Tomorrow’s PR agencies

Sumita Patra reports in exchange4media

The final day of the ICCO Global Summit in New Delhi delved into issues confronting tomorrow’s public relations firms. The morning session focused on ‘Tomorrow’s Public Relations Firm: Capabilities and Service’.

Paul Holmes, President and CEO, The Holmes Group, chaired the discussion. The panel had Helen Ostrowski, CEO, Porter Novelli and Aedhmar Hynes, CEO, Text 100 as speakers.

Holmes underlined the need for having holistic strategy. “We need to deliver beyond traditional media relations,” he said. He also stressed on the need for globalisation.

Hynes made a presentation on ‘Agency of the Future’. “We need to have a global mentality which is all about having the best skill set and the best resources that we need,” she said.

Talking about the criticality of the adaptability factor, Ostrowski said it is important to have a different roadmap, formulate a new approach to risk-taking, focus on value proposition and have have diverse people on board.

Another session of the day deliberated on the topic of ‘Measurement: Our Holy Grail’. The session was chaired by David Gallagher, Partner and CEO, Ketchum, London, and had Peter Verrengia, Regional President and Senior Partner, Flieshman-Hillard Inc, and Managing Director, Communications Consulting Worldwide, as the main speakers.

PR pros should ‘monitor and engage’ bloggers

Asit Ranjan Mishra reports in exchange4media

What should consumer brands and PR agencies do in an environment where they don’t have control over discussions happening on the Internet about their brands and clients? “Monitor and engage,” feel the experts.

On the last day of the ICCO global PR conference in New Delhi, speakers called on PR professionals to carefully monitor the user-generated content of online users.

Christopher Graves, President, Asia Pacific, Ogilvy PR, said that consumers now put their reviews on products online and shared it through social networking sites like MySpace, blogs, photo-sharing sites like Flickr, tagging sites like del.icio.us, video sharing sites like YouTube and podcasting.

“We not only need to monitor them but also explore how best we can engage with them,” Graves observed.

Describing a common Indian Internet user, Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder & CEO, Rediff.com, said, “It is wrong to assume that only IT professionals are active on the social networking sites. The common Internet user is young within the age category of 15-35 years.”

“Tracking sites like Technorati and Flickr could be of great help to PR professionals,” Esther Dyson, Editor, Release 1.0, for CNET Networks said.