‘Taking ownership of the messaging that brands are putting out is necessary’

At the fifth session of the third edition of e4m’s PR and Corp Comm 40 under 40 Summit 2021, a power-packed panel of industry leaders spoke about the ways in which the PR sector helped and empathised with their clients during the pandemic and how was instrumental in promoting campaigns that aimed for bigger good. The discussion centered around ‘Role of PR in purpose based communication for social change’.

The panelists of the session were Akanksha Jain – Head of PR and Communications at BharatPe; Garima Sharma Nijhawan – Principal Consultant at Archetype; and Priyanka Serrao – Senior Manager – Corporate Affairs and External Communications at Flipkart. The session was moderated by Girish Balachandran – Founder of On Purpose Consulting.

Talking about how the agencies empathised with their clients and stakeholders during the Covid-19 crisis that brought a social change, Serrao said, “Prioritizing empathy has always been the need of the hour, and whether in business or communication, agility has always been in our blood. The role of e-commerce too was affected in the last year and a half and what we saw is a lot of new partnerships coming together in business. We really witnessed an entire ecosystem come together in new ways and the true power of technology that enabled a lot of talent.”

Jain noted, “Covid actually accelerated the growth of digital payments a lot because consumers' behaviour changed. They didn’t want to use cash or pay via cash. They were more comfortable using their phones because they are not touching a foreign particle and slowly and steadily we also saw merchants finding it easy because while their shops were closed they could just deliver the product and do the payment via QR code. So from a business standpoint it was an accelerator and we had to be very cognizant of the fact that we do not really go out and start selling our products.”

Speaking about the PR industry’s important role in promoting campaigns for bigger good, Nijhawan said, “What really had to be looked at as an agency was the medium which we were communicating. Editorial media took up a massive hit during these times. Circulation of newspapers went down, everybody switched to digital mediums. Even the elderly generations would have never picked up a phone in the morning rather than stuck up to the old cup of tea and newspaper. But for the larger population that would have liked their mornings to be a little different, suddenly there was a behaviour change, and as communicators, it was very important for us to ride that wave right. Not every brand was ready to put themselves out there so much, so we had to deliberate the messages. Even for us, we had to change the way we thought about our campaigns and even for the people sitting on the other side for them to see the vision.”

The panel agreed that being authentic and relevant and taking ownership of the messaging that brands are putting out is necessary.