IPRA was established in 1955 and will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2015, an important milestone for the premier international association that serves individual public relations practitioners with members in more than eighty countries.

The congress is due to take place at the Sandton Convention Centre from Sunday, 27 to Tuesday, 29 September 2015.

As an official partner, PRISA is collaborating with The South African Communication Forum (SACOMM) to present two sessions within the official IPRA Congress Programme.

Nine posters will be presented in the exhibition area at the congress. These have been compiled by local and international university personnel, some being from University of Pretoria and Kenya Journalism Programme school of Science.

The posters will include a variety of topics namely, The Story of an Iconic Brand, The Essence of Integrated Communication, Brand Management in The Non-Profit Sector in SA and How to Encourage Millennials to Trust You.

12 abstract papers will be presented over two days as follows:

On Monday, 28 September:

  • Andrea Crystal - Establishing brand trust with the Born Frees; 
  • Dr T le Roux - Measuring South African Organisational-Stakeholder Relationships with specific reference to Trust; 
  • Andrea Crystal  - The story of an Iconic Brand: The African Development Bank;  
  • Lucrezea de Lange - A conceptual analysis of leadership communication: New requirements for organisational leadership;
  • Dr Lida Holtzhausen - Brand Management in the Non-Profit Sector in SA: Modest Beginnings to Strategic Leading Enterprises; and              
  • Prof Sonja Verwey - Morality and communality: Ubuntu as moral framework for South Africa. 

On Tuesday, 29 September:

  • Prof Sonja Verwey - Sustainability of client – agency relationships: A South African case study;          
  • Prof George Angelopulo - CSR and the murmurs of discontent; 
  • Wium Adendorff - The Business of a memorial – a case study;          
  • Dr Elsamari Botha - Soccer Laduma; 
  • Dalien Rene Benecke - Social capital, Trust and PR; and      
  • Werner Theron - A conceptual framework for exploring brand journalism’s contribution to the theory and practice of corporate communication/communication management. 

Traditional Public Relations is evolving, and emerging in a world where organisational leadership is growing in importance, and where Public Relations entails much more than just communicating with stakeholders on behalf of the organisation. In this world relationships are key, and trust becomes an important social currency that is highly desired but very difficult to attain.

PRISA/SACOMM sessions are scheduled from 16:00 on the Monday, 28 and Tuesday, 29 September 2015.

For more information on the IPRA Congress, click here. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or on Twitter.