'There's huge responsibility on corporates to have thought leader stance'

The 11th edition of exchange4media’s India Public Relations and Corporate Communications Conference (IPRCCC) 2021 took place on 12th February 2021. The IPRCCC 2021 witnessed thought leaders sharing insightful talks and having a fresh perspective on the know-how of the communication industry. 

The 7th session of the IPRCCC conference was a panel discussion on the topic ‘Communication for social change and transformation.’ The session was chaired by Sherya Krishnan, Sr. VP & Head Marketing & Comms, Anviti. Anurag Chauhan, Founder, Humans for Humanity; Nanditta Chibber, Media & Communications Consultant; Vansh Nathani, Director, Educis and Renuka Dudeja, Brand and Marcomm Specialist were the panellist.

 Starting the discussion, Chauhan sharing the potency of communication for his NGO said, “Communication and its tools have helped us during this lockdown. I run this organization as an NGO called ‘Humans for Humanity’ and we were struggling to reach out to people in the remote areas. All of us are privileged to be talking on a laptop or a mobile. But in rural areas, people do not have the tools of communication it is difficult to reach out to them. With our team, we were able to connect to them digitally and managed to organize workshops and had sessions to train women about menstrual hygiene.” 

Dudeja sharing her perspective on CSR stated, “For every corporate, being socially responsible is a big agenda to drive not only customers but to genuinely bring a change in the world around us. One of the most important life skills that humans must have is communication. The ability to say what you want to say to the world out there and understand them. For me, social change is a healing process and it is constant healing. It evokes the feeling of people wanting to make a change. Communication bounds people into a flock. For any social change, you need a flock, you need to enhance and make a bigger impact.” 

Sharing what the role of communications plays in a mass spectrum as an educationist, Nathani said, “From an educational perspective we have adapted very swiftly and we had to do the most adapting in this lockdown. Education was so physical and was very detached from technology be it, teachers, students, or parents. To be able to engage with our audience which is an 8-12 age group and to be able to come up with something that sells them this dream. What we did was come up with the ‘Mindler’s Scholarship Fund’ in which we told the students that while you are sitting in the comfort of your home, build profiles and apply for free scholarships.” 

Talking about social change Chibber remarked, “Only once in a lifetime do we have these watershed moments like a pandemic that can trigger social change so quickly. We are struggling with how to cope with it. In a lockdown, it was the communicators through communication tools and platforms we were able to get important messages out. The pandemic has also led to technology changes and has also triggered policy changes. Right now the health care budget is 137% up. This pandemic has shown the gaps in health and hygiene. This pandemic is a silver lining crisis and a huge opportunity for media and communicators to go full throttle. Communicators need to go forward with their efficacy and awareness in a plethora of subjects.” 

Chauhan speaking about the challenges that organizations have in terms of communication and what has changed in the pandemic year remarked, “People have the power of social media today. There is a difficulty to communicate in front of others. But today having platforms like Facebook or Instagram people have the power to communicate and reach out to each other. In the lockdown, we worked with the biggest street artist community called the Kathputli Community in Delhi. This community didn’t have any scope of earning money in the lockdown. We transformed this issue into a Kathputli project and partnered with schools. In schools, online classes can get mundane for students. So we took stories from the Hindi course material and gave it to the street artist. Through the modes of communication, we were able to reach out to schools where Katputli artists were taking classes showing students the stories with the help of their Katputli’s. This project beautifully used media reaching out to students benefited communities, and had a positive impact.” 

Chauhan stressed the importance of awareness grassroots level has to reach through NGOs, organizations, corporates. “These organizations need to make sure that the information is correct and it is reaching the grassroots level where it should reach. The communication should reach the bottom level of society”, commented Chauhan. 

Dudeja talking about how all communicators can be conscious of social change said, “A good story needs insights from people first. It is not one-way communication. We need to see what the TG wants to hear. While we do our storytelling piece that is very focused from a corporate point of view to sell our value proposition to our customers. As corporates, there is also a huge responsibility to educate and have a thought leader stance.” 

Nathani sharing how he has connected social, impact and change with communication said, “The first thing is to create the right offering for the time. One of the co-work that we do at Educis is teaching students how to communicate better. The root that they typically prefer for that is debating training or model united nations training. We were able to take that online which was a barrier because they only thought you can only learn through in-person activities. We also had the flexibility of time through these digital channels. We could create a cohort of 10 students as well as of 100 because of the channel communication and it was accessible. Also, there is a lack of career guidance in our country. We have created a digital platform and as opposed to certifying typically 100 counsellors a month, during this pandemic we have already about 14 and a half thousand. On-ground there has been a change in impact from rural places as well where we couldn’t have access before. It all depends on the medium you choose and clarity.” 

On a parting note, Chibber speaking about how one can measure and track social impact said, “If we want social change and transformation in terms of media we have to explore vernacular regional media. If we are sitting in metros we are in our little bubbles we start focusing on mainstream media. We are not factoring in a lot of regional media. But to take that message to the last mile is extremely essential. During the lockdown, the message of hygiene had to be sent across to the most vulnerable and the last mile, it is through voice, video and adaptable formats that helped to take the message to rural India. In terms of measurement, we have to start using technology. There are a lot of apps that nonprofits and organizations are using to monitor what is the impact of the messaging and its response.”