Category: COLUMNS

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

Yesterday, yet again, we learnt of another celebrity suicide. Yet again, there will be plenty of news and views content across media platforms on this topic including how to prevent it. And again, there will be discussions on reasons such as depression and other downsides of human life.

My contribution to this clutter is slightly different. The world of social media uses sharp technologies, analytics and research to precisely track, understand and leverage individual common man’s up sides – dreams, happiness, and aspirations. Yes, that is the world and benefit of ‘narrow’casting or the nano version of hyperlocal segmentation – much different from the yester world of ‘broad’ casting and generic overview-based studies. This information is in turn used by social media platform owners to push more such newer or related content back to the same common man. In such cases, for social media platforms owners, their business bottom line is the bottom line.

My question is that why can’t the same social media owners use the same machinery to identify the common man’s depressive state and do something to divert or delay the victim’s thought process. In this case, their no top or bottom line. It’s a new age and realistic CSR contribution!

Of course, this is based on the premise that common man’s time spent on social media is only increasing. This uncontrollable stickiness is steering the common man to such an extent that social media has turned out to be both the cause but cure of one’s mental state of mind.

Now speaking about the dark side, it is therefore quite possible for social media owners to detect sudden or even gradual changes in the way a user is participating in or responding to social media activities across platforms. That monitoring, if passed through set of algorithms, can certainly predict or red flag a potential candidate with suicidal tendencies. This itself should enable the social media platform users to do the following:

1. Push positive, motivational, encouraging or diverting content to the potential victim
2. Create observation reports and alert the necessary action desks across crime prevention, counselling and candidate’s family members

Let me explain. One of the key responsibilities of social media platforms and their backend analytical tools is to keep track of the kind of content you and I like. Not just that, based on our past or rolling activities or lack of activities on social media platforms, it predicts and pushes back at you and me other or new content that we may like.  Social media backend algorithms do this 24X7, 365 days a year, for people, you and me, who are living on both the sides of the world – the bright side as well as the dark downside comprising of depression and other fatal emotions.

Now imagine a case where an individual’s social media activity has (gradually) shown a dip or the conversations show greyness or darkness. If Social media platform can intelligently push positive, aspirational, happy content that will pep up the person using similar algorithms, the candidate will re-think and if not anything else, delay the deadly act of suicide. It buys more time for family and the prime detection and prevention machinery.

With content oozing across out of every single corridor of the world wide web, there is enough to push such content to make the potential victim feel good, pepped up, human and one amongst us. More importantly, not leave him or her to decay in a desolate state of mind.

It is simply about making the victim divert attention from negative and dark thoughts into something that has hope, happiness and aspiration. It forces the potential victim to reconsider the act of suicide and if not anything else, simply delays the act. Not just that, this gives the social media analytics desk to create an observation report for dedicated desks and machineries like cybercrime desks etc which are trying hard to use social media intelligence to pre-empt suicides by individuals bring down the national numbers.

The most important point is that this single source of data goldmine gives impetus to the creation of holistic task force comprising of crime prevention desks, police, psychologists, counsellors and government policy specialists to work together towards social security.

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

The two cities are obviously giveaways that this column is about technology. However, a new point of intersection is that these two cities are quietly allowing India’s research & analytical industry to push their service variety and quality envelopes.

India’s Brand Research & Data Analytics industry was pretty much in a time loop till a few years ago. However, if you look at the last five years or so, these two cities have armed the primary & secondary research and data analytics industry with interesting service delivery possibilities.

To simplify, if brand communication management is a key component of managing the brand itself, then technology intervention is allowing brand owners and agency firms with new ways to manage the brand communication cycle – listening, benchmarking & target setting, execution monitoring, exposure, engagement and conversion evaluations.

In the secondary or media monitoring and analysis industry for example, data collation, processing, analysis & interpretation and report generation – all these key functional blocks were delivered through a high manual head count. Speed, quality and overall efficiency suffered.

In certain other cases, there have been fresh break throughs where technology itself was struggling to deliver efficient outputs all these years. One of the areas is that of audio or voice conversion into text. Not that these solutions were not available earlier – through google or other customized technology solutions. However, the problem they were facing was that not just of speed but more importantly accuracy.

Another example of a very handy solution, especially for the communication experts is being able to first transcribe a spokesperson’s English quote on television into English text, translate that into various regional or international languages and lip sync it back into the original television recording.

No, it is not always an AI or ML outcome. Many of these are outcomes are due to intelligent software designing and coding skillsets.

Innovative solutions like these are a reality. This means that solutions are available or there are brains that can deliver. Bangalore and Hyderabad can be looked as strategic hubs for innovative solutions that will further boost and allow brand research and analytics industry to deliver more width and depth wise.

In the area of secondary research and analysis, two specific areas come to mind. Advertising & Public Relations. Both these two industries are in crying need for much faster and sharper collation & processing of data, intelligent & friendly outputs followed by easy-on-the-go user access touchpoints.

The two cities are today dotted with many homegrown and international service providers. While the international players have come to India because they have a back up of successful business stories and infrastructure in other markets, however, they have been able to do wonderful job of localizing their offerings at the hyper local level.

Going forward, our media and marketing industry can look at considering formal, well organized exhibitions and seminars where these service providers from these two cities, and of course other cities, can exhibit and showcase the world of possibilities in the field of brand research and data analytics.

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

Syndicated Readership, Viewership, Listenership and many other industry studies through research and measurement initiatives have gone through turbulence. Nothing new, nothing abnormal! As members of the media, marketing and communications industry, we have all been preview to disagreements, allegations, frictions and arguments between the media measurement service provider and the subscribers – advertiser, media owners and planners.

In fact, I would say much of this is needed to make a neutral Media Research and Measurement machinery robust.

However, I believe that public or media debate on the shortcomings of an Industry Measurement and Research system will make the Indian households wary about surveys, research and therefor their responses. Indian Households will view and treat field executives approaching them for responses or feedback in a different or radical way. Marketing investments and Brand Management decisions will get affected majorly since respondent households will lose faith or question the rationale and credibility of the marketing and market research industry.

While these open, public spats in media have been common since more than a decade now, what we saw, especially, during the last one year, has been disturbing. Media stories dismissing organisations, individuals and processes along with use of words or phrases that suggest rigging, scam, etc. quite certainly will send a disturbing message within existing or prospective respondent individuals across Indian households.

Three immediate outcomes come to mind:

1. This will break the backbone of market research

2. Will impact employment of thousands of survey or research field executives

3. Will raise questions on the safety and social standing of those field executives

What can be done? Well, solutions are not so easy and simple to come. However, if we understand and acknowledge the problem or the Frankenstein the industry is creating for itself, I am sure industry stakeholders will stop being myopic and get together for a solution. If the industry wishes to do damage control and/or sustain the belief and credibility of respondent-based studies amongst Indian households, a perception management programme needs to be created.

For now, if media owners can take an editorial call on being selective about the type of news they will publish about the India’s Research & Measurement Industry. Second, if stakeholders can display the same personality and standpoint about government’s involvement in industry’s syndicated media and market research studies that they displayed around 2008-09.

Solutions can be many. Perception management programmes can also be many. However, the first step towards the cure is to understand that with ongoing public or media debates on media measurement and research, it is puncturing the future of India’s syndicated studies.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a specialist in perception measurement and has now co-founded Brand Balance, a brand salience consultancy. His views here are personal

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

The reality is that businesses or corporate or product brands cannot afford to advertise round the year. Due to reasons such budgets, inflation, etc, sustaining ad push (digital or traditional) through the year is not practically feasible. During these months, the earned, owned and shared mediums, now combinedly known as Public Relations, comes in as the Saviour, Samaritan or the Superhero.

Covid-19 may have created some aberrations in the pattern but it will neutralise and offset soon.

The key question, however, is that are we directing Public Relations well? To make PR a superhero, it needs to be directed well. Who are the directors? Top management and the Chief Communications Officers.

However, for direction to work well, some of the key assumptions required here are:

1. The Top Management is very clear that Brand success goes beyond sales. In other words, they see the larger picture that Corporate Brand Reputation, Risk Mitigation, Multi-Stakeholder Engagement, Brand Demand Sustenance are some bigger challenges beyond sales. Towards this, Public Relations is the only saviour

2. Public Relations will not (just) be used for the personal agenda or the glorification of the individual Top Management members

3. Public Relations will not be treated as News or Headline or Journalist Management desk but as an integral engine for business survival and growth

Once the above is in order, the Public Relations can be directed as a SuperHero. It needs a joint commitment and orchestration by the three stakeholders:

a) Top Management and b) Communications Desk.

Top Management:

1. Annual or Periodic Planning: The business and the subsequent communications objective should include Corporate Brand Reputation, Risk Mitigation, Multi-Stakeholder Engagement, Brand Demand Sustenance as some of the key priorities with stakeholder beyond customers.

2. Involvement of Corporate Communications Desk: Often, Corporate Communications desk is left out in the business planning phase. While getting a seat in the boardroom is ideal, but even if not, Top Management needs to involve CorpComm in its planning process. This desk is not just about taking orders and executing it. This desk can and should counsel the management on the aspects to keep in mind for communications planning. Ofcourse, this requires CorpComm personnel to have that calibre or domain wavelength.

3. Create clear timeline-based targets and evaluation parameters: Breaking down Communications programmes into weekly, fortnightly and monthly activity chart backed with targeted vs achieved evaluation parameters is very crucial for last mile success. To think of a larger picture, Public Relations can not only play a crucial role during ad hiatus but also support advertising as a part of the IMC mix. Last mile planning and orchestration is very key.

4. Support CorpComm with required resources: Data, Budgets and People are three key pillars of resources. Designing, managing and allocating these need modulations for optimum output.

CorpComm Desk:

1. Profile of the team: The team profile and its mindset need to be far and away from news, headline and journalist management stereotype thought processes. The language of business & brands needs be understood extremely well. Understanding Management’s business KRAs and converting that into Communication activity grid effectively is very crucial.

2. Discipline of Account & Media Planning: To create high impact results like advertising or even more, public relations programme needs to be put through proper account and media planning process.

3. Using Analytics for showcasing outcome: The Comms Machinery needs to showcase the outcome of the public relations efforts and not output. Measurement & Analytics will play a key role here.

Typically, out of the overall advertising pie, product or marcomm expenditure is around 95%. The remaining 5% pertains to corporate brand advertising. Public Relations can establish itself as the superhero for both Corporate and Marcomm objectives during advertising hiatus.

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

This is the territory of the Public Relations and Corporate Communications world. Proficient board members and brand owners understand the value of corporate brand thought leadership. More so, these stakeholders also realize that advertising or other communication tools have little ability to construct it. This specialization is brought in from the house of PR & CorpComm.

If you study the Organisations that managed to sail through vs those which struggled during past eight months of Covid, a litmus test will suggest that health of their Thought Leadership was a key factor.

Brand Thought Leadership is all about a positive and contextual recall of a brand at the right time and place across all stakeholders so that business relationship gets stronger and business transactions keep increasing.

Over the years, public relations as a tool and corporate communication as a function have been trying to showcase the art & science of achieving it to the top management. However, over the years, some key dynamics have changed:

1. Management of the 2 Rs: Brand owners are increasingly understanding that their ability to orchestrate their organization’s thought leadership is key towards the success of managing the 2 Rs – reputation and risks. Reputation management and risk mitigation requires a healthy intervention of thought leadership.

2. Not just competition set: There was a time when thought leadership was created and sustained with respect to the competition set. Today, mere competition set is a misleading.  In today’s VUCA scenario, a telecom brand’s stakeholder can get influenced from an fmcg brand, an automobile, or even an IT brand…or vice versa. Hence, corporates today are hand picking the peer group of competition brands from across sectors and then constructing the desired thought leadership.

3. Thought is about Message Engagement: For a brand to invoke a thought is a game of key message matrix. Messaging is not about putting together a few sentences. It requires the science of analysis and art of emotion to construct it.

4. CEO and the army: Spokesperson’s role in key! CEOs are leading their armies from behind. CEO’s are not the whole and sole face of the organization. It is increasingly being observed that in PR/Corporate Communications warfare, CEOs are letting their sergeants – other CXOs, HR heads, vertical heads, product heads, etc. – take charge of creating and sustaining the brand’s thought leadership & reputation management across stakeholders. Though few but a trend has started where CXOs and brand owners are leaning on the corporate communications function to master the art of designing and sustaining Thought Leadership through the year.

5. Editorial Formats: Irrespective of normal or new normal scenarios media owners go through, every media platform does try to create more than one editorial or content format or style. Authored article is no longer the only way to build thought leadership. There are various formats a media title offers. Understanding the anatomy of the media title is all the effort that is required.

6. Thought Leadership across reputation pillars: Management needs to work towards building thought leadership in not just one but across all the brand reputation pillars. Finance, marketing, products and services, CSR and Sustainability, HR, Government, Technology and Innovation, etc. are some of the many areas that management is keen to build thought leadership in.

7. Advent of Analytics: Till recently, adoption of data and analytics was slow within our industry. Hesitation was largely due to insecurity or probably the lack of knowledge of what data & analytics means and how it can benefit the various corridors. However, thanks to various awards platforms that have cropped up, the (claim to) use of data and analytics towards PR & CorpComm planning, especially in the area of Thought Leadership is increasing.

The health of an organisation’s balance sheet is directly linked with the state of that organisation’s thought leadership. The faster and stronger it is tastefully built and sustained, the longer becomes of the life of that organization.

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

Being able to change the stakeholder or target audience behaviour into a desired action is what provides brand owners their ROO (Returns on Objectives) and ROI (Returns on Investment). Public Relations does that for both small and large brands by relating with their stakeholders. Most of us confuse it as a subject. However, it is actually an application or a convergence point of a variety of subjects such as language, psychology, physiology, anthropology, geography, history, science, and many more.

Given this, I wonder if the way we have evolved so far as an industry is anywhere close to what it ought to be.

While I have seen glimpses of this both on the client and the Agency side, I am not sure if it has gained momentum or has been marketed well. It is because of our confusion of what Public Relations actually stands for – subject or convergence of many subjects, both brand owners and service providers have not been able to size it up well.

What does this mean for the various industry corridors?

1. Talent: The Media & Management institutes will need to re-think about their course curriculum. The definition of Brand Communication & Management will need a think thru. The scope has to widen and deepen to incorporate subjects like psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, political science etc.

2. Publishing Houses: Both India Inc. and the education institutes lack authentic and well-informed books and periodicals that share knowledge about Brand Communications & Management. New and local Indian authors will need to emerge or encouraged to write authentic and holistic reading material. The current ones are too little or a rehash of the write ups from the western world. Reading materials need to steer the industry to a refined understanding of what Public Relations is and what it can do for a brand.

3. Clients or Brand Owners: The top management and board members will need to review their approach so far on brand management, demand generation and sustenance. The hard fact is that for last many decades, they have looked at Public Relations as a “Jugaad” Industry. News Management, headline management, negative news management, etc have been at the centre of their recall for public relations. They have never looked at Public Relations as a strategic engine for Business Growth and Sustenance.

4. Communication Firm: Communication Firms or Agencies have been the key drivers of many changes or movements within the Brand Management industry. So, here too, Agencies can play a huge role in shaping the understanding and perception of the Client or Brand Owners. The agencies can lead by example. What an agency stands for, what it will deliver for the client, how its performance will be evaluated etc will need a complete revamp. If done well, clients will understand what they have been missing out on.

The value that Public Relations can actually bring into the boardroom is not comprehended well. Board members’ understanding of what this convergence point stands for or can do is half baked. The agency community has also not executed a good job on educating their client members on what PR actually is vs what they are being expected to do.

Relooking at Public Relations as a convergence point will redefine the entire brand management industry.

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

It took close to three decades of umpteen seminars, media write-ups and plenty of PR campaign failures, ineffective evaluation of Corp Comm desks and PR agencies to reach today’s state of PR Monitoring (and not measurement).

As a score, what the industry has achieved is a disciplined behaviour to regularly monitor the PR scores of the brands they represent and its competition.

This, by itself, is a big achievement because till some years ago, almost 30% of the industry members did not feel the need to regularly monitor the PR score needle.

However, the discussion on the Desired versus Achieved gap comes into account when we look at the progress of industry’s transition from PR Monitoring to Measurement.

Here are some observations:

1. Over-dependence on Output and not Outcome: The biggest problem is that the PR and Corporate Communications industry still depend on output and not outcomes. Rarely does the industry realise that the C-suite will look at the impact on the business. Till such time, the C-suite will continue looking at PR & Corporate Communications Machinery as a personal gratification tool.

2. To be fair, I know of some (very few actually) visionary industry captains have progressed to the Business Impact or Outcome line of thinking. Howver, the challenge they face is that the current measurement system has still not adapted itself to the new measure. While news and views exposure measuring metrices are there, what is missing is the ability to directly correlate a successful PR campaign to actual business outcome.

3. Most often than not, clients do not start with “Why am I doing this PR Activity? Therefore, what do I measure?”. Which is why, most of the times, the objectives are not measurable.

4. One of the key things that usage of PR Measurement does at the ground level is that it creates a SWOT for the Organisation, especially the Corporate Communications Team. Which is why I have have always believed that PR measurement is a zone of those who are brave hearted. It is exactly this reason that a very small percentage of them in the agency and corporate side are now seriously exploring, talking and discussing measurement seriously. The remaining part of the industry is not doing measurement, but what they are doing is actually PR monitoring.

5. PR measurement basically all about outcome. It is all about what the benefit or the what outcome is on my brand and business health.

I think it’s a good time now for industry leaders, PR service providers and PR measurement service providers to come forward and drive a campaign on the difference between PR Monitoring versus Measurement.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a senior marketing services research professional. He was until last year Business Head at Eikona and is currently Founder of Brand Balance (brandbalance.in). This column appears every other Thursday.

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

PR firms being able to extract desired fees or on-going fee hikes from clients is a rarity. Is the client to be blamed? No. More often than not, the problem hinges on the way PR companies have presented their case at the time of the performance review discussions.

My personal experience has been that more often than not, the PR firms have done a wonderful job! It is just that at the time of performance review discussion, there was no systematic and scientific MIS of what was done, when it was done, why it was done and finally, what the outcome was.

Some of the pointers below should help in our preparations going forward:

1. What was agreed in the Deliverables section of the Service Agreement

‘Why’ are we doing PR? This simple elementary question is the key to the success and future growth of the PR Firms Industry? The details and deliverables we put on the last page of the client service agreement is the key determinant and source of the what we prepare and how we present.

More often than not, PR firms keep this section vague – whether it is deliberate or naiveness is debatable. It is this act that boomerangs at the time of performance review. It prevents them to envisage the kind of MIS they need to maintain and the KRAs they need to work on.

2. Is the Reviewer a CXO

Is the final reviewer a CXO or a Head of Communications is an important point to keep in mind while we start our work immediately after signing up. What is the person’s understanding or perception of what we offer or the value we bring on the table? CXO’s perspective and their language – from the domain of Marketing, Sales & Brand Management – are very different from the language PR Firms use. Let us just say that there is a huge GAP

3. Even if it is the CCO, what is his/her background

Head of Communications come from more than one background. Part of it is because of what the employer expects from the desk. If the Employer is expecting “News Management or Headline Management”, chances are that the Corporate Communications individual will be from the journalism background or someone who has spent majority of his/her life doing “media relations” in agencies. For PR Firms, showcasing efforts etc. in such cases are relatively easier to deal with.

However, if the Communications Head comes with Brand Management, Marketing or Communications background, PR Firms will have to prepare much more.

4. What kind of MiS are we maintaining

Starting from Day One, month-on-month, the design and quality of Management Information System a PR Firm maintains internally is key towards how satisfied the Client will be with its answers during the performance review. Month-on-month client meetings, planning, management of quantity and quality of media exposure, managing of business as usual and business not as usual, balancing of corporate brand reputation, thought leadership, launches, press release dissemination, database management, etc are key to be being well prepared.

5. What presentation parameters do we use

Well, this section depends largely on the answers for Questions 2 & 3 above. If the evaluator is a CXO, chances are that mere discussion parameters like count of articles, advertising value, share of voice, rankings etc. may not impress him/her. The CXO has a very structured thought process and often thinks through the lens of account planning – listening to outcome. He is used to the concept of thought processes such as media planning, sustenance, recall, engagement, etc. Absence of such thought processes often irk CXOs

So, enough can be done. The revenue streams of PR Firm will see lesser client attrition and higher fee hikes flowing in. What is needed is to revamp the age-old thinking! This needs intent and willingness to breathe fresh air.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a senior marketing services research professional. He was until last year Business Head at Eikona and is currently Founder of Brand Balance (brandbalance.in). This column appears every other Thursday.