Tag: Communication

Global trends post COVID-19 in Public Relations

Posted on by Neha Goyal

It goes without saying that during this unprecedented time that we are facing today is impacting both our personal and professional lives where we are learning to adapt and survive to this new normal. Similarly, the profession of Public Relations is also going through a change because here we need to communicate with various stakeholders in order to maintain goodwill, reputation, and trust as well as keep engaging with consumers.

This pandemic has changed the way we use to consume information and going digital is a new mantra. As businesses, brands and everything is finding space online so is the communication through platforms like e-paper, blogs, articles, podcasts, webinars, e-meetings, virtual events, and so on. With this shift of virtual or social experience, the need to develop relationships, build a reputation, and brand awareness is becoming more advanced day-by-day.

Public relations is playing the most important role in a crisis of this magnitude where they are:

  • Providing factual and trustworthy information
  • Being empathetic and transparent
  • Keeping employees and customer motivated

Other than the well-being of employees, customers, partners, and public safety; various organizations and brands are focusing on making people feel comfortable with the new normal.

The demand for creative solutions for various stakeholders is growing and having big budgets is not an option now. The focal point is more on how genuine sincerity, compassion, and humanity is shown as well as keeping the audience entertained 24*7. In the coming days, various trends in public relations are going to change. Some of them are:

  • Rewrite the corporate reputation playbook – As this pandemic is unfolding day by day, companies are also discovering the power of digital or social media. They can write about how digital media is helping them, the crisis or disasters that they have been facing in real-time and how they are successfully emerging from it. It is also important to show equity, diversity, and inclusion as the core values. Showcasing how they are future-proofing their business in this difficult time can also be one of the topic that can be covered in the playbook.
  • Prioritizing employees – Not everyone is going to feel safe post COVID, corporate houses need to work harder to make their employees safe. It can be done by making their employees feel supported emotionally, physically, and psychologically. For example, not everyone will feel comfortable in telling how they feel about interacting or getting in contact with others. Organizations can put wrist bands on the entrance of different colors stating what that color band means. For example, red color means the person wants to maintain distance. This way, the organization is helping its employees to subtly communicate among themselves about how much they are comfortable.
  • Experimental marketing is going hybrid – Large gatherings, events, and press conferences are not going to start anytime soon. Experiences are getting redesigned where communicators are working to be a blend of life and digital. Brands need to alter the way they interact and have to come up with technology-based campaigns.
  • Infodemic – The traditional outlets need to adapt modern formats quickly to deliver essential facts and invalidate rumors and disinformation. We are already seeing a lot of print publications across the globe is already shifting to digital media as reliable information and preeminent voices are the need of the hour. Even brands need to come up with new creative ideas where they can be the thought leaders in their certain categories to stand out in the cluttered market space.
  • Understand people’s vulnerabilities and hopes – Instead of just focusing on how can brand sell their product, they also need to learn and manage how to understand the vulnerabilities of their consumers in the ongoing scenario and accordingly fulfill their hopes.
  • Build media relations on the virtual platform – Public relations professionals need to build a relationship with journalists as it helps them to communicate about their brand. But during this social distancing time, it is getting difficult as they are facing problems in doing so especially the newcomers. Creating a special portal for virtual interaction to build relationships is the need of the hour and is also going to become a new normal.
  • Re-invest in employees – In this time, it is important for leaders to re-invest in their employee’s learning and training to be more active, be highly advanced digitally and come up with communication tactics for these platforms. Not only this, professionals also need to learn how to evaluate outcome of the campaigns that they will start doing more digitally in the coming days.

Public relations as a profession is a very dynamic fraternity that keeps changing with time. It is important for professionals to stay ahead of the curve as big problems demand big changes and to face this new chapter, organizations will need to prepare and plan.

The Importance of Measurement in Public Relations

Posted on by Neha Goyal

When we think about our life, do we always try to measure our happy and sad moments?

Well, we all know it’s a debatable topic but the concluding point that we all will arrive at is sometimes we do it very enthusiastically and sometimes we don’t. In our life, we all have come across a famous quote that says, “Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured, matters.”

But that is not the case with our professional life. When it comes to our business we all want to know its impact on our consumers. A brand relies on its reputation whether it is good or bad. To protect and nurture, a brand puts a lot of effort that also includes promoting and building a perspective through public relations. But while investing money the most common question companies ask is, ‘Does Public Relations work?’, ‘How can we understand what is working for our brand and what is not?’ or ‘What’s the ROI we are getting?’

A PR campaign needs to be measured not only because it is a client’s requirement but it helps the consultancy as well in the following ways:

  • Measure our work more strategically and improve our future campaigns
  • What does our target audience expect from the brand
  • To know what part of the campaign was beneficial and what was detrimental
  • Understand which platform is mainly used by our target consumers
  • Make the outcomes more effective than the outputs
  • Can lead to more opportunities through the derived new insights that might change an approach and create a larger impact
  • Results will be more concrete and will help in understanding the difference between short term and long term results

Traditionally, measuring public relations was a struggle and people started doing it through Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE). A lot of PR consultancies in our country still use the AVE method, without understanding the unique dynamics of public relations compared to advertising.

We, communication professionals, work to build goodwill, reputation, affinity, trust and create engagement among its various stakeholders. While doing this, a comparison of earned media with paid media and calculating according to its size and placement can be stated as an invalid metric. Therefore AVE can show us misleading data as it lacks a correct methodology for us to understand how it impacted an organisation’s goodwill, helped in achieving the business objective, or how it increased the demand for that product/service.

The conversation around PR measurement still seems uncomfortable but the change is happening. A commitment to measurement is a commitment to improvement. It will help us to develop learning experiences, identify and gauge our target audience, plan for the future, and achieve business objectives. Therefore, using the right measurement tool can lead to better things in the world of public relations as we cannot change the past, but we can still do a lot for the future.

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.  

Towards the new learning’s

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Like a lot of people, even I am one of them who has thought about what I would have been doing if we weren’t facing this pandemic and lockdown. Well, most of the time my thoughts were related to how my life would have been right now in Mumbai. This week I completed my 10 months post-graduate program from my home which would have in actual ended with me being with my friends enjoying the last few days of course.

In the past 10 months, we have done a lot of stuff that is usually not so common in every PR and communication institute. Be it attending and volunteering at major PR events of the country, masterclasses by top professionals of the industry, workshops on various skills, experts taking our regular classes, or building connections. But then the pandemic happened which gave us a new virtual world to learn and do various things.

Since we are graduating, in the past two weeks we have attended various masterclasses by the top leaders of top PR consultancies. All of them shared their journey where they told us their stories, their experiences, how they have learned, and how they reached where they are today. At the end of the session, they all left us with some guidelines that we as a fresher should follow. Some of the points that were shared by all of them are:

  1. Ignorance is not bliss. Always keep learning and reading, ask the right questions, and understand your business inside out. Investing in yourself helps to expand your horizon.
  2. Chose a mentor for yourself and learn to leverage good things from them.
  3. Learn to build connections with people in every interaction.
  4. Always take a moment to reflect on what you do and be focused on self-awareness. It helps to know your strengths, weakness, and attitude.
  5. Play devil’s advocate with yourself and be your own critique.
  6. Never give up. You may not give your best but it is okay because initiative, will to work, and motivating yourself is very important.
  7. You can do anything in life but not everything.

With all the learning’s in the past 10 months these are some of the thoughts that I take with me as I start my career in the world of public relations and communications.

110. The Communicators’ Assembly Point – 3

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Focus- ‘Healthcare Communications’

It’s been more than 60 days since the Janta curfew happened in India which led to a lockdown and the number of COVID’19 cases has been rising since then. Before all this started we all remember how in early March, we were hunting for facemasks and hand sanitisers to stay away from this so-called virus. But do you remember those fake news getting spread on WhatsApp and other platforms that said we can cure this disease by eating garlic, liquor can be used instead of sanitiser, and so on.

Well, we have come a long way since then and now when one goes to the pharmacy they can easily find sanitisers in multiple colors by multiple brands. But, how did the healthcare sector managed the turbulence of this pandemic? How are they communicating with their various stakeholders and also busting fake news that is getting spread? How are they navigating reputation in the Post-COVID era? How do they plan to take communication ahead? This week, on the third edition of The Communicators’ Assembly Point, organised by Adfactors PR in partnership with Reputation Today focused on the ‘Healthcare Communications’.

“Post-COVID is not the right term because all the conversation in the healthcare right now is that for a foreseeable future we might have to learn to live with it so, when is post-COVID is actually nobody can predict,” says Noumaan Qreshi the healthcare practice lead at Adfactors PR who moderated the discussion. He also shared that the data analysis of the news coverage says that since the lockdown, ‘healthcare’ has got the highest visibility in terms of all the subjects.

Technology Adoption

Jasrita Dhir, Head of Brand, Marketing, & CSR, Fortis Healthcare started the conversation on this topic by taking the example of the city Bangalore when medical councils were not willing to issue a certification for e-consulting. She said, “Bangalore is one of the markets that said we need to mitigate the risk to both health care workers as well as ourselves.” She also mentioned that all market is not the same and requires a different level of patience and communication tools as “one size doesn’t fit all”.

Ms. Dhir also spoke about how like any other crisis even during the beginning of COVID healthcare communicators had to deal and bust the fake news and myths that were going around as well as share the government policies with people.

By now, we all are aware of one of the facts about diagnostics is that it’s highly technical and scientific for a layman to understand. “Diagnostics has always been in the backyards, wherein most of the hospital diagnostics labs are in the basement,” says Rufina Magline, Head of Communications, Roche Diagnostics. She shares, “In COVID times we are talking about the importance of diagnostics. It forms the bases of 60% of all clinical decisions in the world.” She opines that “The role of healthcare communicators today is not so much as talking about the adoption of technology but rather simplifying the role of technology in healthcare communications.”

Bhavna Singh the Senior Director Communications of OPPI highlighted a very important statement which we all will agree to is, “Today more than ever, the whole world is looking at the healthcare industry with very expectant eyes to come out with a probable solution to the pandemic”. She shares that the stories of researchers, scientists, inspiration, motivation, and stories of their team is something they are doing to engage with their audience.

“Leveraging the adoption of technology is something that we cannot push away,” says Manjira Sharma the Head of External Communications, Lupin. She shared how her team and the new trainees have been “communicating on virtual platforms”. Even the doctors and patients in smaller cities had to figure out a way to communicate with each other and virtual communication was needed to maintain the social distancing.

Future communication opportunities

People are seeking for the right information and as a communicator it is important to share ‘authentic, sharp and focused information’ and with the help of digital we can share ‘personalized’ message as well, shares Bhavna.  

Jasrita says, the communication has been happening across the spectrum was ‘patient-centric’ but the collaboration between the private sector and government came across really well. Also the role of communicators was in ‘laying the fears and injecting positivity’.

We need to understand that healthcare is all about responsibility towards people and we cannot be seen as opportunistic. But we also need to remember that people are going to believe what we are saying, says Rufina. Adding to that she says that, striding the right balance of sounding and being sensitive to the needs of people and healthcare communication is not a privilege but a ‘responsibility’ where one needs to ‘be careful’ with what they are communicating.  

Manjira opines that it is the responsibility of communicators to burst and debunk myths, and fake news that is revolving around the internet. As practitioners, we not only have to talk to our customers and leadership teams about COVID but also other diseases that we can’t leave behind like hospital access becoming difficult. The frontline conversation needs to be done with full ‘transparency’ and ‘responsible communication’ across all important areas.

Contextual Listening

There is a lot of appetite to listen among consumers but it is not just important to listen but also drive them to decision making, shares Rufina. ‘We are not ahead of the curve but we are just catching the tail. We might not have answers every time but we do try to respond to them. We also are working on mental health issues, listening, and helping people through free helpline’ shares Jasrita. She also highlights a point that we have been learning all this while is “the crisis of today overtakes and overshadows the crisis of yesterday. But, it shouldn’t happen in the case of healthcare.” Adding to that she said ‘It is important for we communicators to listen and be responsive all the time.’

Bhavna pointed out the golden rule for a communicator that says ‘listen more and speak less’. Adding to that she says, ‘it’s not COVID that is going to drive the ecosystem of healthcare but the patient’s well being’.

Top priorities for healthcare communicators

Bhavna shares, ‘Sensitizing patients’, ‘infusing positivity and hope’, and ‘regain and rebuild trust’ with various stakeholders. Manjira opines that during COVID, healthcare communicators shouldn’t forget other priorities as well and ‘proactively do mainline campaigns’ to remove the stigma against COVID.

Rufina says that, it is important for healthcare communicators to ‘continue and build on the goodwill’ and ‘enhance the reputation’ of the healthcare industry as a sector among diverse stakeholders. Jasrita highlights that it is important for healthcare communicators to ‘find the balance between agility of response and ensuring the veracity of response’, ‘celebrate the stories of recovery’, and ‘lead the digital transformation journey for their own organisation’.

In conclusion, I would like to say that it was a very insightful and interesting discussion that was held. It left the viewers with a better understanding of how healthcare communicators are dealing with the current situation, what they should keep in mind while communicating with their stakeholders in the near future, and how this pandemic has made the healthcare sector adapt to becoming digital. As we all know, this is the time when e-consulting and telemedicine came in more vigorously in India which says a lot about how the use of digital is going to increase.

As Jasrita said, ‘We are in it together; either we are going to swim together or going to sink together. Hopefully swim together.”

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UXBFtMeKcc

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.

100. Pledge completed

Posted on by Neha Goyal

What are we “putting down” when we “put it down on paper”: a current of thought, a torrent of emotions, the first incisions of a decision?

Eight months back, when I started my post-graduation program in Public Relations, the first thing we were told was- ‘You all have to write 100 blogs within 10 months’. Trust me I couldn’t sleep that night as my thoughts were filled with how am I going to complete this task. The person who hesitates and avoids writing, how is she going to complete this? Initially, it looked impossible to me as prior to that I never wrote blogs. Still while writing my first blog I took a pledge to complete a hundred blogs within ten months.

After taking that pledge, there was no turning back. Today, here I am, completing my hundredth blog in eight months. Well, it wasn’t an easy journey for me where I wrote weekly blogs, monthly book reviews as well as did a 60-day blog challenge. In my 60-day blog challenge, I use to write one blog every day for 60 days and two blogs on Sundays. To some, it may sound easy, but let me tell you it wasn’t as easy it sounds.

Like the life of a PR professional, life in SCoRe (School of Communication and Reputation) is challenging and every day is unpredictable. It was hard for me to write daily with my assignments, presentations, back to back classes and volunteering work on weekends. Still anyhow I managed to do it to keep up my resolution of completing the challenge, the pledge that I took and most importantly not backing off from my own words.

The majority of times we had to decide what we’ll write for our blog posts and daily coming up with a new topic was a task. Deciding a subject and writing a blog used to get difficult on days when I didn’t know what I should write on or when I was already dying with a lot of assignments.

However, I am proud of myself that I did what I had never even dreamt of and completed a hundred blog posts. While writing these blogs, I explored various topics by reading and writing about them. I shared my personal experiences, what new things I learned, gave my point of view on different things. I won’t say that my blogs are good but it helped me improve my writing skills and communicate with clarity. It also taught me how to be active even after a long tiring day which is highly required in the field of communication.

These blogs, they taught me that one needs to keep pushing and move out of their comfort zone in order to achieve something.

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.

91. Before pitching a client

Posted on by Neha Goyal

If we start counting the number of brands we have at present, we will probably end up losing the calculation. This is exactly how the world is becoming because of the innumerable brands around us. Every product has got a fair amount of competitors in the market that is making it difficult for them to stand out in the eyes of the consumers/audience. Marketing and advertising help these brands to grab the eyeballs of the target audience but it is public relations that help them majorly in retaining them. Positive perception is created by brands through reputation management and hence they are hiring consultancies for the same.

While brands are looking for consultancies, the consultancies need to pitch them with a correct and strong research work of the sector/industry. It should have proper facts to impress and gain the confidence of the potential client. Following are some of the crucial research that a brand does before pitching to a client:

  • Basic Research– The process starts with the secondary research about a brand. The information encloses every single detail about the brand extracted from their websites. Articles, where they have been mentioned, are also used as it helps to know how the brand is perceived in the market. 
  • Consumer Dipstick- It helps to know the current positioning of the brand in the minds of the target audience. It helps the consultancies in ideation and what they can do to make the brand better and expand its audience base.
  • Social Media Analysis- It helps to know the honest opinion of consumers for the brand/company. It assists in analyzing what are the users talking about the brand and its competitors. It also aids to understand how the brands are communicating their message and if it is reaching the right audience or not. This also helps to understand what are they trying to communicate and whether it is working at the moment.
  • Media Dipstick- It is important to know which is the media covering the beat and seek an expert opinion. Media knows the industry and that particular brand in and out. Conducting the correct measures with the right media helps to churn out the right information and show the correct indulgence of research work to convince the potential client.  

Research is the key to seek accurate inferences and to keep forward more planned and creative ideas for the brands to stand out in the market.