Shunali Shroff, Head-Corporate Communications, Shringar Cinemas Ltd

An Honours graduate in Economics Delhi University, Shunali Shroff started off as a journalist with Asian Age. Thereafter she moved to PR, and has done public relations for STAR for four years, worked for Rathikanta Basu at Broadcast Worldwide, and even launched her own PR company called Spindoctors. She is currently heading the Corporate Communications of a much talked about multiplex chain – FAME. In conversation with Pritie S Jadhav of exchange4media, Shroff speaks about her PR ideologies and plans to build the Shringar frame even bigger. Excerpts:

Q. What is this purple colour initiative?

We started using our house colour purple to brand different Fame properties. There is the Purple Privilege which is a loyalty programme; then there is Purple Ribbon which is a charity event we do from time to time by showing movies to the less privileged sections along with a major film star.

Q. Shringar Cinemas has become a brand in itself. How much of a role has PR played in this brand building effort?

Initially, when there was just Shringar Films, and our PR was unstructured. Once we entered the multiplex business, PR became a very important tool, more so because we were the pioneers in this region. We used PR as an effective tool to introduce our new schemes and our plans for the property. Secondly, given their experience in the distribution and exhibition business, both Shyam Shroff and Shravan Shroff were profiled extensively in the media, which also brought our brand into prominence.

Once our expansion plans were clearly drawn out, we took a corporate approach towards the delivery of our messages, targeting the consumer, industry and the film fraternity individually. We put together a full-fledged PR team and I took over as Head – Corporate Communications. We also engaged the services of a national communications consultancy, Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, which ensured consistent and creative messaging in Mumbai as well as other parts of the country.

An important point to note is that while we did advertise in key publications across Mumbai, our budgets did not allow for full-fledged brand building campaigns. Shravan believes that anyone can spend money. So the onus of giving the brand a shape and form was left for PR to achieve. Today, the Fame brand of multiplexes is recognised as a pioneer, as innovators, as the place where the stars come to watch a film and, most importantly, as a brand that does more than just screen movies. PR, in my opinion, has played a huge role in creating this image.

Q. Please share your experience of building this brand.

Very early on, we realised that in this star-struck country, nothing worked better than the power of Bollywood and the sheer passion that consumers have for cinema. Obviously, this was a natural connect for us, as we were in the film business. But what we did differently was to use the aspirations that people had with Bollywood to connect with our consumers.

Let me elucidate. Fame brought back the magic of star-studded, red carpet, full-blown premieres back into the limelight. We began with the multi-starrer ‘Kaante’, which was such a huge success that producers, distributors and directors came to us to organise premieres for their films. These premieres were a return to the glitz and glamour that surrounded the launch of a new film. What’s more, we didn’t stop at Hindi films. We also created the trend of premieres for Hollywood blockbusters, some of which were held at the same time as the worldwide release of those films.

We also began the trend of ‘paid’ previews, which essentially allowed cinema lovers to watch a film in advance of its official launch. No need for special passes or a friend in the film industry…all one needs to do is buy a ticket for the preview. This was also a great PR driver for us.

While this was taking place, we also worked towards internalising the promise of the brand by strengthening our back-end processes – from booking tickets online and on SMS to the most courteous, well-informed staff – we made sure that every visit to Fame was an experience in itself.

Our biggest challenge came when we began to expand -- we now have four multiplexes, with many more slated for launch in the near future. The multiplex business saw a lot of new entrants and the challenge for us was to drive publicity and imagery around all our multiplexes, three of which are located in Mumbai.

Q. What are the other PR efforts Shringar will employ as it moves to other cities?

Our biggest USP is the Bollywood connect that we give our consumers as also the overall experience. Obviously, the effort is to reproduce the Fame PR model that we have used at Fame Adlabs, Fame Malad and Fame Kandivali. We have already done a lot of that at Fame Nasik and therefore we believe that it is a model that can be replicated across the country. Let me give you an example. We recently premiered Nagesh Kukunoor’s stunning film ‘Iqbal’ at Fame Adlabs. A few days later, we took the star cast and the director to Nashik to premiere the film there. We have done similar events with the cast of ‘Yahaan’ and ‘Kya Kool Hai Hum’.

Q. What qualities in your opinion make a successful PR professional?

The books might teach you otherwise but the best way to do PR is to not do too much! I have always insisted that the press should not be flooded with dull press releases from any of my clients. Less is more. Stick to big events or major contests and make it fun and exciting so that the media would themselves be keen to grab it.

There are PR people who harangue the press with calls to carry stories on their clients. I think there is no need to do that. A lot of PR happens by itself, you just have to make sure you give it the right direction. PR, in my opinion, is more about strategy and less about calling up the media constantly. Different products have to be treated differently and so a mass ‘press release’ isn’t always the solution. In fact, that is not PR at all. Even a peon can use a fax machine and send out releases. Information has to be released in such a way that it elicits a response from the media and the consumers…shock, interest, awe, aspiration it can be anything …it all works.

Q. How do you see the PR industry as it is today and where can it go from here?

The PR industry in India has come a long way from being mere postmen delivering press releases to being consultants who are involved in the brand building process. It has today become a mainstream arm of marketing instead of the peripheral role it played a few years ago. The potential is immense. Companies and individuals alike are waking up to the power of a good PR campaign. Indian PR professionals are also being recognised for their skills, bagging impressive assignments across the globe. The big advantage that PR has is the credibility factor with consumers. After all, third party endorsements in the form of articles in newspapers and stories in the electronic media are far more credible than advertisements.

Q. What does Indian PR industry need to come up to the international standards if at all?

Well, the PR industry here is still fragmented. Today, there are very few national agencies that truly understand the business and provide true consultancy. Also, the quality of professionals needs to improve. In a way, PR is the new sunshine kid and therefore you have a lot of fresh young faces that are jumping into the fray. However, there are very few people who are capable enough to mould them into true PR professionals. I think with international consultancies tying up with agencies in India, there will hopefully be an exchange of best practices. We now have big international agencies like Financial Dynamics which has tied up with Vaishnavi, and Burson Marstellar which has tied up with Genesis. So, international best practices are coming to India and professionals are also getting opportunities to work across industries around the world. This is also applicable with the corporate communications function. I strongly believe that we are on the right path and it will just be a matter of time before India is a force to reckon with on the global landscape.

Q. Take us through your experience of working with STAR, running your own agency and now Shringar.

I was a beginner at Star. Initially it was exciting as there were channels to launch, Star was going Hindi, DTH was being planned, etc. Our TV shows were being lapped up and we did road shows in TRP cities to promote them. It was almost like a template after sometime. I helped Rathikant Basu launch his TARA bouquet of regional channels.

Running my own agency with my partner Parul Gossain was by far the most fun and also challenging. Sameer Nair planted the seed; he suggested I become a PR consultant for Channel [V], which definitely needed a lot of attention at that time. Sameer had just taken over Channel [V] and he turned it around with ‘Popstars’. We did road shows for that and it was the first ever talent show that was organised in India.

We were offered Sony Music at the same time, so we were well entrenched in the youth/music/film scene since Sony was also promoting music for films like ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’ and ‘Lagaan’. Then we handled the IIFA and soon we had a lot of film PR on our hands.

There was definitely no dearth of work and we realised that the film industry had old-fashioned PR professionals working for new-age directors. It was a marriage that was not working. So we started with smaller movies like ‘Plan’, ‘Everybody Says I’m Fine’, ‘Chandni Bar’, etc. And, before we knew, we were saying no to clients as doing PR is one thing but running a company professionally, organising salaries, etc., was another.

Q. Where do you see yourself in the PR industry after a few years considering that Shringar is your own company?

I plan to stick to PR. We have 21 new properties opening in the next two years. So there will be sufficient work to keep me on my toes. We will need to think local as we expand and yet maintain our image as a multiplex chain that has set international standards in every regard, be it technology or our service.