In India, the PR industry has grown at a rapid pace but does it continue to deliver value to its stake-holders? There are dramatic changes in the way consumer communications are driven today; but has the industry managed to keep pace? Simran Sabherwal sizes up the challenges facing the PR industry and what needs to be done to address them
The case of the PR industry is pretty straightforward. A client primarily expects strategic counselling on media relations when it signs on a Public Relations agency. Bringing this strategic expertise to the table, the PR agency offers counselling to organizations and guides their communication strategy. Being literally the feet on the ground, its strength in knowing the media and maintaining a relationship is critical to every PR company, so that the right message is delivered to the relevant stake-holders. And this gains special importance in the age of real-time communication.
Knowing what the client wants
Sanjay Chitkara, Head Corporate Marketing, LG India says a PR agency helps organizations connect with their audiences “with hard-hitting and softer angles simultaneously”. “We expect our agency to follow and understand LG’s leadership in India and communicate the same to our audiences selecting the right medium,” he says. For Sunil Kataria, Chief Operating Officer, Sales, Marketing and SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL), understanding the brand’s business is also essential. He says, “I would like the PR agency to understand my business challenges and provide a strategic counsel on campaigns based on their understanding of what works in the PR space, what competition is doing and what should be the appropriate PR narrative for my brands. I expect PR to deliver the reason to believe in my brand promise and create the desired perception.” Commenting on the same lines, Deepak Jolly, Vice President, Public Affairs & Communication, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia says, “Coca-Cola believes in the partnership model. So we think that our agency partners must be an extension of our brands and our company. Our partners must therefore be aligned to the company’s vision, its goals and priorities. Once the alignment is there, the company and the partners leverage each other’s strengths to communicate the right message to consumers.”
While advertisers and PR agencies are both strategic partners in building and enhancing brand equity, it is imperative that the agency has a good understanding of the company’s business, the industry it operates in, its unique strengths and overall corporate goals. Veena Gidwani, Strategic PR Consultant & Corporate Trainer, Former CEO, Madison PR says, “The client expects the agency to devise innovative and impactful PR strategies that help to enhance the overall corporate image as well as that of individual brands. Big ideas and differentiated content are on the wishlist of all clients today.”
What stops A PR agencY FROM deliverING?
Paresh Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer, Madison Public Relations believes that this issue can be resolved if every PR manager is converted to a brand manager. Chaudhry says it is necessary that every manager should go to the marketplace and understand what the consumer’s channel partners and the trade say, not just about their brand but also about the competition. He adds, “Our credibility is getting hit because we are not brand-focussed, we are media relations focussed. If you are brand-focussed, you will do great media relations and get great media exposure. With insights from the key stake-holders, the brand knowledge gets sharper and this in turn improves the relationship with the client and also adds more value to the communication plans.”
The Compensation Conundrum
The other major bone of contention is compensation, with PR agency fees forming a small chunk of the overall marketing budget. Dilip Cherian, Co-founder & Group Chairman, Perfect Relations, says that as the industry in India is still at a nascent stage, the fees are on the lower side because there is still no adequate traction for the services that companies provide in the CXO suite. He adds, “Where we as an advisory are able to engage with top management, fees are neither a problem nor are the services. However, a lot depends on local leadership and their ability to understand the nuances of what CXOs really need.” While agreeing with Cherian, Archana Jain, Managing Director, PR Pundit, says that organizations that understand and effectively use PR allocate the necessary budget, but agencies must show the value they bring to the table as fees are linked to the perceived value of services offered. She says, “The onus is on us as PR practitioners to lend meaningful advice, add value and demonstrate the impact of what we do. We need to keep raising the standards on service. On the other hand, the old adage – pay peanuts and you get monkeys – also applies to our industry. Organizations often learn the hard way that low fees compromises on quality of talent and puts time restraints, thus adversely affecting the impact of the campaign.”
The other point raised is that it can be difficult to assess the right payment for the PR industry on account of service delivered. Ameer Ismail, Executive Director, LinOpinion GH & Lowe Lintas + Partners believes that agencies are underpaid for the value delivered and adds, “This is in part a hangover from the past where clients have been made to believe that PR is a low investment model but a big part of this misconception is the fault of agencies who have not done too much to correct this. All this is layered with the lack of PR agencies’ ability to measure the effectiveness of their programmes. This is slowly but surely changing and I believe we will need some industry collectivism to ensure that some common standards are set and firms don’t just undercut rates to win business.” While the fee structure has improved, Sharif Rangnekar, CEO & Director, Integral PR thinks it is still not what it should be. He says, “To provide appropriate counsel and to showcase measurable results, research becomes critical. This cost is usually borne by PR consultancies which adds to the cost of servicing and hence makes the fees look less attractive and realistic. This is a problem primarily in the consumer space where PR competes directly with other forms of marketing such as advertising and then carries the tag, as you've said, of low-cost marketing. When you look at the overall space of PR and include critical services such as issues and crisis, image and reputation, training and corporate affairs, one does not see a similar problem.” Low fees also mean fewer resources to train staff and upgrade.
Specialized Boutique Agencies – A Threat?
With large agencies handling a huge number of clients across verticals (a PR professional may handle more than three clients), a PR manager at times doesn’t have adequate knowledge of the brand and vertical. In this aspect, specialized agencies are looked at positively, as being small and handling certain verticals, they not only focus better and provide better service but having expertise in that domain, they are able to develop a good plan for a client. On the existence of both side-by-side, Jolly believes that there is a place for both kinds of set-up in today’s world depending on the organization’s need for scale and consistency or when they need disruptive thinking or a much nuanced communication job. Gidwani says that each has its individual strength adding, “A big agency is likely to have more advanced and efficient systems and processes in place, but may not rank very high on creativity or have proven success in niche areas like internal communication or financial communication. On the other hand, small or medium-sized agencies with proven track record of brand-building, PR or internal communications, may bring more value to some organizations.” Sujit Patil, Vice President and Head Corporate Communications, Godrej Industries Limited and Associate Cos says that the role of boutique agencies that specialize in specific verticals cannot be undermined. “I have sometimes found them to be more flexible and agile as additional arms for our in-house team. With in-depth expertise, their ability to complement and bring a fresh perspective to build upon existing strategy is significant. Smaller shops have more flexibility that enables them to adapt quickly to client needs.”
Assessing the Industry
Evaluating the work put out by a PR agency is another grey area, primarily because of a lack of measurable unit. While centimetres of coverage was the measure earlier, this is no longer acceptable. A quantitative measurement that could be looked at is Share of Voice (SOV) and the tonality of coverage. SOV is not just measured by quantity but also the quality of coverage and looks at where you appear, how much is the coverage, whether there is a picture, if you are prominently quoted and this is seen as a qualifying mark. When these inputs are aggregate, it is then compared with what the competition has got. Key messages given by spokespersons to external stake-holders are evaluated to see if they have been effectively communicated and represented in the coverage. Chaudhry adds that for Media Evaluations (MEs), there is a standard formula for coverage he looks at whether he has delivered on his TML or not. He says, “For me, my cut-off is 75%, i.e., 75% of my TML should be covered at the end of every evaluation. However, some of my clients don’t look at MEs as they can see the impact on their sales.”
Need for Brand-Building in Earnest
With perception playing a big role today, affecting brand reputation and even making or breaking a brand, Prema Sagar, Principal and Founder, Genesis Burson-Marsteller says that this is the reason why PR is so important for a brand. She says, “PR will always be integral to brand building. However, we can’t continue to do only what we have been doing so far. We have to differentiate and add value. Brand building involves story-telling, engagement, creative content, and a customized approach. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Take start-ups, for instance. They typically don’t take the advertising route to brand building. Instinctively, they lean towards PR and content.” Sagar adds that while Makemytrip.com used consistent, creative and sustained communication across media vehicles to create a new category for e-travel services, IndiGo’s ‘On Time’ storyline helped establish it as a reliable and fun airline.
Radhika Shapoorjee, President, IPAN Hill+Knowlton Strategies, India & South Asia adds, “The power of Public Relations is to create a meaningful dialogue between the brand and the public and tell stories that touch their lives. It is our role to understand what triggers conversations between our audiences and evaluate how brands can be part of the conversation in valuable ways. We have seen that the role that PR plays is to create a good engaging story, which has heart and soul and serves a higher purpose. Therefore, we need to be the story-tellers of today, imaginers of tomorrow and biographers of the products, brands and companies in which we have a stake.”
The Digital Angle: being Future ready
With Digital being the buzzword these days, all agencies have started concentrating on it but there is confusion here between Digital marketing and Digital PR. Dr Wadgaonkar says, “Social media is taken to be PR in some companies whereas it is also a marketing tool elsewhere. But there is an area which is very specialized called Digital PR, we are not mature in that. None of the PR agencies today can provide you strategic counselling on Digital PR. It is not digital or social media.”
With Digital transforming communication patterns, Cherian cautions, “The PR industry in India is not quite geared to take on the full impact of social media yet. We are battling not so much for space, but for mindshare with clients who still view it as merely a means towards an end of e-commerce.” Jaideep Shergill. CEO, MSLGroup, India is also betting big on digital for the future and says, “Digital will continue to grow fast and will remain the biggest story in our industry. That apart, we are seeing strong demand and traction for content, research, crisis communications, public affairs and creative services.” Looking ahead, all PR agencies invested in the social media space and forced agencies to ramp up quickly from traditional PR to integrated communications. Prema Sagar, on her part, believes that to be future-ready, there are many things that the industry needs to do and these include “real-time actionable intelligence, spotting emerging trends, creating the messaging and creative content that would respond to the evolving trends and then distributing all this innovatively so that the communication is conveyed to people who consume content.” With the objective to be future-ready, the firm launched GBM Live! Newsroom consisting of a team which provides media insights, based on data collected from media verticals, and provides intelligence that makes critical competitive intelligence and trends available to clients. Meanwhile, LinOpinion GH has adopted the Golin model which consists of a bridge that’s supported by social media listeners and planners to deliver insights and creative solutions along with traditional media engagement. The G4 model also gets strategists, creators, connectors and catalysts to serve clients’ new and evolving needs in a more effective manner with better insights and creative concepts. On a positive note, Shapoorjee says, “Public Relations is slowly being recognized by some of the CEOs and their leadership team. We need to accelerate this process by creating powerful campaigns that address business issues and problems in this tough environment. Most importantly, the PR industry needs to come together to enhance our overall image in the communication industry, service quality and remuneration so that we can take the power of PR to the next level.”
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
