Public Relations - Entering The First Quadrant

Why haven’t I got front page coverage?

What’s this? No picture!!!

I want excellent coverage for my new project/investment but no, I can’t reveal any numbers.

Haven’t we, as practicing Public Relations (PR) professionals, heard these questions ad nauseum throughout our working lives?

Is this what PR is all about? Or are we completely misreading the equation??

Over the decades PR has evolved as one of our most abused professions, one that very few actually understand. Even today, with minor exceptions, PR is nothing more than media relations – it hasn’t really moved beyond the rather unbecoming image of ‘wining and dining’. The fresher joining PR today is still first drafted into the not-so-desired ‘back-end tasks’ - monitoring coverage, scanning, making reports, contacting mediapersons, and other such prosaic details. Not that these bread-and-butter issues aren’t important, but there’s little scope of being taken through the basics of research, communication, branding models, and so on. That’s not the immediate business of PR, the experts would say.

It’s unfortunate, but that’s what the PR scenario is today, not just in the nascent economies of the South but even in the so-called knowledge-based economies of the developed world. The only difference is that the latter have evolved sophisticated packaging techniques that give PR a sheen that is not evident closer home.

PR is stuck in a time warp, as it were. The textbook definition of the product development cycle places PR permanently within the fourth quadrant – Marketing. At best, it sometimes gets elevated to the third quadrant – Development.

But things aren’t completely in the Dark Ages. There is a glimmer of hope, if we look at the examples of a few corporate entities and brands such as P&G, TISCO, HP, GE, Infosys, among others. They are showing the way forward for PR in today’s brave new world of globalized and integrated markets. These New Age corporations see PR as a highly evolved concept that is integral to their very functioning.

Cases in point include P&G’s ‘Bald Women’ campaign or TISCO’s CSR programme. Free market access, enhanced competition at all levels and a highly complex global communication fabric are, indeed, forcing a re-look at the very definition of PR.
Our own experience in the Middle East also reflects this new reality. One of our esteemed clients in the region is today listed among the largest and fastest growing Shariah-compliant investment banks at the global level, having built up a network of large business clusters that would be the envy of even the grand-dads in the business.
All within the span of a couple of years.

This client has no hesitation in acknowledging the key role played by PR in their evolution, even positioning it as one of their four key strengths in an internal SWOT analysis. The senior management, beginning with the Chairman and CEO, pays personal attention to this faculty, being involved at the planning stage itself. They have taken PR into the first quadrant of the product development cycle, making it part and parcel of the ideation stage itself. Surely, there’s a message in here somewhere for the PR gurus of today.

We take pride in the fact that a young agency like ours has been able to effect this transition in mindspace in what is literally the PR backwaters - an under-developed market that would figure as ‘Third World’ in today’s communications context. A direct outcome of our high level of involvement is that this Shariah-compliant banking project has had absolutely no problem in establishing itself as one of the foremost of its kind from the word go, complete with endorsements from the global who’s-who in this sector.

Our experience shows that a window of opportunity beckons the PR world today. PR need no longer be the poor cousin in the communications space. It can hold its own and even go one better than its better known siblings in advertising and brand consultancy.

If we look closer at how and why this shift to the ideation stage has taken place in our example, the answer lies in two simple words - ‘Service’ and ‘Competition’. The rapid growth of the services sector and product linked services and the exponential rise in competition in a globalised economy that envelopes both developed and developing nations has seen a shift in corporate focus to the magical word ‘Relationship’. Not only has this become the central agenda of boardroom discussions but it has also raised some very new psychometric and practical challenges that companies are finding increasingly difficult to address through conventional channels.

So how does PR fit in here? It would be prudent to take a second look at the very definition of PR at this stage. Put simply PR is the art of optimally managing relationships with the various target publics or interest groups. Until now, this definition was construed to merely mean media relations and government lobbying. The new dispensation redefines PR. In order to effectively manage relationships with various publics one needs to not only understand the psychographics of these target groups but also ensure that all products, processes and initiatives are designed keeping these relationships in mind. It’s not the other way around. That’s how PR stands redefined. Therein lies your answer.

Companies that have begun to understand this truth and the true essence of PR are taking up leadership positions the world over. They view PR not just as a cost effective alternative to advertising. Some good examples include the mobile phone holder and built-in mobile charger facilities introduced in Indian two-wheelers or even the multiple colour options being offered by two-wheeler manufacturers. Some professional within these companies who understood the needs and psychographics of today’s youth, towards whom these products are targeted, must have suggested these minor but high-impact marketing innovations. Similarly TISCO’s CSR programme, which essentially was a PR initiative born out of the need to build relationships with its employees as well as the government, has today resulted in TATA Group gaining preference over other powerful global bidders in its recent Corus and JLR deals.

This trend has not gone unnoticed. Consulting hot-shops are now beginning to mushroom across India and the world. Most large agencies are setting up dedicated strategy consulting units in-house to address this market need.

I strongly believe that the way forward for the PR business is to move into the first quadrant. That’s where, thanks to the high entry barriers raised by complex IP needs, both the margins as well as valuations game can be optimized. It reminds me of the key argument our Honourable Minister of Railways, Shri Lalu Prasad, put forward while presenting the now highly profitable Indian Railway budget.

‘I would not recommend increasing rail fares. On the contrary I would recommend reaching out to the aam aadmi by reducing prices across the board, in the process also helping to counter inflation.’

Welcome to the world of PR in the first quadrant. The question now is not ‘WHAT IF’ or ‘WHY’ but ‘WHEN’.