Tag: Public Relations

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.

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.

99. RT online Conclave

Posted on by Neha Goyal

As we know, communication professionals have been the solution providers in every critical situation since decades. With this new normal of going digital, work from home and social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reputation Today in partnership with SCoRe decided to organise its very first online conclave. The RT conclave that was scheduled this month in Delhi has been postponed due to the pervasive outbreak. To have a discussion on the current situation and how to go about it, some of the best communication professionals from PR firms and corporates from various sectors were part of this conversation. The panel of 16 members with a moderator and anchor delivered a short and crisp message in an average of three minutes on topics like How Companies are Dealing with Volatility, Uncertainty, Chaos & Ambiguity.

It was a great opportunity for me to attend and enrich myself with insights on how organizations are responding to the ongoing pandemic, and how reputations are at stake. My 3 key takeaways during such a situation from the #RTConclave are:

  1. Brands should focus on what they stand for, their purpose, how can they give back to society rather than getting distracted during such a challenging time
  2. Being authentic, engaging and having a meaningful conversation in these trying times is important for all communicators
  3. No matter how difficult the scenario is, brands should be empathetic and humane not only to their customers but towards all their stakeholders

But above all, the biggest reminder during this conversation was ‘we the communication professionals are in the people’s business at the end of the day’.

Other than discussing how communication professionals can bring normalcy to this situation, the conversation ended with an action to bring awareness and commitment towards caution and health. People from Reputation Today, PRCAI, SCoRe along with the panellists, pledged to fiercely uphold our profession as never before by promising to stay safe, to stand by their clients and to be ethical no matter what. Anyone from PR fraternity can take this pledge and be a part to communicate better even during these testing times.

94. Forty thousand

Posted on by Neha Goyal

“Deepa didi ko pareshan maat karro” said our help lady from the kitchen
“Koi baat nai Rita di”

“Didi maine yeh kitaba(books) dekhu?”
“Ha, ha kyu nai. How is your school going Deepa?”
“School? Main school nai jaati Didi”
“Kyu? School toh jaana chaiya na?”

Deepa was clueless as she didn’t know what to reply.

I went to kitchen and asked Rita di, “Didi app Deepa ko school kyu nai bhejte? School toh bhejna chaiya na.”
“Didi maine toh bhejna chahti huu, pr yeh log itna paise mangte hai ki main kya karru. Iselia aise ghar pe rakhna pdta hai ki kuch nai toh mere sath kaam hi sikh leggi.”
“Yeh toh glt baat hai Didi.” Instantly I decided to step up and take the initiative to teach her. “Abb se Deepa ko roz main shaam ko padha dungi.”

I taught Deepa for a year and while teaching her I realised how students like Deepa, who have good grasping power are not able to get proper schooling due to the lack of education system in India. Even when government schools should provide free education they are lacking to do so. They take a certain amount of money that the number of underprivileged people is not able to afford due to which they don’t send their kids for education. People, who still manage to do that, are also not getting proper education due to improper teaching faculty and infrastructure.

The lack of education system is one of the causes that I really care about and what I would like to do something about. Being a public relations student, I would like to do a PR campaign about it to improve the condition within the budget of forty thousand.

First, through the help of social media, I would create awareness about the lack of education among underprivileged children. I would post about it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and so on, and also ask my friends and family to post as well to create a buzz. They will post the story of one child who is not able to get proper schooling and will nominate three other people to do the same and make people talk about it. Through this, a chain will be created and I will also collaborate with influencers to reach out to a larger audience.

I will talk to various NGOs who can help to improve this situation. Other than this, I will reach out to various brands that can collaborate and invest in this CSR activity. With the help of this, we can also create a site, where people who care about the same cause can donate a certain amount of money that can help these kids.

A small initiative can make a big difference.

93. My take on Ethics

Posted on by Neha Goyal

Ethics according to me is a value that deals more with principles. They help us decipher the right from wrong while also guiding us through. These values form the core and govern a person’s behavior in determining how they conduct themselves. People with good ethics recognize the difference between the do’s and don’ts and they constantly strive to set an example of good demeanor. These are the individuals who are more likely to treat people as they would want to be treated. In Public Relations, I feel possessing the attributes of honesty and equality is most important. Honesty in terms of work and dedication, and equality when it comes to maintaining relationships. These two aspects play a sturdy role to grow and lead towards the right path of success. 

In the dynamic and ever-evolving fraternity of Public Relations, PR professionals are representatives of a brand; not only among the media and the brand’s stakeholders but also as representatives of the firm. While representing an organization, they operate professionally and do nothing to dishonor who they represent. The professionals are put in a spot where they have to know the difference between proper and improper and face situations like:

  • Clients asking them to fulfill their unrealistic expectations
  • Journalists seeking exclusive/sensitive information 
  • Marketing departments making dubious claims about the upcoming or existing products
  • Employers forcibly asking to go overboard in order to bring business results

To administrate such significant tasks, professionals are hired based on their talent and their ethical values. They are responsible to disseminate correct information to various stakeholders due to which the professionals need to possess the quality of ethics in them. Sometimes professionals get into a dilemma where they are asked to take a route which they think is unethical. 

But, why someone should be ethical? How does one define the ethical boundaries? How does one understand that s/he is ethical enough?

In response to the above mentioned questions, I would say ‘Why should someone not be ethical?’ Today, we live in a competitive space where many times people don’t know if their actions are ethical or not. But, can this be justified or used as an excuse?

For me, ethics is something that depends on my personality, where I make a decision that makes my conscious feel right regardless of the consequences. I would rather be honest and do what is right instead of doing something wrong and benefiting from it. Respecting others, treating everyone equally, and taking responsibility of my own work (facing the brickbats or even receiving recognition). My go-to mantra is, ‘Honesty Pays!’ as it helps to gain the trust of all key stakeholders and people around.

Being a public relations student of SCoRe, I strongly believe and agree with one of the core values that says ‘No matter how high the stakes or how tough the competition is, I should be HONEST’. It helps and will continue helping me in the long run.

#EthicsMatter

92. Public Relations for Entertainment Industry

Posted on by Neha Goyal

In India, enormous numbers of people are attracted to the entertainment industry and a million dreams are woven by it. This industry has a phenomenal follower base across the globe that is growing with time. It is like a rat race to be in the eyes of the outside world where an immense amount of effort and research is put. In deciding, how they should be in front of the audience.

The entertainment business is not only limited to producing, directing, investing and performing. But unlike any other sector promotions, marketing, advertising, and public relations are also a huge part of it, to make money and to build its reputation.

In this sector the public relations done is quite different from any other. For example- a PR for a movie is quite different from that of movie celebrities. And the same goes for other aspects of this industry (theatre, artist, channels, etc).

I am not stating any facts based on the Google search but from the things I have been learning recently. The television channel is promoted through the shows that air on that channel. Interesting story pegs are disseminated that talks about the upcoming episode, what challenges or interesting things they faced while shooting for the episode. During the launch of a new reality show, the artist/host does various media interactions and activities to promote their show and talks about what viewers should expect from the show. To promote a movie channel, the public relations is done by talking about the movies that are going to air on television for the first time. The PR campaign revolves around the premiere of the movie that has already been released in theatre. It helps them to build a conversation about how the channel is the first one to bring it on television.

Media interactions, PR campaigns, disseminating stories, city visits with the actors are some of the things that are done. And these are few ways in which public relations of entertainment sector is quite different and also a bit challenging than others.