Kenya’s Daily Nation reports that the Kenyan government has hired a US lobbying group to repair its battered image in the US. The Washington public relations firm Chlopak Leonard Schechter has been hired at a cost of $1.7 million over the next two years. Their services have commenced with a survey indicating what opinion leaders in the US feel about Kenya. It is not hard to speculate what the survey results might say.
The largest group of respondents probably know little or nothing about Kenya, and therefore have no opinion at all. A smaller group of respondents who are aware of Kenya are likely to regard it as a failed state, in which corruption reigns supreme. There are no surprises for the Kenyan government here. The main issue is how one should go about fixing a cracked reputation: do you repair the cracks, or do you just try to paper over them?
A PR firm can do its best to try to paper over the cracks when “marketing” Kenya to the US, but a sophisticated “buyer” like the US government is hardly going to overlook the deficiencies in the “product”. In the modern world, buyers have access to many information sources; they do not just rely on what the seller tells them. If you want to be effective in selling a product you have to be diligent in making sure it is a good product.