I watched with interest the ‘tweet that went wrong’ saga for our Junior Minister of Foreign Affairs Shri Shashi Tharoor. How an innocent TWEET led to knives being drawn out. As the call for his head became louder, the media incessantly reported the views of his party members, opposition, and all and sundry who had a point of view - and as Indians we have a point of view on anything - so there was a lot of content to fill pages, airtime! To top it all his OSD added fuel to fire by “tweeting” on behalf of his boss! It finally ended after several days with a glum Mr. Tharoor emerging from a meeting with the Party President Smt. Sonia Gandhi. I was reminded of a picture of him and Mrs Gandhi in an animated conversation at the Prime Minister’s Iftaar Party in the Indian Express. It looked as if as he was getting ‘gyaan’ from her!
So, how did a tweet about a phrase that we use so commonly to describe economy travel go wrong? How did a person who was Undersecretary of Communication at the United Nations get his own communication wrong? A person who has spent his Click to Read More
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Back after a bit of radio silence as I was snowed under work. My colleagues thought I had a nice holiday at Cannes so they thought that we better put him to work and make him earn his pay! So, I am back.
Came across this research report from several sources at the same time. My colleague Charu Kohli sent it to me. Then I also got to the link from The Holmes Report and this just further confirms what I have been saying for a long time. Public Relations will become irrelevant in the communication mix if it fails to embrace the new online reality. The sources of ‘information and influence’ are shifting and the ‘age of conversation’ is upon us. Public Relations is best placed to as it is seen to be the champion of transparent and credible conversations with organizations stakeholders! At least that’s what it is meant to be!! All the more so, as trust is broken by companies repeatedly and consumers, employees, investors, media increasingly Click to Read More
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This is not going to be a long piece as I skipped the third day seminars to spend the day trawling through the shortlists and Lions winner entries along with films which were put after the announcement of the PR, Direct and Promo Lions. A special venue has been created where all the shortlisted, winning work is displayed and it was an educative exercise. More about that later but first to the PR Lions.
Last evening saw the first ever PR Lions being introduced at the 56th International Advertising Festival. The PR Lions are the 11th awards category being introduced. This by itself is a growing recognition of Public Relations and Public Affairs in the overall marketing and business strategy mix. Also, the Lions provide a well recognised and a very highly aspired for platform, which till now was sorely missing. If you don’t know about it yet, visit www.canneslions.com for more.
Overall there were 400 plus entries that were shortlisted down to 30 plus by 18 members of the PR Lions jury. Boy, they Click to Read More
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Monday morning, back to the Marina for a run and some stretch and I was ready to go. Decided to spend the day again in Seminars, but today I picked the ones that mattered to me. I was beginning to get the hang of how to get the best from the festival – spread yourself across a range of activities.
Day II highlight sessions for me were the PWC media and entertainment outlook till 2013 (www.pwc.com/outlook). The personality of the day was Biz Stone (the co-founder of twitter)who did a live tweet-up with the audience.
Title: Biz Stone, The Co-founder of Twitter
PWC conducts a global media and entertainment outlook survey and they shared their findings for the five year outlook till 2013 at the festival. Their research showed that the total global advertising spends in 2013 will be 13.3% lower than 08 whilst the digital would increase from 21% to 31%! Click to Read More
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For me, a first time participant to the festival, it was both about learning and taking in the environment at the same time. So whilst I absorbed the sessions, I also took time to experience the Cannes Riviera a bit by finding some nice cafes for lunch and dinner.
Title: The Cannes Beach
Title: The Cannes Marina
Title: Palais de Festival
Woke up nice and early and went for a 5km run along the shoreline and a short swim in the hotel pool. A hearty breakfast followed and the day got going. The festival kicked off Sunday morning in right earnest. In keeping with what seems to be the festival theme - digital is everything - the seminars of that day were about engaging the consumers of the digital age. Speakers Click to Read More
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