Category: PR

By Amith Prabhu

Two stories that have a direct connection to Public Relations. Both from Mumbai and both from last week. It goes to show that Public Relations is about common sense, clear purpose and creating stories.

No one would have missed online images and the same being displayed on news television and newspapers the next day of a man in black. Sudheendra Kulkarni was smeared with black paint by protesting Shiv Sena activists before the book launch he was organising of the former Pakistan foreign minister. He used the incident to his advantage by calling a press conference and remaining in the same way without cleaning the muck on his face.

He knew that there was merit in going in front of cameras and making a point. The book may not have sold more copies but people who did not know Sudheendra Kulkarni and Kasuri’s book were aware of both. The Shiv Sena helped the book get undue publicity.

Talking of books, I was in Mumbai for the book launch of Pandeymonium which has Anant Rangaswami as its curator. The book was released by Amitabh Bachchan in the presence of over a thousand guests including Sachin Tendulkar. I watched in admiration as the hour-long programme progressed.

Admiration for how an ordinary man called Piyush Pandey became an institution over the last 30 years and has used it to the advantage of the profession of advertising. The Public Relations machinery that has created a demi-God status of this Advertising Guru is certainly well thought out. There is so much to learn from Piyush and the book is a great read for those in Public Relations because ultimately both crafts tell stories and build brands.

Both these gentlemen who are subject of my column can teach Public Relations professionals a lot of lessons. Three that stand out are:

a) Timing is everything – if Piyush wrote the book five years ago or five years later, it may not have made as big an impact as it is doing a year after he helped in the marketing of Narendra Modi. Similarly, had Sudheendra cleaned himself up there would have been no media output of the magnitude we saw?

b) Storytelling is key – Pandey’s book is full of stories told in a simple and interesting way. Kulkarni also told a story through the image, a story of intolerance that is gripping the country.

c) Building an image and then using it to stand up for something – in Piyush Pandey’s case he has brought greater respect to the profession. In Sudheendra Kulkarni’s case he gave free speech a new meaning by going ahead with the launch.

Amith Prabhu is a PR practitioner-turned-trainer based in Gurgaon.  He also heads a recently set up school for PR and corporate communications education and skill development. PR, etc appears every Monday on MxMIndia. The views expressed here are his own.

By Amith Prabhu

I would not like this column to focus on brands that create problems. But I will break that rule to write about three brands that I have personally felt slighted by and share what I think they can do to get their Public Relations act together. Moreover, there is learning for other brands from these stories that can help them stay guarded.

The brands that generally create disappointment among consumers are service brands. Generally, banks, airlines, hotels and the like. I’m going to write about three brands, what they did and what they could have done. I will also write about two brands that have gone out of the way to make amends and earned the respect of their customers.

First, is an airline company for which I have had great respect because of the way the brand has been built in the last decade, for its impeccable service and for its overall brand imagery. I accumulated several thousand points by choosing this airline 8 out 14 times I flew from India to the US or vice versa. However, when it came to redeeming my miles for reward flights the airline played games to avoid giving me what was my right because of what they claimed was an error at their end. The error still shows. The airline has lost a loyal customer in the process.

Next, is a hotel booking aggregator. I used the site to book 300 rooms couple of months ago. However, they messed up in their algorithms and oversold couple of properties forcing me to cancel some rooms leading to a loss of close to a lakh of rupees. They finally attempted to make amends by compensating me with one tenth of my losses and therefore letting me give them another chance.

Lastly, a Gurgaon-based builder sold me an apartment with the euphoria that was not called for. However, a 20 month delay in handing over possession has literally been made to seem like nothing at all. In all these three instances lack of honest communication has been the cause of disappointment more than the monetary loss incurred. I am choosing not to name the brands as the intent is not to shame them but to share instances of how brands as larges at the airline or the builder do not give importance to communication to set right part of the damage they have done.

On the other hand three brands that stand out for correcting mistakes at their end need to be saluted. The first is Disney and its Beauty and the Beast which got cancelled last Sunday due to a technical problem. The organisers not only assured ticket holders that their money would be refunded but offered to play the musical free of cost for them the following Sunday. Highly admirable.

Uber on the other hand trusts its customers. Everytime a driver has inadvertently overcharged me or committed a fault of cancelling a ride Uber has taken steps of communicating with me that they will pull up the driver. Yes! Uber drivers sometimes ask that the toll be paid despite the brand offering cashless experience and then the toll gets charged on the account. Something the brands has refunded duly on being intimated.

The difference between the first set of three brands and the second set of two is honest communication. It may not be a coincidence that the first set of three are Asian and the second set of two are American. All in all brands and their handlers in India need to learn that the power of public relations lies in honest communications.

By Amith Prabhu

What connects the following three communications professionals – Samir Kapur of Adfactors, Lavanya Wadgaonkar of Nissan Motors and Mukund Rajan of Tata Group? They are the three communications professionals in India that I know of, who hold a PhD degree and have Dr prefixed to their name.

It makes one feel proud that in a community that is barely about 3000 people strong there are three who are Phds. What stops other communications professionals from pursuing higher studies and researching on a topic within the field ranging from mergers and acquisitions, employee engagement, ethics, corporate governance, community relations, crisis management and the like?

Well, I can speak from experience that I chose to invest an entire month’s salary to spend on a short programme in marketing strategy at Harvard while I worked in the United States. Many other colleagues did that. But here in India that is not common. Earlier, the opportunities were few but now that opportunities have increased people do not avail them.

I’m part of several Whatsapp groups that comprise the community of PR professionals. Barring one, which is definitely interesting most are shallow ponds of intellectual mockery. It is painful to read the discourse taking place on some of these. And what is even more alarming is there is no visible sight of anything being done to solve this problem which will plague the community in the near future.

Even free education or deep discounted education has no takers at the highest levels, at times. Everything is not about learning at work. From time to time one needs to take time off to learn with different people and from different people. My column is about a hope I have. A hope that in the next five to seven years we will have at least 30 PhDs in India working in communications.

This is not impossible. With new age universities emerging the possibility of pursuing higher education is optimum. Let’s consider taking up the pursuit of a doctorate seriously and aim to add renewed vigour to our profession.

By Amith Prabhu

This column is about five things organisations can do build a reputation by focusing on the small things. A visit or life in Gurgaon is incomplete if one has not been to Kingdom of Dreams and watched one of its two shows or at least hung out at Culture Gully, its interesting food court with a difference. The entertainment destination is grand and opulent but misses out on the small touches where Public Relations can come in.

I have been ensured that each of my house guests in the past year and there has been at least one family every quarter gets to watch a show at Nautanki Mahal. While the shows are great, the food is good and the entire experience is larger than life, there are those small things that this place misses out and it could be because of the environment it operates in.

First, the online booking system is a sham. You book in a specific category that is within your budget but at the counter when you collect the tickets the show has been cancelled for absurd reasons and explained in a rude manner. Then tickets for another day are offered in a higher category because the ticket counter associate claims lower categories are not available making the customer believe that these are sold-out. But in reality the lower category tickets are not being sold to push higher category tickets.

For members of the loyalty club programme there are other ordeals to deal with. Often, the card is upgraded to a higher class which in itself is a good thing but the card holder is not informed and he or she gets to know only at the time of a transaction and the entire process of reactivating a card takes at least half an hour, until which time no order can be taken, which means a longer wait to fill the stomach.

Well, these are not just my experiences but those of several others who have gone through them. What can one learn from Public Relations to deal better with these scenarios?

Firstly, transparency. Never fool customers. You can do it once or twice with few or many but not all the time. Secondly, customer is the reason of the existence for any business. Never be rude or arrogant with customers even if they are wrong. Third, a happy customer experience is a guarantee of loyalty. An unhappy experience offered to a customer is a road downhill. Fourth, honest communications is always key to success in the long term. Customers are humans and understand simple explanations. Fifth, never underestimate the power of activism and social media. These are the new ombudsman.

By Amith Prabhu

I was part of the audience at the oldest awards for Public Relations in India held at Gurgaon on Saturday night. While I give credit to Anurag Batra for instituting these awards in 2010 and bringing up the 6^th edition in style, it was sad to several stalwarts missing. I am not privy to the reason for the absence of at least a dozen senior leaders but they missed an opportunity to inspire younger professionals.

Some PR companies were conspicuous by their complete absence. I’m worried for future generations that there are less than half a dozen opportunities annually for the fraternity to interact with future managers and leaders. I also feel leaders of organisations may have reservations about certain events and therefore keep away.

I’m hoping things get better. We are a unique family of professionals where almost all key players know each other on a first name basis. We need to work towards a better future. This maybe possible by also improving and increasing the awards options. Globally, ICCO has launched awards, there are the Cannes Lions, Sabre has been around for a while and now the global alliance is making inroads into the awards space.

Awards should have a completely independent jury. One which does not participate in the awards. Award functions should be sponsored by entities that do not submit entries. The three divisions should be kept separate – those who submit, those who sponsor and those who judge.

There are over 90 PR firms in three categories – large, medium and small. There are about 20, 30 and 40 firms respectively in each of these categories. Only about 8 to 10 participate. Further, only 10 to 15 attend the awards despite being held in the metros. I wish this changes. There is so much good work done by several of the 90 firms. I hope as time passes we become more inclusive and transparent in rewarding ourselves.

PR, etc is a weekly column written by Amith Prabhu, a communications professional, Dean of communication school SCORE, founder of the Promise Foundation, Praxis and Engage. The views expressed here are his own.