‘True PR magic happens when you have a partnership between client and agency’

“Public Relations is way up in the ‘brahmanical’ order of the communication fraternity compared to advertising agencies and brands. People remember God in bad times, and when a brand or company faces bad times, it remembers the PR fraternity,” said Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer of Aditya Birla Capital, while delivering the keynote address at the 12th edition of India Public Relations and Corporate Communications Conference and Awards (IPRCCCA) on Friday.

“PR persons are remembered for the last news story that appeared or the last story that did not appear. But this is not how a PR person would like to be remembered. One has to bridge the gap between PR and PR, that is press relations and public relations or perception and reality to be a successful PR person,” he remarked.

“The true PR magic happens when you have a partnership between the client and the agency. You have to be partners with each other in good and bad times, and most importantly in ugly times,” Kakar advised the PR fraternity.

Sharing anecdotes from his own experiences, Kakar said, “I started my career at Oglivy. In advertising, on your best days you can meet the CMO and on bad days, the directors. But PR persons have direct access to CEOs and boardrooms. I have had direct access to the Cadbury management team when they were in the mega crisis in 2006,” he explained.

Drawing a parallel between the financial sector and PR, he said, “In banking and finance, we talk about KYC - Know Your Customer. In PR, knowing your clients is the first and most important thing. You must check whether you have visited their websites, checked their revenues and know their KRAs. The PR agency, which knows its clients the best, has the power to do the best.”

“After knowing your client, you must have a communication strategy for them. One must clearly know what messaging is required to bridge the perception versus reality. These are the basics, but often these are lacking,” said Kakar, underlining the factors that help a PR agency to succeed in the advertising ecosystem.

PR companies must not only talk about the brand or leader with the media. It has to maintain relations with the public as well. The public includes customers, employees, investors, influencers and they are equally important for understanding a client’s business, says Kakar.

“You need to think of different media such as print, TV, digital etc as well, but messaging and knowing your client remains at the core of PR, advises Kakar who also called for the omnichannel approach in the PR functioning as well.”

Knowing the influencers is very crucial in today’s world as they are the king, says Kakar. “It is very important to understand the industry, competitors and why the brand is important in the industry and competitive context. Then come purchasers, decision-makers and influencers. We know who is the purchaser and who is the decision-maker, but we don’t know who the influencers are.”

“In today’s world, influencers are the king - they may be journalists, citizen journalists. Everyone having access to social media is an influencer now. They are much more powerful than Virat Kohli and Amitabh Bachchan who have a huge number of followers. One social media user’s opinion can snowball into a movement. Hence, every day is a potential crisis day. As a PR person, we must know how to influence these people,” Kakar said.

One PR person can manage all kinds of media because all it requires is the listening power that can tap the brewing crisis for the client.

Going forward, PR persons would neither be for press relations nor for public relations but they would be “reputation custodians', stresses Kakar, adding, “Once we start thinking about reputation, we will start thinking about the portfolio and the world would think differently for us. We must start thinking about protecting the reputation of the brand just when even one social media user has expressed an opinion against the brand.”

He also touched upon the most pain points of the PR industry-measuring the deliveries and metrics of success. “Some measure it as the rupee value of editorial space. But getting editorial space is not an exact measurement of PR success because media is just one part of the PR work. The success has to be measured in terms of custodians of brands.”

Kakar urged the industry to come up with a process to measure the custodian of brands so that the PR fraternity gets the respect it deserves. He also suggested that the PR fraternity should do some PR for itself as well.