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Weber Shandwick, in association with The Economist, today came out with a report entitled ‘Risky Business: Reputations Online’ based on a survey conducted among 703 senior executives within more than 20 industries in 62 countries spanning North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and other markets. The report revealed interesting insights:

15 REALITIES

1. Reputation threat level is high: The perceived damage of reputational threat is even higher in Asia than any other region, with 74% of executives regarding  their company’s reputation as vulnerable. Those surveyed  in other parts of  the world are  less  likely  to regard  their company  reputations as  vulnerable – 64% of Australian executives and 67% of executives globally.

2. Reputations are revealed online, but not completely: Nearly all executives in the Asia Pacific (Asia + Australia) markets surveyed (99%) “use” the internet  to evaluate company  reputation. However,  fewer  than 6  in 10  (58%) find  the  internet “useful”  for making such judgments. Executives in Asia are more likely to use banner ads as a reputation arbiter than executives in other parts of the world. Nearly 9 in 10 Asian executives (88%) rely on banner ads for reputation appraisal compared to 82% of global executives and 70% of Australian executives. Again, despite  this high utilisation rate, only 9% of Asian executives find banner ads  trustworthy.

3. Naivete can lead to surprise: Similar  to executives  in other parts of  the world, executives  in Asia and Australia  tend  to  think more often about  their company’s reputation  than  their own. The exception  is China, where executives  think almost as  frequently about  their own reputation as they do that of their company. Executives across Asia Pacific worry about their personal reputations, but could be somewhat overconfident by neglecting to check their names online often enough. Only 26% of those in Asia and 25% in Australia have run their names through a search engine in the 30 days prior to taking our survey, lower than the percentage of global executives overall (38%).

4. What…me worry?: Preoccupation with company reputation is not exclusive to the C-suite in Asia Pacific. Members outside of the top executive team think about it just as frequently as those at the very top. Despite this common concern for company reputation, top executive team members perceive a lower threat level to their company’s reputation than those reporting to them or below them.

5. Executives are online reputation sleuths: Like executives worldwide, executives across Asia Pacific used search engines in the past 30 days prior to taking the survey to uncover activities of business rivals and partners, product quality issues, and even their own organisations. Chinese executives, to a much greater extent than executives anywhere else, are going online to investigate company corporate responsibility records, company critics (“badvocates”), and NGOs.

6. Traditional media outranks new media as reputation referee:In spite of their frequent recourse to internet search engines, executives throughout Asia Pacific still agree with global executives that traditional media (television, radio and newspapers) plays a greater role in deciding reputational fates than new media (websites, blogs and social networks).

7. First stop: Company websites: According to 99% of executives in Asia Pacific, the leading online source of company reputation information is the corporate website.

8. Old and new reputation spoilers: By far, the greatest perceived cause of reputation damage according to executives across Asia Pacific, and the world over, is negative media coverage. The next  two  top-ranked  reputation busters are customer complaints  in the media/online grievance sites and negative word-of-mouth. To a surprising and alarming degree, executives everywhere vastly overlook new media’s potential as a reputation spoiler – only 12% or less of Asian executives and 6% or less of Australian executives mentioned online videos, social networking sites, Wikipedia and photo-sharing sites as potential reputational hazards.

9. Leaks gush dangerously online: More than half of executives in Asia (55%) regard confidential or leaked information to the internet as the top online risk to their company’s reputation, a much greater concern than for Australian executives (31%) or global executives overall (41%).

10. Reputation assassins are hard at work: Today,  the  internet provides  innumerable platforms  for current and  former employees  to strike, usually anonymously, at a company’s reputation. As employees wrestle with declining pensions and possible layoffs, reputation “badvocates” will be hard at work online. In Asia especially, employee criticism is considered a clear risk to a company’s reputation (53%). The importance of employee loyalty and recruitment to companies in Asia means that any employee criticism would be a particular reputational affront.

11. Emails are on the loose: Similar to global executives, a sizeable 88% of executives throughout Asia Pacific admit to having erroneously sent or received at least one electronic message (email, text or Twitter). However, emails do not always fall into the wrong hands or  inboxes accidentally – approximately one quarter of executives (23%  in Asia and 25%  in Australia) say  they have intentionally forwarded a private email to someone else.

12.Monitoring is needed far and wide: Executives in Asia and Australia believe that among the best ways to reduce the number of online assassins and protect reputations online  is  to monitor what  is said about companies  in  the  traditional media  (ranked #1  in Asia and #2  in Australia). These managers consider traditional media monitoring a more important safeguarding activity than global executives overall (42%). Asian executives are exceedingly more likely than Australians to believe search engine and social media monitoring tools effectively help safeguard reputation online (42% vs. 25%).

13. Acting on employee feedback is wise defence: Australian executives consider acting upon results from employee satisfaction surveys to be the most effective online reputation shield (55%). By comparison, Asian executives believe employee feedback is only the second most effective (43%), after media monitoring (48%). Australians are the world’s strongest proponents of employee feedback.

14. Executives are still blind to the blogosphere: Like executives elsewhere,  those  in Asia Pacific believe  that  the  least effective way  to protect corporate reputation online is to build relationships with influential bloggers. Only 12% of Asian executives and 6% of Australian executives consider this strategy helpful for keeping reputations secure.

15. Online reputation management (ORM) comes of age: Six out of 10 executives  in Asia Pacific say  their companies are now rigorous about online reputation management and expect to be more rigorous three years from now, in line with global executive estimates.

15 RULES FOR ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

1. Conduct an initial landscape analysis of your professional and company reputations online: Take a 12+ month look back into online sources such as blogs, social  networks,  forums  and  chatrooms  to  benchmark  and obtain a clear understanding of what has been said historically about you and your company.

2. Monitor your digital reputation regularly and embrace SEO: Search  engine  results,  blogs  and  other  forums  can  help determine what exists  in  the public view since competitors, customers,  allies  and  the  media  are  making  split  second judgments about your and your company’s reputations. Make online  monitoring  and  search  engine  optimisation  (SEO) a  critical  element  of  your  ongoing  reputation management process.

3. Engage in the online community: Identify one or more passionate employees who can participate in the social networking arena on your company’s behalf.

4. Build reputation shield early on: Plant the seeds of genuine positive content or stories in multiple destinations across the web as soon as possible to create an enduring online reputation. Realise that journalists may be getting  their  reputational  intelligence  from  the  internet,  too. If a company delays  its efforts until a crisis unfolds or other negative news appears on the horizon, its reputation will not be  strong enough  to  repel  the flood waters  that can engulf and wash away years of strong performance.

5. Know when to respond online: Create a plan for incidents that takes into account all categories of issues: those requiring an immediate response, a wait-and-see approach and no response at all.

6. Get inline using all your media assets: traditional and online: Recognise  that  reputational  power  lies  in  using  all  available communications channels. Also,  the growing number of new online media sites and new technologies are only going to increasingly wreak havoc in the corporate world. The core of any successful public relations programme will be a combination of online and offline (“inline”), not one or the other.

7. Identify reputation threats early on. Plan for the worst-case scenario: Rule out any surprises and always be on your guard. Many companies now have, or need to consider building, a ready-to-launch  “dark  site”  that  can  be  activated  if  a worst-case scenario suddenly occurs. Remember, whoever  talks first  is in a better position to set the tone.

8. Endlessly listen to your employees: Listen and respond to employees before they potentially attack you  online,  intentionally  or  unintentionally.  Listening means more than fielding a survey or putting a suggestion box in the lunchroom. It means reviewing employee satisfaction surveys and exit interviews, and monitoring your reputation daily using key words  that can be searched on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Turn your employees into advocates!

9. Multiply your bad news online by 100: Realise that once bad news reaches the corner office, it may sound like a whisper but it’s already a shout. You can take this news and multiply it hundredfold.

10. Don’t neglect industry discussion: Boards and blogs: Enlist  your  senior management  and  other members  of  your workforce  in  digital  boot  camp.  Ignoring  influential  bloggers and complaining customers causes reputational harm. Reach out  to  bloggers  and  posters with  solutions  to  problems with your products/ services.

11. Review your website as if you were a prospective customer or competitor: Road  test  the  user  experience  of  your  company  website  in terms of functionality, interactivity and transparency.

12. Customerise the online reputation of your products and services: Ask  for  and  respond  to  customer  feedback,  and  include customers in new product development. Boost your company’s credibility  by  including  on  your  website  negative  customer comments (excluding those that may be slanderous or similarly inappropriate) as well as positive comments. Use  technology to build consumer trust.

13. Accept your employee nation: Understand  that  employees  will  go  online  to  criticise  and praise your company—so prepare,  review and communicate your  corporate  employee  blogging  and  social media  guidelines. Online conversation will only increase in the years ahead as online conversation continues to heat up.

14. Be on the lookout for errant emails: Use  technology  to audit outbound email content and monitor text in webmail and other HTTP traffic. Also use technology to detect intellectual property that should remain within corporate firewalls. Regular employee training in electronic message liability and propriety must be enforced at all levels.

15. Find your online advocates. Prime the pump for badvocates: Create an ongoing dialogue with your supporters, fans and enthusiasts before problems spread via word-of-mouth or on the web. These brand champions are a company’s best defence against  badvocates,  whose  words  and  actions  detract  from
brands or products.

You can download this report’s executive summary in pdf at the Online Reputation Management site.

Some of world’s best brands have been built with PR.

With rising media costs and lack of deep pockets to spend, many brands are seriously considering using PR in a big way to promote their brand in the most cost efficient manner. Recently I was chatting with few of my friends who are working on various brands starting from FMCG to Consumer Durables to lifestyle. During our intense conversation, most of these people felt that new and innovative options need to be discovered to promote brands as returns on spending huge money on mass media is not delivering the desired results.

Now why are these people questioning the ROI? The answer to this is very simple. Today with the increase in the number of channels and audience fragmentation; marketers are not able to catch their audience that easily. They need to increase their promotional budgets to reach a larger audience but the results are not satisfactory. Even the print and the outdoor medium have become equally expensive. One cannot get a great impact by taking a few hoardings in any city. Even if you take a good number of sites the sustenance factor steps in. How long I can continue the campaign? Marketers are looking answers for these. Do we have an answer? The answer is yes. Marketers need to start innovating to fight this rise in media prices, media fragmentation and high clutter levels by just revisiting their communication and media strategy.

Powerful Public relations strategy is one way to look at:

Some of the world’s best brands have been built though PR. Our own software company Infosys is both a leading Indian and global brand which has grown in manifolds by brilliantly planned PR strategy. We must also remember that the company has delivered value and has consistently performed. Apart from some advertisements during the IPO, this brand has been build brick by brick purely using public relations in the most effective manner. The brand has become almost a familiar brand amongst software engineers and aspiring engineers. We have more such examples of brands that have build their corporate brands through PR.

Google is another brand which is in everybody‘s mind starting from today’s teenager to the senior citizen. This brand has never advertised in India but the brand has grown in leaps and bounds to have the largest email service in India, Gmail. The brand Google has become so familiar and friendly that people use the phrase ‘Google’ it to get any information on the net.

TCS is also another brand that has taken its brand to new global heights through PR. While TCS has the support of the TATA name but to become a global brand on software space PR has played a pivotal role for TCS. The secret of success for all these brands has been their focused vision and commitment which PR has leveraged at every stage of the growth of the company. Also with PR this brand has managed to build credibility and faith with their stakeholder which has in the end resulted in raising the equity of the brand both domestically and globally.

It’s misnomer to think PR is just press release:

About two decades back PR was just about disseminating news via press release or through press conference. But over the last few years that has radically changed. More and brands are placing their faith on PR to build credibility which is difficult to achieve through the conventional advertising and publicity. While some of the reputed brands spend a lot of money on advertising but they still use PR to restore faith and confidence among its audience.

Two great launches or event in the recent period that has implemented PR effectively has been the announcement of TATA’S NANO. There was great PR build up before the official announcement and showcasing of the product at the AUTO EXPO. This was possible because there was a great story to talk about in terms of a ONE LAC car which was a great dream and aspiration for many Indian consumers to own a car. It was a good strategy on the part of TATAs to use PR as it is PR that built confidence and credibility among the prospective consumers to reassure yes we are giving you a car for ONE LAKH. Public relations in t his case could play a very important role as there was a great story to tell. In fact I hardly could see any advertisement on the day of the launch. The PR really overpowered the print campaign. And the reason for the same is that consumers need to know more about the product and PR was the best tool to sell this revolutionary concept in car. If you have a great story to tell then brands must strongly move towards using PR as a weapon. In case of TATA NANO if we count on the coverage they got through PR and convert it to advertisement rates it would be quite substantial may be even match the budget they spend on advertising.

Even the success for IPL must be attributed to a large extent to PR. While individual teams and brands did some advertisement what really caught cricket fans is this new concept which had great news and story to talk about. Today post the first IPL league many teams are seriously considering to revamp their image through PR before the champion’s league. All of us know cricket is a religion in our country and the hype generated through the press will create more excitement and interest than patriotic HINGLISH jingles and use of celebrities by various teams in their campaign. IPL really drew more viewer ship on channels more crowds to the stadium but more than this there was great buzz around in the social network media where different community groups were formed to track the matches with their own views and criticism. This is where social media network as a medium is being used to drive PR.

Use of new age media and innovative media opportunity in PR:

The advent of new media like blogs and social network has made PR more innovative and interactive. Facebook, My space and Orkut are some of the few social network media which are being used by many brands to touch the younger audience. Various movie reviews and play reviews are available if you are part of any community in the social media network. The audience you converse through this social network are becoming strong testimonials to tell you or give you more information of a movie or purchasing a music gadget. This of course is supplemented by the news that appears in the dailies and other media which helps in getting brands closer and into the consideration set.

I am told most of the electronic products such as the laptops the final decision in buying is made by the consumer only using the mediums like the internet by reading their product reviews etc. This also holds true with automobiles where the prospects reads reviews about the brand and product from various auto journals before they decide to arrive on the brand to buy or test drive it.

The other innovative ideas to get your brand promoted are product placement opportunity in various media which is relevant to the brand. For e.g. TV show featuring on real estate one can promote a microwave by displaying the product in such shows which is part of the accessories customers look at buying for their kitchen. Brands could also tie up with construction houses to get write up about their product in their brochures and website.

The use of PR needs to be tactically applied and one must have a good story to pitch for the media to talk about. In the coming years Public relation will move faster and more brands will seriously consider to use this communication tool to build the credibility of the brand as costs on the media front is just going up and up. With increase of more GEC in the electronic medium and TRPs fluctuating as channels are bringing freshness in the programming marketers are need take lot of risks to place their brand in these channels without knowing the right ROI from these programs.

Public relations will play a great role in providing marketers to infuse good strategy which will get them stories and credibility. One also needs to think beyond just coverage and come out with out of box thinking to get qualitative message through PR.

Strangely, it was a client who taught me this equation, when I’d started my career in PR. I still remember the conversation with the MD of the company, him extolling the importance of PR in his company and me getting very impressed with what had landed in my lap. I was suddenly glad that I had decided to go for PR after college and the follow-up job given to me as my first PR assignment ever, started to make sense. What’s surprising is that not once during the meeting did he mention ‘media’, ‘coverage’ or ‘output’. “I do not want my PR agency to give me press coverage; I want you all to help me build my brand.” I was a convert for life.

Now, I am still to come across another client who shares this opinion. We all know how our monthly dossiers often become nightmares without the big numbers. Though I try to stick to the hallowed equation, I sometimes do find myself juggling interactions and press releases which only serve the purpose of the great Indian CC Output. It’s almost funny how clients can get obsessive about these things. I’m sure PR in India has a long way to go before our clients start to acknowledge the equation, but honestly, how many of us believe in it ourselves?

As PR professionals, we know it in our heads that that PR is about two-way communication with, and building perceptions among, the target group, which most definitely requires media to maintain third-party credibility. All this jazz roughly translates to focussed communication aimed at improving/adjusting/inspiring brand-image. When the target customer reads in her favourite magazine that the latest mobile phone from the client company is a must-have luxury gizmo, many things happen at once. The reader’s awareness of the brand improves a notch; the phone registers in the mental ‘things I want’ list; the customer’s old phone gets a thought or two; the client company gains brownie points for being premium; if the client is already premium, the ‘price on request’ below the phone description adds a little to the aspiration value, improving product desirability; and so on. All of this might or might not lead to a sale but definitely adds to the branding campaign.

Of course, we could say that after years in the industry we do not need to think about the consequential process at all and that we automatically know what to do. Yeah right!! Few clients even LET agencies decide between a release and a press conference for an announcement. Let us say we go for a press conference, what do we do? We start inviting everyone on the media list, start drafting collateral for the press kits, follow-up with the media, arrange for AV, follow-up some more, conduct a recce of the venue, follow-up, prepare a briefing document, follow-up even more while the poor journalist from a small regional daily is wondering why his readers would be interested in a business alliance between two purely B2B industrial manufacturing companies! Of course, he will attend the conference because his favorite Mr. PR ‘so-and-so’ invited him and of course he will give ‘coverage’ because the same so-and-so won’t stop calling if he didn’t.

In the end, what we have is a fat dossier and a big number for the CC output, and a happy client who thinks the press conference was a huge success, and by the way, also thinks that his PR agency is a media post office.

More than convincing the clients, we need to convince ourselves of the importance of what we do, in the larger scheme of things. The value we bring to a client’s brand is not the number of clips we generate in a quarter but the real impact they create, isn’t it? The equation only makes sense because brand building is exactly what PR is meant to do in the first place. (Picture source: Dadawan)

It is a mess and it is all over the place and it is not going away in a hurry. The stock market is toast, the oil price is freaking out in the USD 150s, real estate and financial services are tanking like the titanic! Everyone knows that we are in the middle of a meltdown and the effects of inflation have just about started to ruin the financial results of companies.

The politics of the nation are in the gutter and the uncertainty that clouds all decision making both in the public and private enterprise will continue well into the next year, if and when another government comes into being. A government that is cross subsidising the oil bill and some other future government will reap the whirlwind and some whirlwind it will be for sure, and I quote Rahul Bhasin of Barings in the DNA, where he said, “We are frittering away our gains made in the last 15 years”.

Against the background of this carnage in corporate India, the bean counters are finally seeing resurgence, like desert plants, they have waiting out the decade of exuberance. Today they are rising like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes, and promise to be the bane of many brands, marketing campaigns and other assorted still born initiatives. Austerity is back like the rude shock of a cold water bath in the freezing winter!

When the accountant’s chop does come down on big-ticket advertising, out-of-home and television commercials, these being the pet peeves of the accountant  PR promises to stay untouched. Having said that budgets for travel, off sites, media training, and all those nice fuzzy things are bound to dry up real quick, if not disappear all together. In all this skirmishing, fortunately for PR, most corporates have come to understand that it is not an on-and-off thing and if anything, some might even find it the last refuge of the marketing to reach their target publics in times of budgetary paucity.

The job market for PR professional and Communicators promises to retain traction and the moaning for talent will stay the wail it is, so here is one area that I again see no effect of the slow down, if anything it could lead to many more corporates hiring for the reasons above.

Challenges bring opportunities and usually constitute the need, the same need that spurs innovation and fosters new paradigms and discoveries. These are the times to service your customer better and to vow to be closer to the business and not lose accounts on reasons of tardiness, inefficiency or downright stupidity! I see many avenues that were shoveled into the “not important or urgent” quadrants due the presence of other ‘lazy cheque’ populars suddenly becoming fashionable. The medium I am talking about and maybe one who’s time has finally come in India, is the online medium.

This is the time to knock again and dust off those online plans, whether it is a programme to engage key bloggers in your space, or kick off that e-mail campaign or spend your remaining rupees in the pursuit of a web-only viral marketing or buzz marketing campaign!

I wish you well in these nasty times, so get dug in and wait it out, this too shall pass, maybe not soon enough but you can always take the time to do something you always wanted to attempt, something forbidden, constructive, intellectual, delicious and inspiring! I look forward to comments here!

The rapid expansion in the media space has done many good things for the nation. It has provided choice in beats across entertainment, movies, news and education that earlier was simply not ever thought of or envisioned. The proliferation has brought about waves of soaps, contests and now with the first IPL season shaking India, it has brought a gaggle of new anchors anxious to make their mark.

In a landscape dotted by hungry journalists, anchors, show producer, sometimes this breed, crosses the line of prudence and fair practice in the quest for exclusives, scoops and the most dramatic of them all; stings! In times of deadline overload and a lack of any tangible research, editorial balance becomes the first casualty to TRPs, popularity polls and advertising revenue.

How many times have you had a trick e-mail or a innocuous phone call translate into a bombshell in the press the next day, or even the same day in these times of broadcast and online media explosion? If you are out there working the space, then I am sure you do this more than you’d like to and while we all employ our own ways and means to deal with the scourge, maybe the time is right for a discussion. Keeping quiet is not an option so here are a few PR plays I’ve seen practiced:

• No comment – This is the most basic defense of the scared communicator or resident PR punter in the establishment. It creates a doubt in the mind of the viewer or reader about the authenticity or veracity of the story but has the potential of making front page all the same or the lead story in the dozen or so television channels out there, business, news, and combinations thereof.
• We do not speculate on market speculation – This or another variation of the same featuring words like ‘policy’ are yet another wet blanket in terms of media credibility, will they stop your brand image from get a contentious tag or even a black eye is arguable.
• Denial – This is the last reprieve of either the aggrieved or the very stupid, especially if its a lie. It will give a pause to the editor or the journalist, who will question their gut, chances of going to print or being aired, fifty per cent.
• Half Agreement, half denial – This Molotov Cocktail is the most sophisticated of the ploys, and clearly agrees to all or some part of the allegation but uses the loop in technique to include crisis messaging. Sent as a quote and usually written, it forces the hack to use the statement in full. Only the most savvy can do this bespoke but chances of being quoted out of context or half quoted remain high.
• Retraction or Rejoinder – These are mostly ego plasters to paper over bruised management egos, striking how the size of the retraction and rejoinder is in contrast to the placement, font size and prominence of the offending piece.
• Confirming statement – This is the pushover statement, executed along with a sincere sorry note and a display of the belly in submission. These are very bad for the ego and best suited for real tragedies, fraud, accidents, calamities and other industrial or infrastructure and government type of communicators.

I am sure there are hilarious variations sitting out there in your very fertile and successful minds and would love to get any more classification here or a anonymous war story, do feel obliged to share your scary knowledge with the tribe.

These are some concerning times that need both awareness of the stakes and training, if it is your privilege to be charged as the guardian of your brand and company image. There are lots of ploys the feverish hack employs to in the get-rich-quick-or-get-fired-trying, exclusive hunt. You need to understand that it is their job to report, to analyze, to predict and to expose, the end is fine but the means are most questionable. This pool is further muddied by competition and the dirty tricks department using friendly media for planting, seeding or plain obfuscating an issue. I will not use examples but the watchful here will see and read patterns in politics, industry and most media reporting, even that front page headline or the lead story on that television channel that looks innocent at first pass. Go figure…

If they know that you know, then you will receive their respect and maybe the show can continue down the road for all. Right now these are dangerous times for Image and Brand and all seems fair in the media war for exclusives. Next week sticking to a statement and dodging trick questions on the phone. Happy skirmishing! 

Last night the Kings XI Punjab made another killing! Shaun Marsh produced what some would colloquially describe as giving a right walloping and Yuvraj Singh followed through with more arson on the pitch; the two are the cynosure of all eyes in the cricket world in India, the Commonwealth continents and many points further.

This wasn’t always the case, suddenly a team that was for long an underdog is making huge waves. The IPL analogy is no different, it came from nowhere and took over the house, and those in the marketing and PR fraternity who were watching the wind speed and its direction are smiling, while the laggards are now wringing their hands in furious frustration at the massive opportunity loss.

A few months have passed since the marketing and PR landscape got hijacked by IPL, the usual heavy-lids marketing and PR veteran, already bored to death with the monotony of the hot summer, mistook it for a flash in the pan, many weeks later it was still there refusing to go away like a bad nightmare, rocketing TRPs and bringing in eyeballs by the truck load for competition; the ones who got on the band wagon are laughing to the brand bank, the ones that did not have conceded defeat. The ’serial shock’ gave all channels a huge scare and the war moved from the pitch to the air waves as the IPL tsunami sucked all eyes to a single channel away from the staple ’soap and serial’ diet!

Team sponsorships that went a begging are now worth their weight in gold and next season; by all means, do please expect to see the phenomenon of inflation translate to cricket sponsorship. In these incredulous times of USD 130 for a barrel of crude oil, why should inflation be confined to steel, onions and cement?

The fight for eye balls has been won by mobile companies, banks and FMCG companies being the usual suspect that also ran and got some successes. The losers were car and bike companies, ringed in first by the RBI triggered, inflation killer, CRR measures, that squeezed the already flat credit situation. Across packed stadium; the howls of delight and screams of incredulity submerged the Bloomberg story reporting how this had been the lowest growth in the last 10 quarters for India.

As crude oil price insanity triggered troubling visions of more tax and ‘cess-upon-more-cess’ crowded my radar, the oil companies were slowly sinking and losses were being reported first time in the current quarters of these public sector behemoths. As ministries quibbled over customs, excise, luxury tax and oil stabilisation funds, the screams of cricket hooliganism in stadiums kept growing louder, so much more dignified than the marauding Chelsea club fans in England that would shame Genghis Khan but the days are not far! Welcome to the Indian version of the superbowl!

As stories got pitched to the print, television and online spaces and the pickled brain of the now smiling senior PR types picked up the sweet stink of plugs a headline or byte away, agencies were being whipped to leverage the sponsorship investment and brand types were churning websites and campaigns by the dime across outdoor, print and online; search or ad word. Here in this very fertile climate unnoticed a bevy of writers, television anchors and producers were taking birth.

In the text message histrionics of Shah Rukh Khan and Vijay Mallya’s tantrums, the hugs of Preity Zinta and the exploits of Ness Wadia with the Punjab Police hijacked dinner and tea time conversations across the homes and offices of the unsuspecting consumer in a heady brew, without alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. Healthy I thought!

In this entire din, the lessons have been many and things have changed forever in sports marketing and PR. The heady mix of entertainment, blaring team songs and not to forget the introduction of cheer leaders in a morality stricken nation, helped tone down changes that would have otherwise not gone down well.

I am talking about the erosion of nationality as the basis for cricket teams. Questions about how ex-team mates will reconcile their fury and belligerence once IPL is over and things are back to normal for the Indian, Sri Lankan, Australian and many other teams. Of course and then unlearning all that when the next IPL starts. In the confines of Wankhede, Eden Gardens, Mohali and many other cricket stadiums, the energy was electric and someone watching the same show on TV would never understand the fury of the music, the hysteria whipped up by the cheer leaders and the crowd as it chanted favourites or booed down others.

The good change that has again gone largely unnoticed like the bad is the new faces that have got the opportunity to play with the reigning cricket gods. Good for India and good for cricket and definitely good for brand endorsement, marketing and Public Relations!

As I wait for the semi-finals, I doff my hat to LK Modi and despite the large headline in a prominent Indian newspaper harking back to a real or imagined misdemeanor 20 years ago in a foreign country, life in India after IPL will never be the same! They are obviously trying to get back at his temerity in bringing in IPL Media Guidelines in the usual petty and spiteful style characteristic of the large egos of the rather spoilt Indian press fraternity. Long live IPL!

Every once in a  while, there comes the case of a company that is unable to throughput communication in stark contrast to its otherwise brilliant performance indices. I have sought to understand this malady now and again but a chance conversation yesterday with a known genius in the Indian Financial Services space triggered this post. If you are the guardian angel of the Aspirational; the evangelist with passion, fire and a head full of mindgames, the PR kind, then read on…

Perception lags performance, due to many reasons. The causes manifest themselves in three primary reasons. For a Public Relations, Communications or Brand consultant, it is important to understand the terrain before they pick up on a project that seeks to break logjams in the media and perception circuits for a customer.

Breaking gridlocks and logjams for late entrants to the perception game requires special skills, the tricks  and tactics have been there forever, question is have you ever thought about it, enough to elevate it to strategy?

Changing share of voice in the media and lecture circuit from a inane buzz to the screaming roar of a Ferrari or shepherding your customer (internal or external depends which side of the table you are sat) from the mind-numbing terrors and traps in the media, triggering a turbo boost for your spokesperson in terms of messaging uptake and effectiveness, is what this post is about.

Firstly, an inability or fear of dealing with the media due to a past bad experience can make efforts hard or non-starters. Media Relations is an art that requires constant practice, the ride comes with bumps and smooth stretches, sporadic crises thrown in for spice.  You give, you get, but you always talk! There is media out there that is out to trick you out, will they hesitate to rubbish your carefully build reputation for an exclusive? Absolutely not for a second! Can PR change the game for your business? Absolutely yes! Good comes with the bad, package deal like with most things in life. If you are going to get anywhere, you need to get started! Tell them like it is, chances are that they take risks in business everyday and will grow into the act with a little hand holding from you, the specialist!

Secondly, there is a clique out there as in most other domains, these ‘usual suspects’ then pretty much control the share of voice in the media, and this maybe specific to a beat. The media is most times too lazy to do any hard digging when mapping a business space and again relies on the ‘usual suspects’, who maybe be convenient darling MDs, CEOs and other assorted rabble rousers. Awards: every publication and their mother has an award stacked with their favourites, breaking into this game needs perseverance, a nose for ‘distress sales’, finally being able to work the apex bodies like CII, FICCI, NASSCOM, etc, for advocacy and influencer relations.

Third and last here, is clearly a lack of process internally at the client organisation be it in terms of communication superstructure, even if one does exist, its ability to deliver strategic advice to management may be suspect in hierarchy driven situations or where communicators are too junior to be taken seriously. Some people use external consultants to tell them what is known already as it brings a credibility they lack.

Anyone can tell you that game changing maneuvers are few and far in between as stereotypes and ’safe’ options abound but if you as a PR professional were ever able to affect changes that made a company’s perception congruent with its performance as benchmarked against its peers, then you indeed deserve to be in the hall of fame. If commitment is your destiny and you can help tell a story that is true and ethical but inconvenient, then you are indeed one lucky person!

We need our heroes just like we need our war stories to feel good about the tribe and what it does, so come on give!

Rohit Bhargava, Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy & Marketing, is a well known PR and marketing professional and known for his path breaking work in the social media segment. He leads the interactive marketing team at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Washington DC and is a founding member of the 360 Digital Influence team at Ogilvy. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a specialist in combining “traditional” interactive marketing efforts with innovative social media marketing strategy to help clients succeed in the new media landscape. His current list of clients includes Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Lenovo, and Unilever. Prior to joining Ogilvy PR, he was Executive Producer of the interactive team at Leo Burnett in Sydney, Australia and has worked internationally in several countries. Rohit has also been featured as an expert on marketing in BusinessWeek, Wired, Business2.0 and The Wall Street Journal as well as many industry and trade publications. He authors the popular marketing blog Influential Marketing and has recently launched his first marketing book called Personality Not Included.In an exclusive interview with India PR Blog, he briefly talks about his book and more…

IPRB: ‘Personality Not Included’ is definitely an attention grabbing title. How did you think about that in this personality driven corporate world?

Rohit: I wanted something that could stand out, and this title was one that everyone involved in the book fell in love with right away. To be honest, it was the subtitle that took a really long time for everyone to agree to.

IPRB: We always talk about creating personalities – brand, corporate or individual. How does your book really help us to understand issues faced by personality creators

Rohit: One of the main things I tried to do with the book was avoid it being solely and theoretical book. To do that, I included two main sections. The first talks all about why personality matters, how to understand and use it, and how to get past the barriers that may stand in your way. The second part is all how-to style guides and action plans to help you put personality into your business immediately.

IPRB: A very basic but important question -what is personality? why it is so important? can’t we just live in a world where personality is not included?

Rohit: This is a very important question. Personality, as I define it, is a mixture of being unique, authentic and talkable. I believe it is a necessity for brands that want to stand out and build deeper relationships with their customers.

IPRB:Would your book help demystify some of the marketing jargon floating around or will add few more?

Rohit: Actually, there is an element of the book that I have called “Buzzword Bingo.” It is a downloadable file that makes fun of exactly this point – that there are too many buzzwords in business and we all need to simplify.

IPRB: When would it be available in India?

Rohit: The India release will be at the end of May. I am hoping to have a chance to be there later this year!

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We will be reviewing Rohit’s book very shortly and let you know what our panel of experts think about it from the Indian perspective. And when Rohit visits India, we will surely have an opportunity to meet and interact with him. Till then, happy reading and keep visiting.