MxMIndia

Tag: communications

  • The quantity and quality of what individual stakeholders express is an information goldmine, writes Siddhartha Mukherjee

    Siddhartha Mukherjee: Why Listening is a Must in the New Business Environment

    By Siddhartha Mukherjee

     

    Every disruption, like the one we are currently in, leads to a ‘New’! The existing definitions of Life As Usual or Not As Usual and therefore, Business As Usual & Not As Usual (BAU/BNAU) transform into something new in shape, size and meaning. For example, one of the dynamics that is undergoing change is “how much”. How much do I need, how much time and money do I spend, etc.

     

    During this phase, stakeholder sentiments – human sentiments after all – go through peaks and troughs. The Quantity and Quality of what individual stakeholders express is not only NEW but very importantly, an Information Goldmine!

     

    Hence, for businesses or corporate and product brands, it’s a great time to intensify their Listening capabilities. It is not just about listening to consumer (revenue generators) mood alone but across stakeholders, both internal and external! Only when you listen more, listen better, your brand will empathise more, empathise better to the New future! After all, brand engagement and conversion pivot on Empathy!

     

    Listening, in simple words, means understanding the current and estimating the future Mood of your ecosystem! A stakeholder-wise analysis of their sentiments – happiness, concerns, memories, aspirations, and so on. Such studies can be Brand Specific and/or Agnostic!

     

    In fact, if executed and sustained well, insights from Scientific Stakeholder Listening can lend to a healthy balance sheet!

     

    With timespent being majorly high online currently, it makes Listening Analytics focused and logistically easier to execute. Currently, all stakeholders (humans after all), are proacting and reacting, expressing in other words – primarily online (digital and social)!.

     

    Hence, for both brand owners and communication consultancies, this is a great time to put its Online ‘Listening’ Analytics desk to full use! Every CxO would love to learn and act on the New future! Listening for a brand is a science! Nothing tactical or superficial about it!

     

    BENEFITS OF LISTENING: 

    1. Reconciles Future Business Plans: The insights from listening analytics will lead to a reconciliation dashboard for CXOs and Board of Directors in terms of the required business direction and KRAs for each business function.

    2. Prepares the Brand/Organisation to Empathise– If the two of the key constituents of brand empathy are messaging and action, the Listening Analysis prepares the organisation CXOs for it.

    3. Mitigate Brand Reputation Loss: The exercise helps understand current crisis chain and future time bombs ticking away towards disaster. Listening to human expressions and analysing them lead to better mitigation preparedness.

    4. Create New Product/Services: Very often, Listening Analysis leads to new Product/Service ideas. Online data offers huge information across what went wrong, what Target Audiences want, what they want to be, and so on.

    5. Re-Orient Stakeholder Profile: Listening to Insights lead to business organisations being able to decide the weightage and the profile of each stakeholder that would be needed to tackle the ‘NEW’!

    6. Assess effectiveness of Brand Building thus far: A key outcome of Listening during disruption phases is that it acts as a reality check of how robust the brand building and business delivery mechanism have been so far.

    7. Fortifies Client-Agency relationship: Listening cannot be a one-way street! The understanding of the current and future ecosystem creates opportunities for even the clients to understand their service providers’ adjustment areas and creates opportunities for working together even longer.

     

    In a sales-obsessed business environment, giving low or no priority to scientific, healthy and regular ‘Listening’ is still understandable. However, in situations like we are currently in, a pandemic or disruption, businesses and brands should re-optimise their time towards Listening and gear up to strengthen its future balance sheet during the ‘New’.

     

  • I think ad agencies should devise a powerful communication package, to be run across the media, with the objective of imparting Americans with basic knowledge on various religions and cultures

    Anil Thakraney: Ad agencies can help with hate crime control

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    I still recall the first thing many Americans did immediately after 9/11. This was to frantically search for their world maps, and try to locate Afghanistan. This, of course, became a subject of many jokes at the time, but after we stopped sniggering, we realized that the average Yankee is totally cut off from the rest of the world. That, he/she has never stepped out of his/her comfort zone and hasn’t even bothered to find out what goes on beyond their shores. That it was of no consequence to them. And this isn’t something to laugh at, it can be dangerous.

     

    The recent attack on a Gurudwara in Wisconsinis yet another reminder that the average American remains blissfully ignorant of international geography, history, culture and religion. The attack was obviously targeted at another religious minority group, and our Sardarji friends paid heavily for someone’s lack of general knowledge. So then what’s the way out of this mess? There is only one way: this problem can be fixed by advertising agencies. Because it pertains to communications.

     

    I think ad agencies inIndiashould work with their American parents and devise a powerful communication package, to be run across the media, with the objective of imparting Americans with basic knowledge on various religions and cultures. The Obama government needs to include this education as a part of school and college syllabi, but that can only work as a long term solution. Ad agencies can create campaigns to provide immediate solutions.

     

    So go for it, people. Not only will such a public service campaign win you many awards, you can end up saving many innocent lives. What can be sweeter than that?

     

    An important disclaimer: Having said the above, let me hasten to add that attacks on ANY community members is highly deplorable, and one hopes that the world evolves to a stage where these things don’t happen at all. But in the meantime, at least the ill-informed Americans must be educated on how to differentiate between communities. That itself will be an important beginning.

     

    * * *

     

    PS: If you are a constant tweeter, and have no control over your thoughts, hit this link. It’s about the journalist whose Twitter account was suspended. I like this. It’s time the social media portals stepped in to oversee things. Excessive illegal and abusive stuff seems to be freely floating around in the virtual world.

     

    Link: http://mashable.com/2012/08/01/kicked-off-twitter/?
    WT.mc_id=en_all_stories&utm_campaign=All%2BStories&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

     

  • Instead of mutual finger pointing, the attempt here is to be shaking hands. As public relations increasingly influences corporate communications strategy, pressure has mounted to measure the effectiveness of PR

    The Anchor: 6 ways to measure the effectiveness of PR

    The blame game is interesting, for agencies want to blame the client for not giving a proper brief, and the clients want to blame the agencies for not understanding the brief, and attempt to take the campaign in a direction of chance.  Fingers pointed at both sides – for agencies have a credentials presentation replete with case studies that is akin to saying, I am xyzee and I scored a double century five years back, or a month back, and hence I am an accomplished person and suited for bagging your account. While the case studies are anecdotal and embellish an agency presentation, the client’s requirements may be completely different.

     

    So instead of mutual finger pointing, the attempt here is to be shaking hands.  As public relations increasingly influences corporate communications strategy, and regularly takes its place in the marketing communications ‘mix’, pressure has mounted, both from clients and from within the profession, to measure the effectiveness of PR.

     

    1. Questions for setting the right objectives

    Every one from the agency side tends to ask, please tell me the objective of your engaging us, but in actuality, What are your objectives is not the first question, it is in fact the last.  The questions to perhaps introspect to set the right objectives are: Where are we (company) starting from? Which audiences do we need to reach? What are the messages and the appropriate channels of communications? How do we want those audiences to respond or behave as a result? When do we need them to react? What do we need to measure to determine whether the objectives have been achieved and therefore whether the PR activity – including the cost of measurement – is worth the investment?

     

    In this context, the objectives must be viewed in the context of the total brief, and thus relate to the current environment, to intended audiences, messages, desired response and timescale. If all those elements are in place, then objectives can be measured and it becomes possible to say whether – and to what extent – the PR activity has succeeded.

     

    2. Selecting a PR Consultancy 

    Having done the most important step of determining your objective, one has to get into selecting a PR Consultancy through a process of systematic search that would involve steps like checking on the Expertise of the agency, specializations if any like Corporate, Financial Services, Technology, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Sports and Events, and so on, the  reach – as a national, regional, local or boutique agency.

     

    3. The process of short-listing

    Talking to a B2B segment or journalists that cover a specific beat related to you business could help in terms of getting some top of mind companies that could emerge in the shortlist. Of course, the conventional method requires one to send a RFP, asking the agencies of their credentials, background detail, resources and special skills possessed, the current clients and activities and significant achievements.

     

    At the time of the presentation, clients like to judge on the depth of the homework done by the clients, their perception of the PR Problem, and any creative routes to handle the same or just the usual listing of tools and media, the team and expertise offered, campaign effectiveness for other clients, and the infrastructure and facilities, and their modes of charging – project basis, monthly retainer, hourly basis, and/or rate card, and so on.

     

    Don’t be overly concerned with setting communications objectives, but being very clear about the organisation’s strategic aims, business objectives and how it wishes to be perceived, and rely on the PR professionals to develop the appropriate communications response like ‘defining PR objectives’;  ‘identifying the techniques’ to be deployed to reach the relevant audiences and messages, the ‘budget and resources’ required from the client, the ‘financials and service term’, and most important, ‘the resources’ offered by the agency.

     

    4. Identifying and sharing the strategic goals

    It is important to share with the prospective PR agency about the overall strategic goals, the business/marketing objectives, external or internal climate (social, political, competitive, industrial relations factor), the company’s present reputation and how does it want to be perceived, the objectives set for advertising and other communications disciplines, and the criteria by which we will judge the success of the communications programme?

     

    5. Tools to measure the content

    Publicity in print and broadcast media remains the biggest single products of public relations. Analysis of the content of media coverage is the most commonly used tool of measurement, but by no means the only one. Today, tools to measure presence in media as well a market research can be used to gauge PR effectiveness.

     

    With a scientific base, PR is more readily accepted as a valid communications tool, better able to justify its budget.  It helps to bring PR into the broader corporate decision making process and makes the PR practitioner a more credible advocate in the boardroom.

     

    6. Output, Out-take & Outcome

    Outcome could be a three pronged approach one could adopt as a measurement process.

     

    Outputs show whether the message was sent and aimed at the target audience through analysing media coverage including number of articles and interviews, prominence and message.

     

    Out-take refers the degree to which the audience is aware of the message, has retained and understand it through interviews among target audiences for instance, pre-and post-campaign stages – qualitative research and one-to-one depth interviews to assess reaction to a programme and future intentions.

     

    Output helps in knowing whether – and to what degree – public relations activity is actually helped in changing people’s opinions attitudes and behaviour, by detailed interviewing and focus groups among target audiences, research among representative samples of media and other opinion formers or simply observation of people’s behaviour.

     

    If measurable PR objectives are set, measurement and evaluation will enable the client to judge the cost/benefit of the investment in PR.  This provides the basis of PR planning helping the client and the PR adviser to build on the ideas that worked well, and modifying or abandoning those that did not. It helps clients take a longer-term view of PR’s potential contribution to corporate performance. It assists in judging the effectiveness of PR against other corporate communications and marketing techniques, ensuring the most efficient ‘mix’, and thus shaking hands rather than pointing fingers at one another!

     

    Sudarshan Srinivasan heads Prognosys Marcom Services that manages 7C’sContent-Creatives-Collaterals-Connect-Coaching-Conversations-Campaigns for their clients.

     

  • The advantages of thinking outside the media box.

    The Anchor: Lara Balsara’s 5 reasons media agencies should attract talent from outside

    By Lara Balsara

     

    #1 Thinking beyond numbers and objectivity. A typical media planner tends to think very objectively and tends to opt for plans and media that are supported by numbers and makes only data-based decisions. Whilst this is a basic necessity, you have to use your imagination based on quality of content, its appeal to different target audiences, etc for your plan to be a holistic media plan that is based on rigour and discipline but does not lose out on the soft factors. If you look only at hard numbers, most media plans would look exactly the same and that would not serve the brand’s purpose.

     

    #2 To come up with innovative and comprehensive solutions. Media in India has now been a specialist discipline for over 15 years and therefore there is a certain sameness in thinking that has come about among professionals. To counter this, you need people who are better with lateral thinking capabilities as they would balance a plan supported only with numbers. When you have a diverse talent pool working together, each individual brings in their own unique perspective and their area of expertise; as a result you come up with a brilliant strategy, idea and execution. At Madison Media, we have experts in analytics, account planning, creative and content integrated in the core media plan and we have seen this diversity work magically for our clients.

     

    #3 Scope of media is very broad. Today anything and everything is a communication medium, and the biggest challenge for media agencies is to come up with new and interesting ways to reach out and engage with audiences. Increasingly with so much noise in the marketplace, there is a need not just to expose your target audience to the message, but to affect them in a deep and engaging manner. If you look at media awards, which are a barometer of good media thinking, you will see some outstanding examples.

     

    #4 There isn’t enough talent available. It’s a simple issue of demand versus supply. Media professionals are in huge demand and there is a huge shortage of good talent available. Media agencies have no option but to look outside.

     

    #5 Media professionals rock. Having said all the above, you can’t underestimate the skill sets of media professionals; they are the most equipped to handle almost any job in communications, but the same can’t always be said of other communications professionals’ ability to handle a core media planning job.

     

    Lara Balsara is Director, Madison World.