Harjiv Singh on changing face of Indian PR

Harjiv Singh, Co-founder & CEO - International Operations, Gutenberg Communications, spoke to Puneet Bedi Bahri of exchange4media.com. Excerpts:

"In India, it is true that PR is primarily media relations. But, this is changing as Indian companies that aspire to have a global brand are increasingly realising the value of strategic communication counselors in the C-suite and at the board level. The Satyam scandal was a classic example of why communications is now an important imperative for companies even in India and why roles like the Chief Communications Officer need to be seriously looked at by corporate India.

"Companies like Delta Airlines, Yahoo! and SAP have such senior executives who are responsible for managing corporate reputation and aligning such functions as media relations, policy communications, investor relations, internal communications, crisis communications, and branding under a single head.

"In order to change the perception of PR, the industry needs to view communications as an integral part of strategy, rather than a sub-set of marketing. Further, it is crucial to understand the role of both internal and external communications to drive change in organisations, rather than viewing it from the lens of media relations.

"I strongly believe that agencies need to understand the business of our clients much better than is the case currently."

How to make email marketing more effective

Companies should refrain launching desperate email campaigns in order to meet their financial targets.

This is the advice given by Steven Permuy in his write-up on email marketing and high stakes.

Permuy says the ‘spray-and-pray’ (or ‘batch and blast’) approach of mass mailing customers is counter-productive. “The growth of email marketing has led to an increase in the number of communications sent to customers, due to ease of execution and low-cost of implementation. Ironically, omitting to apply the rigour of established direct marketing principles to online marketing, such as testing, measurement and relevancy of content, results in less leads as customers increasingly unsubscribe, report emails as spam or implement their own spam filters, and use multiple email addresses to guard their privacy.”

Permuy says it’s important to gain a better understanding of the customer through periodically planned analysis that identifies patterns that trigger dynamic content.

5 steps to richer customer experience

More and more companies are finding value in making customer service experiences multilingual and multicultural: delivered in the business and regulatory context of local markets and tailored to the language and culture of the customer, writes Anand Subramaniam in Harvard Business.

His five-step approach to making customer service experiences multilingual and multicultural focuses on the following: assess the importance of customer service; assess target markets; assess the scope of customer queries; train agents; and adopt culturally-nuanced policies and practices.

Don’t downsize CSR budgets during turmoil, says Harvard Business School professor

The Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School, V Kasturi "Kash" Rangan says that CSR or Corpororate Social Responsibility budgets should not be downsized during turbulent times.

CSR means activities undertaken by businesses that enhance their value in the community and society and thus benefit their reputation and brand, according to the eminent scholar.

“CSR should be treated as a business discipline and practiced with the same professionalism and rigour as other aspects of a firm's strategy,” he says. “Good examples are the early childhood literacy initiative of PNC, a financial services organization based in Pittsburgh, and the 10,000 Women initiative of Goldman Sachs, which facilitates a business education for underserved women.”

Chinese are superior marketing professionals

Marketing professionals in China would put their counterparts in the US and the UK to shame, according to Mark Ritson, consultant to some of the world's biggest brands, in marketingmagazine.co.uk.

In Shanghai, the evolution of marketing skills in executives trained by Ritson has been very impressive. “Before my eyes they have transformed from anxious graduate students with no practical experience into the best marketers I have ever seen,” says Ritson. “I have been a marketing professor for 12 years and taught all over the world, but it is only in China where I have seen my instruction executed to perfection in the field.”

Narrating an anecdote related to WuMart, the Chinese Wal-Mart, Ritson says that the Chinese should not be understimated. “The 21st century belongs to China, and there is not a lot anyone in the UK or the US can do about it,” says Ritson. “It's time for new leaders. They are on the way.”

International Organization for Standardization’s brand evaluator

Marketing Magazine reports:

Superbrands, Interbrand and WPP with its BrandZ list are among the companies that are into brand valuation.

The latest effort, headed up by the International Organization for Standardization, differs, as it comes from an internationally respected organisation outside of the marketing industry.

The draft standard specifies three approaches to brand valuation. The first is the income approach, which measures the value of the brand by reference to the present value of its economic benefits. The others are based on what other purchasers in the market have paid for similar assets and the value of the brand based on the cost invested in it.

Brand evaluation specialists have greeted the news with mixed views. Stephen Cheliotis, CEO of The Centre of Brand Analysis and Chairman, Superbrands Council, believes it to be too subjective an area for the ISO to become involved in.
David Haigh, CEO of valuation consultancy Brand Finance, welcomed the standard as an attempt to 'create a consensus on how brands should be valued'.

‘‘Brands are the largest single source of intangible assets, yet historically, brand valuation has been viewed as opaque, subjective and unreliable -- and a bit of a black art,’' he says.

Amit Chaudhery is MD of Text 100 India

Text 100 India has appointed Amit Chaudhery, Motorola India's former Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs, as its new Managing Director after a six-month search, reports Benjamin Li in Brand Republic. He replaces Rishi Seth, who left the post at the end of last year after nine years of service.

Chaudhery will report to Regional Director Asia-Pacific, Rowan Benecke, and will be responsible for end-to-end operations of Text 100 India, Vox Public Relations, and GRO, Text 100’s global resource optimisation centre in-country.

Benecke said: “Amit was head of communications at Motorola, which was one of our clients in India, we know each other well. We’re very excited to add someone with Amit’s deep experience in corporate communications and broad industry experience in India to our leadership team in Asia. We are confident that Amit will lead our all-important India business and help chart and drive the next phase of growth in India.”

Radical changes foreseen in PR’s role

Claire Cain Miller reports in New York Times

In Menlo Park, California, Brooke Hammerling (publicist) and Erin McKean (entrepreneur) are in a Sand Hill Road conference room, hashing out plans to unveil McKean’s new website, Wordnik.

Hammerling, while popping green apple Jolly Ranchers into her mouth, suggests a press tour that includes briefing bloggers at influential geek sites like TechCrunch, All Things Digital and GigaOM.

But Roger McNamee, a prominent tech investor who is backing Wordnik, is also in the room, and a look of exasperation passes across his face at the mere mention of the sites.

“Why shouldn’t we avoid them? They’re cynical,” he says, also noting his concern that Wordnik would probably appeal more to wordsmiths than followers of tech blogs. “That’s where I would be most uncomfortable. They don’t know the difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there.”’

Without missing a beat, Hammerling changes course, instantly agreeing with McNamee’s take. “I love you for that,” she intones. “I’ll leave the tech blogs out. Let them come to me.”

Instead, she decides that she will “whisper in the ears” of Silicon Valley’s Who’s Who — the entrepreneurs behind tech’s hottest start-ups, including Jay Adelson, the chief executive of Digg; Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter; and Jason Calacanis, the founder of Mahalo. Notably, none are journalists.

This is the new world of promoting start-ups in Silicon Valley, where the lines between journalists and everyone else are blurring and the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter is sometimes viewed as more important than old metrics like the circulation of a newspaper.

Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology websites and blogs. Now PR gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, websites or gadgets—a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of PR in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.

While public relations is just one arrow in the marketing quiver for most companies, it plays an especially crucial role in a region where dozens of start-ups are born each month.

“Few tech companies with absolutely no PR have built a user base successfully,” said Margit Wennmachers, a co-founder of OutCast Communications, a PR agency in San Francisco. “They need PR to put the booster under that rocket ship.”

In the new world of social media, PR people must know hundreds of writers, bloggers and Twitter users instead of having six top reporters on speed dial.

Dena Cook, Hammerling’s business partner at Brew Media Relations, recalls the boom years when start-ups sent PR firms handsome checks that the firms had to return because they didn’t have room for new clients.

At the time, tools of the trade were largely limited to press releases and pitch letters, embargoes and exclusives and, of course, the legendary and often criticized parties. But the rise of blogs and social networks, and companies’ ability to post information on their own sites, transformed all this.

For new companies’ trying to get the word out, there’s a healthy measure of liberation in all of this. For publicists, the era of email, blogs and Twitter has the potential to turn the entire idea of PR professionals as gatekeepers.

As with so many professions in the digital era, public relations boils down to a juggling act, an effort to weigh and exploit the varied strengths of old media and new.

Sir Martin Sorrell on recession, media, clients and his India plans

Prajjal Saha of afaqs.com interviewed Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive Officer, WPP Group in Cannes. Excerpts:

On recession: You can argue that this recession has been more severe and shocking. I am not talking about the post-subprime scenario, but particularly the post-Lehman crisis period or the following weekend, which was really frightening. Noted economist Warren Buffet termed this recession as an economic Pearl Harbour.

We also hear that the British government was planning a bank holiday by statutory instrument if it couldn't agree with the bank. Though I am not as old as to go back to the 1920s or 30s, but I must say that it is a pretty tough time.

On whether advertising clients have been tougher this time: Yes, they have been tougher. As I said, the situation was so severe that people were looking at it more as a biss.

We were already facing a tough time since August 2007. However, I must say that the client was more aggressive, particularly on the procurement or financial side. In the time of recession, there are two words that get used a lot – these are effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness means quality and efficiency means cost. I think that in the current situation, efficiency is winning over effectiveness.

In the advertising business, the marketing function has also lost primacy or even parity.

On when and how recovery of the economy will shape up: The year 2009 looks like a difficult year but I think it will be relatively better in the second half. However, we will have to wait till 2010 to see a recovery. It will not be anaemic but a recovery of sorts in the shape of italic 'L'. The recovery will depend on what we all have been talking about – long term returns and not short term ones.

On whether recovery would start with emerging markets such as India and China: The conventional wisdom is that the recovery will start with America but I am not sure that's right. The rise in the Indian stock market has been quite interesting. There has been a sort of decoupling of stock markets in emerging economies, though in reality, there is no decoupling as such as we are all dependent on one another. However, India is less dependent on exports and imports.

Even in China, there was a flip up in the stock market in April this year, but that couldn't continue in May. We thought that it was a good sign, but we found out later that it was because of destocking in the post-Lehman scenario.

This actually reflected a belief which I would like to share - that recovery will be first in the emerging markets, China in particular.

Besides, India is in a relatively better condition than the other markets, although it did slow down around the elections.

On what he would like to convey to his 1,00,000 employees: Whether it's right or wrong, the strategy is very simple. First it's the new markets (which include the BRIC countries) and the next 11 markets – that makes 27 per cent of our business.

Next is new media, which is again 25 per cent of our business. The Consumer Insight business is $4 billion out of the $15 billion, which is another 26-27 per cent. So together with the direct half of our business, we are almost there, or rather we are there where we need to be.

Given that strategy, if I am in India, then I am feeling very good. First, India is one of BRIC countries. Second, new media is increasingly important in the Indian context, and third, consumer insight is also very important here, too. So it all fits together from the Indian perspective.

On whether the marketers' spends would continue to move away from mass media advertising: Yes, it's still moving away. The good news is that it's one-to-one, and the bad news is that it's one-to-one. The problem is - it's still one-to-one because it's highly fragmented.

Will Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or YouTube ever make money? The answer is that it's going to be a very volatile environment. And these brands will come and go, just like the magazines which come and go.

In fact, Jeff Zucker (President and CEO, NBC Universal) put it very well – 'We are moving from analog dollars to digital pennies'. Then he modified it to digital dimes.

That's the problem.

Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft) also said – The problem is in monetising these brands. It's a fancy world for making money.

So we have to spot where the opportunities are.

On whether brands like Google worry him: Google worries our clients because there is no balance in the search marketing space, which we all think should be there. Google's disproportionate share is the problem. We work closely with Facebook, My Space, YouTube and Twitter, but in terms of money making business, the giants are Yahoo, AOL, Google and Microsoft. But I must say that they will all have their own challenges, and the core issue is to find a balance in the search marketing space.

On how he profiles digital companies: Last year, during the debate, I asked them – Who are you? They said they are technology companies but I didn't accept that. To my mind, they are media owners.

I don't think they are engineers with spanners trying to tighten the nuts and screws while we send messages to one another.

I think they have responsibilities relating to privacy and editorial contact.

On monetization of digital companies: They are used as advertising platforms, but tell me, if I am having a dialogue with you on Facebook or Twitter, do I want to be invaded with commercial messages. The answer is 'No'. Videos can be different, which is why I think there is more advertising potential in My Space and YouTube. It's much more difficult in the social media.

I know of two occasions when Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) had fallen fowl. There was another situation besides Beacon.

On the media decline: So, there is a general decline in activity, whether offline or online. Ironically, online looks cheaper, though offline looks even cheaper because there is a lot of radio, TV, magazine and newspaper inventory – all falling like flies.

Who would have thought that the New York Times would be in such a situation, when a few years ago, it was arguably one of the strongest newspaper brands in the world? Similarly, who would have thought that Rupert Murdoch will not be able to buy the Wall Street Journal?

Life is changing and so are the rules. Consolidation is taking place everywhere. For instance, as per a new rule in Spain, one owner cannot control more than 25 per cent of the market in the television business.

Similarly, rules in Brazil and Australia have changed a few years ago. Even in the UK – because a lot of these newspapers and magazines are falling away – they have to change the regulation if they want to maintain a competitive environment and an environment of choice.

Yes, one likes to see a healthy media business and I think fragmentation gives our clients more opportunities.

Until a few years ago, the cost of TV ad space used to increase more than the inflation every year, and in such a scenario, you either buy less of it or look for alternatives.

On PR and Cannes: If there is any criticism on the awards, it's about the way of handling the awards. For instance, this year in the PR Lions, there were no PR agencies. It's a joke and it's ridiculous.

After all, it is expensive to come here and also to put in your entries. So, you, too, learn the way to grab the jury's eye and win.

On his plans for WPP in India: We have a very strong share in advertising and media in India, and we need to maintain that growth. But we have more to do in areas such as PR, information and consultancy business, brand building and identity, healthcare and digital. It will first be organic growth, backed by smaller acquisitions. Unless Anil Ambani agrees to sell off Mudra - but he came from Wharton, so his price is very high (laughs).

Hill & Knowlton enters India

Look east, Sir Martin Sorrell tells global communications industry

Public relations giant Hill & Knowlton to start operations in India

Hill & Knowlton may acquire India’s Perfect Relations