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Dear PR colleagues, India PR Blog is developing a directory of PR agencies and PR freelancers in India. This directory will consist of all big, medium size, and small agencies across the various States, cities, and small towns in India.

The directory will be available online at this site. The agencies will be categorised according to their locations.

The directory is an endeavor to showcase the diverse talent and local know how of the various PR professionals across the country. As the India PR blog is becoming a comprehensive resource for not only PR professionals and agencies but also for corporations and organisations seeking professional information on their PR and communications requirements, this directory will serve as a ready online guide available to them free and 24/7.

So if you are a PR agency owner or a PR freelancers in India, please send us your details in the format below to editor@indiaprblog.com and we ensure your inclusion into this upcoming directory.

Name of PR Agency/ professional:

Contact Person (In case of PR agency) :

Full Contact Address:

Phone (with STD code):

Email:

Website (if any):

Specialisations: (For example event management, media relations, press releases, organising media interactions, press conferences, etc.)

Experience: (Please provide a brief paragraph of your experience, clients you have worked for, events you have handled)

Additional information: You can include anything you want to include about yourself/ agency here. This can be number of employees you have, profiles of key team members, awards won, etc. etc.

Business blogging in India is evolving, but yet far behind the tech and bloggers of other subjects. So when Gaurav came up with the idea of running a collaborated weekly digest of the best of business blog posts, it sounded good.

So here we are, India PR Blog is part of this initiative, doing its bit to help promote business blogging in India. The initiative is simple. Here is the brief explanation:

We will form a network of 5 to 10 influential business bloggers — Veerchand Bothra, Rajesh Lalwani, Ranjan Varma, Kiruba, Gaurav Mishra, Gautam Ghosh, and your own India PR Blog to begin with — who will publish a weekly roundup of Indian business blogs on their respective blogs.

The roundup will consist of about 5 high-quality posts written by (new and established) Indian business bloggers. We’ll typically share the link with a small excerpt and our own comment on the post. The posts to be linked to will be decided among the network.

The posts can include all business topics including marketing, advertising, public relations, human resource management, finance, and entrepreneurship.

So there it is. Simple. And so here are this week’s roundup:

1) Kamla Bhatt interviews ItwoFS’s Karthik Srinivasan on plagiarism in Indian film music

Ever wanted to know the status of plagiarism in Indian film music. itwofs.com is a chronicle of plagiarism in Indian film music. Read about the initiative from Karthik Srinivasan from this interview by Kamla. Soon we might hear about Karthik being sued by Bollywwod music composers, or the latter being sued by the original copyright holders thanks to this site.

2) Maninder on what’s wrong with Idea Rocks India’s MSN microsite

A good insight and a piece of advice to all those companies jumping into the online gold rush today. I actually have more to say that what Maninder had to say. Create a (micro) site, add some flash designs (but that takes 5 minutes to load …yawn), throw in some games and contests, tie up with a few restaurants and movie halls, and pray that everyone from your target customer group will log in. It takes a lot more than that to create the next Orkut or YouTube, or a closer Gang of Girls. There is no originality in the online campaigns going on today. Maybe we need another itwofs for such campaigns.

3) A three part series on startup financing in India: 1, 2, 3

A good writeup by Kartik Must read for all entrepreneurs. And something I will refer to when I am ready for my startup :-)

4) Guest Post by Mayank Bidawatka, Head of Marketing at RedBus.in. on Pluggd In this post, Mayank demystifies SEO and SEM concepts

If you are eager to know about search engine optimisation and search engine marketing, read this post. While it won’t make you know how to search engine optimised your site, at least you will the basics.

5) Sudipto Majumdar on the rise of gaming cafes in India and Sashi Reddi on the Indian gaming business

Gaming is fast taking on the Indian landscape. I had a colleague who told me that in her previous office, most of the executives will go to gaming sites between breaks. Gaming breaks instead of cigarette breaks huh. These are some good reads on the emerging vertical.

“One Black Coffee”“

I spent 20 years in PR agencies before moving to corporate communication” claimed a fragile looking lady with a proud voice as she tried to sink her body in black leather sofa.

“I completely understand what is possible and what is not possible in PR and I never pressurise my agency” another claim slipped from her lips as she sipped coffee from a large green cup.

“I respect my agencies and professionals associated with it. After all, I know what value people like you bring to the table, especially when we are all immersed in myopic views of corporate world filled with inside views” the overdoes of claims continued as the server tried to unsuccessfully stop the overflow of coffee he was pouring in her cup.

“I am utterly disappointed with my existing agency” sigh!

“Last time when we organised a huge event for donating an ambulance van to a hospital in Chennai, only four journalists turned up!”

“When we issued a very important release of a key general manager level appointment made by our company, I haven’t got a single clip from Bombay and Delhi!”

“I am looking for a professional agency, which understands our requirement and do a justice to the news created by us”

“When I was in an agency, I got these huge bunches of clips for all my clients for each and every news they gave it to me. My media relations are excellent. Across the country I know almost every journalist. They are always after my life to give them stories”

It seemed as if the meeting was never going to end with continued monologues.

And presto! My cup of black coffee just got over.

“Good. The Black coffee was really nice” my first and last words before paying the bill and saying good bye.

“A clueless Blonde”

“I’m stuck in a mental blizzard here. Am a newbie, and was recommended this site – I have questions – I don’t see a link where I can contact someone… I feel like a doofus and need help… SERIOUSLY!!!

I’ve been convinced and am convinced that this is the place for me, however when I tried to go through the content of the website- I did not know where to start. I am joining a PR company- it’s my first, they said they liked the fact that I have good interpersonal skills and that I can write well. I am writing a book, have written articles.

You see, I use simple words, which are easily understood by everyone. But after going through your site – I’ve completely lost all confidence. I don’t want to be the clueless blonde in the company. I need serious help.”

The mail landed sometime earlier this week in my inbox. I liked the honesty with which the lady in a mail acknowledges a situation many of us would have experienced at various stages of our lives. We all pass through similar situations. First day at school, first day at college, first job interview, first date, first movie with friends bunking the chemistry lecture, first marriage(oops!?) – having thousands of flying butterflies in a stomach is quite common.

You know what, Ms. Clueless? The problem is not with you but it’s with how you are looking at a situation.

Okay, let’s understand where the problem is?

Are they expecting you to know everything about PR from the day one? Are they expecting you to start talking to clients and pitching stories to media from the day one just because you have good interpersonal skills? Are they expecting you to start writing press releases and other material from the day one because you are a good writer? If the answer is YES, please steer clear of that agency. And if the answer is NO, so where’s the problem.

The learning is not a pack of Maggie Noodles (sorry Top Ramen and others. But you don’t have TOM recall yet!)

Take your own time. Go step by step. Get into the agency. Understand the culture. See how they work. Read. Learn from seniors. Ask questions – however stupid it may sound. Understand the business. Make mistakes – never repeat them. Be open to ideas. Contribute and share your views openly. Enter into a healthy competition. Stay away from office politics. Eat. Work. Maintain professional approach with all your colleagues, clients and media. Play and maintain a work-life balance.

And, I am sure you will become one successful PR professional and who knows one fine day you would be answering a similar query on our blog!

However, if you are not satisfied with the suggested roadmap – please feel free to write and we will talk. All the best!

“Two Minutes Noodles”

“The concept I am talking about is amazing. It took the world by storm. Since the last 25 years this brand has been the most recognised brand in over 20 different countries. We are launching it in India. People are eagerly waiting for it here.”

“No…No…No…Our brand is big. We don’t need continuous PR. Just announce the launch through a Press Conference, that’s enough. My global CEO is visiting to announce the launch and it has to be a gala event.”

After a successful press conference and decent coverage across the country – a mail lands in my inbox.

“The PR has not been successful. Despite our news being there in many newspapers so many people I am talking to are telling me that they have never heard of this brand before. The brand building has to be done through PR, which has not happened. Please explain”

The person who wrote this mail has spent many years in advertising and branding. I am planning to send him a pack of ‘Two Minutes Noodles’

With a Taste Maker, of course!

A car being towed away from an accident site. Caught it from inside my car.

The Indian PR industry was livid last week :) what with numbers being thrown at them which do not belong to them…bus kya… there is something called research and credible source of information and the so called body who made the numbers public did not care about either of it…

There are respectable people and organizations who make up this industry and even bigger Clients who align themselves to the industry. By publishing wrong or inflated figures, the body is not doing good to anyone in the industry. It only makes them less believable.

This gives us all the more reason to take an onus on how we represent the inudustry, on taking a stance to collate and generate statistics and facts that can be made available to everyone for reference. To let everyone know that the PR industry is growing, that there are experts who are ceaselessly working towards creating brands that make good read as global case studies, that there are more youngsters today that are eager to join this industry, that there is growing acceptance and respect by the media fraternity for the PR professionals, that there are organisations that have innovated on services and have taken PR to the next level of an integrated communications service…

For all of us who are livid, irritated and think this report was not just misleading but utter rubbish, have an assignment to fulfill…

The assignment to get the points across…

Just a thought…Can all of us combined send an open letter to the editor of the publication who carried the report stating the facts and getting some authentic data out! Coz many may refer to this report and that surely is not the best reference reckoner, to my mind.

Cheers

Madhavi

ASSOCHAM yesterday released a report on the Indian PR industry, which came as a bit of a surprise. I though they aptly called it a ‘random’ survey. It came out of nowhere.

On one hand, this report is a positive development with industry associations now starting to conduct studies on the PR industry. PR researchers have been yearning for a PR industry report and this seemed like one that authenticated a lot of trends and issues that we in the industry are witnessing and discussing about.

And then before I completed my smile, a conspicuous figure in the report attracted my attention. ASSOCHAM has boldly put the size of the Indian PR industry at USD 3 bn currently. While I would have loved to believe this figure and bask in the glory of being part of a fast growing industry, I have my doubts. Are we really that big? A USD 3bn means around INR 12,000 crores. And that is a huge amount.

From the not-so-perfect finger-counting that we do usually, the PR consultancy business in India is supposed to be around INR 150-200 crores only. We have around half a dozen ‘big’ PR agencies that rope in the majority, read 70-80%, of the revenues for the industry. Each can have a revenue of around INR 12-15 crores with the highest going to around INR 20 crores from pure PR fee (not calculating the expenses). Even if you calculate the expenses, the total revenue of the biggest PR firm is supposed around INR 40 crores. The rest perhaps bring in a just as much as one or two combined of these ‘big’ agencies.

Let’s do some more guess work. What could be the total PR spend by the organised corporate say in the top 1000 companies in India through one or the other agency or directly? Can we quote a figure of around INR 500 crores. Add around INR 125 crores from the PR spends by the unorganised sector in mini cities. Would even all these combined reach that ASSOCHAM figure of USD 3 bn?

Or is there something else that I am not aware of in the industry, I would definitely love an explanation into that figure.

Other key findings from the report:

1. Growing opportunity cost in PR industry is one reason for constant job shuffles

2. Over 90% PR professionals come in at the entry level with enthusiasm and passion for their work but within a year shift to greener pastures

3. Brand building and image management are emerging as key areas where corporates seek services of PR firms to enhance visibility and promote services/ products/ top management

4. Majority of PR professionals confirmed that during the economic boom, huge competition emerged for brand building as a result of which PR agencies are in demand and quoting high market driven prices for services

5. PR sector registered growth of 22-25% in last few years which further went up to 32% in 2007 and by 2010, size of PR industry is expected to grow to more than $6 billion

6. Indian PR industry comprises 1200-1500 agencies with manpower strength of 30,000 to 40,000

7. In terms of vertical markets, healthcare is the fastest-growing sector; however, public sector, environment and corporate social responsibility are emerging as growth areas for PR

8. Overriding concern of industry is skills shortage; almost all agencies are hiring, a trend that is indicative of growth, and some are looking outside the PR industry to bring in new skills

9. Although there are thousands of small agencies and individual consultants serving very local markets, larger agencies are forging partnerships across the globe to meet demand from clients

10. Retainer fee on an average can be anywhere between Rs2.5 to Rs 5 lakh

11. Reasons for high attrition could be the temptation of moving to the higher pay master; leadership crisis within the industry; inability of PR outfits to meet evolving needs of companies/ clients and to understand the dynamics of the present-day market place

Read media reports on the study here: The Hindu, Mint, IndiaInfoline

I am a little tired of rants including mine so here is a contrarian view, as you can see I do this contrarian thing quite well (or badly depending on your world view today).  This post originally started as a comment and as it grew embarrassingly large, I decided to claim back my Friday from Madhavi and actually graduate this to a post instead of the original comment it was meant to be!

Client and PR relationships are like marriages, they feud, but can”t stay without each other and more or less work out if both parties give it a half decent shot. There are exceptions on both ends and so let’s not go there today for the sake of the majority. On the specific question of clients not paying or paying too less or other grouses, I see essentially see this phenomenon in two parts.

Product or Services Differentiation

Firstly, it is an ability to differentiate your self in positioning. The PR Firm market has been a commodity market for the longest time with no entry barriers for hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop shows. I saw this happening 10 years ago and today is no different. There is room for both and it is good that entrepreneurship is still a possibility in the market place. What is the big difference in working for the big 5 PR Firms in the country (if you can actually figure out ever who they are by number of people employed or revenue in a transparent fashion, beyond claims) and the home office 2-3 people outfit, one can argue. I am sure there are a lot of differences in offering and durability in time of intense attrition but we who profess to be champions of branding do a rubbish job of its when it involves our own brand characteristics and touch points across websites, corporate identity markers from business cards to collateral branding including electronic collateral like the microsoft power point, the one leg of the one legged, PR Industry are all pretty crap.

How many people can recall different practices in a large popular PR Agency unless they happen to be a specialist firm? If I take names I will be slaughtered as these are all friends, colleagues, ex-colleagues, so I’ll be prudent and duck my tail in on that but there are no many opportunities lost because no one in the leadership is really thinking about it beyond lip service and also-ran measures. Practice differentiation is not something just to do as a business whenever a fat client with a fat retainer demands it or when a project turns  into a reusable solution offering. It too needs the branding and marketing that will differentiate it as an offering and help you charge a premium for the effort in doing so.

Text 100 first changed the retainer landscape in the country in late 1990s with retainer values far in excess of what was then ‘going price’ for retainers in the Tech PR game at least. Again without taking names, there were enough nay sayers who never thought such retainers were possible or rated the survival chances of Text 100 in India. When the dust settled, history had been made with the Microsoft Account and there were many red faces. To be fair Text 100 came with an international mandates, best practices, processes but whatever local clients they picked up too came at larger retainers.

They were leaps and bounds ahead in differentiation, branding, positioning, and clients loved them and paid too. This gave hope and eventually benefited so many other legacy PR Firms who over a period of time started to attain similar retainer values because they moved up the value chain and comparing. This is when they had all along been largely sedentary about the possibility of a retainer being more than a lakh or two. There are many other examples of large retainers in Automotive, Financial Services, and Real Estate etc. 

Let’s talk for a minute about the client perspective here. What clients complain about is a lack of employee stickiness and just getting legs and no brains when they employ a PR Firm. If you sit on the client side which I have many times with multiple PR Agencies, these issues become important, so there are two sides to this coin! Don’t kick what you eat as there is seldom a one sided argument and there is no smoke without a fire!

So it isn’t like clients don’t pay. If you think you have an offering that deserves more (and good old vanilla media relations ain’t going to hack it partner) Pitch it right, be bold, be brave, and state your value proposition up front, brand your offering and you can get away with a screamer for a retainer!

Lack of Employee Stickiness and Intellectual Capital Capture in Public Relations Firms

The second important aspect one would do well to consider here involves employee longevity. Measures that arrest attrition including real dedication to employee training, specialization in vertical or horizontal practices, succession planning and an ability to see the next step-on-the-ladder.

There are philosophical and conceptual question there – what profitability are you after in terms of a gross margin is something that needs to examined in the interest of growth and scaling up. ‘Reverse price arbitrage’, this time in favor of employees and an inconvenient analysis of employee cost-to-company, as compared to retainers will show the employee wage bill as a percentage of revenue. What an owner, or promoter forsakes in terms of pay and work environment can only be good for the business but it is a question of rationale and greed.  I have seen many owners and promoters lash out about a lack of loyalty and commitment in employees while they themselves have zero empathy in return. Why is loyalty and commitment only an attribute expected of the employee and not the employer? If you want your people to stay please take care of them, treat them like individuals with aspirations and pay them right! Pay peanuts get monkeys – sound familiar?

So that is what I meant by garbage in- garbage out. Although there are good things happening out there in pockets, I am inherently in love with the idea of a consolidation based on market and supply dynamics, big names with standard global practices coming in can only mean better things for the industry and things moving to a new equilibrium.

The culture of crony PR firm associations has no done anything for the Industry or maybe I have not seen it and inconvenient issues never surface as these may not be in the best interest of constituents.

Let us embrace change and not stay shackled to the hackneyed tenets of a accidental birth, as India moves into the spotlight with its integration with the world economy, the future is bright for all of us!

Clients paying Peanuts?!

Missed this space in the past couple of weeks…was all over the place with events, plans and new business pitches.

Now that am back was too restless to wait for my turn over the weekend.  So am back with my thoughts.

Sometime ago I had written about how it was important for the media to understand the importance of PR as an industry and respect its professionals. And how without their help it would be difficult to give PR it’s due importance. But there is one more entity who plays an equal role and needs to give PR it’s dues, which I mean literally and that is Clients!

As much as we may all want but pitch fees is still utopia to expect but what is not Utopian and is even justified is for Clients to agree to give PR agencies at least the fee they so deserve and not haggle over monies. Am sure all senior PR professionals would have experienced this at various points in time at new business presentations. The plans and concepts presented are seldom just the ordinary and I know that many of us burn the midnight oil, brainstorm and research a lot to present the best of pitch concepts and plans. The Client is all too eager and excited to lap it up the first instance…but the moment the commercials are put across the table the Client cringes to an extent to make you feel as if you have asked for the moon. As much as the fees may be, trust me, PR is still asking for peanuts as compared to all the money that the Client spends in other forms of communication. When you are invited for a pitch you are told that the brand is incomplete without you, which we agree…then why the discomfort to pay the right dues?

The haggling goes on for days on end…(am sure to get a lot of …Madhavi, it is a part and parcel of this profession..comments) but what am saying is it is not fair! People negotiate and renegotiate…they want all regions, they want dedicated resources, they want all the activities mentioned in the pitch and then they confess about menial budgets for PR. Why should you have menial budgets for PR? Why shouldn’t you understand the long term positive effects and the equity you will enjoy as a brand after a successful PR campaign and allocate budgets for PR likewise?Why would you not understand that it takes a lot of effort, a 360 degree understanding of various media operations, people skills, industry knowledge and a news sense to get your brand the required limelight…so why would you not pay?!

And the even better part is that when Clients do agree to a commercial, they start negotiating on the size and position of coverage, when it will appear, the headlines and content?! Suddenly one wonders if the Client is equating PR to Media buying?!

Even while the PR professionals study and increase their competency to understand the Client’s domain and communicate to the Media, just as we all expect the Media to respect us for what we do and not treat us as mindless mediators…we also need the support of Clients to understand that PR is a knowledge exercise… Public Relations is the Art of communicating with the masses and formulating a Scientific approach to reach out to your target audience to enable the publics have better understanding of an organisations’ objectives and intention thereby building a favourable image.

It’s a humble request to all the Clients all over who engage or want to engage PR teams and professionals…Do not haggle and negotiate to an extent to drain the communications experts of their enthusiasm and eagerness to work for you. When you are agreeing to a retainer or project fee, you are respecting the talent, the ideas and the resources that is being dedicated to build your brand. It is not a high perk, high paying, high on revenues and billing industry. But that does not mean the work and effort, the brains and sweat are any less…so just do the needful…Give PR it’s Dues :)

Cheers

Madhavi Mukherjee

After US, Microsoft is out to help Indian offices do a makeover through better usage of technology and office space. Head over to Make My Office.

If you are a office worker in India, all you need to do write a 200 word essay and upload a picture of your office. If you are the winner, you will get a makeover from Microsoft that will include software, tablet pc, printer, mobile phones, and the services of an interior designer to refurbish your office.

There will a panel of judges who will select 5 semi finalists from whom the winner will be chosen through an online and SMS vote.

A coverage of the US campaign is reported here.

I would say this might be a hit with all the SMEs and the SOHO segment. What do you say?

It was ‘Balle Balle’ from Australia to Amritsar. Our very own obnoxious little weed & his captain’s monkeys have demolished the Australian wild dogs and their sledging empire in the game of cricket. That was indeed a historic moment and cricket crazy people like us across the globe would surely remember it for a long… long… time.

Now let me take you to the future in my time machine. Let’s go to 2020, which is not far away.

Beep…beep… We are finally there!

Another young Indian cricketer is being targeted this time and history is repeating itself. Rohan Gavaskar and Aryan Shah Rukh Khan is in a commentary box and reminding the TV viewers that in the year 2008 one of the young Indian cricketers was called little obnoxious weed in the CWB Series and how he went about taking his revenge on the monkey and weed eating donkey and barking wild dogs of the opposition team!

Cut to one of those thousands of Indian TV News channel, which is showing a special program on cricket and playing some latest ‘Cheque De!’ song in the background and interviewing mothers of all cricketers, their kit handlers and even pitch curators. The questions are being asked about their sons’ performances on the field. Let’s look at one such interview…

“Good evening, Dudes!” My name is Pravin Kumar, but you can call me PK! What a victory it was! Mind Blowing! As you can see I am surrounded by fans of young Pajji and I have with me his sister, brother, chacha, chachi, taya, tayee, mama, mami, padosi, tinku, rinku, pinku and finally last but not the least his mother! Phew! Let’s ask her how she feels about this victory.

“Mam, millions of people are watching you on your news channel. Please tell us – how are you feeling on this victory?”

“I am really feeling great. I knew whatever the Australians were doing it to my son, my son was going to give it back to them with interest. I was sure that Pajji will get rid of crymonds and hay-donke”

“Okay, okay – now please tell our viewers that how did you prepare Pajji to become cricketer. I was told by one of his friends that he was very interested in hokey and not in cricket!”

“Yes, yes! Let me tell you the real story. Actually, you know what! When I was young, I was good looking and was working hard to become a news reporter or somehow show my face on to your Television news channel. I tried various things but unfortunately my bad luck never allowed me to come on TV. And then, one fine day I was watching your channel while cooking ‘mooli ka parantha’ for Pajji ke Dad, I saw mothers of all cricketers being interviewed by reporters like you. That day onwards, in order to fulfill my long cherished wish of coming on TV screen, maine maar maar ke maine mere obnoxious little weed Pajji to hockey se cricket khilwaya! And see today my dream has come true. He is also going to be auctioned for IPL, isse jyada mere liye khushi ka mauka kya hoga?!”

“Look, Charkha we got a great insight from Pajji’s Maa! This is PK signing off from your channel. Charkha – over to you!”

“BREAKING NEWS!”

“YOUR CHANNEL WAS INSTRUMENTAL BEHIND PAJJI BECOMING A CRICKETER”

“PAJJI’S MOTHER ADMITS THAT YOUR CHANNEL MOTIVATED HER TO BEAT PAJJI AND CONVERT HIM TO CRICKET FROM HOKEY”

“YOUR CHANNEL PLAYS A CRUCIAL ROLE IN INDIA’S VICTORY”

C’mon guys! Future is not going to be any different than it is today. What were you hoping that ‘your news channel’ is going to talk about the real issues you face as a normal human being? When the real Indian tigers are being killed in our jungles they are talking about our cricketing tigers, who roar only once in a while? High hopes! The whole behavior of media, especially the news channels is so naïve that, one can not decide whether to cry or laugh. In the frenzy of such news, they don’t talk about real issues and real heroes who are braving the snow-clad Himalayan mountain range at Indo-china-pak borders!

What is the future of media?

I would like my readers to give me answers.

Give me an answer, whether we will see some sensible journalism in future or continue to see Bollywood style news shows?

Give me an answer, whether we will see a fair and unbiased reporting or even after spending precious time and money talking personally to a journalist, going to see the same press release which you gave out to him/her with few references to competition in the next day’s newspaper?

Give me an answer, whether ‘Tatvas’ and ‘Fatwas’ will not rob us of the ‘PRatva’ we have as of today under the disguise of not so ‘private treaties’!

Hain koi jawab tumhare paas?

Lekin bhai…Mere pass Maa hain!!

PS: Can we have a niche channel focusing only on mothers of cricketers?

What an Idea!! Dr. Roy? Mr. Bahl? Mr. Jain? – wanna fund? I have a solid business plan and few upcoming mothers too.