Tag: Brands

Wrong information can cause panic

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Recently, I read a news article that stated how during this global health crisis a lab in Thane, Mumbai is sealed by the government because they gave fake COVID positive reports to people. The reason behind this is the lab has a connection with private hospitals. After giving fake positive reports they send the patient to those particular hospitals who have got the package of three lakhs rupees for COVID patients. This false news turned the lives of these citizens upside down. (Source: https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/coronavirus/news)

Well, I wonder how do people even get such ideas in a situation where the world is struggling, people are facing anxiety and depression due to lockdown, pay-cut, unemployment, and so on.

There is a great deal of subjectivity on where its boundaries begin and end. There have been instances where not only ordinary people but there have been several instances where doctors, journalists, and public figures have also played a role in spreading fake news stories.

Communicators have been trying different methods to bust the myths and fake news. People keep spreading wrong news by forwarding messages on WhatsApp or post it on social media without even cross-checking it. To get rid of this, campaigns are done to stop people from spreading the wrong information.

In 2018, WhatsApp did its first television campaign where they urged and spoke about ‘Share joy and not rumours’. They took the comprehensive efforts to educate Indians about unauthentic forwarded messages and dangers of fake news. They addressed this issue through three videos ads that focused on ordinary people teaching their close ones, how they can avoid being the propagators of fake news. These videos were available on television, cinemas, YouTube, and social media sites like Facebook.

Last month, even TikTok initiated a short video campaign ‘Mat Kar Forward’ to educate people about misinformation on social media platforms, and the circulation of fake news cause panic. It was directed by Anurag Basu and actors like Ayushmann Khurrana, Sara Ali Khan, and Kriti Sanon and cricketer Virat Kohli came together to discourage people from forwarding messages that can lead to misinformation and hate crimes. Their segments have been digitally patched as it was done during the lockdown.

Like this, various brands have been making efforts in a simple and smart manner to encourage them to stop forwarding messages, pictures, and videos that do not have verified information.  

107. Brands during crisis

Posted on by Neha Goyal

We all are aware that today we are facing a global health crisis which can highly lead to the economic crisis as well. From past weeks, during this lockdown where customers are rarely visiting stores, e-commerce facing logistics issues, people working remotely, businesses facing out of stock due to the closure of factories, radical shift in demand for certain products have disrupted habitual behaviours of customers to shop and communicate in new ways. Considering the current situation we are facing and what we might face in the coming future, brands need to stay relevant amid crisis.

How brands react and communicate during such crisis shapes the perception of the consumers. The brand’s reputation and equity hinges on elements like trust, empathy, authenticity, emotional bonding, and ethics. During this crisis, as an aspiring PR professional, I have attended a few webinars and sessions that taught me how brands should maintain and strengthen their connection with their stakeholders. Some of the things a brand should do during a crisis are:

  • A brand should be proactive, spontaneous, and respond immediately during a crisis. Whenever anything goes wrong all the stakeholders look up to the brand to communicate and tell them what happened. So before any fake news starts spreading and people make their assumptions it’s better for brands to be the first ones to respond.
  • It is important to be connected with its stakeholders by being frequent and keep informing them about the actual situation and steps they will take to maintain transparency.
  • In times, of a global or industry crisis, brands should extend their support. They can extend it through donations, providing discounts, or offering a product or a service to people.
  • The brands need to be extra cautious during such situation and the messaging should be as per the context and situation by showing empathy and staying relevant.
  • Brands need to anticipate and adapt to the situation. Adapting to the situation helps brands to connect with their audience. Anticipating the possible scenarios help brands to be more prepared that helps them to be more confident while implementing the changes.
  • As digital technology is growing these days, it is getting more important for brands to communicate digitally. Brands can create digital content by thinking of ideas that can help them to engage with their customers.
  • They should make consumers feel that they are being heard. Therefore, they should use multichannel communication to engage with its consumers like email, website, social media, SMS, and so on. This will ensure that their queries, concerns, and complaints are getting answered.
  • In times of uncertainty, brands should utilise their budget mindfully. Building the credibility of the brand innovatively is more important than prioritising sales promotion.  

In times of crisis, employees look up to their leaders for information, direction, and assurance. Whereas, people look up to brands for the same. Brands should never try to be opportunistic during crisis and be the leader of change and hope.

Creativity in Public Relations

Posted on by Neha Goyal

 “Creativity is not tactical or technical—it’s emotional.”

Creativity is turning new ideas into reality, thinking upon it and then producing something which is not ordinary. When we bond this creativity with public relations, it is thinking about the audience’s perception towards a cause. It is like a public relation currency, boosting the inherent value of any campaign tactfully. In this field, the professional needs to constantly generate fresh ideas and concept can make the simplest of an idea or outside the box idea which can make a hit campaign. The creativity is not required while just making a campaign for a client but for them to communicate in general with the public through various media.

 The sky with no limit to alterations can be thought of as creativity. Public Relation campaigns are designed in such a manner that the connect leaves its foot print on the target group’s mind and they never get tired of it. Creativity is intrinsic to public relations. Without creativity, public relation would lose its true essence.

The communication and media industry has been through several rapid revolutions which have changed the way of connecting and communicating with people. Today, with so many interactive platforms and crowded bazaars it is becoming essential to curate authentic creative content that will ‘cut through the noise’ and grab the attention of the target audience. PR is strengthening the roots and spreading its wings via different PR tools.

When I talk about an international PR campaign which left a long-lasting impression, the “Fearless Girl” campaign is a good example. The campaign talked about the female empowerment which involved putting a bronze statue of a girl standing fearlessly across the iconic Wall Street charging bull. It draws attention to its ‘SHE fund,’ which invests in companies and putting women in top jobs. The statue is a sign of ‘extremely courageous girl’ who did wonders for the brand.     

The campaign had the key element of emotions to connect the audience with the brand by putting a girl statue for their company. The campaign had an essence of emotions which very well-connected the audience with the brand. The message was crafted very creatively to get noticed. It stood out; people connected and thus was impactful.

Clients are likely to approach public relation teams for creative ideas. Creativity helps the organization to dive in deep into their values and dynamically aligning with the audience. No organization can do without creativity; creativity is the only tool to tell the large part of the story. 

A public relation campaign is not done only for a client’s reputation, a product or a brand; but there are campaigns which make a difference in the community. In the common to the campaign on gender equality was shown through a short film “Daughters of Mother India”. It is the film which was a representative of India’s side of Nirbhaya’s story which did not sensationalize the issue of gender violence. The campaign was manifested towards a different angle. It exhibits the society and law enforcement to work together in a safer association of people.

The film shows women police officers taking calls specifically from sexual assault and rape victims because of the serious increase in the number of women voicing their story because of terrorizing incidents taking place in the hub of the country. Every day we are listening to negative news this campaign arises hope and acts toward eradicating the myth of an unsafe capital. It conveys the message that gender violence laws are now becoming strict and how the mindset of society is changing in this situation. The campaign portrays a leap of faith to the audience as it delivers a different message than others.

Public relation creates a likable company image for the public, and how it impacts public opinion. It is one way that companies seek to shape public opinion. Creativity in public relations is the perfect convergence between “what to say” and “how to say”. A message that is in sync with the issue at hand as well as relevant to its target audience. The message should be crafted in a way that gets the dissimilarity, the attention, the interest, the sympathy concludes in a want to take part and engage. In reality, creativity comes into play right from the beginning when the building of PR strategies is done for clients and it is the last output in public relations.   

While talking about creativity in public relation, it reminds me the checklist of Chip and Dan from the book ‘Made to Stick’ where they outline a formula for judging and creating ideas that will ‘Stick’ to the audience. There checklist consists of five ideas for a story to stick which they claimed it as ‘SUCCESs’ for any idea. The idea should be creative in such a way that it is Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories. It explains what it is that makes you notice an idea, understand them, and act on them. The simple answer is the way we ‘present’ our idea. (Reference book: Made to Stick)

 ‘Power of Words’ is a game-changer in public relations when it comes to creativity. From crafting press releases to building a reputation, it’s the power of language that keeps it going.

In recent days, social media has allowed full remit of public relations and not merely focused on media relations. This has broadened the impact and importance of creativity in PR, massively increasing the stakes, the rewards, and the opportunities. The creative ladder has been introduced to encourage the employees to talk about new ideas and creative campaigns to modern and socially appealing agendas. This helps to raise the profile of creative thinking and quality of creative ideas. 

Creativity is important in all aspects of public relations as it can be used in numerous ways. It can mean different things to different people and that is how exactly I feel towards the creative world of public relations is.

95. Building Strong Brands

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Author: David A. Aaker

Published: 1996

Building strong brands is a sequel to the book ‘Managing Brand Equity’ written by David A. Aaker.  The author from California specializes in marketing strategy and gives lectures around the world on brand strategy problems and issues. He has written books and articles on branding, advertising, and brand strategy.

Through this book, the author tries to focus on brand attributes with emotional and self-expressive aspects. He says that strong brand-building skills are required to survive and prosper among the crowded market of various brands. He gives a summary of how to build and manage brand equity through various case studies of some of the big brands their stories, how they stood out and what tactics they used. Kodak, Body Shop, Harley-Davidson, Smirnoff are some of the examples used to give the readers a better understanding. The author discusses how important it is for the brand managers to see their brand as a person rather than a product as it helps them in providing a different approach and communication to it.

The author talks about what makes a brand strong. In one of the chapters, he talks about brand equity and its major assets. The major assets are categorised as Brand Awareness, Brand Loyalty, Perceived Quality, and Brand Association. He also talks about why is it hard to build a strong brand and give a certain point which can be thought of and work accordingly.

The book has chapters on the brand identity system and brand personality. According to the author, they are the concepts that play an important role for the brand to be out of the box. Brand identity provides direction, purpose, and meaning which is central to the brand’s strategic vision. Whereas, the brand position is a part of brand identity and that is how a brand communicates and positions it over competing brands.

While talking about brand identity, the author also speaks about the organisation association. These associations are qualitatively different and have the potential in generating and supporting value propositions and customer relationships. After all this, implementing the identity and value proposition comes in the picture, where the brand position is the first step.

Through the example of Harley Davidson, the author explains how consumers start associating with the personality of the brand because of its human characteristics. The big five scales of brand personality are- sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness.

After the identity is placed and value proposition is specified, the implementation of the brand position begins. Its salient characteristics that brand managers should consider are reflected by the terms part, target audience, actively communicated and demonstrates advantage.

After telling the readers about how brand managers can position the brand/product in market by breaking the clutter through various steps, he speaks about other situations they can face. With the case study of Smirnoff author tells the how brand have changed their strategies and communication with time to reach the larger audience which many brands don’t achieve in the first go. How they can manage the various systems of brand, branding strategies, leveraging the brand and its assets. He states that measuring brand equity is important as it provides various insights. It can be done through knowing how distinctive the brand is in the market, how relevant it is, its esteem and understanding what a brand stands for. Last but not the least, comes building the brand that involves strategic and tactical imperatives.

To keep the readers interested, the author has used various old advertisements, pictures, charts, real-life brand stories to keep people engaging. Another interesting thing about the book is that every chapter begins with a quote from famous people.

In conclusion, the author gives a thorough understanding of brand management where the various case studies of some of the most popular brands in the book gave me a good understanding and made my concepts clear.

79. Brick & Click Store

Posted on by Neha Goyal

When a store has got its physical presence as well as got its presence online, it is called ‘brick & click’ store. Today a lot of retailers are available both online and offline, give their customers to purchase according to their convenience. Looking at how things are trending today, it is justifiable to have e-commerce business by the retailers.

Making their stores visible through websites helps a lot to brands. It has got its advantages and drawbacks to have their presence online as well as offline.

It helps an established retail brand to leverage the internet and have their presence there. It helps them to reach out to a much larger audience and can build a better reputation. Not only established brands, but it also helps new brands to start their brand online and then open a retail store.

The brick and click model helps retailers to improve their supply networks. The Internet helps to get in touch with a wider range of suppliers and allows buyers to order new products or types of equipment. An established retail store can also take the leverage of existing relationships with suppliers to receive good discounts. It not only helps to improve supply but also widens the distribution. Retail stores can not only distribute their goods to local people but also ship the goods across the world.

The model has got its downside as well. Retailers have to manage both the cost of retail outlets as well as online websites. Not all consumers prefer buying online and can go to the nearest store to buy. It can also happen that is a customer faces any bad experience through online purchases; they can opt-out of online shopping.

Either of them is a good alternative plan as customers gain more confidence in a brand when it has got its presence both physically and online.  

62. Increasing role of communicators in corporate houses

Posted on by Neha Goyal

‘Communication in a Disrupted World’

The brands have started changing the way they connect and engage with their audience through their communication. They are no more dependent on following old communication rule only. The medium has changed today than it was decades ago. The professionals have started working in a different space as the technology is changing and so are the preferences of the people.

The medium landscape is now more into social and digital media than traditional media, because of the changing preference among the audience. Today with the availability of news 24/7, the communicators have to monitor news constantly and respond to them quickly to avoid even the smallest of crisis. The complexity has increased for communicators due to which there is a high demand for them in the corporate environment.

Different brands and companies have started having more of communicators to communicate. It helps the firms in development and understanding the communication issue. Now, the firms work more strategically than tactically with the help of corporate communicators. This means that the expectations from them have increased and they are expected to be more knowledgeable.  

 The professionals will now have to handle more of new constraints in this changing and challenging environment. The communicators are gaining the ability to adapt and evolve with those changes is making the companies enhance their communication and look for future differently.

The corporate communicators help the firms to:

  • Be more transparent in communication and build trust among its consumers
  • It helps in building the reputation of an organization by communicating what the company stands for and engaging with the audience
  • Solve the problems faced by customers through communicating and connecting them with employees when required
  • They build the environment of teamwork by having effective internal communication 

The new generations of communicators have to come in the field with more advanced skill sets and have to be proactive in their work. They have to meet the new and advanced challenges and the demand of communicators that are happening in today’s digital time. 

51. Social Listening

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Social listening is different from social monitoring. It allows brands to analyze the conversation going on about a brand or industry online and respond to them. It is one of the valuable insights the brand can get about what their customers are saying about them. Social listening helps the brand to look forward rather than backward.

Social media listening is a good marketing strategy for brands to use. It shows that the brand cares about their customers and their insights. It can help the brand in the following ways:

  • Engaging with customers– It helps the brand to identify opportunities through which they can engage with their brands. It helps to create activities for social media or respond to customer who talks about them online.
  • Strategizes in real-time– Engagement can help to understand the changes happening in real-time. Consumers share a lot of useful information through which brands get to know about how people are responding to their engagements. Those insights can help the brand to strategize their communication in different channel as well.
  • Know about consumer’s perception of the competitors– It not only helps the brand to know about them but also what is the consumer perception about their competitors. What are the competitors up to. It gives an insight to know who is where in the market place.
  • Resolve problems– Brands can resolve problems that people are talking about and can come up with new features or products. It can get the attention of the consumers.
  • Rectify flaws– Social media listening gives brands the suggestion to rectify some of their flaws or to come up with better answers to give during personal selling of the product. It gives the brand a scope to nurture. Connection and helpful information affects the buying decision of the consumers.
  • Identify influencer and advocates– It helps the brand in identifying the correct influencers who can help them promote their brand; and also helps in identifying the advocates of the brand who talks on social media about them.

Social media listening is a good source for the brand to identify what people talk about them, learn from their competitors, lookout to for opportunities that can help them make changes.

A brand should not miss out on these opportunities; take the leverage of the digital world and different social media platforms.

45. Crisis Communication

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Practical PR strategies for reputation management and company survival

Edited by: Peter F Anthonissen

Year of Publishing: 2009

Crisis Communication is a book providing knowledge about how to do crisis preparation, crisis survival, media training, and reputation management. Book has got a contribution of twenty experts across the globe. It is like a crisis manual where people talk through their experiences by giving examples of some of the major crises that happened and what were the results. It includes case studies, communication checklist during crisis and sample of crisis preparation document.

The advice of experts from different parts of the world has been collated and edited by Peter Frans Anthonissen. He has written this book with the help of nineteen other experts. He is from Belgium who is an expert in crisis communication and reputation management. He is the founder of communication consultancy Anthonissen & Associates. His clients include Coca- Cola, Renault, P&G, Microsoft, GM, and Janssen Pharmaceutical.

According to ‘Murphy’s Law’ “whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way”.  The book begins with an introduction of the twenty contributors, some of the brands they worked for and their area of expertise. It follows up by talking about what is crisis and crisis in different sectors. It talks about how one need to be proactive during the crisis and having a crisis directory can be helpful. The writer also gives templates that can be used to communicate with the media during a crisis.

In the third chapter, the book talks about the importance of reputation management which requires a strategic approach. The approach should support the long term business goals so the message should be creative, target the correct audience and should be factual. The names become a valuable asset which means that the company should be strategic about how they want to be known for and communicate what they stand for. Stories-real stories- add depth to the reputation of the firm.

Natural calamities and disasters are something which we can be prepared for yet we cannot predict it. The author of this chapter tells us three things which one should do while handling a natural disaster crisis. Those are: Take care of yourself, be prepared and expect the unexpected.

In the age of the internet, financial crisis and fraud represents serious challenges for public companies. Communication plays the most important role in this. The management should focus on improving their performance which will help them in minimizing the crisis. The issue is supported by examples and case studies in the book, and how one can handle it.

The author provides information about how restructuring and reorganization of a company can turn into a potential crisis and how it can be avoided. In such a scenario, consistency is what matters the most. Examples are given and also talk about the measures that can be taken by the companies in such cases.

The food sector is the most crisis prone. Consumers demand information about the food which they consume and crisis in this sector affects a lot of people. The book consists of examples of the challenges faced by the international food sector.

Crisis is informed to people through press and communicators should know how to deal with negative press. It all depends on the ability of a person to plan and communicate proactively. In this chapter, it is discussed how a brand can be scrutinized by a journalist and how this crisis can be mitigated. 

During any crisis, the employees of the company play an important role in people reacting to the situation. It is really important to provide media training to employees for them to know how they should deal with the press. Successful media training requires preparation and practice. Without proper training, senior management can make the crisis worse. The correct road taken can help a company gain its reputation back.

The pace and reach of the internet is changing things. The company needs to respond and engage faster during the time of crisis. The firms can take advantage of it and make the communication listening and sharing, not just talking. During crisis risk managers are the people who identify and reduce the impact of the risk in a business.

The last chapter of the book consists of the checklists during crisis communication. It has got a crisis survival kit, crisis manual, an employee training guide, crisis strategy and how to communicate during crisis.

Through this book, readers get advice from experts on how to limit the damage, the crisis effectively by acting quickly and positively. All the topics are supported by examples and case studies. The book lacks the viewpoint of people from Asia and the Middle East. It also teaches us how to turn a crisis into an opportunity by using correct public relations strategy. The book is an excellent guide for communication professionals.   

34. Denstu Inc.

Posted on by Neha Goyal

‘Good Innovation’

Denstu is a Japanese international advertising and public relations company. In 1901, Hoshiro Mitsunaga established Japan Advertising Ltd. And Telegraphic Service Co. which later became Japan Telegraphic Communication Co.Ltd. that is how the journey of Denstu started. In 1943, the company acquired 16 companies for its advertising business. Denstu started growing and in 1989 its billing exceeded 1 trillion yen. It was the first company to receive the certificate of ‘Eco-First Company’. In 2001, it was listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In 2012, out of Japan a new umbrella organisation of the company’s agencies named Denstu Network was formed which changed its story. Next year it established a new global operating unit in London, Dentsu Aegis Network Ltd.

Toshihiro Yamamoto is the current president and CEO of Dentsu. The company truly believes in the three elements of innovations: Entrepreneurship + Ideas + Technology, which stand for making change in the society by going beyond imagination.

Denstu is engaged in a wide range of business activities. They are the solution givers for management and operating team for planning communication strategies for advertisers, media and content holders. They are the biggest players in the field of advertising because of their quality service and calls themselves as “Integrated Communication Design”.

The services provided by Denstu include marketing, public relations, content, marketing, digital marketing, information technology, sports and events. Their services are in 145+ countries and regions with over 62,000 staff.

One of the five top agency group has got lot of brilliant agencies and consultancies under them who does some great work for its client and is growing in the international market.     

Source: http://www.dentsu.com/   

31. Innovation Stories from India Inc

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Their story in their words

Author- Vijay Menon

Year of Publishing- 2017

The book ‘Innovation stories from India Inc’ is one that goes beyond jugaad and talks about the innovative stories of Indian entrepreneurs and their struggle which made them reach where they are at present.

We live in a world where everything is in abundance and hence, easily available to us on a click of a button, but this book compiles all the information about the big brands of India where the business leaders are themselves sharing their stories. It is a book that helped me learn about how in different ways, business leaders have built their companies. The book has been piled up with research and stories by the author having a one-on-one session with the business leaders. It consists of stories of leaders like Ratan Tata, Adi Godrej, Suresh Narayanan, K B S Anand, Bhaskar Bhat, Prithviraj Singh ‘Biki’ Oberoi, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and so on. The book has got 23 stories of 23 incredible business leaders.

In the book, every chapter starts with the author introducing the company and their business leader followed by the innovation story of them and their company. The leaders talk about how their company started, what things they did to maintain trust amongst their employees, how they managed the crisis they faced, the culture of the company and so on. As the book talks about the big brands and how they have grown up in India over time with all norms, it sounds a bit artificial because of the way they are cramped up in 5-6 pages each.

In the first chapter, Mr. Ratan Tata talks about how in India it is difficult to have and execute innovative ideas due to work culture in large firms. Due to which, today he motivates young people who come up with new and innovative ideas. He has helped firms by mentoring them to grow, these companies later became suppliers. It shows how a large firm like Tata is helping nurture big ideas.

Suresh Krishna talks about work culture in the book by following the footsteps of his father to have a healthy relationship with his employees. Indian companies face a lot of problems with labors, which he has been able to manage very well in his company. The chairman of TVS Group does a ‘talk session’ with his employees at various locations and on several occasions, all members starting from the president to lowest rank employees were present. He shares with them about what’s happening in the firm, about competitors and gives them information which helps them grow. This helps to create ‘trust’ between labor and management.  

In the book, Nestle India is one of the brands that talk about their journey of Maggi and their crisis in 2015 which forced them to destroy more than 37,000 tonnes of Maggi noodles. Suresh Narayanan shares how they have faced the crisis and how it also helped them grow and become stronger as a brand.

The digital wallet Paytm is also mentioned in the book which is also one of the stars of India’s e-commerce revolution. Today Paytm is expanding aggressively even in small towns. Vijay Shekhar Sharma shares why they spend a lot of money on advertising. He states that he wants people to understand how they grew as a brand and how smart-phones and the internet have helped them do so. 

The story of Asian Paints stands out in all. The brand leader talks about how Asian Paints have changed the perspective of people looking at their homes. They started their journey from consumers “painting their home occasionally” to “consumers painting their homes more often”. Their campaign “Har ghar kuch kheta hai, ki iske andar kaun rehta hai” has changed a lot for them and the country.

All the brands like Godrej, Fabindia, HDFC Bank, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Himalaya and many others mentioned in the book have changed a lot over time. More importantly, they have also changed the perspective of their consumers in their sectors.

According to me, the book has got some missing points on various brands like Infosys, where it doesn’t talk about significant insight about the changes the companies are facing at the moment- the new realities and how they are tackling the changes which they are facing over time.

The book ‘Innovation Stories from India Inc’ is not a biography of a single company’s innovation but it has got innovations of various companies from different sectors in general. The book is narrating the challenges of the growth and survival of multiple companies in their each stage. It is a book that teaches readers about how business leaders have built their own companies.