By Siddhartha Mukherjee
he world outside our Public Relations and Corporate Communications ondustry is much larger, wider and deeper! Not only that, it is this industry outside that is the bread provider for us professionals. However, for this world outside, the term ‘PR’ is still a strange, funny and frivolous term. Even today, despite all the good brand-building work we have done for clients and the respectability we have tried to bring to this profession, for this external world, with every utterance of this term, it continues to bring words and feelings to the fore such as – wine and dine, fix, spin, hide, twist, jugaad, plug, etc.  Are there any more such words or connect that come to you mind? Try it out!
Despite all the self-gratification initiatives we keep undertaking for ourselves within our PR & Corporate Communications industry, the reality remains that for the world outside, PR is still not a very friendly and constructive term. There is still a lot of negativity aligned to it. This was one of the basic things I had mentioned when I first coined and campaigned for “PR needs PR†(by the way, it’s good to see this tagline getting used and quoted by other individuals and industry forums).
Is the current Industry to be blamed for this reality? Absolutely not! It is purely a matter of our past. It is a matter of legacy that we have inherited… what our erstwhile industry captains, corporate communication chiefs and PR agencies did in the past. In fact, the reality is that despite all the hard and good work done by this current generation of professionals, the Industry at large is still finding it difficult to erase the old, negative association of this word.
The thought or idea of renaming PR came up because so far, we, as an Industry, have not really done anything substantial to recreate the imagery of PR Tool and the Industry for the outside world. The core industry requirement of PR needs PR has been an abysmal failure. Whatever little we have done has been very inward looking and myopic. That is precisely the reason why, for decades now, client investments have been slow, quality talent inflow has been slower.
Is renaming PR a better alternative? Probably, probably not! The only advantage of renaming it is that we can shed off the historic baggage that the term PR has been carrying for decades on its shoulders! For our Industry’s engine to chug along smoothly, its elementary wherewithal has to be addressed and kept intact.
While we are expected to preach image management to our clients, what are we doing to our own Brand’s image?
Siddhartha Mukherjee is a senior PR industry professional and currently Senior Vice President, Eikona – Earned Media Planning, Audit and Advisory. The views expressed here are his own.