Meet the Godrej PRmoment India 30 under 30, 2018

Aakash Aggarwal, 30, partner associate, Genesis Burson-Marsteller
@Aakashsays1

As the youngest partner associate at Genesis Burson-Marsteller, Aakash Aggarwal has clocked work in a variety of sectors: from public policy campaigns to beverages and children’s television.

He headed a campaign for a leading private university. The mandate? To help raise funds for the university and make humanities as cool as science and IT. Aggarwal shares that the campaign was strongly focused on PR and did not have an advertising or social media component. Today, the university in question is a well established liberal arts centre.

Clearly a Bollywood buff, Aakash has an interesting take on how to demonstrate the power of PR through Bollywood film plots. Then, of course, we won’t have most Bollywood pics!

Aggarwal’s PR Gyan
“Mohan Bhargava [Shahrukh Khan) must choose between his fancy employer and his roots. Why? An established NASA scientist must struggle and cough up funds to buy equipment for a small village. Why? If only he had the right PR team, he could have created an award-winning cause related PR campaign with an objective to raise funds. Combine the fact that electrification of rural India is a key goal for the government and an articulate and successful engineer (who has the looks of Shahrukh Khan), and add some TV interviews, some viral social media campaigns and an awareness campaign in villages — you will have a winner! " 

Anchal Dhar, 29, senior consultant, Weber Shandwick India
@anchaldhar

She has a masters in development studies from the very prestigious 'London School of Economics and Political Science'. A degree Anchal Dhar has put to good use in her work that ranges from writing narratives on current issues for the comedy collective AIB, to large scale campaigns for MSD for Mothers ( On maternal health).

Anchal has also worked for #FeedTheFutureNow – The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF), that aims to feed 5 billion children by 2020. Anchal shares that,       “My role in the campaign was to write content for our creative collaterals — charter, brochure, website and media relations —we roped in a mainstream TV channel – India Today - for a panel discussion with top corporate leaders and TAPF.”

The former Indian Express journalist, has also had her narratives end up as full fledged satires, like this one by AIB on a topic close to the urban Indian’s heart: air pollution!

You can watch the video here

Ajit Fernandes, 24, consultant, Weber Shandwick India
@UrbanBanjara

So how did this aviation ‘plane’ crazy geek end up in the mad, bad world of PR?

Ajit Fernandes says this is why, “My childhood was either spent reading about planes, or just reading…and that’s where I developed these two all-consuming passions! One thing led to another and I eventually found my way into Weber Shandwick, working on aviation projects! 

Ajit worked extensively on content led campaigns for aerospace firms. His senior colleagues have this to say about him. Food features!

Rahul Vaidyanathan, account director, Weber Shandwick India
“Ajit is an integral member of my team — be it for purchasing cigarettes, or sourcing food or being the butt of all jokes! But on a serious note, Ajit is the content champ, a rare breed who truly believes in the power of good content and storytelling. His passion for written and visual content, matched with his love for the aviation and defence space, and strong general knowledge, bring out the best in him in a dynamic PR world.”
 

While the jury did not have a chance to score cigarettes and food off Ajit, they were pretty impressed with his comic series idea for how to make PR cool:

Akshita Agrawal,  28, client operations lead, PRactice Strategic Communications India Pvt Ltd  

Akshita Agrawal is a member of her company’s ‘Social Innovation’ team, her responsibilities involve strategic projects to safeguard client reputation.
As a result, Akshita has spearheaded projects that take a 360 degree approach to public relations including strategic media relations, stakeholder outreach, digital engagement, and content and creatives. In addition, she has been working as a part of the core group in facilitating internal initiatives-from learning & development to systems and processes for employee engagement at ‘The PRactice ‘.

She has worked on the very challenging topic of GM seeds and fro help raise raise funds for 'Smile Train'.

Raising money for smiles
Says Akshita, “I worked on the strategy to identify influencers, available grants and topical days to raise funds. I continue to be the nodal person connecting subject matter experts, external agencies and internal stakeholders to make our fundraising model sustainable. In 2017  we raised funds through digital properties (social media, emailers) and campaigns. The way I handled strategy and execution of the program, led Smile Train Global to leverage my skillsets and guide other markets such as Mexicoto aid them in digital fundraising initiatives.”

Antara Nandy, 29, media strategist, PwC India
@antarabms

This Kolkatta and Jamshedpur girl is a beauty blogger and PR strategist. So, while penning pieces on how to do Valentine’s Day on a budget, Antara Nandy, as part of PwC India, she strategises and executes media activities for their experts of the Government Reforms and Infrastructure Development (GRID) practice .

Antara additionally leads the media and internal communication activities in the eastern region and Bangladesh.

She also managed to win back a client who had lost faith in her previous PR firm, during her PR consultancy stint.

Antara reveals that, “During my engagement with my previous firm, I was once given a challenging task of on-boarding a client who wasn’t very satisfied with their earlier engagement with us. At that time, I was not a part of the servicing team. After a lot of efforts, they were giving us a project basis which they would decide if they would sign us on board as their communication partners. It was an uphill task because the client did not have a positive perception of us and I was entrusted with the responsibility of not only doing a good job on the project but also win back their trust. My proactive efforts, enthusiastic approach and the go-getter attitude, apart from the good work delivered helped us win back the client. He continues to refer our services to other industry stalwarts basis his experience with me.”

Client Speak
Amit Kumar Gope, Erstwhile Group marketing head, Century Ply
“I have known Antara for a period about 2 years during my stint as the Group Marketing Head of CenturyPly. Antara came across as a go-getter from the beginning. There was a time when I had separated from the PR agency which she was part of, but engaged them back for the sheer initiative taking capabilities of Antara. Apart from her energy, she also brings on table excellent domain knowledge, great skills of coordination and organising.”

Arsheen Kamboj Jain, 29, principal consultant, Integral Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd.
@ArsheenJ 

"Of all the twitter accounts around the world, you log onto mine," declares Arsheen Kamboj Jain’s quick bio on her Twitter handle! The Godrej PRmoment India 3030 jury agrees that Arsheen’s profile was worth logging into and placing in the top 30!

A foodie, an animal lover and a travel buff, Arsheen has worked on campaigns ranging from fitness platforms to mobile apps. She has also handled the influencer campaign to highlight in-flight experience for Emirates Airline in India. The aim was to promote Emirates as a sustained option for both long haul and short haul flights and fight the perception about middle-east airlines.

Arsheen’s break out moment was ‘Mommy Bloggers’. She says, “To deviate from regular lifestyle and travel FAMs, we initiated a Mommy Blogger FAM to highlight the special services Emirates offers for families with kids from Fly with me animals, special kid meals to dedicated inflight children entertainment. We also wove in Dubai as a perfect destination for Indian families with kids by tying up with new major theme park attractions in Dubai like Bollywood Parks(TM) (part of Dubai Parks and Resorts), IMG Worlds of Adventure, The Green Planet (an indoor tropical forest).”

Viral with PR

To popularise PR, Arsheen created this video as an example of how PR can create videos like the hilarious Pammi aunty videos to showcase PR.

Arshiya Ahmad, 27, senior associate, Chase India
@arshi_yah

What strikes you first about Arshiya Ahmad is her creativity. An entry form is transformed into a PR specific narration, complete with her key achievements highlighted in the form of a press release with plenty of supportive infographics.

To quote her ‘press release,' “In June 2017, due to unforeseen circumstances, her team was unavailable but Arshiya single-handedly planned and executed media activities for Philips Lighting’s global chief strategy officer.

She managed to get a rare testimonial for her entry from a senior editor at Mint:

Gireesh Chandra Prasad, Energy Editor, Mint
“Arshiya Ahmad is a very passionate public relations professional. Her clear and concise media pitches reflect her understanding of the brand she services (Philips Lighting) as well as of the lighting and energy sector at large. I appreciate her understanding of how journalists work and articles worthy of conversion. She doesn't push for an article, where it's not merited. Given her exceptional qualities, Arshiya is a very promising PR professional."

Here’s Arshiya Ahmad’s take on how to do PR for PR:

Bhushan Astulkar,  29, account head, Ideosphere Consulting Pvt. Ltd.
@bhushan1988

A fitness aficionado, Pune based Bhushan Astulkar, has helped create a breakfast platform, ‘Sustainability for Breakfast,' which was eventually partnered by Tata Motors, helped with the brand entry of Kimaya TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), a mobile app that helps with nutrition for premature babies and CodeCuriosity, a platform for open source programmers.

Client Speak
Ankush Patel, CEO & co-founder, Treeni Sustainability Solutions
'Bhushan has been a great partner for Treeni, he helped conceptualise our thought leadership event 'Sustainability for Breakfast (S4B), which included creation of collaterals for S4B and keeping the consistency in the design to create a unique identity. His PR focus has led to awareness among media through his media outreach, and content creation for media in the form of press releases and authored articles.”

Chavi Taneja, 28, senior Manager – client servicing, strategy & media relations, Value 360 Communications
@ChaviTan4

A passionate tiger conservationist, Chavi Taneja had the opportunity to work on the Paytm account in it’s days of early consumer adoption.

She has also worked on a wide variety of campaigns ranging from Saavn’s ‘One in a millennial ‘ positioning to popularise the audio streaming site with users and OLX Mother’s Day Campaign – ‘Every Mother Counts’, that focused on disadvantaged mothers. For OLX, the campaign covered 40 slum clusters in the city.

Client Thumbs Up!

Sonia Dhawan, AVP - Communications, Paytm
“She understands the industry well, critically analyses every opportunity and acts on it immediately. A ‘go-to’ PR professional in every regard, Chavi’s dependable and hands-on media relations have helped Paytm get strong exposure across major international publications.”

D. Yamini Reddy, 25, client operation lead, The PRactice
@Y_am_I_Reddy

A tennis lover, a PR strategist and a book junkie. Just some of the things about Yamini Reddy, PR pro extraordinaire.

Her clearly written profile outlines work with Prione, a startup supporting SMBs in the e-commerce space and Sun Mobility, an electric mobility solution firms in the swappable battery space.

But it’s her work in the not so public area of internal communications that is a stand out. Here it is in her own words:

Break out Campaign

Objective: Ensure all Amadeus employees, understand the implications of sexual harassment and go through the training program.
Challenge: How do you educate and create conversations on a sensitive topic through a formal communication channel: emails.
My Role: I helped write the content and worked with the design team to create a whole campaign around Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH).
Outcome: Quirky communication that used IT lingo, to educate the employees on the implications of POSH and why it's important to have a safe work environment. We conveyed this through a series of internal mailers using language these tech geeks will understand which resulted in high training completion numbers.
Uniqueness: Digestible content that used humour to educate its audience about a sensitive topic people don’t like talking about.

Davis Kangjam, assistant manager, strategy and communications, Zefmo Media Pvt Ltd
@daviskangjam

A self confessed sophophile, Davis Kangjam has put his love for learning to good use in his communications job. An ardent ambassador of home state Manipur, Davis includes among his milestones the successful creation of an influencer marketing survey, the handling of a crisis involving an exploding mobile handset, and an employee crisis with protecting factory workers at a hand held device factory.

Here is an infographic Davis created for these milestones:

PR for PR
“ Credibility and repute help distinguish the contenders from the pretenders — to put it bluntly. You can only earn the PR designation after you have proven mastery of areas such as research, ethics, media relations, crisis communications, and management. Certainly, bad apples can give the PR field a bad name.The fact is smart PR people work at the intersection of social and mainstream media to create a continuing engagement with stakeholders—customers, employees, investors, regulators.”

Divya Tejnani , 30, senior image manager, Perfect Relations
@____Teja____

Just as a Harry Potter wand chooses the wizard, Divya Tejnani believes financial PR chose her.  Exposed to the world of financial PR in the first two years of her PR nov, Divya has learnt to speak the financial language.

One of her most interesting media experiences was with a story around insurance and Bahubali 2. At a time when anything Bahubali was selling, Divya was faced with a disinterested insurance media. She quickly pivoted and sold the story to entertainment reporters instead.

The outcome?  An all-edition four-column story on Future Generali insuring Bahubali 2 and the trends seen in movie insurance in 'The Hindu Business Line'.

PR for PR
“I would like to set an example in the finance PR fraternity, as someone who made a niche even after not having any academic background in neither finance nor PR. Only when I am perceived to be successful; as someone doing a meaningful job and has maintained work-life balance, will I be able to persuade people to work in PR. When that’s done, I would like to believe I have been able to do good PR for PR”

Himani Rautela, 28, account manager, Adfactors PR
@himanirautela

With a master’s degree in public policy and a certificate in digital media from the leading NUS, Singapore, Himani Rautela provides reputation counsel to a wide range of clients.

Among her break out campaigns have been around CRY, Child Rights and You. While, awareness about the CRY brand name was high, there was a perception problem about what CRY actually does in the area of child rights.

Himani worked hard to create opinions from CRY around children’s safety after the gruesome Ryan’s International School murder case and also pointed to narratives about allocation for children’s safety in the 'Annual Union Budget'. This resulted in Op-Ed pieces for CRY, a goal that Himani says CRY had wanted to achieve for a while.

Client Speak
Priyanka Rai - chief service officer, Gautam Gambhir Foundation and former CRY associate general manager
“Himani has immense knowledge about the client's brand and is very sincere, hardworking and committed to her work thus we rely on her for almost all day to day projects. She has actively been a part of the team for CRY and has managed to attain a high-level of visibility for the brand. She is a self motivated individual and consistent in her delivery and engagement and adds value to the brand by giving strategic inputs through all aspects. She has definitely helped in creating a thought leader space for our brand.”

Hurlene Kharbanda, 29, associate group head, GOLINOPINION

Hurlene Kharbanda credits two S’s: Shaadi and Starbucks for some of her outstanding work achievements.

Last year, Starbucks India hit the 5 year mark and was offering any coffee at Rs. 100/-. Working with a very short timeline of one week, Hurlene says, “ We suggested a PR approach that focused on tapping new age media & digital portals to reach out to 3 kinds of customers – One who has never visited Starbucks, second who found the offerings expensive and third who wanted to explore the menu. This created a wave of excitement across the country and not only were there long queues outside all Starbucks stores but the sales increased 4-fold, 616 million people were reached and we garnered a PR Value of 228 million.”

Hurlene also worked on the highly successful campaign to make Marriott a designation for the Big Fat Indian Shaadi. The event even trended organically on Twitter!

PR for PR
Hurlene believes a PR pro is like Spiderman with superpowers. So what can one do with these superpowers. Hurleen suggests unveiling PR superpowers by using #PRTurnsSuperHero — a future focused campaign to drive PR for PR and build it into a mainstream function for brands, key stakeholders and the public at large.

Karishma Desai, 29, manager — public relations, iProspect India, Dentsu Aegis Network
@karismatical

Karishma Desai was responsible for introducing the PR and internal communications functions at iProspect India , a digital marketing agency from the Dentsu Aegis Network stable. In 2017, this role later expanded to include marketing.

Says Karishma, “In 2016, PR efforts drove 1% of all traffic to iProspect.com domains, this year that number rose to an impressive 4% of all web traffic coming from PR. The Indian market’s communication function has contributed to this majorly.  A special mention about the Facebook live video created by iProspect India for Future Focus that garnered over 35,000 views — the highest in any market. The PR campaign has supported business — the company grew by 45%, signed on clients like SBI Life Insurance, Marico, AirBnB, Fossil, Ajio, among others.”

Here is her fascinating take on PR for PR!

Megha Behl, 27, account manager, Hill + Knowlton Strategies
@meghabehl

Tech enthusiast, Megha Behl, landed in her new job just as the account team of a major consumer electronics team was being shuffled. This put the responsibility on Megha to not only handle the client during the all important contract renewal period but also handled the pitching for another new client in the photography hardware space.

Due to an updated PR strategy, Megha was able to win a retainer for the photography client. The consumer electronics client also renewed the contract for another 3 years!

PR for PR
Megha says,“We must make this viral and let people know how PR can be a brand’s ‘’Knight in Shining Armour.’’

Michelle Sethi, 28, account manager, Edelman India
@michellesethi

A sarcastic and grumpy, cartoon cat led to one of Michelle Sethi’s biggest PR successes. Yes, it’s a campaign for the lasagna loving, spider hating Garfield themed clothes collection, ‘ ONLYxGarfield  that Michelle successfully managed.

Michelle reached out to Bollywood stylists to help access Bollywood stars like Alia Bhatt and Shilpa Shetty to model the clothes. As a result the collection was sold out.

She has also worked on a pro bono CSR campaigns for St. Jude’s  India to raise awareness for children living with cancer. The campaign included a tie up for music therapy with Bret Lee’s philanthropy  arm in India, Mewsic.

Emily Menon, Brett Lee’s publicist said,  “WOW GUYS!!! This is amazing!! What great coverage & all focused on the music therapy and St. Jude’s … Love it!!! It’s great to have Edelman on board!!”

And here is a glimpse of her fascinating presentation on why PR is like Tinder!

Naina Aggarwal, 28, founder and COO, Talking Point Communications
@nainaaggarwal

In her 4 years as a PR entrepreneur, Naina Aggarwal has serviced clients as diverse as bigbasket.com and Deepika Padukone’s The Live Love Laugh Foundation.

Breakout Moment

Over the past two years, Naina Aggarwal has worked with ‘The Live Love Laugh Foundation’, closely to raise awareness about the need to dispel common myths about mental health disorders in India.

Says Naina, “We were an integral part of the launch campaign for #DobaraPoocho, a TV and print ad series in 2016 dedicated to mental health issues amongst the urban population. On World Mental Health Day, in the subsequent year, we worked towards raising awareness about those living with mental health disorders in rural areas by facilitating a media familiarisation trip to a village adopted by the NGO in Devangare in Karnataka.”

PR for PR
Naina put together this cool film to talk about why PR matters. Don’t forget to check out the crazy credits!

Pooja Bedwal, 26, senior account executive , Edelman India
@PujaAugust

This Bollywood heroines’ super-fan, has handled campaigns as diverse as ‘Resurgent Rajasthan’, and Shell #makethefuture campaign.

For Shell, Puja Bedwal’s integrated and experiential approach to highlight energy innovation resulted in Shell adding 2,000 followers on Twitter.

The #makethefuture also trended nationally at top spot on Twitter and remained in trending topics list for several hours. The campaign also managed tweets from influential accounts, such as @dpradhanbjp (Indian Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas).

Her work for Rajasthan, resulted in a strong client endorsement:

Prachi Sinha, 29, senior account manager, Edelman India

Prachi Sinha has handled accounts such as LinkedIn, Smile Group and NIIT Technologies.

For Smile, Prachi led the PR rearranging exercise, interacting with marketing teams for the activation of marketing communications plans for several brands under Smile.

PR for PR
I'd like to do PR for PR by spreading awareness about the power of PR. 1) Introduce a mascot for the PR industry. The mascot just like the ‘Amul Girl’ can be leveraged to provide PR specific thoughts on topical conversations. A series titled ‘PR Speak’ with mainlines & online publications can be explored, wherein, the mascot (aka the identified PR experts) shares thoughts on a topical issue from a PR standpoint (this could be in a fun, informative or pun format). The rationale behind this is to grow awareness of PR as a profession and it's growing significance in today’s communications landscape

Sesha Ramakant Bansal, 30, account director, Chase India
@Seshakant

A theatre buff, a former Delhi cricketer, Sesha Ramakant Bansal, a MICA certified digital marketeer, uses her considerable skills in communications and public affairs to handle challenging assignments in the telecom, defence and social media platform space.

A specialist in advocacy, public affairs and crisis communications, Sesha has worked on helping normally conservative firms to explore PR beyond media relations.

PR for PR
Filling in a school admission for her toddler led to an insight about the PR profession for Sesha. She says, “Earlier this month, as mother to a toddler, I diligently sat down to fill-in forms for ‘nursery/pre-school’ admissions. While filling-in somewhat detailed forms, I realised, most private schools in Delhi, don’t consider PR as a profession and education in communications as mainstream educational qualification. I thought to my self, “My bub ain’t getting into my profession”. But then I corrected myself. I love what I do, and I got to save its honour. “

This is the ‘PR first’ plan Sesha recommends:

Shreya Dutt, 27, consulting associate at Genesis Burson-Marsteller
@shreya_dutt

What does ‘ Fifty Shades of Grey,' got to do with a PR strategy? Quite a lot it seems. Using ideas from the title  and from Sabyasachi’s grey bridal collection, Shreya Dutt managed to arrange for photosets inspired by these motifs for Greenlam Industries. As a result, grey laminates ended up getting featured in fashion and lifestyle mags, moving away from the usual  trade coverage.

For another campaign for Red FM radio, Shreya helped to make the very poplar Pothole Rap by RJ Malishka aka Mumbai Ki Rani viral. This rap song targeted BMC and Mumbai potholes.

Shreya handled the fallout of this as a miffed BMC tried to hit back with notices.

Says Shreya, “ Top influencers across sectors and leading news anchors like Rajdeep Sardesai and Faye Dsouza amongst others spoke about this campaign and showed their support organically. We managed positive reportage and positioned RED FM as ‘provocative entertainers’. RJ Malishka trended on Twitter and her video went viral with over 25 million views and 1.5 lac shares. This has been an award-winning campaign.”

The campaign worked so well that it even ended up on the iconic Amul billboard!

Shreya Mehta, 25, consultant, Creation
@shreyamht

Shreya Mehta needs no introduction. Expect perhaps this!

So when an entry form kicks off like this, you know you are looking at a kickass profile. Two months into her new job at Creation, the manager quit and Shreya became the person of contact for three complex accounts: Twitter, TEDx Delhi and Canon for corporate.

She delivered outstanding results for these clients. For Canon for example, says Shreya, backed with consistent PR efforts, the brand conversations gained momentum and Canon clocked a double digit growth for 2017.

A firm believer in the power of PR, do see her PR for PR video. It will appeal even more to the Grammar Police out there! Check it out:

Shruti Sah, 25, senior account executive, Edelman India,
@shrutisah27

At a relatively early stage in her career, Shruti Sah has handled national PR campaigns for clients such as TCS, Lava and Nikon.

For Lava, Shruti faced the challenge of establishing that Lava is very much a domestic manufacturer of mobile handsets, inspite of having a product testing centre in China. For this, media trips were planned for the firm’s R&D centre in China which resulted in a more positive perception about Lava among the media there months later.

Employer Speak
Arushie Sinha, Manager – Corporate Communications, Tata Consultancy Services
“Shruti always kept herself abreast of the ongoing industry trends and has successfully been involved in a wide variety of activities such as planning and executing key campaigns, drafting crisp and thoroughly researched content and delivering required reports as per the timeline along with strict quality check. Shruti was always been knowledgeable and helpful with insights on our competition and the industry in general. She has a great understanding of the technology media landscape and continues to hold close relationship with key media partners. She was a trusted partner for the TCS team and considered an extension of the core team here with her in-depth understanding of our focus areas.”

Simone Fernandes , 25, Senior Account Executive, Edelman India
@TheChubbwagon

She has the jury at PR Games! More on that in a bit. Simone Fernandes is an avid foodie, who effortlessly mixes in digital solutions for PR clients. She has worked with Nearbuy, a Groupon firm, Zee Zindagi and Radio Mirchi.

Her creativity shows in this fantastic PR for PR presentation Simone made, using gaming! Do check it out:

Somali Bajpai, 23,  PR Consultant,  PR Pundit
@SomaliBajpai

This cricket and chocolate lover, in that order, has worked with the PR handling the rebranding of the well known Cyber Hub to Cyber Hub 2.0.

For this, Somali Bajpai, took care of 'The Food Maze' event which witnessed an engagement of 100 bloggers across domains such as food, travel, fashion and lifestyle to promote the launch.

Somali designed and circulated a unique google link in order to create a database for the influencers of the city. The list was used to filter the relevant bloggers who were invited for the event.

For DLF’s Mall of India’s dessert festival, ‘Sugar Rush,' Somali suggested creating media invites via hampers consisting of childhood favourites like Kismi bar, Mango Bite, and Phantom sugar cigarettes in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia and instant sugar rush.

PR for PR
Here is a complete presentation Somali put together on PR for PR:

Suhas Tadas, 29, Client Operations Lead, The PRactice
@tadassuhas

A self-confessed political pundit, Suhas Tadas, lead an integrated campaign for the 'Systematic Voter Education and enrolment Program (SVEEP) 'for 'Municipal Corporation of Gurugram'.

Suhas shares that, “The local body elections were happening after a period of 5-6 years and with no active municipal council for over 2 years, the public awareness was low. I led the planning and execution of multi-pronged campaign over a period of 2 months that included direct engagement, OOH blitz, public events, media and celeb outreach and digital engagement. Our efforts resulted in a 55.7% Voter turnout against the 43% estimate”

PR for PR
“Successful professional disciplines such as engineering and management have been founded on the strength of their ability to draw from their scholarly theories. Public Relations, particularly in India, is a discipline undergoing transformation. The industry is expanding with rising demand for expert management of complex stakeholder ecosystem, but anchoring to academic research and reflection is missing. Often resulting in disenchantment with and incomprehensibility of public relations scope as well as impact. So enhancing cooperation between scholarly inquiry, knowledge sharing and professional application will be at the heart of advancing the profession of Public Relations.”

Sukesh Kumar, 25, manager, digital media, Avian Media
@ikidroz

Here are some quick facts about Sukesh Kumar. He is a tech enthusiast and a passionate PS 4 advocate. Quite obviously he loves video games. And most importantly, unlike Joey he does share food!

Among well received campaigns for government policy bodies, one of Sukesh’s most interesting campaigns was about a #FreeCondom Store.

Breakout Campaign

Says Sukesh, “It was our quarterly review for AHF India, when the client mentioned that they were launching India’s first ‘Free Condom Store’. I could have easily gotten away with a couple of posts. However, as a digital media professional, I took the responsibility to give this initiative the exposure it deserved. This did not call for half measures.”

Adds Sukesh, “ I decided to do a social experiment. I went on the streets of Delhi asking young couples if they practiced safe sex. Their cagey response to my questions reiterated the need for a social awareness initiative. I drafted a proper storyboard that talked about how young people are reluctant to discuss safe sex and how the AHF initiative could actually bridge this gap.  Also keeping the latest design trends and our target audience in mind, a logo was designed for the ‘Free Condom Store’. Finally, on the day of the launch, we published the video on AHF India’s social media channels and started engaging with identified celebrities, influencers and government officials. Many of them started interacting with our tweets, which sparked a lot of conversations on Twitter. Soon, #FreeCondomStore was trending on Twitter.“

 Supriya Singh,  27, assistant manager, Value 360 Communications
@sup1riya

Supriya Singh has an interesting introduction to who she is. She describes herself as, “A bookworm who lives in a Bollywood movie and has a story to tell (*read every time) PR seemed to be ‘best fit’ for me. “

In her 4 years with Value 360 Communications, she  has worked in domains such as education, startups, e-Commerce (B2B and B2C), Edtech, travel, art and entertainment .

Breakout Campaign
My first client at Value 360, MDI Gurgaon had only one requirement — to stand with top IIMs of India.

Challenge:
To let the media know that about a B-school called MDI Gurgaon

 The Plan: 
Started with a traditional approach to educate the media, understanding the perception about the brand really helped. Followed a 3-hits strategy for a span of 3.5 years: Soft hit-with the subtle approach to tell the media about the brand, In a span of 6 months, the brand started getting decent mentions with the competitors

Nailed it!:
In the third year of the brand with the team, media now really didn’t care if IIMs were part of the story. If it was MDI Gurgaon, it would lead the story. From a ‘no one’ to becoming a brand leading the story.

Tanishtha Kaura, 23, senior account executive, Avian Media
@DroolingDream

‘Power’ful Girls and PR. Dreaming and auto expos. Internal communications and motorcycle themed clothes and accessories, Tanishtha Kaura, has a truly wide ranging working life.

An entrant into PR armed with an education in journalism, a call for interning for Avian Media has led her firmly into the world of PR.

To know more about her and why deserves to be in top 30, do watch this PowerPuff girls video!