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Here’s how PR helps businesses: it improves revenue, profitability, customer base, shareholder perception, competitive edge, media exposure and awareness. It is a powerful business tool. The need of the hour is to stop functioning as media relations experts and turn into strategic communications consultants, using all the various tools we have – including social media and creative services – in an integrated manner to deliver business outcomes rather than mere media coverage. Only then will clients realise the value of PR and pay the right price for it. At this point, the average PR retainer is Rs 20 lakh per annum. In comparison, the average advertising retainer is Rs 2 crore.
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President, MSLGroup Asia |
A 24-year veteran of MSL, Glenn Osaki oversees MSLGroup’s Asia operations today, and is also a member of Publicis Groupe’s China management board. Prior to moving to Shanghai in January 2005, Osaki was Managing Director of MSLGroup’s Los Angeles office for six years. His Asia experience includes regional management for clients such as The Coca-Cola Company, Procter & Gamble, Philips, Sunkist, Johnson & Johnson, Underwriters Laboratories, Nestle, World Gold Council, SPX Corporation, Business Software Alliance and numerous assignments for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He also managed public affairs, PR and events for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s trade missions to Tokyo in November 2004 and to China (Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong) in November 2005.
Highly regarded within the industry, Osaki has won some four dozen global and regional PR industry awards. He holds an MA in Public Relations from the University of Southern California, School of Journalism.
In this interaction with exchange4media’s Shanta Saikia, Osaki shares the opportunities and challenges that the PR industry faces today, addressing the talent crunch issue and bringing about a more measurable system in the industry. |
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The PR industry is not doing enough PR for itself. Comment. |
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Yes, there are great opportunities being missed. For instance, there is little collaboration within the industry on various issues such as benchmarks for fees and salaries, partnering with educational institutions to create training courses suited to the industry and putting in place performance measurement systems that take into account the quality of engagement rather than the spread of media coverage. A functioning, robust industry association would go a long way in correcting some this. |
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Assocham has pegged the PR industry’s worth in India at $6 billion (Rs 27,000 crore), while the MSLGroup White Paper states the figure at Rs 700-800 crore (about $140 million). How did this figure become so inflated? How did you arrive that this figure? |
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Assocham’s numbers are a gross exaggeration. Our estimates put the combined revenue for India’s top 10 agencies – such as MSLGROUP India and Adfactors – in the region of Rs 400-500 crore (roughly $100 million). The income of smaller agencies and independent professionals would likely add on Rs 200-300 crore (about $40 million). Overall, that’s Rs 700-800 crore (about $140 million).
All of the above figures are well-known within the industry.
There’s more evidence. Many independent surveys say the size of the Indian advertising industry is Rs 10,000-12,000 crore ($2.2-2.5 billion). How can the PR industry, which is much smaller, clock Rs 27,000 crore?
Such flawed estimates take the focus away from the real issues: a serious talent and infrastructure shortfall and a legacy of distrust between clients and agencies.
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What steps need to be taken to make clients recognise the value of PR and pay the right price? |
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Here’s how PR helps businesses: it improves revenue, profitability, customer base, shareholder perception, competitive edge, media exposure and awareness. It is a powerful business tool.
The need of the hour is to stop functioning as media relations experts and turn into strategic communications consultants, using all the various tools we have – including social media and creative services – in an integrated manner to deliver business outcomes rather than mere media coverage.
Only then will clients realise the value of PR and pay the right price for it. At this point, the average PR retainer is Rs 20 lakh per annum. In comparison, the average advertising retainer is Rs 2 crore. |
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What can be done to boost talent in the PR industry? What’s the kind of investment needed for it? |
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We face a serious talent issue. On the one hand, it’s in short supply. On the other hand, good talent is rapidly snapped up by corporate communications departments. The PR industry simply can’t match the salaries and perks they offer.
It is up to us to make clients understand that unless they pay fair rates, we cannot boost services – simply because we can’t afford to hire the talent to do so. Having said that, there are opportunities to correct this through training, benchmarking salary ranges at an industry level and associating with educational institutions to create courses that churn out better trained professionals.
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What kind of growth incentives can the industry offer to aid personal and professional growth among PR professionals? |
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For us, training is the most powerful tool. PR firms invest little in upgrading employees’ skills; most of the learning is on the job. As the industry expands beyond traditional PR, the skill sets required in communications professionals are also changing. The industry needs a common approach to the retention-and-attrition problem. It should involve talent management, career growth, guidance and career development plans.
Training should be implemented across all levels. At MSLGroup India, 2-3 per cent of total revenues are spent on training, which includes interaction with industry experts, hands-on training, etc. |
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What are the key challenges in implementing integrated strategic communications today? How does one overcome them? |
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The key is getting clients to see the value of integrated strategic communications and paying for it. It can be overcome only by, first of all, investing in such capabilities and then engaging with clients regularly to make them see why it is important. There is also a mindset within the industry that prevents people from looking beyond media relations. Like all great change, it must begin within us. Thankfully, the new generation of PR executives seems to understand this. |
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How can social media give a boost to the PR industry? |
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Social networks have become ubiquitous, and online behaviour is having a significant impact on the behaviour of consumers and business. Increasingly, products are purchased in urban India only after they are researched online and opinions sought on social media. Such a scenario makes PR more important, as traditional advertising is reaching fewer people, and the true value of online advertising is yet to be calculated. Investments in digital infrastructure and skills today will see a big payout in the future.
Implementing a social engagement strategy is now fundamental to a PR campaign. Social media campaigns might focus explicitly on connecting clients directly to consumers or even on building relationships with influencers. Models can be evolved for a variety of goods and services, from fast moving consumer goods to global events. This can be achieved by becoming part of the community of your clients’ consumers, joining the conversation to learn more about their needs. Use the tools that consumers are using, be it Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or blogs. |
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What growth scope does corporate social responsibility offer the PR industry? |
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Today, businesses are judged to a large extent on the basis of how they affect society. It’s not just about profits any more. Those businesses that are serious about CSR automatically offer us a great opportunity to build their brands and push their key messages. That’s because society is more open to them than it is to those that pursue profits only. |
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How can niche PR agencies survive in a tough competitive environment? How do they sustain the momentum? |
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Small, specialised teams within organisations or as separate entities can be more effective in some cases. Niche PR can address the really small segments or have a tiny-yet-unique offering. For instance, specialists in Indian languages or in developing content. The current economic crisis might spur the rise of niche PR agencies, offering communications services in a single sector or aimed at a particular ethnic group. Niche PR provides better value than general-purpose agencies since they are more targeted. This makes the PR campaign more affordable. PR professionals with niche experience are viewed as experts because they have built up experience and made important connections in that field. |
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On the one hand there is talk about the growth of niche PR, and then there is stress on the need to expand beyond India. Is there a contradiction somewhere? How can it all be woven together? |
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We see no contradiction. Those agencies that have expertise in a sector will be well placed to offer their services to clients abroad too. For instance, a firm that focuses exclusively on technology in India would be a more natural choice for a Singaporean tech company than a traditional PR firm based there. |
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What measurement tools are available to measure the effectiveness/ impact of PR campaigns? Are these adequate or is there need for more sophisticated tools? |
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The first step is to get an industry-wide consensus on deliverables. We need to strengthen our evaluation models. Stop talking about ad-value equivalents and start pointing out how a PR campaign changes an entire viewpoint. There is a crying need for benchmarks and an industry-wide framework for performance measurement. |
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What parameters should be kept in mind while designing a measurement tool for PR? |
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Goal-setting and measurement are fundamental to any service. Goals should be as quantitative as possible and the target audience defined. Measurement should include traditional and social media, effect on awareness of stakeholders, as well as impact on business results, such as impact on sales.
•Measure outcomes, not outputs: Outcomes include shifts in awareness, purchase behaviour, corporate reputation, employee engagement, public policy and investment decisions.
•Media measurement is about quality: Measuring the number of mentions in print or on the air is generally meaningless. Instead, media measurement should involve audience impressions, quality of the media coverage (tone, credibility and relevance of the medium to the audience, message delivery).
•Social media can be measured: There is no single ‘metric’ for social media measurement. The parameters would depend on the campaign objective. Right now, it’s mostly about statistics such as how many likes have been achieved on Facebook or the number of Twitter followers.
•But it’s not about the numbers; it’s about managing reputations online.
•Transparency and reliability: PR measurement should be transparent. For media measurement, mention clearly the source along with analysis methodology. For surveys, make clear the methodology (sample, margin of error, geography, etc), the questions (wording and order) and statistical methodology (how specific metrics are calculated). |
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Have you seen any fallout of the recent ‘scandals’ in the PR environment on the industry in India? |
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The Niira Radia controversy affected the image of the industry. It reinforced the perception that the industry is one large spin doctor and, worse, aids corruption. This is very unfortunate. It takes away from the honest work that an overwhelming majority of PR professionals put in and the value that they deliver. |
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How was 2011 for MSLGroup in India? |
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It was a year of jumps and gains as also of challenges and hurdles. After a fruitful 2010, which saw us acquire a host of clients leading to a healthy growth story for the agency, 2011 was a challenging year given the lull in financial markets and the possibility of another slowdown striking the industry. But we did post a 20 per cent growth rate in 2011 that was followed by the launch of a host of new ventures.
The year has been a good one, I would say. From a business point of view, the year was good because we tried a few things differently. We started focusing on certain practices and industries; started looking at offering better solutions for our clients… Also, in areas like content and insights, where we were not doing much earlier, those are the areas that we have invested in now. We have started pursuing digital very aggressively although we were doing that in the past few years as well. The other area that we have gotten into is employee engagement and working with companies on their employee communication.
But while we had a good year, it was also a tough one – partly because the market has become very competitive. My feeling is that 2010 has been a bit better than 2011 and that is also because of the fact that there has been a slowdown in the second half of 2011. Overall, it has been an okay year for us. In addition to beefing up our client list, we’ve also undertaken different initiatives to further strengthen our position as one of India’s leading integrated communication specialist.
As part of our endeavour to showcase our expertise and experience, we launched several thought leadership papers, analytical studies like Brand Anna, the Kolaveri Di craze, seeing opportunity in a downturn, etc. We also launched the Brand and Talent Practice in India, in collaboration with Saatchi & Saatchi Focus, also part of Publicis Groupe. An already established global employee communications offer, this suite of services has expanded to help Indian companies get the most from their investment in people by attracting, motivating and retaining the right talent to help grow their business.
In addition, our firm won recognition through some great industry awards:
•Hanmer MSL walked away with four awards at this year’s Big Bang Awards, including Gold for Star Plus in the ‘Entertainment Communication Programme’ category, Silver for Au Bon Pain in the ‘Social Media Campaign’ category and two Bronze for Bonjour India & DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in the ‘Brand/ Product/ Service Campaign’ category.
•Best Use of Public Relations by Private Sector Entity – Agency: Winner: Hanmer MSL – Campaign: Embassy of France (Bonjour India) at the first ever Indian PR and Corporate Communication Awards (IPRCCA) 2011 |
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What were the major wins in the year gone by? |
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Hanmer MSL won clients like History TV18, Neo Sports, Biocon, Credai Bengaluru, BOC India, HTC Corporation, SBI General Insurance, Eureka Forbes, Channel [v], Star Movies, Star Gold, Fox International Channel–India, JW Marriott Chandigarh, The Himalaya Drug Company, Abt. Associates, and Somany Ceramics, to name a few. |
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ID. However, all queries addressed to e4mfeedback@exchange4media.com
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"To our mind, the PR industry is coming of age in India with promise of high growth. Because it is still in many ways experimental, the Indian market is far more creative, and bolder than the international market, which tends to work within the box. However, there needs to be stronger strategic thinking, better tailored tools and tactics for each client..."
Srimoyi Bhattacharya,
Managing Director & Gayatri Hingorani, Managing Partner - Peepul PR, New York, USA -
3/5/2008 |
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"The key to successful integrated marketing communications is to treat all marketing disciplines as equal. All key players, advertising, PR, promotions, direct marketing, online marketing, and event marketing collaborate as equal partners to develop the best strategy for achieving marketing objectives. Euro RSCG is committed to the ‘Power of One’, and when we pitch for a new business, Euro RSCG Advertising, Euro RSCG PR, 4 D and MPG all strategise together. Closing the credibility gap is the biggest value add PR brings to the 360-degree marketing solution for clients."
Tara Kapur,
Vice-President - Euro RSCG PR & Events -
6/21/2006 |
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"There are subtleties in each market, but I am continually surprised at the consistency. The Indian market is very similar to the professional market in the US. As far as the media is concerned, I think the nature of the media markets impacts the business a little bit. In India, even the regional broadcast stations are broadcast nationally, which is different in the US, where we find weekend segments through a local market, which is more specific geographically. But as far as the general relationship with clients is concerned, how programmes are developed strategically, how the agency interacts with the publications… It is very consistent."
Will Ludlam,
Managing Director - Porter Novelli, Partner Asia Pacific and Seattle -
12/2/2005 |
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"I think it’s a part of any business to face changes in the shortest time and thereby, avoid crisis. Public Relations, if handled properly, can address any problem. I strongly believe, an image, built over a period of time based on goodwill and efficient services, does always come effective, irrespective of the kind of crisis."
NK Satish,
General Manager, Corporate Affairs - Spice Communications Ltd, Karnataka -
3/29/2004 |
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