International advertising agency TBWA in partnership with new media company African Laughter yesterday launched a mobile-based social media monitoring app essential for overseeing social media campaigns by businesses while giving feedback on the nature of posted comments.
“PRPro is a next level for our clients in building and managing their corporate reputations,” said Tim Smyth, CEO for TBWA East Africa, during a presentation in Nairobi on the app’s functionality and analytics.
Smyth said that PRPro has been developed to allow more companies to increase their following while allowing them to see the effect of each post they make.
“In essence, the app connects clients with market sentiment on their brands in real time allowing them to have better conversations with consumers and media,” Smyth added.
Alakie Asige, business development director at African Laughter said: “The move into automated media monitoring was a natural technological progression, driven by requests from many of our clients.”
African Laughter is behind the development of the platform, a project that cost almost KSh10 million (US$119,000) and took 8 months to complete.
African Laughter’s managing director Jenny Luesby said: “The app is 85 percent accurate and gets the deeper meaning of the words used, by checking how they are joined together, and gives a feedback.”
The application will be available for free for TBWA clients. Smyth said that they were more interested in the “relationship and welfare of their clients, and will not concentrate much on the return on investment.”
TBWA, an international advertising agency whose headquarters are in New York, opened its agency in Nairobi back in February this year and has since won a number of East African region advertisers including Kenya Airways and VISA. Globally, TBWA manages the marketing of Apple and Adidas.
African Laughter is a Kenyan company formed in 2007 that specialises in content and technology-based innovations.
