PR professionals should be armed with Mantras, Tantras & Yantras to get a place in the boardroom

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In Hindu mythology, there is a renowned folk tale about King Kausik also known as Visvamitra of the lunar dynasty, he possessed extra ordinary qualities and ruled the kingdom well. One of the interesting incidents which caught my attention was the king’s tour of his kingdom with a large army. He was passing a forest when he came across the hermitage of Sage Vaisistha, the sage offered him a grand reception and requested him to be his guest. The king declined as the sage would not have been able to feed the large army. Sage told the king not to worry and informed him that the Sage had wish fulfilling cow (kamadehnu) sabala. The Sage called out to the divine cow Kamadehnu, who was born during churning of the ocean and was presented to Sage Vaisitha. Vaisistha told the cow to make an elaborate feast for the king’s army and…

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Growing importance of Litigation PR

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Reputation can be extremely fragile in this interconnected and 24*7 online world, brands can live or die by their reputation in this highly competitive environment. The value of reputation has increased much more than ever before especially considering the endless stream of corporate scandals. Trustworthiness is still is a big issue among consumers and hence we are living in a ‘Reputation Economy’, which suggests a marketplace where businesses and brands are rated, commented on, and judged based on reputation (rather than financial performance).

In this light, Litigation PR has become pivotal for any company/brand during the course of any legal dispute or adjudicatory processing so as to affect the outcome or its impact on the client’s overall reputation. Media: Traditional/Online are closely following and reporting about court cases, the legal issues and its possible impact on the brand in question. Media houses are allowed to factually report the cases as…

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Science of Pitching

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This hypothesis is borrowed from the retail industry, where retailers work on the concept called predictive analysis to be able to market their products by efficient consumer targeting. They study their consumers so minutely based on their buying pattern that they are capable of telling you what you might purchase next even before even you realizing it. Researchers in the retail industry while studying buying patterns of consumers uncovered that consumer preferred to buy products that they are already familiar with as compared to something they are not seen before. Researchers examined people’s brains as they shopped and tracked which neural regions are involved in comprehending aural stimuli. Shopping activates numerous areas of brain, including cortex, the thalamus and the superior parietal cortex. These areas are associated with pattern recognition and helping the brain decide which inputs to pay attention to and which to ignore.

The areas that get activated…

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Mobile Phones – the next big platform for Communications

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We are all living a Mobile Life, sharing all important and less important moments of life through pictures, posts, likes and comments across social media platforms. Checking in to locations and sharing experiences of visiting a specific venue, food reviews and more, consumers have become media themselves. Mobile phone is becoming a content consumption machine. This presents a great opportunity for brands to reach out to the advocates, reward loyal customers who could propagate their brand.

Recent industry reports state that India has 51 million smart phone users which make up 17 % of all mobile users in urban India, even the figures for non-metro India stands at 13 percent. Of the total user base, increasing number of users are using internet through their mobile phones and the user base is projected to touch 243 million by June 2014, a year-on-year growth of 28 per cent as per IAMAI report.

Some…

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The Fine Art of Constructive Criticism

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If you overdo it, you make enemies. If you avoid it too much, you become a pushover.

Often in your work life, you will come across people who either keep criticizing you for every small mistake/s without offering any solution to correct the mistakes or there are people who are at the butt of everyone’s criticism. Also there are chances that you unknowingly/knowingly have developed the knack of criticizing everything that comes your way. There are also situations where you want to criticize someone, it could be your boss or your co-worker but you are too sweet to confront them and suffer eternally.

One of the toughest parts of being an effective manager is communicating criticism, to your higher ups, colleagues or to your subordinates. If you’re too harsh, they’ll react emotionally and won’t hear you. If you’re too vague, they won’t hear the message. The first thing you want…

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The Editor’s point of view

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At Adfactors PR, I recently had the opportunity to attend a workshop with the renowned ex journalist Shishir Joshi, who has worked with leading media institutions like The Indian Express, Nagpur Times, Hitavada, CNN.com, NDTV, Aaj Tak and his last assignment was as a Group Editorial Director with MiD DAY. Shishir initiated an education initiative Journalism Mentor (www.journalismmentor.in) part of JM Foundation for Excellence in Journalism. And is currently the CEO at Bombay First – an initiative now in its 20th year to make the city a better place to live, work and invest in. It aims to serve the city with the best that private business can offer.

1. Build a Non-Transactional Relationship: To begin with, identify editors from select publications which matter the most to your clients. Know more about them, their current role, recent articles written by them, style of writing, about their previous stint, what they like, their…

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Automation in PR

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The use of technology in PR, particularly in the Indian PR industry has never been very encouraging. Probably because it’s still largely a handcrafted business or like many say, it’s more art than science. Even if the agencies are talking about automation, what they actually mean is adding social/digital expertise to their offering and not automating processes.

As discussed in my last post, the biggest challenge of the Indian PR industry today is finding the right talent. One of the very important tool to fight this challenge is to automate as many processes as possible and use the human resource for more strategic, ideation and relationship building jobs. Anything which frees up practitioners from repetitive activities to be more creative should be embraced.

Calling journalists to check if they have received your emails/press release and then get snubbed by them has become routine for most practitioners. When there are easily…

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