Power Twinterviews

Genesis Burson-Marsteller’s business division The Outstanding Speakers’ Bureau (TOSB) celebrates TOSB Day, every year on September 1 wherein a day-long thought leadership campaign is organised on Twitter to get various speakers on the TOSB panel, together and engage with each other and their followers.

This year, The OSB set the bar higher, with a different and innovative proposition for September 1 – Power Twinterviews: A Day-long Virtual Conference.

Twinterviews are a great way to churn out a punchy interview that readers can scroll through quickly. Today, we shine the spotlight on eminent media personalities who took questions from the TOSB panel and other twitterati, exhibiting the power of 140 characters both to write and respond on various significant topics.

First up, Raghav Bahl from Quintillion Media, of The Quint and BloombergQuint. Part of the TOSB panel on Innovation, Raghav shared his views on jugaad and the role of government in innovation.

Innovation is associated with startups; how can #innovation be cultivated in existing enterprises? 
Whenever a digital solution is created for a “traditional” pain point, you find innovation peaking.
May I disagree with the question? Start-ups get a lot of media noise but equally strong innovation is done by leading enterprises.

Is ‘jugaad’ innovation? Do share your views
Jugaad is ‘”tactical problem solving”; it’s not innovation, but an innovative tactic!

How can we ignite innovative thinking in India?
Keep the govt away! And create competitive markets, good education, easy business/capital environment – set people free!

Are we living in golden age of innovation? Please share some ideas
Human beings have always been innovative, within their context. What is more innovative: wheel, car or driver-less car?

In age of internet, is any original idea left? Are we only left to customize? 
New technologies will disrupt Internet too. Imagine if objects inter-changed between mass and energy? Beam me up Scotty!

Is #innovation a fluke—a serendipitous alignment of ideas and luck? Or can you seed and germinate it? 
Extraordinary endeavors are a cross fertilization of effort, intelligence, circumstance, and luck – so with innovation.

For the panel on Economy, The OSB was the table for an insightful conversation on Indian elections between Shekhar Gupta, veteran journalist, Co-Founder along with Barkha Dutt of The Print, a new media start-up, and Dr. S Y Quraishi, Former Chief Election Commissioner.

Shekhar Gupta: Is there any definitive solution to the problem of political funding @DrSYQuraishi And which democracy has tackled this best?
SY Quraishi: State funding of elections definite no. But funding of political parties certainly. Rs100 per vote. No donations.
70-80% of European countries have state funding of parties. Works well.

SG: You think anti-defection bill needs changes to reduce power of the whip? Why can’t legislators vote basis issues, not party diktat?
SY: I think legislators without discipline can go berserk. Horse trading will increase.
SG: Horse trading can be minimised by confining compulsory voting on party lines only for money bills?
SY: That’s a via media. Party gets blackmailed as the government may fall on defeat of money bill coz of defection.

@DrSYQuraishi @ShekharGupta Sir, isn’t that healthy? Does the preeminence of the party mean more than the merit of the issue?
SY: Do you think legislators bother about the merit of issues when temptation beckons them.
SG: – As much or as little as their party leaders might. They’re more thoughtful in non-whip Parl commt meetings

@DrSYQuraishi @ShekharGupta so there needs to be fixed terms legislatures.
SY: That’s a good subject for debate even in context of demand for simultaneous elections.
SG: Isn’t the current situation better? Frequent polls bring disruption but also prevent concentration of power
SY: One bad effect of frequent elections, though, is corruption, casteism and communalism get encouraged.

SG: Is it feasible/possible to hold LS & state polls together @DrSYQuraishi or is it just an academic pipedream?
SY: Very desirable(cost, normal work dislocation etc) But constitutionally almost impossible.

SG: @DrSYQuraishi you think it’s possible to rig US presidential poll as #Trump has claimed/feared?
SY: I doubt it.
After Florida fiasco 2000, we saw an “unelected president” !(Bush). US has 70 difft systems of voting. Not ideal.

SG: Can we now say that poll rigging has now been totally eradicated? Or at least more or less?
SY: Rigging is almost impossible in India now. Several levels of checks have been created.

SG: My last que to conclude this fine session with @DrSYQuraishi As CEC, did you find govts compliant with norms or were some defiant?
SY: Govts were very deferential and compliant to norms. Some individual leaders tried defiance but were put in place.
SG: Yes, you were very firm. And very convincing today. Thank you for an informative session @DrSYQuraishi #TOSBDay

#TOSBDay also saw Pranjal Sharma, Business Knowledge Advisor & Columnist, Editorial Consultant, joining in for the panel on Leadership. Here are the questions that came his way.

 

What is the difference between a GOOD leader and a GREAT leader?
Great leaders inspire by setting personal examples.

What are the main hallmarks of a leader?
A leader who can rise above narrow interest for larger benefit inspires.

How important is communication for a leader?
For #leadership constant #communication of goal, path, achievements, failures are essential

And lastly the OSB Day featured an exclusive twinterview with leadership consultant, mythologist & author Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, who gave us valuable management and leadership lessons from mythology.

How does Indian approach to management differ from western? And what role does mythology play in this approach?
Western management is objective driven. Indian management is meaning driven. Artha = meaning. Outside versus Inside.

I am sure the drivers of these management styles R different? Are the methods and outcomes also different
Western = process > people. Indian = people > process. Western outcome does not see long term consequence.

Biz cannot be only short term focussed.. There has 2 be a long term view. Is the western philosophy then not flawed?
All philosophies are flawed. Nothing in this world is perfect. Failure to recongise this is a huge problem

Is one way better than the other?
no…they complement each other…Western management good for strategy….Indian management good for tactics

You talk about Yagna as basis for building a business model. Please throw some light on this.
Yagna is about giving to get …giving = investment = svaha, getting = ROI= tathastu. Its not give & take i.e. contract

Our Indian business system is centered around the worship of Goddess Lakshmi. What are your views on that?
Goddess lakshmi alone causes quarrels….with Durga (power) and Saraswati (wisdom) causes happiness

How do you rate Indian businesses? Are family-owned businesses opening up to global/MNC work culture?
Idea is good. But tough to manage family expectations (pack/herd/hive mentality) and delegating to professionals

Read the other panel twinterviews featuring many expert personalities here.

The SABRE Shines its Light On…

This week, Skribe features the awardees of the 2016 South Asia SABRE Awards.

The SABRE Awards is the world’s largest PR awards program, running across six continents. This time, a crowd of more than 200 PR professionals attended the South Asia SABRE Awards 2016, held last week (21 July) in Pullman Hotel, New Delhi. SABRE Awards every year celebrate the charismatic work of the PR industry and gather close to 5000 entries globally. This year’s SABRE Awards witnessed a record 650 entries from India in its fourth year since launching in collaboration with the PRCAI.

The judges session was held in the month of June and was chaired by PRCAI president Nitin Mantri, Anne Costello – Text 100, Carolina Bajaj – Star India, Carolyn Camoens SVP -WE Communications, Girish Balachandran – Avian Media and many more eminent leaders from the PR Industry.

Adfactors PR was leading in the finalists tally for the Diamond and Gold SABREs in different categories.

The Awards night was a celebratory one for many but today we shine the spotlight on Genesis Burson-Marsteller, who took home 4 trophies and 5 certificates for their noteworthy campaigns in brand-building and strategic reputation management.

Nikhil Dey, President, Public Relations & Public Affairs, Genesis Burson-Marsteller said, “The efforts that our teams have put in are clearly visible in the form of this recognition and we are honored to receive these awards. Our integrated approach means that our campaigns have a strong insight and a creative idea while delivering a measurable impact.”

The award winning campaigns for the PR consultancy included:

• Diamond SABRE in Superior Achievement in Brand Building for The Story Of A Roaring Revival/ Make in India Week with Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Government of India
  Make in India Week was an integrated campaign of unprecedented scale – a grand confluence of industry leaders, policy makers, diplomats and academia, which included public relations, advertising, digital, social and outdoor media and even crisis communication. It was conceptualized as an initiative to revive confidence in India’s manufacturing capabilities amongst potential partners abroad, the business community and citizens.
  
• Diamond SABRE in Superior Achievement in Measurement and Evaluation for Mission Indradhanush with Public Health Foundation of India as well as Gold SABRE in Public Sector/ Government category for the same campaign, Mission Indradhanush with Public Health Foundation of India
  Mission Indradhanush is a multi-pronged public awareness programme launched by The Government of India, which aims to immunize every child in the country by 2020.
• Gold SABRE in Travel & Leisure category for Every Day A Different Journey with Tourism New Zealand with Genesis Burson-Marsteller
  An integrated communications approach which used public relations, advertising, digital, social and consumer engagement to showcase the amazing experiences that New Zealand has to offer as a tourist destination.

Congratulations to the Genesis Burson-Marsteller team for shining bright at the SABREs. Read more about their winning campaigns here.

Watch this space for details on other awardees and their winning campaigns.

Storytelling gets a Digital Twist

Today, Skribe features mobile journalist, virtual reality filmmaker, and snapchat storyteller, Yusuf Omar from Hindustan Times to take the stage on Podium. He recently joined Hindustan Times as Mobile Editor, aiming to make HT a success on small screens. He has earlier worked with eNCA, Al Ansaar, Grocott’s Mail, Creative Activation, and Collection House. Yusuf talks to Priyanka Mogul from IBTimes UK about using Snapchat to report on sexual abuse and undercover drug searches.

“It’s about experimenting with every platform and not taking them at face value. If you take Snapchat at face value, it’s for teenagers sharing nudies. You’ve got to look beyond that, you’ve got to look at how you can apply that technology for journalistic storytelling.”

These are the words of 27-year-old journalist Yusuf Omar. On 14 July, his work went viral after he used Snapchat to interview survivors of sexual abuse through a powerful and unique technique – Snapchat filters. The filters allowed the women to shield their identities and tell their stories for the first time without fear of being subject to the societal stigma surrounding rape.

But the power of Snapchat as a storytelling tool goes far beyond this. Speaking exclusively to IBTimes UK, Omar told us about the rise of “selfie journalism” and explained how he and his team at the Hindustan Times are using it to report on sensitive stories and conduct undercover investigations, as well as spread inspiring tales from across India.

“Mobile journalism has given us access to places that we would never have had before and has allowed us to tell stories in a far more discrete and intimate manner,” Omar said. “Nobody who has experienced that kind of horror wants to have a big boom mix and huge lights and a camera waving in their face. It has to be far more subtle.”

Snapchat to empower sexual abuse victims

Omar’s Snapchat coverage of the sexual abuse survivors’ stories was covered by media outlets across the world. Many marvelled in amazement at how seemingly juvenile filters had been used in such a meaningful and impactful way, forever changing the way they view Snapchat.

“Broadcasters have been blurring out faces, using silhouettes, and I just feel like you lose so much information. Facial expressions are critical when trying to understand. For the first time, we got to see somebody whose identity was hidden, but eyes were visible. You could see the drop of the jaw, the expressions on her forehead. It’s so much more intimate for a viewer trying to relate to the story.”

Watch Yusuf helping sexual abuse victims tell their story through Snapchat in the video here.

Omar hopes that in the future him and his interviewees will be able to create their own filters and not have to be restricted to a few pre-composed ones from Snapchat. He said: “If Snapchat open up their APIs and allow people to experiment with those algorithms, there’s no knowing where we could take this technology.”

Despite not being able to create their own filters, the women were definitely empowered during the interview. Omar explained that the women automatically gained trust in him because they could see with their own eyes how their identities would be concealed and they didn’t have to rely on it being done in a studio away from them. They also had the choice to choose which filter they used, deciding how much of their face they wanted to conceal and in which way. Then, they were left to themselves to narrate their own story, rather than be interviewed.

“They flicked until they found a filter that they thought best covered their faces,” said Omar. “That made them feel empowered – it made them feel part of narrative. They were telling their own story. Even more so in the way they directed their attention at that camera. This was a selfie; they were holding the phone. I didn’t even press the record button, I walked away. This was them looking at themselves in the eye and telling the most horrific story they could possibly recount.”

Read the entire article for more on going undercover in search of drugs and the future of ‘selfie journalism’ in India.

Importance of Video in Social Engagement

This week, Skribe features Kimberlee Morrison, a freelance writer and editor, as well as a regular contributor to AdWeek’s Social Times. She has more than a decade of experience with topical expertise in business, technology, entrepreneurship and social media. Today, Kimberlee talks about video playing an important role in social engagement.

Marketers still face significant challenges when it comes to measuring return on investment on social media. Still, each of the social networks analyzed in the ‘Simply Measured State of Social 2016′ report is experiencing some manner of growth and expansion. Let’s take a look at how the established players like Twitter and Facebook are changing, and how your marketing strategy should evolve.

It might seem that Facebook is the primary destination for marketers, but it doesn’t have complete saturation among the Interbrand 100. 97 percent of brands use the site and 93 percent post content monthly, down 1 percent compared with last year.

Brands seem to have missed the message from users that video is what they want. Facebook videos are generating more than 8 billion views per month, yet videos are the least-posted type of content among marketers. Facebook Live is one way to create rich video content that also lasts beyond its original broadcast while also jump-starting a video marketing campaign.

Twitter has managed to captivate marketers, with 100 percent of the Interbrand 100 represented and 99 percent posting monthly. Twitter’s current and future success largely relies on the short format and the one-to-one relationship between brand and user.

Given the relationships Twitter creates, influencers can become an important key for deep audience engagement. Twitter has stated that 47 percent of users make purchases because of influencer suggestions, and people trust influencers more than brands in general.

The real story of the last year in social marketing is the continued move to video as a core aspect of both networks and marketing campaigns. Twitter recently increased the time limit on Vines, and users have already proven that they’ll engage heavily with video content on the platform. Facebook has become the most preferred network for video sharing, and YouTube has increased watch time by 50 percent year-over-year for the past three years.

Established social platforms have shifted their attention to video because video is what users are engaging with most often, according to the report. However, newer, more agile, services like Snapchat are leading the way in innovation.

The full report for ‘Simply Measured State of Social 2016’ can be downloaded here.

Reimagining the News

Today, Podium shines the spotlight on Ipsita Agarwal. Founder of Synopted News – an online newsroom where publishers & marketers create content, Ipsita started her writing career for a national daily, The Times of India, as a student journalist and also did her internship for the same in 2008. Singapore based Ipsita also worked with Label Magazine as Deputy Editor. We feature her post on Medium where she talks about reimagining news products and services for the modern reader.

The news industry has changed more in the last decade than it did in the centuries since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436. The business model from the print age has been copy-pasted to digital and found lacking. Now, publishers are left with two options: become content writers for third party platforms, or reimagine the news products and services for readers of today. This is a newbie’s take on what option two could look like.

Where we stand
When I started a news company in 2013, it was common knowledge that the baton had been passed on from print to digital. Technology was probably the biggest driver for change in news at the time. Legacy publishers raced to become responsive, while new entrants experimented with content and monetisation formats with varying degrees of success.

Today, the most startling change in news isn’t in the tech that supports it, but in its distribution. More and more power has been pried from the hands of publishers and put into platforms like Facebook, Apple and Google.

Compare the user experience on a news publisher and a platform such as Facebook. One has been designed to serve the same commodity, information, to an unknown mass of people, disregarding the differences in their prior knowledge, reading habits and interests. The other is designed to mould to the needs of a specific person by learning their behaviour and likes over time.

Platforms cater to individuals. Publishers broadcast to a mass audience.

It can’t come as a surprise to anyone if readers prefer the experience on platforms over publishers. It can be frightening though, and for good reason. Publishers are left at the mercy of the platforms that are friendly and accepting of publishers’ monetisation strategies today, but may not be tomorrow. Publishers run the risk of being reduced to content creators, diminishing their editorial responsibility and independence as journalists in the process.

That leaves publishers, new entrants and legacy brands alike, with two options: continue on the way things are going now. Or learn to think not as publishers, but designers of news experiences suited to the readers of today.

The transition from a “mass” media to “one-on-one” journalism is probably the biggest publishers will make, and it starts with some customer research.

Back to the basics
Elon Musk recently popularized the idea of “first principles”. The technique of stripping a problem “down to the most fundamental truths, and then reason up from there” isn’t new, it traces its roots all the way back to Aristotle.

In this technique, you take a complex problem, remove existing assumptions about it, and focus on its core concept. This way, instead of saying “we should do x this way because it’s always been done like that in the past”, we think about the problem “x” was trying to solve in the first place.

In the case of online publishing, perhaps start by questioning the purpose of journalism itself.

Read the full article on Medium here.

Death to the Mass

This week, Skribe welcomes Jeff Jarvis from BuzzMachine to take the stage on Podium.
Jeff, a blogger and NYC insider, is also an associate professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He has authored popular books ‘What Google Would Do?’, ‘Public Parts’, and a kindle single ‘Gutenberg the Geek’. Today we feature his essay on Medium, which suggests that the news business must rebuild its entire value proposition; redefine consumer groups of the service.

“Media must rebuild its business around relevance and value, not volume.”

In mass media, we have debated for generations whether content or distribution is king. Turns out neither is. There is no king. Instead, the kingdom is ruled by the relationships among its citizens.

Relationships, of course, fuel Facebook’s empire as it connects people with each other. Relationships inform Google as it uses what it knows about each of us to deliver greater relevance in everything from search results to email prioritization to maps. Each of these giants knows every one of us as an individual. Each is a personal services company.

Not the news business. We still treat the public we serve as a mass, all the same, delivering a one-way, one-size-fits-all product that we fill with a commodity we call content. What has died thanks to the abundance and choice the internet enables is not print or newsstands, longform or broadcast. What has died is the mass-media business model — injuring, perhaps mortally, a host of institutions it symbiotically supported: publishing, broadcasting, mass marketing, mass production, political parties, possibly even our notion of a nation. We are coming at last to the end of the Gutenberg Age.

Rather than continuing to try to maintain our content factory, whose real business is selling eyeballs by the ton, imagine instead if news were a service whose aim is to help people improve their lives and communities by connecting them not only to information, but also to each other, with a commercial model built on value over volume. Imagine if news understood its role not as a vertically integrated industry that owns and controls a scarcity — the printing press, the broadcast tower, delivery trucks, the audience, space or time in media, and lately attention — but rather as a member of the community it serves and as a player in a larger, complex ecosystem of information, data, technology, and relationships. Imagine all the ways that technology enables us to realize our true mission of informing communities, far beyond what we could do with our old, one-way, one-size-fits-all mass media of print and broadcast.

If we are to reimagine news as such a service — built on relationships and thus relevance and value — then it is necessary to reconsider many of our fundamental assumptions about our business: that we manufacture a product filled with content; that our core competence is distribution to audiences; that audiences must come to us to consume our content; that the public is as nostalgic as we are for our old media of print and broadcast; and that we have a proprietary hold on trust and authority. We also cannot continue to act like the proprietors of monopolies and oligopolies, believing that we can go it alone and don’t need to collaborate with the new entrants, like Facebook and Google, which we would like to think stole the audience and ad revenue that once belonged to us. Get over it.

Read the full article on Medium here.

50+ Writing Tips & Tricks

Podium welcomes Stephen Waddington, Partner and Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum, Visiting Professor in Practice, Newcastle University, and a friend of Skribe. Today, Stephen brings together 50+ writing tips and tricks from his network. Whether it is research before you write or the best time to write, hacks for workflow or structure and style, there are tips for everyone. Pick up your pens and get writing!

Booze and coffee, Hemingway, mind maps, and machine dictation are all writing tips from my network.
There have been some lovely responses to my A time to write article about mindfulness and my writing habits. Ged Caroll wrote about his motivation for writing, and his workflow.
Encouraged by the reactions, I asked my network to share their writing tips and habits via a Google Form. Amateur and professional writers shared their views; authors, bloggers, copywriters, journalists, and teachers all joined the conversation.

Here’s what I got back, along with web links and Twitter profiles. From style to structure, and from editing to forming habits, there’s something here for everyone.

Thank you to everyone that contributed.

Reading and research

1. Read a lot.
   Alex Johnson
   @shedworking
2. Keep an open mind and instrument handy when reading or listening to (new) speakers and ideas. Jot down things that give you ah-ha moments. Process evolving concepts “in the air” from a variety of perspectives; amalgamate (attribute!) and create your unique take. Encapsulate in a post title EARLY on.
   Judy Gombita
   @jgombita
3. Read! Not just about the topic you write about but read widely – I am a big believer that if you do not read you cannot write. Read novels, read magazine articles, read government reports, read poetry, read anything; the more you read the better you will write!
   Isabelle Seren
   @IsabelleserenPR

Writing time

4. Determine your best time to write – whether it is in the morning or later on. Once you decide what time works for you, make sure to schedule other activities around it. Create a space that allows you to do your best work.
   Karen Freberg
   @kfreberg
5. I’m most creative first thing in the morning. The night before I rough out a straw man covering the points I want to cover, and the order. I ruminate overnight then, on waking, I plough through a first draft. The rest is tinkering and style.
   Scott Guthrie
   @sabguthrie

For the entire list, click here.

Journalism to PR – a bumpy road?

Podium welcomes BN Kumar, Executive Director of Concept PR and National President of Public Relations Council of India. Today, he sheds light on career paths and opportunities in PR for journalists. BNK himself has been a journalist before jumping onto the PR bandwagon and he says there is nothing like an ‘ex-journalist’. Once a journalist is always a journalist!

Career shifts from journalism into PR are by no means a ‘walk in the park’.  In recent years, we’ve seen a global contraction in the publishing industry forcing many die-hard journalists to think about other career options. The PR industry naturally provides a logical career extension, especially as content driven communication strategies are stoking up the demand for high-caliber writers and thinkers.

So, if you’re thinking about taking the plunge, then don’t just be lured by what appears to be a cozier, more comfortable and undoubtedly a better-paid PR job. At first glance the skill sets are very complementary but the PR environment requires an allegiance to a Brand and its promotion. Objectivity is naturally compromised and goal setting is clearly driven by the client and senior agency counsel.

Be prepared for the tables to be turned! Being on the receiving end of a pitch is one thing! Making a pitch to appeal to a journalist or a senior editor is a different ball game completely. The task of writing a new story, with basic research behind it, requires a very different mindset than that needed for the challenge of getting a journalist, ‘known or otherwise’, to consider an editorial idea.

In my case, after two decades in journalism, I switched to a corporate PR role with Dhirubhai Ambani’s Reliance Group. A culture clash may be a slight understatement, as I soon had to balance organizational and Brand goals while learning the ins-and-outs of being a PR pro!

Agency life is a lot more structured than the editorial newsroom. It does not allow for individuals to work in silos. One needs to function tightly within teams, working on specific campaign and targeting results commonly agreed with the client. The role is varied and goes beyond content production, and should you choose, can move into a client-servicing role. Media relations, remains an important component of most campaigns and therefore building new journalist and influencer relationships is a core activity.

Make no mistake; a well-trained journalist can in fact add huge value to a PR agency team. A strong understanding of the media function and editorial thinking is invaluable and can visibly contribute to improve client-servicing capabilities and final campaign results as well. As for media-persons training C-suite spokespeople, I’ve seen ex-journalists sharing insights and perspectives on ‘news-making’ and media practices that have ultimately increased the client’s ability as a spokesperson. Quite a few of them do admit, after facing television cameras and aggressive anchors, that the training was useful.

In agencies, campaign success is often determined by how teams perform, drive creative thinking and execute strategies that can make or break the Brand! Be aware, there’s a whole lot of business process and executive functions that you will have to handle from client reporting, documentation to strategic planning – none of which should be a show-stopper though.

For the agency or Brand, engaging a journalist into a PR role should be accompanied by an integration plan which provides a soft landing. So is there a magic bullet to make a successful switch?  Not really, but patience, an open mind and a willingness to develop more hard edged marketing and business traits will get you far. Be sensitive and aware of the cultural transition, learn some new skills whilst adapting others. There are a fair few ex-journalists who made the transition successfully and have earned the respect of their PR colleagues providing editorial perspectives and valuable know-how. Go on make that move!

 

The State of the (PR) Nation

Podium welcomes Nitin Mantri, CEO and Business Partner at Avian Media. With almost 20 years of experience in corporate and high-tech PR and marketing communications, today, he talks about the state of PR in nation.

After several years in London with Omnicon, my return to India was tinged with a little disappointment, as personal expectations of where the industry should have been, did not quite match up!  In contrast, the last five years I’ve seen seismic changes with a new level of sophistication moving us away from one-dimensional analogue thinking. Mr. Zuckerberg, amongst other social platform advocates, can take a little credit as they’ve certainly nudged us forward to think differently and embrace technology in a new way.  Analogue has died, digital has clearly arrived but so has India!

Digital Methodologies

Our mind-sets are shifting. It starts from how we design and develop campaign strategies, forcing a major re-think on both client and agency side.  From goal setting, to deploying resources; or deciding on the most suited technology platform; or proposing budgets that account for professional PR time topped up with ‘ad-media’ spend – which we all know, if done right can uplift and boost your campaign to another level.

Tools, platforms and data analytics are key components of every brand conversation. Big or small data is driving decision-making. There has never been a better time to understand the customer, especially in B2B scenarios where social feedback can have a direct impact on sales. Today, our clients are looking for tangible and measurable results; press coverage and placements have never been enough, and now more so than ever.

Pan India PR

Reflecting on the Indian PR industry today, the core expertise remains largely in the main four to five metros. Agency folks especially need to get a better grasp of the Pan-India market landscape and understand its nuances, a few steps further than merely hiring a stringer to ‘do the regional job.’

As any major e-commerce player will tell you, sales are being driven from cities where despite consumer choice being restricted by retail access, consumer demand is booming and being fueled by mobile transactions.

As aspirations of 800 million young Indians rise dramatically, and the two trillion dollar economy tries to embrace consumerism, our role as communicators continues to evolve on how to innovate and deliver campaigns to a rapidly-discerning economy using tools, gadgets and platforms that speak to them. The complexity of our marketplace is underlined with the fact that we have to speak to an urban population as well as to a rural and rurban economy, which is actually growing at a faster rate. This requires the use of multi channels – from digital to traditional and other innovative formats, as there are audiences who may have the means but not the capability to access such information.

In a recent survey conducted by the PRCAI, over 84% respondents said that the India growth story has not actually reached enough of its population and a similar percentage believe that social media channels will not be the tool that will speak to these audiences. So what do we need to do? We have to reinvent and remodel to survive and thrive.

To ensure that we support brand expansion for maximum impact, we need to invest time in understanding our consumers and speak to them in a language they understand. Content creation becomes critical. Creating engaging, meaningful and relevant content for varied audiences and using social media to reach out to them is key. Clichéd content will not work, it never did. Content needs to be focused and presented in a way which is easily understood. There is no point in producing tons of content without a clear idea of the target audience.

To jump on this bandwagon, PR pros need to think in multiple formats with the right content. The nature of storytelling therefore needs to become far more visual and dynamic, where diverse content packaging from podcasts, infographics and video releases, etc., become commonplace.

Slow on the initial uptake, but Indian clients are also seeing the scope of providing engaging content across multiple channels. At Avian, we have managed to create a lot of content-driven integrated campaigns. That’s the change we’re driving today, and the results are showing in the types of clients we have been winning.

The bottom line: PR as we knew does not exist. We live in a time when the pace of innovation is astonishing. Communication trends and tools are changing in a heartbeat. To stay on top of the game, we need to explore new approaches and learn new ways to reinvent ourselves.

The future will require much greater integration with marketing, advertising and customer care teams to gain actionable insights. We need to bring stickiness in whatever we do, build expertise categories within our organizations and become consultants to the client.

 

 

The Hat that Hoodwinked the World

Vandita Naroola, Content Manager at Skribe and Swati Magdaline, who handles marketing and the editorial calendar, write about the biggest leak in the history of journalism.

The hat that hoodwinked the world for decades – The Panama Hat. Panama, the land of the Panama Canal, also known as a tax haven, is home to Mossack Fonseca, a firm once only known among the global elite —the fourth-largest law firm for offshore tax havens, a law firm that appears to specialize in creating shell companies that its clients have used to hide their assets.

In what is being recognized as the biggest leak in the history of journalism, a gargantuan 2.6 terabytes of data was leaked from the Panamanian firm. Attributed to an anonymous whistleblower who wanted to “make these crimes public”, the ‘Panama Papers’,containing 11.5 million documents – emails, database files, pdfs and even images, spanned nearly 40 years – from 1977 through the end of 2015. To add a little context, if the amount of data released by Wikileaks was equivalent to the population of San Francisco, the amount of data released in the Panama Papers is equivalent to that of India.

How the historic leak was orchestrated

It started in early 2015 with an email to a large German daily, Süddeutsche Zeitung – “Hello, this is John Doe. Interested in data?”

“We are very interested,” replied Bastian Obermayer, a journalist in Munich. Süddeutsche Zeitunghad reported previously on a smaller leak of Mossack Fonseca files to German government regulators.

After reviewing a portion of the documents, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which had helped to coordinate previous tax haven megaleaks, was roped in.

ICIJ then galvanized media from across the world into a yearlong investigation. About 400 journalists from 107 media organizations in 76 countries working in 25 languages took part in analyzing the Panama Papers in secret.

The ICIJ built a search engine available online to its partner organizations that included a chat system and two-factor authentication. Paired with old school investigative journalism, that tech provided the backbone for the project.

The initial salvo of stories broke at the same time, on Sunday 3rd April 2016. Edward Snowden was among the first people to tweet out the link to the SZ story.

The seep out record disclosed how a global industry of law firms and big banks trade their financial confidentiality to politicians, fraudsters, and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities, and sports stars. Read the comprehensive list of names implicated by the Panama Papers here.

The Panama Papers are not online, and it doesn’t sound like they will be any time soon.“We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly,” said ICIJ Director Gerard Ryle.

The India Angle

Shining a spotlight makes for a good day’s work, even if that work is done in ways journalists could scarcely have imagined just years ago. Around the world, journalists — vetted by the ICIJ and introduced to the world of intense digital secrecy — pored over the material. The leak threw up 36,957 India-related files, which were analyzed and disclosed by the national English daily, The Indian Express. Piloted by Ritu Sarin, Executive Editor-News & Investigations, a team of investigative journalists, revealed over 500 Indian names.  

Officials across the world have announced investigations into the Panama Papers revelations. PM Narendra Modi has asked for a Special multi-agency task force that will stockpile the evidence on tax evasion or wrongdoing by Indian citizens. Welcoming the information brought out by “any investigative journalism”, the Finance Ministry, in a statement, said “the group, comprising officers from the investigative unit of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and its Foreign Tax and Tax Research division, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), will monitor the flow of information in each case”.

What’s next?

The reportage thus far on the Panama Papers has set a boulder in downhill motion. It is just the beginning, and many more revelations are on the way.

The leak also exhibits the power of journalism in its full glory. Such a coordinated effort by the global media acts to check and balance the political and business systems. Government institutions clearly go only so far, their limitations leave a gaping hole – to be exploited by the well-heeled. Political leaders and banks are not to be trusted either – public good easily takes a backseat in light of personal gain. The media institutions, though accused quite often of being swayed by influential personalities, we believe, have the best interest of the public in mind.

Are these brave journalists who are carrying the mammoth burden of truth, putting their lives and profession in danger by revealing themselves to the public? Will these revelations ever deter the corrupt and powerful people’s money hoarding habits? Can we expect a different end to this story? Or shall we brush it under the carpet and move on?

We are standing right with Ritu Sarin and her team of journalists, are you? We’d like you to express your anger, your disgust and most importantly your voice. Spare some of your time and share your thoughts. Engage.