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Dropping journalist names in new business pitches? You might just pissed of
2010-06-29 09:27:00
My colleague Soumya forwarded me some of these tweets by some journos in India. Check them out below. By the way, I also don't like dropping names without permission. However, it also matter on what context the names are mentioned. During a pitch, if the client asks us if we can tell them about the top technology journalists in India. I don't think saying mentioning a name there hurts. Saying I know such and such can be little sensitive. But definitely we should mention all relationships are professional. What do you folks say?
More About: Business

Mile sure mera
2010-02-04 11:28:00
Exactly 2 decades back when 'mile sure mera tumhara' was created by Suresh Mullick, the brief from the then Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi was to infuse national integration through a strong film. And the film truly achieved it by bringing the different religion and colors across India by using well known celebrities from sports, films and music. All this was supplemented by composing the entire lyrics with rag bhairavi and driving home the message India is one.
More About: Mile

3 categories of Indian youth and why Orkut is falling
2009-12-30 19:34:00
There is a very interesting report on Indian youth trends at Ingene.  What stuck me the categorisation of the Indian youth: 1. The Bharatiyas: 67% of the Indian youth who lives in the rural areas with least influence of globalisation, least economically priviledged and high on traditional values and highly Bollywood influenced. 2. The Indians: 31.% of ...
More About: Youth , Orkut , Categories

Support your online media campaigns with mass media & mobile phone marketin
2009-12-22 20:30:00
I couldn’t agree more with what Lakshimipathy Bhat wrote in the Financial Express that the Sunsilk Gang of Girls, often taken as the benchmark on digital campaigns in India owes a part of its success to the massive offline mass media support it got. Often for our clients we most of the time try to ...
More About: Media , Mobile , Phone , Mobile Phone , Support

No shortcuts to thought leadership & some great examples
2009-12-21 05:30:00
The word thought leader has been most commonly used in the PR and communication industry and at the drop of the hat. You go for a new business meeting and the prospects key agenda is to get the thought leader position for their spokesperson which could be the CEO or the Business head. That is ultimately the ambition of every client. But all of us need to understand to achieve the thought leader position one need to be patient and one need to demonstrate and show results. Name any good leader, be it in retail, technology, advertising or banking, the thought leader in their respective category have not got this overnight.
More About: Leadership , Great , Thought , Examples , Shortcuts

Negative Image of brand ambassador ? Will it erode brand equity?
2009-12-07 13:56:00
When you are in peak you get great laurels and corporates are willing to shell out huge dollars and rupees to tie up with brand ambassadors. But what happens when the barometer drops for various reasons. Few years back it was got to do with the performance of the Indian cricket team in the world cup in the Caribbean where we got knocked out in the preliminary rounds and brands like Pepsi were so livid that they terminated the contract of some of the players. They were not keen at all to use them as brand ambassadors as it may damage the equity of the brand. This is also common with bollywood celebrities for years.
More About: Tiger Woods , Image , Brand

Vote for India PR Blog at the Indibloggies
2009-11-25 18:03:00
Dear readers, India PR Blog has been nominated for the IndiBloggies in 2 categories ? Best Business Blog and Best Group Blog. We would appreciate if you can take out 2 minutes to vote for us. You can vote on this page. After you click the submit button, you have to fill in your email address and submit, and then also on the confirmation link that Indibloggies will mail you. Also, check out the rest of the nominated blogs. Each one of them are great reads. Thanks a lot in advance for your support. Warm regards, Palin Ningthoujam
More About: Vote

Hiring bloggers to write positive for you ? pros and cons
2009-11-24 19:37:00
Recently one of our clients mentioned a recommendation by an online marketing agency on how they can hire 4-5 people who will start blogs and comment among one another to strike up a positive conversation in the blogosphere (different than having a ghost writer to write for you). The idea is tempting and you might just even get sold on it, if you are a newbie on social media marketing. You control the message. The bloggers are yours. Yet to the outside world, the effort is going to be seen as passionate fans of your brands/ organisation writing positive about your brand or organisation.
More About: Write , Bloggers , Hiring

Indian journalists Twitter lists for PR professionals
2009-11-04 19:59:00
We have talked about using Twitter to enhance your media relations practice in the past. We talked about how many journalists are using Twitter today and some of us are now directly pitching to them using the 140 characters miracle. Our media friends love it too ? it?s fast, crisp, and devoid of any fat adjectives.
More About: Indian , Lists

4 key components of an effective social media marketing campaign
2009-10-30 10:02:00
What would an effective social media marketing campaign entail? According to me, there are 4 key quadrants that we especially need to take care of. 1. Monitoring mechanism: Have a listening capability and understanding what the various stakeholders are talking about our brands and organizations is critical. Without this, we would be just another me too and shooting in the dark. How do we build an effective monitoring mechanism in place. We can use blog search engines like Technorati and Google Blog Search to monitor the blogosphere, subscription on email and RSS on influential blogs around your industry/ subject, setting news alerts, and monitoring social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg, and social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, etc. There are host of tools to monitor micro blogging platforms, read Twitter. For blog comments and monitoring the social media space in real time, we have free tools like Social Mention. What about the citizen journalism sites and consum...
More About: Marketing , Media , Campaign , Components

Chocolate Spoof- Advertising will generate more PR
2009-09-10 09:37:00
In the past it was always the cola war between Pepsi and Coke. I never understood who finally won the battle and whose sales or saliency went up in the consumers mind. The trend continued in the cola space for quite some time but I have not off late noticed that kind of campaigns being released. May be both of them realized that it is sheer waste of money. Is there not a learning for other categories from this? But recently I happen to see Nestle trying a spoof on CDM, which is splashed across all channels in the electronic medium. Post the campaign, we saw more write ups on various portals on who is right and who is wrong and who is getting benefited.
More About: Advertising , Chocolate , Spoof

Think 360 ? to launch a complete makeover of your brand
2009-09-07 07:24:00
One can quote many examples as to why companies go for a makeover. But having said that most corporate and companies want to tell the world through PR that we have changed our identity and share the vision and its new values of the company. Well it definitely sounds interesting but will it create ripples in the consumers mind? To me the answer is no. So what will work? The entire communication strategy has to be well orchestrated 360 degree effort to instill the change in name or the logo in the desired audience?s mind. PR in isolation may not create the desired impact but PR with strong mass media campaign and internal communication will work wonders for the brand. The most refreshing example which still stands tall in my mind is the launch of Axis Bank. Today we don?t see much of their campaign but Axis bank has become a familiar bank name both with their current clientele and the future prospects.
More About: Launch , Brand , Makeover , Complete

Days the media, advertising and PR fraternity need to remember
2009-09-03 19:34:00
January 29 is Newspaper Day. Then there is WORLD AMATEUR RADIO DAY(April 18), "NATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS DAY(April 21)", WORLD BOOK AND COPYRIGHT DAY(April 23), "WORLE PRESS FREEDOM DAY(May 3)", SPORTS JOURNALISTS DAY(July 2), WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY DAY(August 19), WORLD TELEVISION DAY (November 21) and other.
More About: Media , The Media , Advertising , Days

Living on the edge: A contrarian view of PR
2009-08-07 09:50:00
I?ve often compared a PR career to living-on-the-edge - a calling best suited to people who can work really hard and smart; and bring to life ideas that lead to change. PR requires a special kind of person who thrives on action, on ?doing? everyday. PR is a series of short sprints that look quite like a marathon, in retrospect.
More About: Living , The Edge , View , Edge

How to develop a personal branding leitmotif
2009-07-20 20:31:00
Do we need a ?personal leitmotif? that evokes an image without saying a word? Dramatists, musicians and artists have been creating leitmotifs that imprint unforgettable memories. For instance, Pink Floyd?s The Wall evokes ?another brick in the wall? instantly. You are a work of art Creating a leitmotif allows us to ?lead? viewers into a multi-sensory experience that ...
More About: Personal , India , Music , Branding , Public Relations

The experience of a life time
2009-07-09 20:58:00
I landed in Cannes as a member of a jury eager to lend my experience to selecting the best among the best for the inaugural PR Lions. I returned humbled by the learning from the vast pool of creativity, enriched by the knowledge and thirst for more. The world has changed ? while changing further at an incredible pace. The idea can come from anywhere ? advertising, PR, direct, promotions, you name it. And let?s stop cribbing about it not being a PR idea. The Idea wins. I also know that Creativity flows from the young and free. So from hereon you are the King of Rock ? not MJ. So let?s see it floowww??Excellence in execution is key to success ? using surround sound ? digital, traditional media, email, event, grassroots, you name it. Traditional PR is alive but often not relevant, insufficient, does not reach audiences as quickly as digital does. Often digital leads, traditional media follows ? almost always.
More About: Life , Time , Experience

8 tricky social media marketing questions from clients, answered by Dave Ev
2009-06-26 06:52:00
I attended a social media workshop by Dave Evans of Digital Voodoo and author of Social Media Marketing , An Hour a Day, earlier this week at Delhi organised by 2020 Media, and I loved the way he talked the new marketing cycle with the emergence of the social media. Dave also talked about how organisations need to identify various touchpoints that define their products, brands, or service and analyse the performance of each touchpoint in the social media space, how important is each touchpoint , how consistent is their delivery, and how talk-worthy are each. I wanted to have a chat with him at the venue but given the number of people waiting to talked to him, I quickly exchanged cards with him, and requested his inputs on few questions I would later send. I sent Dave eight tricky questions frequently asked by clients. His answers are below.
More About: Questions

Simple Ideas ? key to creating winning PR campaigns ? thoughts from Cannes
2009-06-25 07:27:00
Ashwani has been reporting from Cannes and he has put up an interesting post on how to produce winning PR campaigns. What he said that I like the most was that any campaign has to be built around a central idea, an idea that is simple yet executed well. I also remember having a chat with Prema Sagar before she left for Cannes (she is the only India n member to be part of the jury) that one of the core things that she look for will be a clear and simple idea and how that has been executed.
More About: Ideas , Thoughts , Creating

Speak Up! Speak Out! Public Speaking has great impact on PR Practitioners
2009-06-09 07:38:00
"Public communication skills are important for anyone who needs to share information with others. Or those who hope to persuade others about an issue". Public Relations professionals are no exception to this. Many times we, Public Relations practitioners, pay little attention to the formal consideration of our communication skills, especially public speaking skills. In this increasingly information-oriented age, Public Speak ing skills are becoming more and more critical. As part of our profession, we need to influence people and win friends to get our work done. And most of the time, that is achieved through our gift of the gab.
More About: Great , Speaking , Public Speaking

Will fatigue hit viewership of WORLD CUP T 20?
2009-06-01 09:11:00
Recently I happen to read in one of the columns where the Master Blaster of India n cricket mentioned that Viru and Gauti are going through ‘fatigue’. Will they therefore be able to deliver the power and energy as they are the much talked about world opening pair in the shorter and shortest version of the ...
More About: World Cup , World

Five things they don?t teach you at PR institutes
2008-06-05 21:00:00
Some of the best brains in the PR industry today have no formal qualification for doing their job. They hold no diploma from any communications institute nor any management certificate. But when it comes to PR strategy and execution, organizations seek them out. What is it that they do? Do they have some practical lessons ...
More About: Public Relations , Things , Institutes

The Art of Leaving & Living Forever: Thursdays with Tushar
2008-06-05 07:42:00
I am sure many of us have heard about ?Art of Living ? and the difference they are making in many peoples? lives. Today, I am introducing ?Art of Leaving ? and trying to leave a thought so even while you leave, you can live forever in minds of organization and its people. It is said by ...
More About: Forever

Book Review: Let?s Connect
2008-06-02 20:30:00
Let’s Connect : Using Linkedin to get ahead at work - Ajay Jain What the book is talking about is LinkedIn, an international business networking website, which can make the world of business a much smaller place. Specially with the network that he or she creates. Interestingly, if you are connected on this business networking site ...
More About: Book Review , Review , Book

Working with Journalists - What You Should Know
2008-06-02 07:00:00
After years and years as a career finance journalist I shifted into a industry operations unit and quickly realised that: Creating is tougher than commenting (?on the creation). Creating is more enriching than profiling (?the creation or the creator). Creating is much more powerful than criticism (?of the creation or the creator) Comments, Profiles and Critique remain nevertheless ...
More About: Working , Journalists

Shepherding Your Clients in Times of Manufactured Media Exclusives
2008-05-30 05:07:00
The rapid expansion in the media space has done many good things for the nation. It has provided choice in beats across entertainment, movies, news and education that earlier was simply not ever thought of or envisioned. The proliferation has brought about waves of soaps, contests and now with the first IPL season shaking India, ...
More About: Media , Clients , Times , Expose , Crisis

The balancing act: Client expectations vs. PR agency performance
2008-05-29 21:00:00
Has it not been debated before? Yes, it has been. Have we not wasted enough cups of coffee arguing over it? Yes, we have. So, are we ready to bury and tombstone the topic? No, not in the near future. The debate over what a client says he wants and what he really wants will ...
More About: Performance , Agency , Expectations , Client

Media Game Changers-How IPL Changed Indian Marketing and PR Forever
2008-05-29 13:56:00
Last night the Kings XI Punjab made another killing! Shaun Marsh produced what some would colloquially describe as giving a right walloping and Yuvraj Singh followed through with more arson on the pitch; the two are the cynosure of all eyes in the cricket world in India, the Commonwealth continents and many points further. This wasn’t ...
More About: Marketing , Media , Indian , Preity Zinta , Shah Rukh Khan

How to win votes and influence people: Thursdays with Tushar
2008-05-28 20:31:00
Though I am not a politician, politics fascinates me. I am one of the very few fortunate PR professionals in the country, who did political communication before and I still enjoy doing it as much as I enjoy watching the mysteries of Indian voters unfold in uncanny manner. I find elections more exciting than T20 ...
More About: People , Influence , Votes

Top Tips and Tools To Make Better PowerPoints
2008-05-27 23:13:00
PowerPoints can often make or break a career and we need to master the art of creating good looking PowerPoints, especially if we are working in the corporate world. Here are some good reads and tools from across the web and the blogosphere to help you get started in creating a good design. Remember like experts ...
More About: Tools , Tips , Make , Powerpoints

What journalists want
2008-05-22 21:30:00
It was after a long lunch session that she shared this with us: ?They promised me an exclusive. The interview with the Chairman was to happen in the next couple of days. The meeting was cancelled at the last minute. Reason? The Chairman had to fly out of the country. Next day I saw the ...
More About: Journalists