By Siddhartha Mukherjee
Are these spurts? Blips? Well, actually, to use the cliché, something is better than nothing! Against a backdrop of years of complete darkness, select but prominent corporates are standing up to create internal platforms towards acknowledging their entire PR machinery comes as a much-awaited surprise and needed thrust.
Businesses represented by their marketing and communications team, communications  agencies and external/neutral measurement, research and audit teams line up and present to a select jury (from external and internal environment) some of the finest pieces of PR communication work they conceptualised, executed and helped the brand leverage during the last one year.
I am sure this will go viral… and is much-needed too! More and more corporates should latch on to this. It is a different thing though that when internal customers/top management is wanting to acknowledge its own PR machinery, the industry’s current format of external awards suddenly take a backseat.
For the moment, let me share some quick thoughts that I have gathered from these hand full of corporate initiatives that I have been part of either as an external auditor or jury member.
1. First things first – kudos to the Organisations and more importantly, its corporate communications teams for being able to convince the management to have an internal platform that will acknowledge the entire PR machinery. It is a great re-iteration of my very old but much-needed claim of PR needing PR!
2. This is a great trigger that could spread like wildfire across the industry. If tackled well, the sky is the limit for PR/Corporate Communications machinery! More so, the function secures a seat in the boardroom discussions.
3. The standard of PR work/campaigns being conceptualised, planned out, executed and analysed has come a very long way! Ah, it is such a wonderful and relieving experience to see young budding teams presenting articulate and scientific case studies. This was not seen earlier.
4. Great news for PR agencies to have got a wonderful opportunity to expose themsevles to corridors beyond corporate communications within their client organisations. Great opportunity for them to change their own imagery from media relations to brand builders.
5. If this spreads like wildfire, with more and more corporates starting the process of PR acknowledgement by its internal customers and stakeholders, the current lineup of external/industry awards, and more importantly, its formats will need a whirlwind of change to maintain their relevance.