Category: PR ETC

By Amith Prabhu

If there was man who epitomised Public Relations and lived most of his adult life building great relationships and in the midst of the publics it was our former President who passed away last Monday. I met him for a few seconds in 2003 when he visited the institute where I was a student in Pune. I asked him for his autograph and he quickly gave me a printed card in which he had personally signed his name. Very few of his generation would do something like that. His death proved how much Indians loved him. Cutting across all sections the outpouring of affection was there for everyone to see.

I was reading Shekhar Gupta’s interesting National Interest piece and on the late APJ Abdul Kalam yesterday to once again admire the life of this great man who inspired several generations through his sheer simplicity. His style was exactly that of commoners. He did well as President and after his term ended got back to doing two things he loved most – teaching and writing. Long before there was an International Yoga Day the UN had declared October 15th as World Students’ Day’. This was to commemorate Abdul Kalam’s birthday. Such was the power of this man.

He was a man of integrity and this is something we all must learn from. Integrity is not an attribute found easily in today’s time and age. Our profession suffers from it. We have seen it in the past and we hear stories of lack of integrity every other day.

Just last week a leading PR firm sacked three of its senior employees for the lack of integrity. Very often firms put matters of integrity and the lack of it under the carpet. We need to adopt a code of ethics for our profession and maybe learn from Abdul Kalam who was a greater PR person than the current Prime Minister.

Another important learning from Dr Kalam was his love for sharing and imparting knowledge. Again, an important element in our profession. We need to actively engage in mentorship programmes.

Lastly, Kalam Sir as he was fondly called breathed his last as he was delivering a lecture on Making the Earth a Livable Planet. We as influencers in our own right have a major role to play in making this world a better place. We are not doing enough though there are opportunities galore.

By Amith Prabhu

Last week I was at a PR conference on the theme “PR is Changing”. There were some interesting insights shared. However, the most catchy insight was what got shared towards the end of the conference which caught my attention. A stalwart of the profession after hearing what all the co panelists had said declared that nothing is going to change. He was so right! Public Relations has been around from time immemorial. It has been called different things. It has evolved but it really has not changed.

Some tools have got added, some have become obsolete. The mediums have changed. Professionalism has increased. The bottomline is that the core of Public Relations, which is engaging and communicating to influence behavior has remained fundamentally the same. So in sum, Public Relations is not changing. One can argue that Change is the only constant. Indeed, we have seen so much change in the last decade.

The number of magazines have increased with super specialty. TV channels have grown manifold. Digital has become mainstay. Mobile has become the primary screen. Generational shifts have taken place.

Most interestingly, after years of discussion and debate, there is no fix on the Measurement Dilemma in Public Relations. This has nothing to do whether Public Relations has changed or not. We have changed and in the process forgotten to put in place written briefs with clear measurable parameters.

Content marketing has always been a part of Public Relations. Plain vanilla media releases have transformed into infographics, listicles and native advertising. But we think Public Relations has changed. Social media has changed the way content is absorbed. It is yet another medium to communicate in addition to the legacy mediums of print, television and radio.

Most of all the education avenues of PR professionals and the events for the fraternity have increased. The change is merely cosmetic and in the ‘how’. The ‘what’ remains the same. However, my biggest concern is that PR is not doing enough PR for itself.

Several people in the profession are still confused about the very nature of what they do. What has not changed is the nomenclature of terms used ranging from corporate affairs to public affairs to strategic communications to reputation management to marketing communications to corporate communications to external relations to brand communications. Only when there is complete clarity among the fraternity on what each term stands for, we can say PR is Changing. That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. Until then only we will keep changing, Public Relations will not.

By Amith Prabhu

In the last few months, three firms appointed chief operating officers who neither rose from the ranks nor came from a rival PR firm. They came from outside the world of Indian PR consulting. One came from an overseas conglomerate where she headed corporate communications, the other is on his way from a business daily where he holds a fairly senior position in editorial and the third who holds a fairly differentiated designation came almost from retirement after a long stint in the corporate world. All these positions in reputed, large firms.

The story at other levels is no different where every month half a dozen journalists are joining in-house or consultancy jobs with just one or two strengths of content creation if they come from print journalism and some great contacts in the world of media most certainly. None have skills in campaign planning, strategy mapping or crisis counselling. Some learn on the job, most don’t care because the client just wants some content drafted and some journalists engaged with.

So, how is the need for 500 freshers at the entry and middle level going to be fulfilled? This is a million dollar question. Some head honchos say they hire from Tier 2 MBA schools. Unless one is fortunate, the quality of talent from Tier 2 B Schools tends to be just about average and a lot of time and energy is spent training them for the PR consulting job which requires a good mix of writing skills, brand management and marketing concepts, digital understanding and common sense.

The client base is increasing, newer PR firms are mushrooming but retainers are not changing and quality of talent is not improving. This is a real problem that needs to be addressed. CEOs of consultancies are constantly on the look for bright sparks and when they think they have found him or her and trained the person for the role the individual decides to move on. This will get interesting as the first true blue PR professionals evolve to be leaders.

Currently, most PR firm leaders are either CEOs or immigrants from other domains who moved to PR and grew into leadership roles. In couple of years there will be native PR specialist emerging as consultancy firm leaders and they will increasingly look for talent that is well-rounded and will find it hard to get the specialists. The question we need to ask then and now is where is our talent coming from and what are we doing to up the level of service across the board?

By Amith Prabhu

The weekend that went by witnessed the largest gathering of public relations professionals in one place, both consultancy based and in-house. Four hundred fifty professionals gathered in Mysore for the fourth edition of Praxis in what has come to become a signature event in the annual calendar of Indian communicators. As someone who has a small role to play in the co-creation of this summit it I’m thrilled with the outcome.

Getting together 35 speakers, 30 partners and the Who’s Who of Indian PR from Madan Bahal, Dilip Cherian and Ashwani Singla to Radha Roy, Papri Dev and Archana Jain to the global communication heads of Infosys, Arvind, Biocon, Suzlon, Aptech to Indian comms heads of Vodafone, Kellogg’s, GSK, Omidyar Networks and more it was the coming of age of Indian Public Relations. Almost every Indian ecommerce player was present. And with this edition every PR firm from among the Top 30 has witnessed at least one of the four summits.

What stood out was the overwhelming response from the community of senior professionals. Three keynotes representing three continents and a panel of young leaders. Rajdeep Sardesai’s session was certainly the icing on the cake. World renowned percussionist Sivamani performing live had the audience spell bound.  Startups such as Astrum and Value 360 and established players such as Adfactors and MSLGroup supporting the event along with 25 others added vibrancy.

The corporate communications panel chaired by Aparna Jain with corporate communications from Yahoo, Coke and Quintles was a hit with the audience. So were the keynotes by Shonali Burke and Andre Manning. The special address of Creativity by Kiran Khalap and on Analytics by Mike Ziviani had a lot to offer the young professional.

An important aspect of Praxis is the celebration of talent. Honouring young professionals has become a tradition. Two pairs of individuals have come forward to be generous donors of the prize money. I wish more professionals institute prizes to encourage exceptional younger professionals. Seema Ahuja and Shravani Dang have instituted the prize for the young in-house professional, which was won by Abhishek Mahapatra of Ford Motor Company. The consultancy-based prize went to Prasidha Menon of Edelman India. This year a lifetime achievement award was given to the indomitable Jayoti Lahiri of PRCAI.

The student volunteers make a big difference and this year students of St Joseph’s College put their best foot forward. The summit has grown since its inception in 2012. Having been part of the previous editions I can proudly say that we have come a long way as the largest gathering of PR professionals in the country and the only event of its kind that is neither organized by a trade association nor by a media outlet. But by a community of volunteers who spare time to bring this event alive.