In today´s volatile world of business, reputation is delicately balanced between growth and responsibility, profits and sustainability, aggressive targets and sound governance. How then can it be built, nurtured, sustained, protected? And how is it influenced by the science of public relations. This blog is my attempt to explore and prompt a dialogue on this subject.
In Latin, Reputare means to reckon or think over. I invite you to read my viewpoint – think it over and respond with yours. The views expressed here are entirely my own and that not in my professional capacity as Chief Executive of Genesis Burson-Marsteller.
This is a moderated blog, only to prevent abuse or misuse; both evangelists and critics are welcome. In this Blog, I will neither praise my clients or criticise those of other firms.
Welcome and join the debate.
September 25th, 2009Form is as important as the content: Mr. Shashi Tharoor should know that
View Comments
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
September 9th, 2009Jet Airways: Good PR Cannot Solve Bad Strategy
View Comments
I have been watching with great interest the Jet Airways saga and, being a frequent flier with the airline, I feel ’sad’ to see the reputation of India’s one time favourite airline take such a beating!
It started with the ill fated buy of Sahara that gave them bad press. Then the fiasco of summarily sacking staff en masse, which played out in the national media and ended with a late night announcement on television by the Chairman taking his children back into the airline. And now the ‘mass sick leave’ taken by their pilots stranding 13,000 passengers across the country. Triggered by the dismissal of three pilots, this is once again grabbing headlines, ‘breaking news’ across the national media, fuelling talk shows and studio discussions. Visuals of stranded passengers crying and cursing the airline are running across the channels.
Add to all of this the impact of the financial crisis and rising ATF costs that has led to the return of Click to Read More
August 18th, 2009New PR Hires Must Blog, Tweet, Use SocNets
View Comments
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
View Comments
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
June 24th, 2009Postcard from Cannes: Day II: Digitise or Die
View Comments
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
