MxMIndia

Category: PR

  • The Covid disruption is redirecting the brand owner’s past obsession with paid and earned towards owned platforms, writes Siddhartha Mukherjee

    Siddhartha Mukherjee: Owned Media is emerging as a Dark Horse

    By Siddhartha Mukherjee

     

    It has been a double whammy for the brand management industry. First, the paid industry took a beating due to its ineffectiveness. Next, this led to news media owners trying to manage their financials by letting go of hundreds of journalists. For brand owners, this has impacted their paid and earned route of brand building and sustenance communications big time!

     

    Here is where the owned media is emerging as the dark horse.

     

    Owned media is defined as those communication tools or platforms which are directly owned and controlled by the Brand Owners. Websites, microsites, social media handles, newsletters, mobile apps, etc. are some examples of owned media. Best part? There is no cost attached to this part of brand marketing as it is ‘owned’ by the brand owner.

     

    The Covid disruption is redirecting the brand owner’s past obsession with paid and earned towards owned platforms. For Brand owners, Owned media is turning out to be a reliable bet to:

    1. create & sustain brand visibility

    2. create & sustain brand engagement

    3. create & sustain brand engagement

    4. create & sustain brand reputation

     

    Most of the times, brand management, with required constituents mentioned above, remains unkempt. Websites, social media handles, newsletters, apps, etc. are either not thought through, revamped, created well, or leveraged properly.

     

    Owned media offers brand building on the following three pillars:

    1. Channel Customization: Owned media allows brand owners to create customised and successful content that is relevant and valuable. The foundation of an owned media strategy are your content channels — the vehicles through which deliver content to audiences directly, unmediated by a third party. The most common channels are your website, catalogs, newsletters, mobile apps, etc.

    2. ‘Community’ special: No doubt, content channels focus on the connection between the brand and its target audiences. However, the special touch that Owned media adds to the brand is the creation of a ‘community’. These can be online, such as virtual communities or private social networks, or offline, such as in-person gatherings or events. They can be direct, as in discussion forums, or indirect, through peer benchmarking. Though the logistics are tiring but the logistics are much greater.

    3. Offers Data MiS: Paid and Earned Media always carry the limitation of creating isolated or one-way interactions with your target audiences. The brand needs mechanism for turning isolated interactions into a connected experience. This requires creation and leveraging of Data MiS. Owned media allows this flexibility. Loyalty or reward programs is one such outcome from such data management.

     

    So, next time when you look at your monthly media mix for your brand, review the role and weightage of owned media platforms for the Corporate Vs Product brand matrix.

     

    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 on MxMIndia. His views here are personal. He can be reached via Twitter at @SIDmvrck

     

     

  • The mandate encompasses strengthening brand  awareness and building brand preference, in India

    HSNC Univ awards Kaizzen with its PR mandate

    By A Correspondent

     

    PR agency Kaizzen has been awarded the public relations mandate for Mumbai-based HSNC University. The mandate encompasses strengthening brand  awareness and building brand preference, in India.

     

    Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani

    On Kaizzen’s appointment, Ritika Shah, GM – Corporate Media Relations, Hiranandani Group & Communities, said: “We are pleased to appoint Kaizzen as our Public Relations Consultancy, to communicate our progressive vision and mission to the relevant audiences. Appreciably they very well sync with Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani – Provost of HSNC University’s ideologies and vision. The team’s experience in managing similar mandates for other industry bodies and in the education space, affirms my belief in their ability to deliver strong results. We look forward to a long-term association with team Kaizzen.”

     

    Added Vineet Handa, CEO – Kaizzen: “We are thankful to the management team at HSNC University for placing their trust in Kaizzen. Our team is excited at the opportunity of working collaboratively with the team at HSNC University, and look forward to applying our strategic expertise to execute innovative, disruptive and high-impact PR campaigns that will positively impact the brand. Over the past twelve years, Kaizzen has established itself as a leading multi-practice and full-service PR and Digital Media Agency. Education is one of our very strong practice areas, and the current mandate will help consolidate this practice even further.”

     

     

  • The much-used ornament of ‘PR for PR’ campaign by various leaders is in a limbo, writes Siddhartha Mukherjee

    Siddhartha Mukherjee: Do corporates really carve out separate budget for PR?

    By Siddhartha Mukherjee

     

    For a large section of the PR and Corporate Communications fraternity, this question will bring a smirk on their faces.  They have never seen this happen. So, it is quite unthinkable, so far. Whatever budget allocation has happened all this while has been a sub-allocation or diversion of ‘advertising’, ‘marketing’ or ‘launch’ budgets. It may come under any heading but public relations or corporate communications. Funnily, when the same corporate gets hits with a market crisis roadblock, budgets get allocated formally under PR/Corporate Communications and that too in a jiffy.

     

    The much-used ornament of ‘PR for PR’ campaign by various leaders is in a limbo. C-suite’s recall of PR/Corporate Communications as an integral business management function is so very low. No wonder, C-suites and departments like finance, marketing, human resource, etc do not think of corporate communications as a separate business management personality.

     

    What are some of the side effects of this?

     1. Low Morale of Corporate Communications Function:The constant begging and/or justification needed to sustain the PR/Corporate Communications function with funds or budgets leads to loss of job interest. Low job morale or self-esteem is a key issue that is plaguing our industry.

    2. Poor Quality of Talent: The flip side to this is that it leads to attracting irregular talent profile. This, then, ends up being a vicious circle. On one side, this leads to extracting poor quality work from PR agencies, and on the other, this leads to unsatisfactory experience of the C-suites.

    3. Brand becomes weak: Lack of budgets leads to weak brand building sustenance. A brand needs a lot of preparation, effort and round the year of pampering. Brand logo, promise and experience management are very crucial areas and these need round the year investments. Corporate and Product Reputation have their unique and unison dynamics. Budget scarcity makes a brand matrix weak.

    4. Brands go through worse crises: Due to brand management negligence due to lack of budgets, the organization ends up being the worse hit when the brand faces smallest of crisis. The impact is direct on the balance sheet. Assets fall, liabilities bloat up.

     

    5. External Partners suffer: Not only do the Corporate Communications departments suffer internally but even the external agency partners are left with peanuts. It is a common misinterpretation that agencies can operate and grow at a small fee. Lack of budgets create last mile impact on agencies – poor business growth, below par talent, unsatisfactory standards of service delivery, etc.

     

    How can this be changed?

    1. ERP orientation for C-suites: Many C-suites still do not really understand how PR and Corporate Communications is executed, what goes on behind the scenes and most importantly, what (tangible) value it brings for the business and brand.An orientation (PR for PR in true sense) of what PR and Corporate Communications will work wonders and change the archaic budget allocation tendencies.

    2. Measurement vs Monitoring: The Corporate Communications team continues to misinterpret or confuse PR monitoring services with that of measurement. This has been the core reason why Corporate Communications functions has still not been able to showcase tangible value to C-suites. This singular factor, if addressed well, can make bring about a huge mindset change in budget allocation under the heading of PR and Corporate Communications.

     

    Budgets, funds, investments, call what you may. PR and Corporate Communications is goldmine! C-suites will do themselves and the organisation a favour by leveraging it well – through understanding, acknowledgement, appreciation, investments.

     

    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 on MxMIndia. His views here are personal. He can be reached via Twitter at @SIDmvrck

     

     

  • For me, this has been a time of frank conversations and transparency which works wonders in a situation that draws you together as a collective of professionals, writes Priyanka Mehra 

    By Invitation | Priyanka Mehra: The New normal – The rise and rise of humane professionalism?

    By Priyanka Mehra

     

    One of the lessons I have taken out of this ongoing pandemic is heightened sensitivity; in spite of being a fan of the written word, I now pick up the phone and speak to a colleague as opposed to sending out an email, the difference in the outcome is significant.

    If you dwell on it you will concur that our audio sensory powers have now heightened to pick up human emotions, we are now much quicker in picking up  nuances of change in voice, whether it is just a slight  drop or that note of excitement on a new project, much faster than we would have in, what is commonly now referred to as old normal or the world as we knew it earlier.

    The question to, ‘’how are you?” now receives a more sincere and honest response, as opposed to an automated perfunctory one.  I would like to believe we have become more sensitised as a collective.

    Yet just a few months ago, most of us envisaged ‘work from home’ would last a month, a couple of months at best and here we are completing sixth months of work from home or the more befitting moniker of ‘work without borders.’

    According to a recent Adobe consumer survey conducted in the APAC region, employment, personal health, job vulnerability, and the economy are the four greatest concerns/ impacts of COVID 19.  67 percent of respondents expressed concern where health and wellbeing were ranked at 73 percent, job vulnerability 40 percent, and the concerns of the economy were pegged at 36 percent.

    Given this backdrop, amid and despite looming uncertainties on various fronts, we seem to be hardwired as humans to be resilient to keep going and adapt, while the overall sentiment entails looking for ways to manage costs, increase effectiveness, and explore innovative ways for reaching audiences for our clients as agency partners, and plan for the future, we have adapted to pitches in ‘zoom times’ without a batting of an eyelid, working from multiple locations and time zones come with the territory.

    While discipline, and a routine have been my strongest allies in WFH, I found it easier to get into this a schedule, (having worked out of home and wherever else you would be as a journalist/ editor as long as you had wifi) than a few of my colleagues and friends who took a few weeks to adjust.

    Humane Professionalism- There is a rise and rise of a phenomenon I like to call “Humane Professionalism” and no this did not happen overnight but months of ‘work without borders, has cajoled the humane- element out of all of us.

    Yes, we  did over – communicate in the first couple of weeks, to compensate for not actually meeting, and then slowly and steadily settled into a routine. A core leadership WhatsApp group was formed which quickly became a mainstay, real time communication then became our best friend.

    The past few months soon became a journey we took together, which showed us the real people behind the roles and designations, the quirks the habits and how individuals functioned under pressure became apparent, would we get to know each other in a way we all have – or would we really care and help each other adapt to the challenges thrown at us before March 2020? Possibly not.

    Our teams also equipped themselves with new skillsets, not even considered earlier thanks to apps like Canva, and photoshop.

    Whilst the role of communications could never be undermined, the pandemic accentuated this further. The American Institute for Public Relations (IPR) in association with communications firm Peppercomm,  conducted a research study in March as Covid was making its presence felt in no uncertain terms, this study covered 300 communications executives and senior leaders to gain a better understanding of how prepared businesses were for Co and how they are handling the impacts.

    The findings revealed that business leaders are leaning into their communication function as an essential resource to help them deal with Covid-19. More than three-quarters (81%) of respondents said the communication function is “important” or “very important” to their company’s Covid-19 response.

    Sensitised and timely communication for me have been the key takeaways during the past few months. Let’s take the analogy of brands, we all did use a plethora of brands in the pre- pandemic era, the lockdown suddenly made us realise, which brands actually added meaning to our lives, besides serving our functional and utility based needs, brands that stood for a strong purpose became more meaningful to us and consequently built more affinity. Similarly, communication that was sensitised, timely and meaningful and consequently added value to our lives is the one we choose to engage with.

    Which were our most important takeaways and consequent approach while formulating content/ communication for clients as well as internal and external stakeholders.

    Whether it was internal communications to ensure each colleague across agencies and levels felt and functioned in a safe environment. Externally too you could feel journalists/ editors/ publication owners reeling under their own pressure.  Over a period, of functioning in an environment such as this you start picking up things said and unsaid from interactions.

    Reconnecting – For me, this has been a time of frank conversations and transparency which works wonders in a situation that draws you together as a collective of professionals going through an unprecedented pandemic together each playing their part.

     

    Priyanka Mehra is Director, Marketing and Communications, Havas Group India and a former Editor of Exchange4media

     

  • Viacom18 veteran Sonia Huria to join Amazon Prime Video to head India comms

    Sonia Huria
    Sonia Huria

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sonia Huria, Head of Corporate Marketing, Communications and Sustainability for Viacom18, will move to Amazon Prime Video to lead all communication efforts for its India business. Huria will be a part of the global communications team – leading PR and Communications for Amazon Prime Video in India. She will report to Tobias Tringali – Head of Amazon Prime Video PR Asia Pacific & Canada who is based in Seattle.

    Widely regarded as one of the most influential PR heads in the M&E space, Huria has moved up the ladder at Viacom18 from heading PR for Colors in 2008 to the entire Viacom18 brand portfolio including corporate and then the key roles of corporate marketing and sustainability.

    In the areas of sustainability, Huria successfully created a model of multi-partner-funded behaviour change communication content at Viacom18… from the Navrangi Re! series to the more recent MTV Nishedh. In addition to managing internal and external communication, she also spearheaded trade marketing and digital media for the organisation.

    Huria serves as a managing committee member at The Advertising Club. Under her leadership, Viacom18 has won several awards on the global and India stage. She has been featured in Impact magazine’s Top 50 Women Leaders in Advertising, Media & Marketing for four years in a row.

     

  • Every time I hear ‘Please send me the Media List’, my heart misses a beat, writes Siddhartha Mukherjee

    Siddhartha Mukherjee: Junk the Media List for Effective PR

    By Siddhartha Mukherjee

     

    The Indian PR and Corporate Communications industry is very powerful and impressive. The kind of work it does, the magnitude of unique market challenges it handles to build, sustain and insulate a brand is way ahead of most markets globally. Its talent, leadership, domain knowledge, dedication, commitment, etc. are ideal benchmark case studies. However, there is a secret sauce that will help this very industry in the last mile – right balance and application of ERPs – Efforts, Resources and Processes.

     

    Let me give you a simple example.

     

    The term Media List or Beat Journalist Database is a very common term that buzzes in a PR professional’s world every time a media release is to be sent out. The fixation with “media list” is so high that majority of discussions in industry Whatsapp Groups also hovers around this topic.

     

    Creating a client’s news coverage based on a media list approach is flawed and smacks of Efforts, Resources and Processes. What this industry needs is a Publication Anatomy based approach.

     

    Today, each newspaper offers various editorial formats from the front to the last page. Q&A, news briefs, infographics, columns, industry stories, profiling, authored articles, letters to the editor, etc. Not just that, these opportunities are spread across each of the seven days of the week – Sunday through Saturday.

     

    The ERP that PR Agencies need to build into their system is that of Publication Anatomy and not that of  a media list. Clients need to make the PR Agencies think like this and PR Agencies need to build this intelligence and approach within their ecosystem.

     

    Media list is archaic. Public Anatomy is new age! It is a simple, every elementary ERP parameter that will prepare us for the future. I have seen some of the costliest and largest of PR Agencies which smack of this basic thinking process and hygiene!

     

    If we want PR to start delivering, it has to pass through the template of media planning. Understanding publication anatomy and implementing that to generate client’s coverage is a very basic and elementary subset of it.

     

    Media list approach existed 20 years back. Surprisingly, it exists even now! While our Industry’s lifestyle and aspirations have undergone a sea change, the ERPs or Efforts, Resources and Processes are still archaic. Despite PR Agencies recruiting a large team of journalists, the orientation and knowledge of publication anatomy and its importance is not getting passed on to the client servicing teams!

     

    Understanding Publication Anatomy will create some of the following benefits:

    1. One press release news will undergo a multiplier effect per edition.

    2. The news will get converted into views and get treated in different ways across pages for better brand build up

    3. Media relations will be realistic and stronger as the PR agency professional will have to interact with journalists and editors across various pages.

    4. Story or Narrative creating capability increases. The PR Agency will have to contextualise or build the narrative for each news as per the individual page requirements

     

    From a PR for PR perspective, to actually bring about on-ground changes, the PR industry will have to think of disrupting its archaic ERPs and replace them with new ones. Taking small baby steps like junking the “media list approach” and adopting publication anatomy is what is the need of the hour.

     

    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 will appear every other Thursday.

     

     

  • Set up by senior industry person Siddhartha Mukherjee

    Brand Balance consultancy set up for PR & CorpComm sector

    By A Correspondent

     

    Senior industry person and MxMIndia columnist Siddhartha Mukherjee has announced the setting up on Brand Balance (www.brandbalance.in), billed as India’s first and neutral Communications ‘ERP’ Management Consultancy.

     

    Said Mukherjee: “The future balance of India Inc lies in the hands of the C-suite-PR and Corporate Communications Industry. Business revenues and business risks are directly proportional. The C-Suite-PR and CorpComm Industry ‘Collective’ will be the real protagonist which will balance both. Here, the right mix of ERPs will be the real hero and play the pivotal role. So far, this area has not been looked into seriously or undervalued either due to lack of time or shortage of dedicated resources,” adding: “Irrespective of ‘Normal’ or ‘New Normal’ scenarios, every Client Brand requirement offers wonderful opportunity as well as huge responsibility to showcase tangible benefits of Public Relations and Corporate Communications. If the ‘Collective’ starts focusing on developing and balancing the ERPs, it can well emerge as the front runner and most sought-after brand building service industry. Based on my own hands-on experience and interactions with various Industry Captains across corridors over many years, I seriously believe that while our Industry has wonderful leadership, talent, dedication, commitment, knowledge base and all the other necessary wherewithal, the only component that needs re-structuring or balancing are the ERPs – Efforts, Resources & Processes.”

     

     

  •  The business was won in September 2020 following a multi-agency pitch

    Genesis BCW to look at PR for new Noida airport

    By A Correspondent

     

    Genesis BCW has been appointed as communications partner for the Delhi Noida International Airport at Jewar that’s coming up in 2024. The airport management is by Zurich Airport International AG. The business was won in September 2020 following a multi-agency pitch.

     

    Said Daniel Bircher, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Airport International (Asia): “We are pleased to partner with Genesis BCW for our upcoming and one of the most coveted projects to build and maintain the Delhi Noida International Airport at Jewar. The Genesis team’s expertise and understanding of the aviation space in India will be instrumental in communicating our vision to build a user-friendly, efficient and sustainable airport in Delhi NCR. We look forward to working with the team and leveraging their expertise in conveying our story as we make progress on this project.”

     

    Added Deepshikha Dharmaraj, Chief Executive Officer, Genesis BCW: “It is an absolute privilege to partner with the Delhi Noida International Airport team on what is going to be an innovative new landmark for India. We are excited to embark on the integrated communications journey for this project, showcasing its strengths and benefits through a multi-stakeholder approach.”

     

     

  • Bags mandate for four new clients:  GoEvals, Frenzi, Wave & KIRU

    Nucleus PR expands its startup vertical

    By A Correspondent

     

    Nucleus PR has added four new clients to its start-up portfolio this month. GoEvals – a HR Tech Startup; Frenzi- an OTT discovery and engagement platform; Wave- the first interactive Indian app browser and Kiru by OrgTree – a social farming community initiative. These brands join the ranks of Nucleus PR’s roster of clients that includes start-up brands like Zolo, Onsurity and Umeed Healing.

     

    Commenting on the win, Tarunjeet Rattan, Managing Partner, Nucleus PR, said: “As a boutique firm, we are mindful of the profile of clients that we add to our kitty. Each of these brands represent the thought leadership that we want to add to the startup ecosystem. The founders are passionate about the change they want to bring and believe in the power of all-inclusive branding. We are confident that we will be able to create the right reputation for them within their target audience by merging smart ideas and business goals with an experienced hand.”

     

     

  • The mandate covers corporate reputation management, brand visibility and crisis management

    Talentedge awards PR mandate to Kaizzen

    By A Correspondent

     

    Kaizzen, the PR and digital agency, has won the PR mandate for edtech firm Talentedge. The mandate encompasses providing strategic communications support to Talentedge, covering corporate reputation management, brand visibility, and crisis management.

     

    On Kaizzen’s appointment, Aditya Malik, CEO, and MD, Talentedge said: “We are pleased to appoint Kaizzen as our Public Relations Consultancy to communicate our vision and spearhead Talentedge in the arena of online education. We are confident that the team’s experience in managing similar mandates for other industry bodies and clients in the education, start-ups and ed-tech space helps them understand the technicalities of this sector and accordingly customize a communications strategy for us. We look forward to a fruitful association with team Kaizzen.”

     

    Added Vineet Handa, CEO, Kaizzen: “We are thankful to the management team at Talentedge for placing their trust in Kaizzen. We are excited about the opportunity to execute innovative, disruptive and high-impact PR campaigns that positively impact the business. Over the past 12 years, Kaizzen has established itself as a leading multi-practice and full-service PR and Digital Media Agency. Education and EdTech is one of our strongest practice areas, and we are confident we will be able to grow the brand further.”

     

     

  • Cricinfo is a leading cricket website, now part of ESPN

    Zeno wins PR mandate for ESPNCricinfo

    By A Correspondent

     

    Zeno Group has been appointed PR partner for cricket website ESPNcricinfo.

     

    Gaurav Thakur

    Said Gaurav Thakur, Director of Marketing & Business Development at ESPN: ‘‘Pioneering in offering in-depth and comprehensive cricket coverage, ESPNcricinfo today continues to innovate in offering fans an enhanced digital cricket experience, powered by an exceptional and passionate team. In Zeno, we have found a partner who is an extension of our culture, aligns with our goals and mirrors our pursuit for excellence with enthusiasm. We are confident in Zeno’s ability and innovative mindset to scale our reach, thereby expanding the value generation momentum for our brand.”

     

    Rekha Rao

    Added Rekha Rao, Managing Director, Zeno India: “This is an exciting time to partner with ESPNcricinfo, an industry leader in the single sport digital domain, especially amid a renewed enthusiasm among the global cricketing community. Zeno has a long-standing history in sports globally, partnering with some of the biggest domestic and international professional leagues in the world. Our industry and media experience, will help build ESPNcricinfo’s industry profile and scale its reach among newer audiences.”

     

     

  • Take a bow, writes Siddhartha Mukherjee

    PR & CorpComm upheld India Inc’s buoyancy in 2020

     

    By Siddhartha Mukherjee

     

    There is a silver lining in every struggle. Despite year 2020’s ugly side, the last 10 months have armed the Indian PR and Corporate Communications industry with substantial evidence that will establish it as the life saviour for India Inc. More so, the PR and corpcomm industry should not miss out on officially documenting this achievement in the industry journals and reading materials of b-schools.

     

    The PR and corporate communications engine upheld the buoyancy of the Indian economy. Had it not been them, our economy would have had steeper fall. The engine minimised the impact of COVID fatality for India Inc. on the balance sheet.

     

    How? The engine managed the demand side of both the corporate and product brand across stakeholders. On the supply side, they mobilised employee trust and hope which ensured that organisational workforce delivers and rolls out the products and services into the marketplace! Not just that, maintaining the faith of vendors and partners was another achievement on the supply side!

     

    With paid pipeline of communications – advertising, promotions, events etc – almost dried up, the Public Relations blocks took charge and ensured the communications objectives were met to deliver the business objectives. Earned, Shared & Owned forms of communications engineered India Inc’s corporate and product brands visibility, engagement and conversion during the 10 months of crisis.

     

    This needed gumption and a drive to deliver. The desks across Corporate Communication and PR Firms have worked tirelessly.

     

    Below are some key milestones:

     

    1. Sustenance:The core challenge that could have overpowered India Inc completely was that of sustaining what the business already had. In other words, sustaining the loyalty and business interest of existing stakeholders, not just customers alone. Sales revenue from customers was default but along with it came the challenge of maintaining the business interest of other stakeholder wheels like employees, investors, government, etc. On the consumer side, one of the challenges organisations were facing was not of brand recall but ease of access. Which is why, old brand loyalty suddenly and pricing did not matter. It was all about ease of access of the product. PR and corporate communications did not let this over power and managed corporate and product brand’s objectives beautifully for the brand owners or the top management.

    2. Launch or New Announcements:Launch or pushing out of company announcements needed tact and innovation during Covid-19. Media universe had shrunk drastically. The weightages across traditional and online mediums had shifted. Yet, traditional was needed. Reaching out to journalists and influencers became a logistical task. Regular resources and comfort items like venue, press release dissemination mechanisms, journalist follow ups, inter-office logistics, and many such other aspects were suddenly facing many challenges. Despite that, the industry used creativity and tact to ensure that launches and/or corporate announcements were sent out and received by the media systematically and on time.

    3. Balancing Personal & Professional Deliveries:I am aware of many corporate communication and PR firm professionals who have gone through sleepless nights during the last 10 months. The fight to maintain balance between their personal or family lives along with that of professional deliveries has been very taxing. Despite salary cuts and financial challenges that come with it, these professionals mobilised creative communication logistics for their employer or their client.

    4. Internal Communications Wisely:The year 2020 saw a landmark achievement in the field of Internal communication. The Internal Communications services machinery has worked as a lifeline for India Inc. It has worked miracles towards protecting and sustaining the workforce despite the challenges imposed by Covid pandemic. The PR & Corporate Communication knowledge and services towards internal or employee communications ensured that workforce stayedassured and committed so that organisational objectives are met. Employment management and motivation have been two key very important contributions from the communications engine.

    5. CXO-CCO-PR Firm Time-spent highest:If you look at the overall industry average, the timespent between brand-owners or CXOs with the communications engine – corporate communications desk and PR firm – was the highest, atleast during the last decade. The dependence and reliance of brand owners on corporate communications engine was immensely high.

     

    The stakeholders of the communications industry – corporate communication teams and PR firms –nailed it in 2020. In totality, they delivered far, far more than what was expected or perceived by the brand owners. My request to the same stakeholders will be to not let go of this opportunity and document this fabulous achievement firmly. PR for PR will be easier going forward!

     

    On a separate note, whether CXO and brand owners will acknowledge this achievement of the PR and corporate communications industry in business seminars and business school curriculums is an area we all will keenly wait to see.