was inspired by the campaign to write a song which she sang and produced and shared with Cartoon Network.

Nigeria-based, CMC Connect Burson-Marsteller delivered a communications strategy designed to stop the National Assembly from passing a Bill sponsored by an overzealous government department that sought to exercise overriding power to regulate a specific free zone previously not

under its control. The passage of the Bill would duplicate regulatory powers over Nigeria’s free trades zones, in contrast with global best practice standards putting local and foreign investment at risk. The challenge: the agency promoting the Bill had significant support due to the impression given to lawmakers, media, government and the general public that the Bill would have a positive economic impact while the negative consequences had been covered up. Working closely with client, Nigerdock, and other operators in the free trade zone on the planning of the campaign, CMC Connect Burson-Marsteller engaged stakeholders in the Senate and House of Representatives who would be open-minded to the arguments of concerned parties; compiled a White Paper; held media roundtables; facilitated a tour of the free trade zone; developed a communique which gained the attention of the government, regulatory agencies, media and lawmakers; drafted open letters to lawmakers, the vice president; disseminated content to local media and facilitated public hearings. Ultimately, the proposed Bill was stopped and the contract of the organisation seeking to gain the monopoly was cancelled.

Burson-Marsteller Africa began its partnership with SES, the Luxembourg-based communications satellite provider in 2015. Now in the third year, Burson-Marsteller and its African partners are driving brand awareness across 15+ African markets, engaging media and key influencers to illustrate

how satellites can connect the unconnected and enable economic development. Challenges include that SES is entirely unknown in some countries; is viewed

as a ‘premium priced’ operator in a price conscious market; its offering is not different from other players in the segment; some African markets are highly regulated and SES’s customers are mostly data

customers with low profit, short term contracts. Record coverage was achieved in 2016. In 2017, SES changed its

corporate structure, introduced a new management team and turned its attention to focus more on French speaking Africa than its traditional

markets of Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia. This necessitated a rejig of our communications plan, a ‘getting to know each other period’ but also

enabled us to engage more of our African partners in Benin, Burkina Faso, DRC, Cameroon and Senegal. Activity is picking up. Activities include the launch of market related research studies, profiling of in-

country projects, profiling of the new spokesperson, speaker opportunities for global heads visiting these markets and profiling relevant global business announcements.

Tunisia

Algeria Egypt

Morocco

Sengal

Ivory Coast

Burkino Faso

Ghana

Nigeria

Cameroon

Ethiopia

Niger

Zambia

Madagascar

Kenya

In conclusion, a ‘stand out’ highlight…In May 2017 Robyn flew the Burson-Marsteller Africa flag high when she delivered the 2017 Maggie Nally Memorial Lecture hosted by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations International at the House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, on the invitation of Lord McNally.

She shared the insights she has gained in the almost 30 years she has worked across the continent, her observations on how to ‘do communications’ in Africa and her conviction that a ‘one size fits all’ model does not suit Africa. Local partners with local insights and local relationships which are the foundation of the Burson-Marsteller Africa network are what make our impact ‘stand out’.

Now in our sixth year of partnership with CNN, Burson-Marsteller Africa with its partners in Kenya and Nigeria, continues to get outstanding media coverage results for CNN. Focus areas

include sponsorship and new show announcements, press release distribution, breaking news and exclusive interview releases, CNN market stats and awards news. In 2017, over 130 press releases were distributed and over 700 pieces of coverage were received. Total readership for the three primary markets in 2017 was as follows: • SA: 238 042 108• Nigeria: 153 662 230• Kenya: 76 072 144From time to time, our CNN support extends to other countries giving us an opportunity to partner with other Burson-Marsteller partners such as Mauritius in 2017.