PR professionals should own the space of purpose: Experts

At the 14^th edition of the India PR and Corporate Communications conference, experts from the Communications and Public Relations sphere gathered to deliberate on whether purpose-led campaigns are impactful for business and how exactly is the purpose defined.

During a panel discussion on the topic ‘Campaigns from the Heart: Importance of Campaigns with Purpose’, session chair Arati Mukerji, Associate, CS&A International, highlighted that only 60% companies have sustainability strategies which is “very worrisome,” adding that making great products is important but you have to embed sustainability as an end-to-end strategy.

The panellists shared insights on key topics and discussed whether purpose-led campaigns are impactful for business, are goals for such campaigns different and what are the challenges faced by PR and Comms professionals? Answering the same, Deepshikha Dharmaraj, Chief Executive Officer, BCW India Group, said that purpose usually gets confused with CSR (corporate social responsibility).

“Yes, they are linked. But I think when you look at defining what is the core purpose of your existence as a business, that is the question you are answering. Most often, companies go through a journey, create campaigns, but they forget to articulate this purpose for themselves and most importantly, for their multiple stakeholders. That's why the purpose is becoming so important today, especially in the PR communication space,” she said. 

She added that PR professionals should own the space of purpose. “We should not give it up to marketing, brand consultants and others, and that's really my appeal to all of us, because we are truly the people who will do multiple stakeholder engagement and communication,” she further said.

According to Sameer Bajaj, Head of Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs, MakeMyTrip, the purpose is what is given back to society beyond the profits the company makes. Explaining further, he said, “I think we all understand that businesses exist for profit. Beyond that, how do you give it back to society? Helping 100 people for 100 days is not the purpose, that is a campaign, and we need to differentiate this”.

“As a practitioner, I believe that if you are doing something for purpose, publicity will follow organically. So, that, to me, is core, and how I define purpose,” Bajaj said.

For Ajey Maharaj, Head Corporate Communications, Fortis Group, the real purpose is to take care of the patient. “So, it's not about profit. Our core value lies in what we really want to do for the people of the country, or maybe the people who are suffering, who have ailment. So, it becomes the core for us. It's not just profit,” he said.

According to Amrit Ahuja, Communication Strategist and Leadership Coach, purpose is a great opportunity. “I think, as a comms professional, purpose is a great opportunity as brands are realizing the importance of purpose, and what holds for comms professionals is that you intersect your narrative building around business, CSR, sales, everything. ESG, all the buzzwords that are going, and be very mindful of purpose-washing, because there is a lot of purpose-washing also that's going on", he said.

“So, it's a huge opportunity for us to think differently. The second thing is, I think purpose, till it's not aligned. What does the brand purpose think and what are some of the things that you're looking at making an impact, you cannot have. So, alignment is very key,” she said, adding that the last thing is something known as “patient capital”, Ahuja added.