Do you love PR?

 18th December 2014    PR Insight 
 Paarul Chand

So, a cheeky question. Do you love PR? It’s a good thing to ask yourself, just as the year draws to a close. Turns out, in spite of the very, many aggravations of working in PR – explaining your job to your mom among them – many of you out there do love your PR job.

Let’s find out why.

I love PR!

For Richa Seth, senior account manager at Adfactors PR, public relations is great because, “It gives me a chance to better understand human behaviour and psyche as our primary job is dealing with people across segments – media, employees and other stakeholders of the company.”

Richa Seth: Won the PRAXIS ‘Ace Business Communicator (ABC) Award 2014’

Garima Singh, account executive, Mavcomm Consulting, revels in the joy of watching a strategy come to life after putting in persistent efforts. She says, “Nothing can beat that excitement.”

Garima Singh loved bringing the PR strategy for Citrus to life

Neha Bahl, PR professional says that, “It requires a great deal of intellectual curiosity.” With tongue firmly in cheek she adds, “Whether conducting research for a new project, trouble shooting a client issue or interacting with dizzying characters – colleagues, clients, journalists, consumers – you become smarter and more aware of the world every day.”

Neha Bahl: PR makes you smarter!

On a more serious note, Vipul Bondal, founder and CEO, Veriitte Consulting, enjoys the fact that, “PR people can increasingly and importantly bring about lasting change in the world through moulding public opinion. No doubt, PR is a double-edged knife, and therefore it’s necessary to have the right kind of principles and the right amount of wisdom. For me personally, PR professionals can bring big changes in areas such as climate change, diversity, gender equality and empowerment. As well as the use of technology to bridge the economic divide.”

Breakthrough in 2014

Many PR professional had good wins in 2014.

For Vipul, it marked the year of his, “First foray into political PR during the Lok Sabha elections in April, followed by the Maharashtra Assembly elections in September. In both cases, the candidates won. Political PR is all about learning new skills, while sharpening the old.”

Vipul Bondal launched into political PR in 2014

For Megha Jamb, travel blogger and senior account executive,social media team-Adfactors, 2014 marked the year she got to work on Life OK’s Mahadev Ganga Mahaotsav, an innovative CSR activity, planned by the channel around the popular TV show Devon Ke Dev Mahadev.

Megha Jamb got to work on the “Mahadeva Ganga Mahaotsav” – planned around popular TV show “Devon Ke Dev Mahadev”

Garima reveled in the fact that her client, Citrus, which had minimal presence in the media was able to raise its profile in several online and print publications. Garima says, “This was also a personal win as now my confidence in executing strategies has gone up.”

For Richa it was a year of personal and professional wins. She received the prestigious ‘Ace Business Communicator (ABC) Award 2014’ during PRAXIS, 2014. She was also part of the team at Adfactors B2B that crafted the launch of a consumer technology product by a start-up company.

Richa says, “The brand today has secured global recognition in the media such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and the Washington Post, and in India there is hardly any media that has not covered it yet. Today without spending a rupee on advertising or direct marketing the brand has been able to receive over 50,000 pre-orders from individuals, funding from angel investors and partnership offers from global consumer technology brands.”

New year PR wish

Vipul truly wants 2015 to be the year of change for the PR business, with PR – the profession – making its value felt in corporate board rooms. 

Vipul adds, “It’s time to really move beyond the column inches, the hits/misses, the viral campaigns, the front pages, and the size of dossiers. And I hope PR professionals engage a lot more with each other professionally like their peers in other sectors.”

Garima says that the, “Indian PR industry is yet to match its global counterparts in terms of tech- savviness. So, for the next year I envision a tech sound PR industry as it would felicitate in terms of building and strengthening networks among various stakeholders.”

Doing some crystal ball gazing, Richa says that , “In 2015, I believe that PR will play a bigger role in communications than marketing and increasingly SMEs, as well as start-up companies, will look at adopting PR. The role of PR will encompass brand communications across all relevant media channels, hence professionals will be required to be adept and understand the nitty gritty of all media channels.

Richa also says that, “Increasingly professionals will have to work across business functions of companies to understand the core business challenge and how communication strategies such as reputation management, crisis management, public advocacy, awareness building campaign etc. can help to resolve the problem.”

Megha hopes to be able to convince clients to not fear failure for a particular idea and instead focus on becoming pioneers for a novel campaign idea, technology used or product launched.

There you have it, many reasons to continue to love PR in 2015!