Arijit Sengupta, Vice President, Weber Shandwick

Weber Shandwick, a unit of Interpublic Group of Companies, is one of the world’s leading public relations agencies with offices in major media, business and government capitals around the world. Weber Shandwick, is a leader in marketing public relations, public affairs and corporate communications counseling, and also provides services in advocacy advertising, market research and visual communications.

Arijit Sengupta has been with Weber Shandwick for over six years and his current portfolio includes Tourism Australia, Mittal Steel, Walt Disney, Jet Airways and General Mills, among others.

Sengupta, who has over 14 years’ experience in marketing and communications, has a Post Graduate degree in Financial Management and Mass Communications.

In conversation with Pritie S Jadhav, Sengupta talks about the PR industry in India and the major changes taking place in the sector. Excerpts:

Q. You have been in the PR industry for more than six years. What are the upside and downside of the changes that have taken place in these years in the industry?

It is believed that public relations’ ultimate aim is communicating the image of the organisation. Moving from a mindset of relationship-building to ‘confidence-building’, we alone have the experience and expertise to help unravel the tangled web of messages and misperceptions, dissolve confusion and mistrust, and build mutual confidence among groups so that globalisation can reach its full potential.

The public relations industry is the fastest growing industry in India and is estimated to be around Rs 128 crore. It constitutes around 0.7 per cent of the global market. While the average annual growth rate of the global public relations is said to be around 8 per cent the Indian public relations sector is growing at the rate of over 20 per cent.

The upside of the changes include:

Globalisation of PR in India: Asia is one great melting pot of people, culture and business, with a tremendous potential for PR professionals. As a result of this, a host of MNCs are setting up operations in Asian countries. In Southeast Asia, in countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, among others, this trend is now more or less established. But in countries like India and Sri Lanka, where the economies are being liberalised and reforms being introduced, the action is just beginning to take place. MNCs are setting up operations, investing in joint ventures and sourcing for products in a large number of industries and fields. Asia is the emerging leader poised to lead in global affairs, which will increasingly be dominated by economic rather than political considerations.

As world trade, free market systems, trading blocks, and industrialised, industrialising, and subsistence economies attempt to reposition themselves regionally and internationally, a new energetic and vibrant ethos permeates world order. Simultaneously, reflections at the onset of the third millennium of most nations have created new visions, directions, and challenges. With this has come an overwhelming responsibility on public relations as part of strategic communication in accomplishing the goals and dreams of nations and its people.

PR Tangibility: The measurement parameters have become more tangible and now and we are not asked to show numbers, but we always have to show value. It’s sort of ‘What have you done for me lately?’ The economic value of public relations can be measured by testing two relationships – The impact of public relations expense on reputation as a goal of PR and the economic impact of reputation on companies’ bottom lines. Outcome management is also an interdisciplinary approach to improving outcomes.

Measuring the value of PR services isn’t easy. But it can be done. Although counting articles and clippings demonstrate that a client is appearing appropriately, frequently, and in a targeted fashion, they don’t show changes in attitude relevant to the client’s brand and reputation. What clients really want is to be shown the money. When their most important customers are influenced and their behaviour change in a way that directly affects the company’s ledger, that’s great PR. Increased sales, increased share price, increased membership, increased sponsorship, funding, or other financial criteria are measurable and depend on strategic business planning and implementation best handled by senior public relation strategists. That’s how it really works.

PR has become a core management function: PR has become a management function and has become an integral part of the marketing mix. It is today identified as a unique capability in the corporate management mix.

PR practitioners have become strategic media counselors: Till date, PR professionals were more of ‘technicians’ who were concerned with the job of communication. The new role will call for a ‘strategist’ who can think business. The move will gradually be towards more strategic thinking, rather than technical issues like what to say and how to say. The role of research and counsel will become more important. PR professionals are earning a special place at the elbows of corporate executives by providing much needed strategic counsel. PP practitioners are becoming strategic counselors who are less pre-occupied with publicity in the mass media than their predecessors.

In the last 25 years, a small group of public relations scholars, first in the US, and now throughout the world, have made remarkable progress in developing a comprehensive theory of public relations that puts it at a par with recognised professions such as law, medicine, or education. At first, PR researchers borrowed heavily from other disciplines such as communication and other social and behavioural sciences. However, now they have developed their own body of research and theory.

The downside of the changes include:

Gin-and-Tonic Brigade: A spin doctor… that’s what a PR professional was termed as earlier. Then PR meant merely getting information into media without actually paying for it… except maybe a gin-and-tonic for the journalist. PR professionals were merely known as the Gin-and-tonic Brigade. However, over the past decade, the PR industry’s pedestal has been cracked by less than benchmark standards due to old school practices and it was synonymous only to press relations in earlier days. Since the target audiences of an organisation today cover a very wide spectrum, the conventional from of PR is not enough. We need a variety of activities and integrated communications to support them, all working in synergy. The current decade is a period that will spell change for the PR profession, and this is now being witnessed in India. It is no longer just the sweet-talking ‘spin doctors’ who can achieve results.

Yellow / Tabloid Journalism: Individuals / organisations with half baked knowledge enter the industry and encourage yellow journalism, which in the long run can damage the reputation of the organisation.

Q. Today, PR firms are dime a dozen. How does Weber Shandwick ensure that there is differentiation from other PR outfits?

We are an institutional organisation and maintain continuity in serving our brands consistently. Secondly, 90 per cent of Weber Shandwick brands are global, which implies that we have in place systems and processes that are at par with global standards. We are the only agency to have a performance based fee structure. Weber Shandwick ensures that the work that we do for all our clients is tangible and we also place equal importance on initiating non-media initiatives like identifying speaker forums, thought leadership platforms, etc.

Q. Do you think PR plays a secondary role in the entire communication process of a client or brand?

PR today is a complex profession practiced by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Some PR professionals are employed by a single organisation. Others work for PR firms that have many organisations as clients. PR people work for businesses, government agencies, professional and trade associations, non-profit charities, schools and universities, hospitals, hotels, and many more. They work for large and small organisations. Many PR people work entirely within their own country; others practice their profession on a global basis.

PR is but another management discipline. With an average annual growth of 8 per cent, the PR industry worldwide not only seems to be one of the most promising industries, but has also become an indispensable facet for brand management. In a report commissioned by the Council of PR Firms, economist Jaime de Pinies noted, “Despite the budget cuts, it appears that public relations as a discipline is increasingly valued by the firms in this server.” By contrast, advertising revenues have declined in the past decade.

Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains a mutually beneficial relationship between an organisation and the stakeholders on whom its success or failure depends. The role of PR today is like that of radar on impending problems and opportunities. An interpreter of change and environment and that of a motivator and catalyst to make others better communicators.

PR can help a brand cut through the ‘message clutter’ of today’s advertising and establish a priority position in the consumer’s mind. It helps create a positive selling environment by shaping a brand image, creating awareness, and establishing credibility, while advertising has its own merits. In pure marketing terms, we say PR helps build market share and categories, while advertising works to retain market share. PR surely plays a primary role in the entire communication process.

Q. How much time do you think PR will take to be seen and recognised in terms of its true power by clients and the industry as a whole?

With India getting globally integrated and brands / clients having single PR agencies across various markets, I think it is already being recognised in a big way. One can confidently say that outstanding PR campaigns have all had creative thinking contribute substantially to the overall delivery.

Q. Where does Weber Shandwick go from here? What kind of plans have you sketched for yourself?

Weber Shandwick will continuously add value to its clients with additional scope of consultancy such as brand mapping / consultancy. We will also provide research findings / reports to enable clients to perform better and also identify and initiate more and more non-media initiatives. Weber Shandwick will strive to scale higher standards of PR practices and will continue to maintain leadership position in the industry.

Q. You have had handled clients from various sectors, which have been your most satisfying projects?

It is extremely important to be heard and written as a ‘brand custodian’. The primary job of a PR professional is to creatively cut the clutter in media reporting and have a maximum share of visibility. However, to state a few strong PR campaigns… As far as lifestyle and tourism sector is concerned, I think Tourism Australia has been one the most satisfying projects. The brand was completely built through effective public relations and there was no support of advertising at all. The growth has been phenomenal, that is, 25 per cent y-o-y (68,000 year ending December 2005).

We also handle Jet Airways, which has been a great experience. We had handled the crisis (non-factual / misrepresentation in media) for Alliance Capital when the CIO departed / left the company. And Mittal Steel, where we are handling acquisition communications.

Q. What, according to you, are the important components of a good PR brief?

The better the brief, the better and more accurate the results. A properly written brief makes the process more efficient – that’s good for the client as well as the agency.

The requisites for a good brief are:

Written briefs: A combination of written and verbal briefing is ideal. Both the parties see enormous benefits in starting with a written document, which is then analysed by the agency and debated between the two teams.

Clarity of thinking: A good brief is not the longest or most detailed. It’s the one whose clarity and focus creates the platform for a strategic leap, a blinding customer insight and an effective solution. Briefs are call ‘briefs’ because they are meant to be brief. They are a summation of your thinking.

Clearly defined objectives: Ultimately the point of communication is to get people to do things. Which people? What things? You have got the basis of the brief right there, everything else is detail. It is the most fundamental part of a well written brief. The key to effective briefing is to provide a simple insight that can be dramatised memorably. Briefing is a joint and dynamic process. The main difference between good briefs and bad briefs is that good briefs leave you with a clear understanding of what you are trying to do. Bad briefs drown you in contradictory information and objectives.

Q. Could you compare the condition Indian PR industry is in today vis-à-vis what it is internationally?

In the US, the brands’ spend / fee is almost three times of what it is in India. But Indian PR campaigns have already started getting recognition (For example, brands like Tourism Australia and WHO ORS). Time is the commodity we are selling, and the international markets go strictly on an hourly basis, with agencies / individuals getting compensated on the basis of that. However, in India, the fee that we get is largely job related (For example, press conferences / press releases, etc).

Q. What are the challenges and opportunities facing PR agencies today?

One of the major challenges that the industry is facing today is that of inaccurate reporting. For example, the market crash that took place on May 18, 2006, was arguably quoted in a few sectors as that of half baked reporting. It really affects the respective companies and a lot of other entities. For the fall in the market, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had blamed the media for a “manufactured crisis based on uninformed reporting”.

There is also the absence of a strong body / association to protect the clients / journalists community from allegations / misrepresentation of facts. Also, there should be a Code of Conduct for PR operations.

As far as opportunities are concerned, there are plenty of them. PR consultants are better informed of the trends and are more experienced to sell stories. Multinationals and a few Indian corporates have recognised the role of PR and its relevance to the core scheme of company strategies. There is a greater demand for specialisation and increasing need for modules such as crisis communication, media training, public affairs and broadcast services, which has resulted in the expansion of the scope of work of the PR agencies.

Also, viral marketing, blogging, and video conferencing are the new trends in the Indian market.