Owned and founded by a brave and tenacious Public Relations guru Miranda Lusiba, Strangé Consulting has not only ensured consistency in the delivery of services to all its clients, but also kept its ear close to the ground to make the most of new opportunities that arise.
Strangé Consulting, a black-led organisation provides a bouquet of lifestyle services that include PR, Media Relations, Corporate Communications, Media Training, Freelance Writing: Storytelling and Content Development as well as Reputation Management with a focus on both corporate and community development projects as well.
“The Strangé team has always made sure that it was ready to provide PR solutions to clients who have communications or reputation-related challenges either on retainer or project basis,” she says.
Having cut her teeth in the industry for more than 20-years’ be it Communications, Media Relations, Reputation Management, Media Training, Freelance Writing, which includes Content Development and Storytelling, Miranda had a stint with top employer namely MTN, Absa and a three-year contract as the MD for The Grind PR (TGPR) – with a mandate to create and implement a turn-around business strategy for the Group’s Sponsorship & Corporate PR agency.
“In my capacity as MD for TGPR, I was fortunate enough to work in large-scale PR campaigns where clients enjoyed tangible PR return on investment (ROI) calculated in rand values. These campaigns included the annual MTN8 Tournament where R205-million worth of Media value and awareness was generated (BMI) for a three (3)-month campaign and achieved over 250 free media interviews through a National Roadshows and Trophy Tours done mainly with football legends.
Another big PR project was the launch of Yekani Manufacturing’s R1-billion world-class Smart Factory in East London. The ROI from a PR perspective was R8.5 million of free media publicity generated on launch day and two months post-event,” boasted the tenacious Lusiba.
At the end of 2019, Lusiba left TGPR because it was now in a stable condition – the agency was not only profitable but the team that she left behind was also able to ensure business continuity and consistently in the delivery of high quality PR, Communications and Media Relations services to all its clients. In collaboration with the rest of TGPR team – this was achieved in less than three years.
Lusiba explains: “Because of lack of capacity – the time spent at TGPR meant that I could only manage the Strange’ Consulting PR business on an ad-hoc basis. From November 2019, I was able to go back to pursuing the Strangé dream and my passion of not only providing high-quality PR services to our clients, but also assisting ordinary South Africans to tackle socio-economic issues affecting various communities such as my hometown, Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.”
Lusiba as a seasoned PR practitioner is synonymous with brands and reporters in mzansi for her sterling work.
Strangé has over the past few years managed to service a number of corporate clients that includes, Afrovation Technology; Kingmaker Consulting – CoJ, SSETA, PPC Cement, BCL Ltd; Global Interface – Eskom, Platco Digital – OpenView HD (OVHD); FCB Redline – IDC; Telcolink – Cisco; PrideLife Group – DarkChild Production & TYME Bank.
The current Strangé team is made up of a group of highly experienced PR professionals with over 50-years combined experience from various Communications and Media Relations background to best manage the Reputation of its clients.
In partnership with some of the most senior PR and Media professionals – Mahendra Raghunath (SABC News ) – Strangé provides Media Training services in an effort to assist assigned spokespeople in various companies with skills on how to handle the media and ultimately manage the reputations of the brands they represent.
For her brazen bravery, Lusiba admits that despite all these successes – the company has over the years experienced its own ups and downs, and this is because of the volatile economic climate now compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The “new normal” is now forcing PR professionals to think differently and adapt or die. The ability to understand the ever-changing business challenges faced by clients has become very crucial and this means that PR agencies need to be agile enough to respond with dynamic PR, Reputation Management strategies that can assist them to overcome these.”
She continues: “The stability of SMMEs in this economic climate is determined by the ability to retain long-term clients complemented by regular ad-hoc projects that can contribute positively to a healthy and steady cashflow.”
As indicated in my opening stanza, ‘nothing strange but hard work at Strangé Consulting’.
For services or more information call +27 (0) 78 675 1297 or email: miranda@strangeconsulting.co.za
Ed Note: I personally communicated with her for years’ at different companies she represented, and I can declare with conviction- she’s trustworthy, honest and a hardworker!
Image (Girl Power, Miranda Lusiba, the founder of Strangé Consulting).
