Authored by: Kaveri Roy, Senior Director - Strategic Planning & Creativity at Burson India. There is a version of this conversation happening in every communications agency right now. Someone senior says, "We need to be more culturally relevant." Someone junior nods. A mood board gets made. A creator gets briefed. The campaign launches, gets decent reach, disappears within a week, and everyone quietly moves on to the next one. Nothing technically went wrong. And yet nothing quite worked either. That gap between execution that is competent and impact that compounds is where the most interesting question in PR currently lives. And the answer is not just about selling in better ideas. It’s also a fundamentally different understanding of what creativity is supposed to do. Because when cultural relevance is treated as a one-off creative output rather than something a brand earns through consistent participation, the impact on reputation is inevitably short-lived. To understand why, it helps to start with why the old model made sense in the first place. What the Broadcast Era Got Right (And Why That's Now the Problem) The campaign model was a logical response to the media environment that then existed. With a handful of television channels, a few major newspapers, and limited digital real estate, attention was concentrated. If a brand could afford to occupy that space with something memorable, it won. Reach and frequency were the mechanics. A strong message, delivered consistently at scale, shaped public perception almost by default. The problem is that the environment it was designed for no longer exists, and the muscle memory of that era still drives most of how communications is planned, briefed, and measured. That doesn't mean broadcast has become irrelevant. For some audiences, some categories, and some moments, mass reach is still exactly the right answer. But the environment around it has become far more fragmented and saturated, with audiences moving between mainstream media, creators, communities, and niche cultural spaces. What replaced that environment went far beyond platform and demographic shifts. The Shift Nobody Fully Named What nobody fully accounted for was the direction cultural influence travels. Influence now moves horizontally, through peer networks, creator communities, fandoms, and shared context that builds inside niche corners of the internet before it ever reaches mainstream visibility. A trend originating on a regional meme page can travel nationally faster than a brand campaign could get through legal approval. So today, a social post requires the same preparation and care as a broadcast media interview.In India, this inversion is happening at a pace that makes it one of the most instructive markets to watch. Over 950 million internet users, one of the world's largest creator economies, a digital culture moving simultaneously across languages and geographies that traditional segmentation would treat as entirely separate. A Malayalam meme format, a Delhi food trend, and a Tamil creator catchphrase can all be in the same national conversation on the same Tuesday afternoon, with local specificity and national reach not in tension but actively reinforcing each other. What becomes relevant is decided collectively, publicly, and in real time. AI arriving in this environment removed the last remaining reason to pretend the old model still worked, but not entirely in the way most people assume. The Attention Economy Got a Second-Order Problem The obvious observation most people make is that AI helps develop content faster and cheaper. And that is undoubtedly part of the opportunity. But AI's more consequential impact on communications may be what it makes possible beyond content production: the ability to listen, detect patterns, and understand cultural movement at a scale and speed that humans alone could not. AI is also the most powerful listening and pattern recognition tool that communications has ever had access to. It can map emerging cultural conversations before they surface, identify genuine community momentum versus manufactured noise, and help smaller teams participate at a scale that previously required significant resources. The opportunity is not to replace cultural judgement with AI, but to use AI to sharpen it: to understand which cultural spaces matter, which communities a brand has earned the right to participate in, and when the window to act is opening. This is the shift from simply tracking trends to understanding cultural playgrounds: the subcultures, communities, and conversations that shape what people care about, and where brands can build relevance over time. The role of technology is to make that map clearer. The role of people is to know what to do with it. Cultural credibility is now a harder asset to build and a more durable one to hold than any individual piece of content. People are drawn toward what feels irreducibly human: genuine cultural fluency, shared context, trust built through consistency, humour that requires insider knowledge. AI sharpens the map. The territory still belongs to people, and that territory runs on a logic most brands have been slow to internalise. Optimising for Participation Culture Digital culture manufactures collective desire in real time, and it optimises for belonging. The question audiences are unconsciously asking when they encounter brand content is no longer simply "Is this useful?" It has become "Does engaging with this say something about who I am?" Fandoms, creator communities, gaming groups, niche comment sections: all these spaces generate emotional closeness that polished brand communication structurally cannot replicate, because the closeness comes from participation. A creator who says "We found this before it got famous" is doing something categorically different from a brand announcing the same discovery. The creator is offering membership. The brand is making an announcement. The internet rewards participation over perfection. Always has, increasingly does. What this creates is 'community gravity'—the capacity of certain online spaces and fandoms to pull people into shared behaviours, references, and meaning. Community gravity compounds over time. Campaign reach does not. Food culture makes this visible: the most successful food and beverage brands launching today are designed for online participation before they reach retail shelves. The product is the entry point. The culture around it is the actual product. For brands, this means moving beyond the question of "Where is my audience?" to "Which cultures and communities are most relevant to my brand, and where have I earned the right to participate?" This is the thinking behind cultural segmentation: starting with the culture rather than the demographic, and then finding the people who participate in it. Burson’s Culture Up work has found a 33% increase in purchase intent when brands use cultural segmentation rather than traditional demographic segmentation, which is a useful reminder that cultural relevance is not simply a softer measure of brand affinity; it can have a measurable business consequence. The result is not one audience, but a cultural portfolio: the ecosystem of cultural playgrounds where a brand can credibly show up, contribute, and build relevance. The creative opportunity then becomes less about forcing a brand into every cultural moment and more about choosing the right spaces in which it can genuinely belong. From Message Architecture to Participation Architecture Most creative briefs in PR, though, are still written as if the product is the point, still centred on the same question: what do we want to say? The more generative question is: what do we want people to do with what we give them? Message architecture treats the audience as a receiver and defines success as coverage and recall. Participation architecture treats the audience as a co-creator and defines success as longevity, producing open-source cultural assets: ideas, formats, and rituals that communities can claim, adapt, and continue long after the campaign budget has been spent. The brands sustaining cultural relevance leave space in the idea. They design for participation first and polish second. They understand the goal is to make the story worth continuing. Most of the industry, though, still works from the opposite instinct. And that is where creativity in communications is heading: away from creating a finished story and towards creating the conditions for a story to keep moving. The strongest ideas do not simply generate attention; they create something people can participate in, adapt, share, and ultimately associate with the brand. Over time, that repeated participation is what turns cultural relevance into reputational equity. The Future of Creativity in Communications Is an Open Loop Creativity in communications will not be defined by how effectively a campaign closes a message, but by how well an idea opens a conversation that people want to continue. Great advertising has traditionally been designed to close the loop: create desire, resolve it toward purchase, and measure the conversion. Communications has an opportunity to work differently. The creative goal can be to open a loop that communities want to close themselves. This is why the measure of success of earned-first creative communications moves from how many people received the message to how many chose to carry it forward without being asked or paid to do so. Cultural fluency becomes the primary discipline: understanding not just what communities care about, but what they are already doing, and where an idea can genuinely inhabit that space rather than advertise adjacent to it. In India especially, audiences read the difference between a brand inserting itself into culture and one genuinely participating in it. Community-driven credibility travels faster than corporate messaging. Community-driven damage travels faster still. Both realities have direct consequences for how communications teams need to be built. The opportunity for PR is therefore not simply to become "more creative". It is to redefine what creativity is solving for: relevance, participation, credibility, and ultimately reputation. A creative idea that earns genuine participation can do more than win a news cycle; it can give a brand a meaningful place in culture. What This Means for Communications Teams Right Now The traditional separation between PR, social, influencer, community management, and cultural intelligence is architecturally misaligned with how culture moves. Culture does not move in departments. Building teams around silos produces communications that feels exactly as fragmented as the org chart that generated it. Cultural pattern recognition—identifying what is emerging before it reaches mainstream visibility—now matters more than many of the skills that job descriptions still prioritise. Gen Alpha will make this more acute, as the first generation raised inside fully interactive digital environments where participation is the default. In spaces where everything is expected to be remixable, static messaging barely registers. The teams that win will therefore look less like collections of channel specialists and more like cultural intelligence systems: people who can identify the right cultural playgrounds, understand the communities within them, spot the moments when cultural momentum is building, and translate those signals into ideas people actually want to participate in. Technology will make that process faster and more precise. But the strategic judgement will remain human: knowing which communities matter, what a brand has earned the right to say, when to enter, and when not to. Because ultimately, the value of cultural relevance is not relevance for its own sake. It is what relevance builds over time: familiarity, credibility, and a stronger reputation. And the business case is beginning to catch up with the cultural one. Burson’s analysis of more than 10 million data points across 30 global brands found that combining cultural segmentation, a dynamic cultural portfolio, and the right moment for activation can drive a 3.2x lift in purchase intent. The most enduring communications work of the next decade will not be remembered because it dominated a media cycle. It will be remembered because people chose to keep it alive. And when people choose to keep a brand's idea, story, or participation alive, the outcome is bigger than a successful campaign. It is a brand that has earned a place in culture and, in doing so, strengthened the reputation that makes that place worth having.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

The agency landscape is constantly evolving, with new and emerging firms bringing fresh thinking, sharper specialisations and new approaches to the way brands communicate. From “What If?” to “What’s Next?” explores the ideas, ambitions and strategies shaping these agencies as they build their place in a changing industry.With close to two decades of experience in PR and communications, Nandita Ghoshal, Founder of 37Bold Partners, set out to build a firm that goes beyond media coverage to become a strategic partner to businesses. Her vision was to create an agile, founder-led firm that understands clients’ business priorities and develops communication solutions around their needs, rather than limiting its role to conventional PR services.For Ghoshal, this begins with understanding what a business actually needs. As communication expands across mainstream and regional media, digital platforms, thought leadership and influencer partnerships, she believes agencies must look beyond the services they offer and focus on the outcomes clients are trying to achieve. At 37Bold Partners, this means working with specialist partners across complementary capabilities to deliver integrated solutions without requiring clients to coordinate with multiple agencies.<img src='https://erp.adgully.me/artical_image\a4c2714fd8fb6f59da50c141d9f5bd2f.jpeg' class='content_image'>“My philosophy is simple: don't just sell what you have. Understand what the client needs and build the right solution around it,” she says.This approach also shapes the agency’s thinking on influencer marketing, where Ghoshal believes brands need to move beyond follower counts and one-off collaborations. With budgets under increasing scrutiny, she sees credibility, audience alignment and consistency as essential to building meaningful creator partnerships. Micro and niche creators, she notes, can be particularly valuable when they have established trust within specific communities.For Ghoshal, influencer marketing needs to be treated as a strategic investment, with brands defining their objectives and budgets before choosing the creators they work with. Sustained campaigns, rather than isolated collaborations, can help build familiarity, trust and brand recall over time.The same emphasis on relevance informs how 37Bold Partners approaches storytelling across sectors. Working with businesses across D2C, healthcare, fintech, education, real estate and consumer technology requires an understanding of the specific audiences and challenges within each category. However, Ghoshal believes the starting point remains consistent: identifying why a story matters to its intended audience.<img src='https://erp.adgully.me/artical_image\984b997698b253a4e308a20267ddbd65.jpeg' class='content_image'>In emerging sectors such as AI, cybersecurity, health tech and climate tech, this also means recognising new developments and identifying the narratives that can help businesses establish themselves. The story, she believes, must evolve with the business. While funding announcements may offer visibility to early-stage startups, more mature companies can build narratives around business fundamentals, market position, growth and long-term ambitions.“In an increasingly crowded media environment, relevance is the biggest currency,” Ghoshal says. “Our role is to find the intersection between a brand's objectives, media interest and audience expectations.”As 37Bold Partners looks ahead, Ghoshal’s focus is on sustainable growth without losing the agility and collaborative approach that define the firm. She plans to strengthen its network through partnerships with specialist PR and advertising agencies in cities where it does not have a physical presence, bringing together the right expertise to serve clients across markets.Building a more flexible talent model is another priority. Ghoshal wants to create opportunities for experienced professionals, particularly women and young mothers, who may prefer remote or flexible working arrangements. For her, access to meaningful work should not be restricted by geography or the need to work from a physical office.The agency is also exploring project-based, quarterly and half-yearly engagements to make strategic communication more accessible to early-stage startups that may not be able to commit to a monthly retainer. The idea is to develop a sustainable business model that can serve both emerging businesses and established brands.Ultimately, Ghoshal wants 37Bold Partners to be viewed as an extension of the businesses it works with, rather than simply another agency on their roster. For her, the next phase is not just about expanding the firm's reach, but about building meaningful partnerships, creating opportunities for talent and growing in a way that remains true to its founding philosophy.

The agency landscape is constantly evolving, with new and emerging firms bringing fresh thinking, sharper specialisations and new approaches to the way brands communicate. From “What If?” to “What’s Next?” explores the ideas, ambitions and strategies shaping these agencies as they build their place in a changing industry. After nearly 16 years across established PR firms, large consumer portfolios and a tech startup, Nidhi Agarwal, Founder, Ebony & Ivory PR, entered the agency-building journey with a clear idea of what she wanted to create. Rather than pursuing scale through a larger client roster and bigger teams, Agarwal wanted to build an agency that could work more closely with fewer clients, understand their businesses deeply and create work that went beyond conventional media relations. For Agarwal, building the agency was not about replicating the traditional agency model of constantly pursuing scale, more clients and larger teams. Instead, she wanted to work with fewer clients and understand their businesses closely enough to challenge briefs, offer an informed point of view and create work that the agency could genuinely stand behind.“I wanted the opportunity to go deeper with fewer clients. Agency life can very quickly become about scale, more clients, bigger teams, more deliverables. I wasn't interested in recreating that. I wanted us to know our clients' businesses well enough to have an opinion, challenge a brief when required, and do work we were genuinely proud to put our name on,” she says.That approach also extends to how Ebony & Ivory views the role of PR itself. Agarwal believes communication can no longer be confined to media relations, with culture, communities, creators and brand owned platforms increasingly becoming part of the larger brand conversation.“I also felt that PR could no longer only be about media. A lot of our work today sits around culture, communities and influence. We look at which communities a brand can genuinely become part of, which creators make sense, what is happening culturally around the consumer, and whether there are interesting IPs we can build,” she adds.Starting with the business, not just the briefFor Agarwal, the connection between communications and business outcomes begins with understanding the business itself. She says most of the agency’s weekly client conversations begin with a deceptively simple question: “How was business this week?”That approach becomes particularly relevant when working with F&B brands, where community building can have a direct impact on customer discovery, engagement and repeat behaviour. Ebony & Ivory works with running clubs, music communities, creative groups, food communities and other interest based groups to help brands become part of conversations that exist beyond conventional media coverage.“Community building has become a significant part of our work and, in many cases, a real revenue generator. We work on associations with running clubs, music communities, creative groups, food communities and other very specific interest groups. The idea is about getting the right people to discover the brand, come back and eventually become part of its regular customer base,” Agarwal explains.While earned media remains central to the agency’s approach, she sees it as one part of a wider ecosystem involving creators, communities and owned platforms.“Media continues to be extremely important because nothing quite replaces the credibility of good earned coverage. But today it works alongside creators, communities and what the brand is doing on its own platforms,” she says.At the same time, Agarwal is cautious about attributing every commercial outcome directly to PR. For her, understanding the business allows the agency to assess whether communication is influencing something beyond conventional coverage metrics.“I don't think PR can or should take credit for every sale. But if we understand the client's business, we should be able to see whether our work is moving something beyond coverage numbers,” she says.From influencer reach to creator relationshipsAs influencer marketing becomes increasingly integrated into brand communication, Ebony & Ivory is approaching creators as part of the strategy from the outset rather than treating them as an amplification layer added at the end.“For us, influence marketing is never a separate line item at the end of a PR plan. We are always thinking about an integrated approach, media, creators and communities together from the beginning,” Agarwal says.She points to a broader shift in how brands are working with creators, particularly the idea of involving them earlier in the planning process. At Cannes, one recurring conversation was around bringing creators into the room as business advisors and partners rather than approaching them only once a campaign has already been developed.“Brands have traditionally made all the important decisions and then gone to creators when they need amplification. But creators are speaking to consumers every day and can bring a very different perspective to a product, an experience or even a business decision,” she notes.That also means moving beyond follower counts when evaluating creators. Depending on the brand and audience, the most relevant voice may come from food, music, fashion, fitness or a specific city based community.“We don't start with follower count anymore; we start with who we are trying to reach and who they actually trust,” Agarwal says.For her, the next phase of influencer marketing is therefore less about transactional reach and more about building relationships that can develop over time.“PR has always been a relationship business. Influence shouldn't be any different,” she adds.AI can accelerate the work, but judgement remains humanAI is another force reshaping the communications industry, from research and monitoring to content creation and audience analysis. Agarwal acknowledges its growing role within the agency, but sees it primarily as a tool that can remove repetitive work and create more space for strategic thinking.“I use AI. My team uses AI. There is no point pretending it isn't changing how we work. It's extremely useful for research, monitoring, analysing large amounts of information and taking away some of the repetitive work. Used properly, it should actually give PR teams more time to think,” she says.However, she believes the fundamental currency of PR remains human relationships and judgement. AI may provide information about a journalist or creator, but it cannot reproduce relationships built over years or replace the instinct required to recognise the right story, person or moment.“AI can give me information about a journalist, but it cannot recreate a relationship built over ten or fifteen years. It can't replace being able to call someone and know when you have a genuinely good story,” Agarwal explains.The same applies to influencer selection, where data can provide information about audiences but cannot necessarily determine whether a creator is genuinely right for a brand.With access to similar AI tools becoming increasingly widespread, Agarwal believes differentiation will increasingly come from the human capabilities surrounding the technology.“AI will make all of us faster. But if everyone is using the same tools, access to technology isn't going to differentiate a great PR person. Judgment, ideas, perception, intuition, creative thinking, and the relationships you have built over years will,” she says.Building what comes nextAs the boundaries between earned, owned, social and creator led communication continue to blur, Agarwal believes the next generation of PR agencies will need to move beyond defining themselves through individual channels.“We need to stop defining PR agencies by channels. Consumers don't think, ‘I discovered this brand through earned media and then engaged with its influencer strategy.’ They saw something interesting, somebody they trust spoke about it, a friend sent it to them, or they experienced it somewhere. It all becomes one impression of the brand,” she says.For Ebony & Ivory, that means building a team that understands not only media and communications but also the wider cultural forces shaping consumers.“You need to understand what's happening in media, but also what people are watching, eating, listening to, joining, sharing, and talking about. Culture and communities are going to matter enormously,” Agarwal adds.The agency’s next phase, however, will not necessarily be defined by how large it becomes. Agarwal wants growth, but with the same emphasis on depth that shaped the agency from the beginning. She also sees an emerging opportunity in how brands show up in AI driven environments, with media stories potentially playing a role in shaping those conversations.“I want us to grow, of course, but I'm quite conscious that growth shouldn't mean taking on every client we can. I still want us to be able to sit with a client, understand what's happening in their business, and spend time thinking about the work,” she says.For Agarwal, the ambition is ultimately less about building the biggest agency and more about building one that is recognised for the quality of its thinking.“We are still a young agency, and there is a lot I want to build. But I would much rather E&I become known for the quality and thinking behind a smaller body of work than simply become a very large agency,” she concludes.

The agency landscape is constantly evolving, with new and emerging firms bringing fresh thinking, sharper specialisations and new approaches to the way brands communicate. From “What If?” to “What’s Next?” explores the ideas, ambitions and strategies shaping these agencies as they build their place in a changing industry. Starting Avance PR from home in 2022 with one intern, Ritika Garg, Founder & CEO, Avance PR, has since grown the agency into a communications partner that has worked with more than 100 companies. As client expectations move beyond conventional media coverage towards credibility, executive visibility and measurable business impact, Garg reflects on how the agency has evolved and how emerging shifts such as AI-led discovery are reshaping the PR landscape.1. Avance PR has grown from a boutique PR firm into a strategic communications agency working across multiple sectors. What have been the biggest shifts in the agency’s journey, and how has your approach to PR evolved with the changing market?I started Avance PR in 2022 from home with one intern. Since then, we have worked with more than 100 companies, and the questions clients ask us have changed as much as our team has grown.At first, a brief might centre on announcing a launch and securing coverage. Today, a founder may need to explain an unfamiliar business model, build a voice in the industry, reach different regional markets and prepare for difficult questions. That requires us to understand the business before we pitch its story.For an EV company, we may need to make infrastructure and adoption understandable; for a hotel opening, we may need to connect the property with local travel and hospitality conversations. We have grown our work in executive positioning, LinkedIn thought leadership, media engagement and reputation alongside traditional announcements.The biggest lesson for me has been that good PR starts with a clear business problem and an honest, relevant story, then finds the right audience and format.2. Today, brands are looking beyond media coverage towards credibility, influence and business impact. How is this changing the way PR agencies define and measure success for their clients?I still care about coverage, but I want to know what the coverage accomplished. A story in a relevant publication that accurately explains a client’s proposition can be more useful than several mentions that give readers little reason to remember the brand.At Avance PR, we agree on the objective before we decide what to measure. For a launch, we may examine whether target media picked up the announcement and whether the key facts came through. For a founder, we may look at the quality of interview opportunities, engagement from relevant peers and whether their perspective is becoming part of an industry conversation.We can directly track coverage, message inclusion, audience relevance and enquiries that come through a campaign. Clients may also tell us that a story supported a partnership discussion or helped a prospect understand their business, but we should not claim PR alone caused that outcome. Success is a pattern of useful visibility and growing credibility, assessed against the client’s actual goal.3. With AI changing search, content discovery and how audiences consume information, how do you see AI reshaping the PR function and the way brands build visibility? AI is changing how people encounter information. Someone researching an EV charging network or a hospitality brand may see an AI-generated answer before they reach the company’s website or a news article. For us, that raises a practical question: if a tool summarises a client, will the information it can find be accurate, current and clear?At Avance PR, that means working closely with clients on factual company descriptions, consistent spokesperson details, well-supported claims and stories that explain what makes their work relevant. Credible media coverage contributes to a brand’s public record, although no placement guarantees that an AI tool will surface or interpret it correctly.AI also helps our team organise research and spot questions audiences may be asking. Every claim and quote still needs a human check, especially when we work across technical sectors. We are learning how to monitor AI-led discovery alongside familiar PR measures, while keeping our focus on information people can verify and trust.4. Avance PR works extensively on founder and CXO personal branding, including LinkedIn thought leadership. Why has executive visibility become such an important part of brand communication, and what makes an executive voice genuinely credible? A company can tell you what it does. Its founder can often tell you why a decision was made, what went wrong along the way and what the industry is still getting wrong. Those details matter, especially when a business is introducing something unfamiliar or asking customers and partners to place trust in its leadership.At Avance PR, we build executive communication around conversations with the person, not a calendar of generic motivational posts. We ask about decisions they have made, questions customers keep raising and changes they can see firsthand in their sector. From there, we identify ideas that can work as a LinkedIn post, an interview or an authored article, while keeping the language close to how they actually speak.Credibility comes from a distinct point of view backed by experience. An executive does not have to comment on every trend; they need to be useful and consistent on subjects they know well. That is when personal visibility strengthens the company’s reputation.5. Looking ahead, what do you believe will fundamentally change the Indian PR and communications landscape over the next three to five years, and how is Avance PR preparing for that shift?I think the next three to five years will demand more precision from Indian PR agencies. A company may need to speak to national business media, regional audiences, potential hires and industry partners, each of whom cares about a different part of its story. At the same time, people will encounter that story through journalists, LinkedIn, video, search and AI-generated summaries. Keeping the facts and message consistent across those channels will become harder and more valuable.I also expect clients to ask tougher questions about what communication has achieved and to expect evidence behind every claim we put forward.At Avance PR, we are preparing by strengthening sector knowledge across our team and connecting media relations with founder positioning, digital content and reputation work. Our pan-India experience has shown us why a national story sometimes needs a strong local angle. As we expand, I want us to retain the habit of getting close to a client’s business before deciding what deserves to be said publicly.

Authored by: Sarina Menezes, Senior VP & Head – Marketing and Corporate Communications, Oberoi RealtyWhat are the key drivers behind the evolving definition of luxury for new-age homebuyers in India?Luxury today is being shaped by a more discerning and globally exposed consumer. While location and quality remain fundamental, homebuyers are increasingly seeking residences that align with their lifestyles and aspirations. Expectations have expanded beyond physical attributes to include privacy, design, sustainability and seamless living, making luxury more personal and experience-oriented than ever before.What is driving the current momentum in India’s luxury housing market, and do you see this as a structural shift or a short-term cycle?India's luxury housing market is being propelled by rising affluence, entrepreneurial wealth creation and changing consumption patterns. Buyers today view premium residences as long-term assets that offer both lifestyle value and wealth preservation. Given these structural drivers and the growing sophistication of India's affluent consumers, we believe this represents a long-term evolution rather than a cyclical upswing.How has luxury real estate marketing and campaign strategy evolved in recent years?Luxury real estate marketing has evolved beyond showcasing specifications to building distinctive brand narratives. With digital platforms becoming the starting point of the home-buying journey, consumers are engaging with brands much earlier in the research phase, making storytelling, design philosophy and immersive experiences increasingly important in shaping perception. Today, the objective is not simply to market residences, but to articulate a lifestyle vision that resonates with the well-travelled customer.How is relationship-led marketing changing engagement and trust-building in luxury real estate today?Luxury real estate is fundamentally a trust-driven category, making relationships as important as transactions. Buyers are investing in the reputation and credibility of the developer, which makes sustained engagement and personalised communication essential. In an increasingly competitive market, trust is built through consistency and the ability to nurture long-term relationships beyond the point of purchase.With your experience spanning hospitality, lifestyle, and real estate branding, how do you see these sectors increasingly converging in how luxury properties are positioned and experienced?The lines between hospitality, lifestyle and residential real estate are becoming increasingly fluid. Consumers now expect their homes to offer the same levels of service, convenience and attention to detail associated with premium hospitality brands. This convergence is influencing how developments are conceived and positioned, with greater emphasis on creating integrated environments that elevate everyday living.Luxury demand often reflects sharp regional differences, especially between markets like Mumbai and NCR. How are brands adapting their messaging and storytelling to these distinct consumer mindsets?While the pursuit of luxury is universal, its expression varies across markets. In Mumbai, where space is at a premium and time is a valuable asset, consumers place greater importance on connectivity, exclusivity and convenience. In NCR, larger formats and a preference for scale often translate into a stronger emphasis on grandeur and legacy. Effective luxury branding lies in maintaining a consistent brand philosophy while tailoring the narrative to reflect the priorities of each market.Storytelling has become central to brand-building across industries. In luxury real estate, how important is narrative in shaping aspiration, credibility, and long-term recall?In luxury, aspiration is often shaped as much by experience as by product. A compelling narrative combined with personalization opulence helps articulate the intent behind a development and creates a distinctive identity that consumers can relate to. Over time, authentic storytelling strengthens recall and reinforces credibility, both of which are essential in building enduring luxury brands.As digital discovery becomes central to high-value purchase journeys, how are immersive formats, content-led engagement, and personalized digital experiences reshaping luxury real estate marketing today?As the customer journey becomes increasingly digital-first, online platforms have emerged as a critical touchpoint for luxury real estate brands. The focus today is not just on being present digitally, but on leveraging the right platforms and formats to engage discerning audiences in a more meaningful manner. Immersive content, rich visual storytelling and personalised experiences are enabling brands to build aspiration and extend their reach more effectively. For luxury brands, digital is no longer simply a marketing channel; it has become an integral part of shaping perception and influencing high-value purchase decisions. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

As brands across the MENA region accelerate their adoption of generative AI, the challenge is shifting from simply producing content faster to using AI without losing cultural relevance, strategic judgement and brand quality. Tharaa Labs, the AI-focused sister entity of Pepper Communications Group, is positioning itself at this intersection, combining PCG’s regional communications experience with generative AI, digital strategy, visual communication and data intelligence.In this conversation with PR Post, Mohammed Shahid, Business Director, Tharaa Labs, discusses the company’s expansion plans across Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the evolving role of AI in MENA marketing, the need for cultural intelligence beyond localisation, and why human judgement will remain critical as AI-generated content scales.How does Tharaa Labs leverage its position as a sister entity of Pepper Communications Group (PCG) to support the visual communications and digital intelligence needs of brands across the MENA region, particularly within the UAE’s rapidly evolving media and marketing ecosystem?Tharaa Labs was set up to combine PCG's strategic communications experience with the capabilities of generative AI. That pairing is the advantage — PCG brings two decades of understanding how brands in this region build reputation, and we bring the tooling to execute at a speed and scale the market hasn't seen before.Practically, that means we work across the full stack: digital strategy, content production, visual communication, and the data layer that tells brands what's working. Our clients get agency judgement and AI leverage in one place, rather than having to stitch the two together.Very few agencies in the UAE are operating with that depth today, and it's a lead we intend to hold.Please talk about your plans to expand into Saudi Arabia and Qatar with offices slated for 2027. And what is your strategic roadmap for scaling Tharaa Labs’ operations and adapting to the unique demands of these new markets?Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both on the roadmap for 2027, and we're working through the groundwork now.The mistake we want to avoid is one we've watched plenty of international agencies make, which is treating the GCC as a single market. It isn't. Saudi's media landscape, its regulatory environment, and what audiences there respond to are all quite different from Qatar's, and both are different from the UAE. Content that performs in Dubai doesn't automatically travel.Tharaa Labs is taking the sequence seriously: we will build genuine local understanding first, hire from within each market, get the cultural and language nuance right, and then scale quickly once that foundation is in place. We'd rather move deliberately at the start and move fast later than the other way around.Why do you believe that successful artificial intelligence integration requires a comprehensive business strategy rather than just implementing new technology?Because buying a tool isn't a strategy. We see a lot of brands sign up for AI platforms, run them for a quarter, and end up with faster versions of work that wasn't delivering results in the first place.The harder questions come before the technology. What is the business actually trying to move - leads, brand recall, quality of content, cost per acquisition? Which parts of the current process are genuinely broken? Who owns the output once AI is producing it, and who signs off on quality? Most organisations haven't answered those, and no tool answers them for you.AI compresses the cost of execution dramatically. That's a real advantage, but only if the direction is right. If it isn't, you've just built a faster route to the wrong place.How is artificial intelligence fundamentally altering speed, scale, and quality for brands in the MENA region, and what constitutes this "new content advantage"?The obvious change is speed. Campaign assets that took three weeks now take three days, and that's real. But speed alone is the least interesting part of it.Scale is where MENA gets specific. Brands here are working across Arabic and English at minimum, often Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog and more, and across markets with different sensibilities. Producing genuinely localised work for each of those used to mean either a large budget or a compromise. That constraint is largely gone.Quality is the part people get wrong. AI doesn't raise your ceiling. It raises your floor, and it buys back the hours your team was spending on production so they can spend them on thinking.In what ways must organizations transition from basic localisation to true cultural intelligence when rethinking AI-generated content for diverse MENA audiences?Localisation asks whether the words are correct. Cultural intelligence asks whether the message belongs.Most AI output in Arabic is grammatically fine and tonally wrong. It defaults to Modern Standard Arabic when the conversation on the ground is Khaleeji, or Egyptian, or Levantine. It misses that a Ramadan campaign in the UAE and one in Saudi are not the same brief. It doesn't know that a large share of your audience in Dubai is South Asian and reading in English anyway.Those aren't translation problems. They're judgement problems, and they sit with people who live in these markets.Looking ahead to the next few years, what major shifts do you anticipate in how regional businesses balance automated digital intelligence with human-led visual and brand communications? The next two years will bring a flood of AI content, and most of it will be slop. Brands are already falling into that trap - producing volume because they can, without asking whether any of it deserves to exist.We're anti slop at Tharaa Labs, and that's not a slogan. Nothing leaves this agency without a human deciding it's good enough to carry a client's name on it.What I expect is a correction. Audiences are getting faster at spotting generated work, and the brands that flooded feeds with it will find it has cost them something they can't buy back quickly. The ones that held the line on craft will look conservative for a while and then look correct.The balance settles where it usually does automate the production, never the judgement. The machine makes it fast. Tharaa Labs team makes it worth watching.

Authored By: Karan Jodhani, Head of Content & Communications at Datamatics Business Solution Ltd. (DBSL)Before an organisation asks the outside world to trust what it says, its own people need to trust what they are hearing.We often think of corporate reputation as something built externally through media coverage, leadership visibility, social media, customer experience and brand campaigns. But much of that reputation begins earlier, inside meeting rooms, inboxes, town halls and conversations between managers and their teams.That is why I see internal communication as part of reputation management, not simply an employee communication exercise.Employees are usually the first audience for a major business decision. They hear the announcement, live through the change and see whether leadership’s words match what actually happens. Today, those experiences do not remain neatly inside an organisation. They travel through professional networks, review platforms, social media and everyday conversations.That does not make every employee a brand ambassador. I do not believe organisations should assume that. Advocacy has to be earned. But employees are credible witnesses to how an organisation behaves, and their experience can either support or expose the gap in the public story a company is telling.Internal communication also has another role that is sometimes overlooked: translating strategy into meaning. Telling employees that the organisation has a new priority is only the first step. People need to understand what has changed, why it matters, what it means for their team and what, if anything, they are expected to do differently. This is where managers become particularly important. A company-wide message may provide the context, but employees often turn to their immediate manager to make sense of it.It also cannot be a one-way stream of announcements. Questions coming back from employees are valuable communication intelligence. They reveal what is unclear, what leadership may have underestimated and where the official message is colliding with operational reality. Communications teams should be listening to those questions as closely as they craft the original message.Airbnb’s communication during the pandemic remains a useful example. In May 2020, when CEO Brian Chesky informed employees that nearly 1,900 of the company’s 7,500 employees would leave, the note went beyond announcing the decision. It explained the business conditions behind it, connected the reductions to the company’s future strategy, set out principles for how decisions had been made and detailed the support available to departing employees.The communication could not make a painful decision less painful. What it could do was give people context. That distinction matters.For communications leaders, there is a larger lesson here. We should be involved before a major decision reaches the announcement stage. At that point, we can help anticipate the questions employees will ask, identify where external language may conflict with internal reality, prepare managers for difficult conversations and challenge messaging that sounds convincing in a boardroom but may land very differently with employees.Strong internal communication is therefore not about creating a workforce that repeats the corporate narrative. It is about ensuring that people receive enough clarity, context and respect to understand the decisions affecting them, and enough room to question what they do not understand.Reputation is ultimately built in the distance between what an organisation says publicly and what its people experience privately.The smaller that distance, the stronger the reputation. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Authored By: Avantika Ghildyal, Director – Corporate Communications and Jui Mukherjee, Assistant Manager – Corporate Communications at Khaitan & CoSpain may have lifted the coveted football World Cup but one of the biggest winners this year is undoubtably Norway’s Erling Haaland. Nearly two months after, the charismatic Manchester City striker is still making headlines – be it City’s strong start to the new EPL season, or his new look spurring a resurgence in the much-talked about memes on social media.A bonafide sports star for many years, Haaland’s popularity saw an explosive jump earlier this year as the World Cup turned him from a superstar athlete to a “globally recognised brand”. From his impressive speed and “meditative” goal celebrations to his signature blond hair and cheeky social media presence, “Brand Haaland” crossed over into mainstream pop culture with ease.This jump is evident in the sharp rise in Haaland’s Instagram followers, going from ~40 million before the World Cup, to over 77 million right now. From ads to videos to viral memes, “Brand Haaland” was seen everywhere! Nike’s “Five Stages of Haaland” showed the inevitability of dread mixed with humour when a terrified goalkeeper is faced with the towering soccer star. Chinese herbal tea, Walovi too quickly jumped on the “Haaland-mania” and had him breathing fire like a dragon before sipping the product.So how did “Brand Haaland” manage to make this staggering leap? Is he a footballer or a storyteller? And are there lessons in this meteoric rise that marketers can apply to their own strategies? Real and Relatable It can be easy to look at the staggering growth of “Brand Haaland” on the back of viral memes and come away thinking that virality itself is what brands must chase to replicate this success. However, it is actually the relatability factor that has resonated with audiences, resulting in these inescapable viral moments.From his deliberately exaggerated walk to his cheeky social media replies, and bromance with former Dortmund teammate, Jude Bellingham – brands as well as well people are smitten by how relatable and down-to-earth he seems. While his social media posts were popular even earlier, the last few months shone a bright spotlight on his unfiltered, humorous and naturally relatable personality, allowing a much larger audience to connect with him on a personal level.So how can brands, that aren’t flesh and blood, still be relatable? There is no silver bullet, but brands that are successful in making consumers relate to them are ones that effectively articulate their story, nurture a lasting connection and become memorable. Each brand must take three critical steps to arrive at an appropriate marketing strategy. First, clearly identify their positioning in the market. Second, articulating their value proposition to consumers with conviction. And finally, finding the tone of voice so they can speak their audiences’ language without it coming across as pandering. Today’s consumers are increasingly seeking meaningful connections and making decisions based on how a brand makes them “feel seen”. Be it using sincere storytelling or humour, brands that manage to strike the right chord must assess and re-assess at various stages. The choice isn’t about what is trending, but about what feels true to their core promise.The Axiom of Authenticity  According to the 2026 HubSpot Social Media Trends report, 77% of marketers said authenticity trumps production value for social content. Be it collaborations with influencers or digital campaigns, brands are placing greater value on authentic, relatable and high-quality content to build trust among their audiences.Haaland wears his authentic Norwegian roots on his sleeve – quite literally. During the World Cup, he made a special request to Norway’s football federation to include his mother’s maiden name “Braut” on his official jersey. This, in addition to the now famous “Viking row”, won hearts worldwide. Paired with Haaland’s razor sharp focus and on-field accomplishments, his love for his country and the sport reads as genuine reverence, not a conscious branding decision. It is this authenticity that seemed to immediately connect with audiences. The way “Brand Haaland” has connected with everyone cannot be engineered in a boardroom or focus grouped. It won audience approval and gained brand stickiness that was organically built on the back of someone the crowd deemed trustworthy. Brands everywhere are increasing their spending on marketing content that is relatable and authentic, especially in a time where consumers are starting to feel inundated with polished AI-generated and corporate-approved content. In today’s age, brands must communicate authentic stories and build real connections.  In ConclusionHaaland is widely known for his formidable talent, physical dominance and goalscoring abilities on the field. His undeniable capabilities are not incidental to his brand but form the very foundation of “Brand Haaland”, everything else – the virality, relatability and authenticity simply grow on top of a robust, unshakeable bedrock of undeniable performance and results. After all, it’s tough to sell a brand without essence. True passion and connection can be felt, and audiences are discerning enough to differentiate between curated connections and real ones. For branding experts and marketers everywhere, the key lesson here is that substance cannot be manufactured, only amplified.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Authored by : Rishu Singh, Deputy General Manager - Corporate Communications Fortis Healthcare Ltd.“PR is not strategic. It’s just issuing press releases.” A colleague said this to me recently. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, and it probably won’t be the last. Recently, a renowned healthcare practitioner gave me a one-line brief “Make me a hero.” I smiled, because if PR could simply “make” heroes, our jobs would be much easier.The reality is different……Public Relations isn’t about creating an image. It’s about discovering stories worth telling, earning credibility instead of buying attention, managing reputation when it’s under scrutiny, and building trust that compounds over years. After 12 years in leading PR consultancies and the five years in corporate communications, I’ve come to believe that our biggest challenge isn’t getting stories placed. It’s helping people understand what PR actually does.Marketing creates awareness. Sales generates revenue.PR builds trust, reputation and influence.And here’s the irony……Trust rarely appears on a balance sheet. Reputation doesn’t have a quarterly revenue target. Yet when a crisis hits, a regulator asks questions, a patient chooses a hospital, an investor evaluates a company, or top talent decides where to work - these intangible assets suddenly become the most valuable ones.Perhaps it’s time we stopped asking whether PR contributes to revenue and started asking a better question: Can any organization build sustainable revenue without trust? This distinction becomes particularly important in healthcare. Patients don’t choose hospitals based only on advertising. They choose institutions they trust. They seek clinicians whose expertise has been consistently demonstrated. They rely on credible information when making some of the most important decisions of their lives.Trust influences behavior long before revenue appears on a financial statement.Yet PR often struggles for recognition because its greatest contributions don't always fit neatly into a dashboard. Revenue can be reported quarterly. Sales can be tracked daily. Marketing campaigns can be measured through impressions, clicks and conversions.But PR creates value in ways that extend beyond immediate metrics. It builds stakeholder confidence, strengthens credibility and shapes reputation - assets that influence every business outcome, even if they cannot always be captured in a single number. While trust and reputation may be challenging to quantify, their impact is unmistakable: It take years of consistent effort to build and become invaluable when an organization faces uncertainty or crisis. Increasingly, the communications industry is also adopting more sophisticated frameworks that connect reputation, stakeholder sentiment and business outcomes, making PR's contribution more measurable than ever before.Ironically, organizations often recognize the value of communications only when trust is at risk. During a crisis, everyone looks to communications. During regulatory scrutiny, communications becomes indispensable. When attracting talent, engaging investors, reassuring patients, strengthening partnerships or navigating change, communications suddenly moves from being a support function to a strategic business function.The reality is that PR has always been strategic. It simply operates on a different timeline.Revenue is an outcome. Trust is an enabler.One without the other may produce short-term success, but sustainable growth requires both.Because in the end, reputations are built by purpose, performance, consistency - and by the stories that truthfully connect organizations with the people who matter most.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Authored by: Dr Robin Ireland, Public Health Activist and Honorary Research Fellow, School of Health and Wellbeing, University of GlasgowFor many of us, the recent FIFA World Cup was a chance to enjoy football at its best in front of a global audience. But our pleasure was tempered by football’s governing body doing its utmost to commercialise every aspect of their money-spinning event. The fans at the games could be heard ‘booing’ every so-called hydration break,which were clearly created by FIFA to provide even more advertising slots in matches. The breaks themselves were sponsored by Powerade, a ‘sports drink’ owned by Coca-Cola.Alcohol producers were also prominent at the World Cup through FIFA’s commercial partnerships, with their brands (Budweiser and Michelob Ultra) featuring in television broadcasts, social media, and digital platforms. Historically, sport’s organisers have never been too embarrassed at who they get into bed with to ensure their competitions take place; never mind the consequences on our health. FIFA’s actions in creating new rules to benefit their commercial partners were also a feature of cricket’s governing body’s activities 60 years’ ago. Whilst limited overs cricket began in India in 1951, England introduced made-for-television commercialised versions in the 1960s with early sponsorship provided by Gilette and then the tobacco brands Rothman’s and John Player.The introduction of Twenty20 (T20) cricket in 2001 provided a perfect platform for television audiences, and fast-food companies were quick to associate their brands with this entertainment-focused section of the sport. Since the Indian Premier League (IPL) began in 2008, it has become the richest and most spectacular T20 competition. Its format and business model have helped create new marketing opportunities globally. The Australian T20 league has been called the KFC Big Bash League since it launched in 2011. Logos appear everywhere from players’ uniforms, in reports featuring match statistics, and even on the playing surface itself. In England, a new cricket competition modelled on the IPL, the Hundred (matches feature100 balls faced by each team) was introduced in 2021 with its main sponsor being KP Snacks. Its brands (including products high in fat and salt) appeared prominently on the players’ shirts.The 23rd edition of the Commonwealth Games, which is taking part in Glasgow, Scotland, in July and August this year, is being attended by athletes from 74 nations and territories. Unlike either the FIFA Men’s World Cup or the Indian Premier League, it will have been much harder for the Games organisers’, the Commonwealth Games Federation, to secure financial backing. Indeed, the intended hosts, the Australian state of Victoria, dropped out in 2023 citing mounting costs. Glasgow agreed to host the competition on the proviso that no public money would be involved. According to the press, the Games will cost £150m with £50m coming from “ticketing, sponsorship, broadcast rights and merchandise” (BBC Scotland, 22 July 2026).The Glasgow Games have a number of ‘Official Event Partners’ (or sponsors) including the Indian dairy conglomerate, Amul. More concerningly though, Coca-Cola are acting as the Official Soft Drinks Partner and Jubel as the Games’ Official Beer. The link between sugary drinks and the worldwide increase in the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes is well known. Even beyond the impact on personal health, the negative effects of soft drinks on environmental health are less well discussed. In a time of rapid and damaging climate change, the water footprint of a can of coke is high. If we include its raw ingredients, its packaging, and its factory production, it may take 15 to 35 litres of water to produce per can. There is a strong argument that alcohol sponsorship should not be allowed anywhere near sport with its large audience of young people. Alcohol companies have become adept at promoting their zero-brand options and using ‘alibi’ marketing techniques which rely on slogans, familiar colours and logos of brands to avoid explicit references to alcohol. In both instances though, research shows that young people still see them simply as advertising for alcohol.Whilst I am sympathetic to sports organisers, surely events should simply not take place if they are driven by alcohol and ultra-processed food company financing, which by its very nature, is designed to encourage consumption of unhealthy products? We need to seek better healthier alternatives. If tobacco company sponsorship has been largely driven out of sport, surely we can take the same position on alcohol, unhealthy food and drinks?The development of international sport has been driven by media platforms and the marketing activity of multinational corporations. Commodification of all aspects of sport – FIFA are even selling small pieces of the MetLife Stadium pitch where the World Cup Final took place – is being prioritised over any semblance of morality and ethics. However, as we have seen at the World Cup, sports fans may just start pushing back at this overt commercialisation. The long-term consequences for brands wishing to benefit from the feelgood aspects of live sport might make companies start to think twice!

Authored by : Lalit Sharma, Founder-CEO, PR Companion and Ethane Web TechnologiesFor about 20 years, marketers have treated ranking first on Google as the end goal of creating brand visibility. It was always simple: rank number one of Google, get the traffic on the website, it will generate leads & sales, and visibility will follow on its own. That equation has started to break down since generative AI entered search, and the scale of the shift is now visible in the numbers.A study published in March 2026 tracked 863,000 keywords and 4 million AI Overview URLs. As per the study, merely 38% of pages cited in Google’s AI Overviews were ranked in the top 10 organic results for the same search term. While the number was at 76% just seven months ago. In less than a year, the link between ranking position and AI citation has roughly been cut in half. The question worth asking is why. What changed in that window was not how Google ranks pages. It was what AI systems are actually built to do with them. Google’s ranking system and an AI system’s citation logic are answering two different questions. Google questions which page best matches the purpose behind a search, based on the relevance, backlinks and authority signals built up over years. On the other hand, an AI tool goes narrower. It questions which piece of content can be pulled out cleanly, trusted, and used to construct a direct answer. A page can be written to win on the first question and still fail the second. Long intros, storytelling build-up, and a key insight buried in paragraph twelve. All of this can still rank well on Google. None of it helps when an AI model is scanning for something it can lift and use immediately.This is where the gap actually opens up. Earlier, the ranking algorithms were built on just one factor: a page as a whole, its backlinks, its age, its topical depth, and its overall authority on a subject. On the other hand, AI tools narrow it down, often a single paragraph or even a sentence, and ask if it can establish itself as a fact or an answer. A brand can still invest a huge amount in strong domain authority but consist of vague answers and rank on Google because of the SEO. However, will AI cite that page on its chat? It is the question that has come to the surface. Simultaneously, a lesser-known page will clear answers and facts, backed with sources and structural content, and has a true chance to appear in AI searches. In simple words, ranking rewards a page's overall weight. Citation rewards the clarity of a single passage within it. In 2024, Gartner anticipated that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 as generative AI tools held a growing share of queries that once were “Googled”. Though the projection has not come to exactly the same, as Google still handles the overwhelming majority of search queries around the world. However, there has been an underlying shift. AI systems increasingly standing between a question and its answer are now well documented and measurable.There is also a separate question worth asking: once a citation happens, what kind of content is actually being cited? In a Muck Rack report, ‘What is AI Reading’, the research suggests more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. The finding has held steady across all three editions: earned media, meaning independent, non-paid coverage, accounts for 84 per cent of everything these AI systems cite. Paid or advertorial content barely registers, at 0.3 per cent. Journalism specifically makes up around 27 per cent of citations. Put these three findings together and a pattern emerges. Ranking position is losing its grip on AI visibility. Traditional search volume itself is shrinking as a share of how people find answers. When AI cites something, it is the result of independent reporting done on the basis of third-party coverage far more often than owned brand content, no matter how well that content ranks.It does not mean that search engine optimization is irrelevant. Factors like domain authority, technical health and well-structured content still matter and serve as a base for AI systems. The only change that has come is that ranking on Google is not enough on its own. Earlier, it was seen as the endgame, now it is where the foundation is built. For anyone responsible for a brand's visibility, in marketing or in communications, the practical shift is in what gets measured and what gets prioritised. A page landing in position one is no longer proof that the job is done. Whether that brand is being cited by name in an AI-generated answer or where that citation is coming from – earned coverage, a forum thread, a comparison article, a product page – is becoming just as important to track. The data above suggests the businesses paying attention to that distinction now will be the ones still visible once the answer itself, not the link beneath it, becomes what most people actually see.

Authored by : Hardik Desai Sr. Vice President, Adfactors PR“We don’t have the bandwidth.”It is one of the most familiar statements in the communications profession. I have heard it throughout my career, and I have said it myself. There are, of course, moments when it is entirely justified. The pace of communication has accelerated; expectations have expanded and the demands on PR professionals have never been greater.But after nearly two decades in the profession, I have started to question whether bandwidth is always a capacity problem.Sometimes, I suspect, it is a focus problem.There is a useful concept in energy management called Phantom Load. An appliance can appear to be switched off and still consume electricity while remaining connected to the power supply. One device makes little difference. Multiply it across a household and the invisible consumption becomes significant.I believe communication has its own Phantom Load.It is the time, attention and intellectual energy consumed by activity that may be legitimate but does not necessarily create proportionate value.And this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.Our profession has become exceptionally good at counting activity. We count coverage, impressions, reach, media interactions, campaigns, deliverables and hit ratios. These metrics have a role. They help us understand performance.But there is a danger when what is easiest to count becomes what we value most.A high volume of coverage does not necessarily mean we influenced the conversation that mattered.A strong hit ratio does not necessarily mean we focused on the most consequential opportunities.And a large team working on an account does not necessarily mean the client is receiving better counsel.I have been in meetings with eight or ten people where, in hindsight, two or three could have had the conversation and reached the same outcome. There is nothing inherently wrong with a large meeting. Sometimes multiple perspectives are essential.But ten people spending an hour in a room is ten hours of organisational capacity.The question is simple: what did those additional hours create?The same question applies to seniority.There are important meetings, critical discussions, crisis situations, business opportunities etc. where the presence of a senior communication professional can materially change the quality of the engagement. There are senior editor engagement programmes where relationships are strengthened precisely because senior people invest their time.But there are also occasions when a senior person is present simply because seniority is expected to be visible.That distinction matters.A senior professional spending half a day at a press conference or two days at a media FAM is not merely spending few hours or days. They are making a choice about where their experience, judgement and relationships are best deployed.Perhaps that time could have been spent advising a CEO, understanding a client's business challenge, developing a younger professional, building a strategic relationship or identifying a reputation risk before it became a problem.This is not an argument against activity. It is an argument for proportionality.The same applies to measurement.For years, the industry has been under pressure to demonstrate value, yet we often continue to present the most visible outputs as evidence of impact. The conversation is slowly changing, with growing emphasis on connecting communication measurement to business objectives and outcomes.The more important question is therefore not how much did we do?It is:What changed because we did it?That is a very different question.It requires us to think beyond volume and towards relevance. Beyond activity and towards influence. Beyond reporting what happened and towards understanding what it meant.I believe this matters particularly for the next generation of PR professionals.Young professionals entering the industry today will work in an environment where AI can increasingly automate production, reporting and routine execution. Their advantage will not come from simply being able to do more work.It will come from knowing which work deserves to be done.That requires judgement.And judgement develops when people have the space to think, question, understand context and engage with the business behind the communication challenge.It also places a responsibility on senior professionals.As we become more experienced, our value should not be measured by how many meetings we attend or how many pieces of work we personally review. It should increasingly be measured by the quality of the decisions we influence and the capability we build around us.I have not always got this right myself. There have been meetings I did not need to attend, work I could have delegated and operational issues I could have stepped away from. Experience teaches you that being involved can feel like being useful.They are not always the same thing.Leadership is ultimately about leverage.This is why I think the Phantom Load of PR deserves a wider conversation—not as a criticism of how our industry operates, but as a question about how we want the profession to evolve.For HR leaders, it raises questions about how jobs are designed and whether talented people have enough space for meaningful and developmental work.For senior practitioners, it raises questions about where experience creates the greatest value.For younger professionals, it offers an important lesson: being busy is not the same as being valuable.And for all of us, it raises a more fundamental question about what we choose to reward.Do we reward volume or relevance?Participation or contribution?Activity or impact?More people or the right people?More work or better thinking?After nearly 20 years in communication, I have become convinced that our most valuable resource is not simply time.It is focused attention.So perhaps the next time we say, “We don’t have the bandwidth,” the first question should not be “Who else do we need?”It should be:“Where is our bandwidth going?”And then the question that matters even more:“Is that where it creates the most value?”Because the future of communication will not be defined by how much activity we can generate.It will be defined by the quality of attention we bring to the things that matter.And perhaps the most strategic thing we can do with our bandwidth is not to find more of it.It is to stop wasting the bandwidth we already have.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Public relations has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past decade. Once viewed primarily as a function responsible for securing media coverage, PR has evolved into a strategic business discipline that helps shape reputation, influence perception and support sustainable business growth. In today's highly connected marketplace, every interaction contributes to how a brand is perceived. As a result, communications professionals are increasingly involved in business conversations that extend beyond marketing to include growth, leadership visibility, stakeholder engagement and reputation management.Reputation Is a Competitive AdvantageIn an era where news travels instantly and opinions are formed within seconds, reputation has become one of an organisation's strongest competitive advantages. Customers, investors, employees and partners are no longer influenced only by products or servicesthey also evaluate a company's values, transparency and purpose. Strategic PR helps organisations communicate consistently, build trust and reinforce credibility over time, making reputation a long-term business asset rather than a short-term campaign objective.The Rise of Founder-Led BrandingOne of the biggest shifts in modern communications is the growing importance of founder visibility. Audiences increasingly connect with the people behind a brand. Authentic leadership stories, informed industry opinions and consistent executive communication help humanise organisations and strengthen stakeholder confidence. Founder branding is no longer limited to interviews; it includes thought leadership, speaking engagements, LinkedIn, podcasts and meaningful participation in industry conversations.Integrated Communications MatterToday's communications ecosystem extends far beyond traditional media. A strong earned-media story can spark discussions across digital platforms, newsletters, podcasts, communities and industry events. The most successful brands ensure that their messaging remains consistent across owned, earned and shared channels, creating a unified narrative that audiences recognise and trust.Technology Is Changing How We WorkArtificial intelligence and digital tools have improved research, media monitoring and content development, enabling PR professionals to work more efficiently. However, while technology supports execution, it cannot replace strategic judgement, creativity or trusted media relationships. Human insight remains essential for crafting compelling narratives and managing reputation during both opportunities and challenges.Quality Over QuantitySuccess in PR is no longer measured by the sheer number of stories published. Organisations today are placing greater emphasis on relevance, message pull-through and the influence of the platforms where they appear. A well-placed story that reaches the right stakeholders and supports business objectives often creates greater impact than multiple mentions without strategic value.PR as a Continuous FunctionCommunications has shifted from being campaign-led to becoming an always-on business function. Brands that consistently share innovations, milestones, customer stories and expert insights remain visible and credible throughout the year. This ongoing approach helps organisations stay relevant, build stronger stakeholder relationships and respond effectively to changing market dynamics.For both brands and agencies, the future of PR lies in collaboration, strategic thinking and long-term value creation. Communications should be viewed as an investment in trust rather than simply a tool for publicity. As businesses continue to evolve, PR will play an even greater role in strengthening reputation, supporting leadership positioning and fostering meaningful engagement. Modern public relations is no longer just about earning headlines it is about creating lasting confidence in a brand through authentic and consistent communication

There is perhaps no time in the history of the public relations profession which defines it as well as this present time. The world we live in is such that news travels around the globe in seconds, artificial intelligence has become capable of writing credible articles, and it takes less than a minute to spread a false story that shapes public opinion before anything else gets a chance to do so. The job of Public Relations has changed its definition from raising awareness to maintaining credibility.For many years, the performance of a communication strategy could be evaluated in terms of its media coverage, impression and reach. While those measures still matter a lot, they can no longer serve as the sole criteria for measuring the value of PR. Instead, businesses are now being assessed by something much more important their trustworthiness.Trust Is the New Brand CurrencyReputations are not made by individual campaigns that succeed or become popular on social media. They are established by each and every engagement that the company makes with its various stakeholders. Each and every press release, leadership interviews, employee communications, and responses to customers are part of a greater story that helps define credibility of the organisation.The above transformation has brought PR to the next level where it has become more of a business partner than just another function within the organisation. PR professionals are now required to advise the organisation's management about the expectations of various stakeholders and any possible reputation risks for the firm, along with any potential crisis management situations.AI Has the Ability to Fast-track PR Processes, But Human Decisions Build ReputationThere is no doubt that AI has revolutionized communication. Whether in media monitoring and sentiment analysis, content research or campaign optimization, the use of AI has greatly improved efficiency and speed in various PR processes.Credibility cannot be automated.While AI can write a press release, it cannot establish what the right tone to adopt is during a challenging situation. While it can help you analyze the discussion, it cannot take the place of ethical judgment and empathy or the ability to forge relationships with journalists and the community.In the future, successful communicators will be those that adopt the use of technology but do not lose their credibility in the process.The Super Power That PR Professionals Need in the Present EraAmongst all the problems that the industry is currently facing, one problem stands out: misinformation. The era of deep fakes and fake visuals have made it really hard for the audience to differentiate between truth and lies. Credibility then becomes the competitive edge of any brand.For communications professionals, it would mean going from telling stories to being a custodian of the truth. Everything needs to be verified and everything has to be true. Speed is essential but accuracy is even more important. A reputation that takes years to build up can be destroyed within minutes through unverified communication.A New Strategy For The Next Generation of PR ProfessionalsThere is a lot of hope for the young professionals of the next generation who want to become communications professionals. Not anymore would technical skills make a person successful in this profession. There are other things required too.The ideal PR practitioners will be those who know their industry as much as they know the media. They will analyze data without forgetting the feelings of people, use artificial intelligence ethically while being responsible for it, and cultivate trust-based relations.Most importantly, they will realize that good communication is not about controlling stories good communication is about engaging in meaningful dialogues that foster trust.The Future of PR Is Based on Authenticity As we mark World PR Day, it is good to reflect on how the PR industry has come a long way. PR is no longer about how loud the message of a brand is, but about how authentic the brand is in its communication. When misinformation can travel across cyberspace with the greatest of ease, authenticity is not a luxury—It is essential.The future lies in favor of those who prefer transparency over hype, dialogue over monologue, and trust over visibility. For a professional in Public Relations, it is not only a task but also an opportunity. Since the world is already flooded with creators of content, the only thing that truly matters is credibility.And it is what makes modern Public Relations so effective.This version was crafted in a style of thought leadership articles suitable for Adgully and allows positioning yourself as a professional in the field of communications with the guidance for young PR practitioners.

As Chief Communications Officer at JCBL Group, Kimmy Babbar is shaping the narrative of one of India's diversified manufacturing conglomerates spanning mobility, defence, railways and engineering. Drawing on over a decade of agency leadership and her experience in integrated marketing communications, she believes corporate communications today is as much about building trust and purpose as it is about visibility. In this interview, Babbar discusses the shift from agency to in-house leadership, AI's role in communications, employer branding, and why Indian manufacturing brands should embrace their roots while competing globally.After spending 12 years leading an integrated marketing agency and then moving in-house at JCBL Group, what has been the biggest shift in your approach to corporate communications and brand building?The shift has been both challenging and incredibly rewarding. At the agency, I was largely working with consumer brands where the focus was on products, campaigns, and customer acquisition. At JCBL Group, the responsibility is much larger. I am helping shape the identity of a diversified corporate group with businesses spanning mobility, defence, manufacturing, railways, and several other sectors.I've also witnessed the evolution of marketing itself. We moved from clearly defined ATL and BTL strategies to a far more integrated, through-the-line (TTL) approach, where digital has become the thread connecting every touchpoint. The channels have changed, audiences have changed, and communication today is far more immediate and interactive.The biggest difference, however, is this: marketing here isn't about selling a product. It's about telling the story of an organisation, its purpose, and the impact it creates. That shift has completely changed the way I think about brand building.JCBL Group operates across diverse industries, from mobility and defence to manufacturing. How do you create a unified brand narrative while ensuring each business retains its own distinct identity?The businesses may be different, but the purpose is the same. Across JCBL Group, we're solving complex problems through engineering and manufacturing, and ultimately making a meaningful impact on people's lives.Each company has its own identity and its own audience. A defence solution that supports our armed forces tells a very different story from a metro project that moves millions of commuters every day, or a motorhome that enables people to travel differently. As a communications team, our role is to tell those individual stories while connecting them to a larger narrative.That's where the Group brand comes alive. Every business has its own voice, but together they reflect one shared purpose and one shared vision.Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming communications, marketing and reputation management. How is JCBL Group integrating AI into its communications strategy, and where do you believe human creativity remains irreplaceable?We have been utilizing AI in our operations within the JCBL Group for some time now. The communications teams leverage AI and automation to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and better workflow. At the same time, we encourage all our team members to get acquainted with the latest developments related to AI.And yet, we are a people-first company. We view AI as a technology that complements humans rather than substitutes them.There are three things that cannot be substituted by any technology and AI included: judgment, empathy, and human understanding. Great stories do not originate in prompts; they originate in human experience and emotions.Employer branding has become a critical business priority, particularly in manufacturing and engineering sectors. What strategies have worked best for JCBL Group in attracting and retaining talent through communications?Our employer branding starts with who we are as an organisation. JCBL Group has always been a people-first company, and our communication simply reflects that reality.As a communications team, we try to make the organisation transparent. We showcase our people, our workplace culture, learning opportunities, leadership development, employee wellbeing, and the everyday moments that define life at JCBL Group.Employer branding isn't about claiming to be a great place to work; it's about giving people enough reasons to believe it. Our role is simply to tell those stories honestly. When employees genuinely enjoy where they work and feel valued, that becomes the strongest message any organisation can communicate.You have consistently championed integrated marketing communications. In an era where audiences are spread across digital, social, traditional media and influencers, how do you measure the success of a truly integrated campaign beyond conventional metrics?Coming from an agency background, I understand the importance of numbers. Reach, engagement, impressions and conversions will always matter.But corporate communications operate a little differently. For us, success isn't measured only by campaign performance. It's measured by whether people understand who we are, whether they trust us more than they did before, and whether the story stays with them long after the campaign ends.An integrated campaign should create consistency across every touchpoint. If it strengthens the brand's reputation and deepens stakeholder trust, that's success in its truest sense.Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest communications challenge for Indian manufacturing brands seeking to compete globally, and what role should corporate communications leaders play in shaping business growth?One of the biggest challenges is how Indian manufacturing brands position themselves on the global stage. For years, I've seen companies struggle with a simple question: should they present themselves as an Indian brand or as a global brand?I don't think those two ideas are mutually exclusive. At JCBL Group, we've always been proud of our roots. We believe in 'Making in India for the World.' Our engineering, innovation and manufacturing capabilities have been built here, and that's a strength, not something to hide.Corporate communications have a bigger role today than ever before. It's not just about building visibility; it's about shaping perception, building trust, and giving global audiences confidence in what Indian manufacturing is capable of. That's how communication becomes a driver of business growth, not just a support function.

Authored By : Varun Aggarwal, Associate Vice President, Business & Strategy, PRP GroupFor a long time, PR was treated like plumbing. You called us when the pipe burst, or when a launch needed a press release pushed out by Friday. That version of the industry is gone, and good riddance. Reputation today isn't a service you hire. It's an asset you build, and like any asset, it has structure.I've sat across the table from enough founders and CMOs now to notice a pattern. Most founders I've worked with don't treat PR as one thing you switch on before a launch and off after. Good PR looks more like a building: foundation first, then the load-bearing pieces, then whatever finishing work makes it all look effortless. The bad version usually traces back to one decision, someone bets everything on a single layer, usually media hits, and can't figure out later why nothing holds up.The brands actually winning the trust war right now, the ones investors back, the ones journalists call back, the ones people defend in comment sections when things go sideways, have built out all five layers, not just one. Skip a layer and the rest starts to wobble no matter how much you spend. Get all five right, and the effort compounds in ways that are hard to fake and even harder to copy.Start with narrative, because everything else depends on it. This is where most founder conversations begin, and where most of them go wrong on the first try. A narrative isn't a tagline or an “About Us” paragraph. It's the answer to a harder question: why does the world need you to exist, and why now? Nail the story, the voice, the positioning, and every layer after this gets cheaper to build. Miss it, and you'll spend years paying journalists to explain a version of you that never quite lands.Once that's settled, the next question is where it should actually live. Coverage isn't a goal. Coverage in the right places, in front of the right people, at the right moment in your company's arc, that's a goal. A pre-IPO company doesn't need lifestyle features; it needs the financial press to understand its unit economics. A challenger D2C brand doesn't need a Forbes cover; it needs ten thoughtful pieces in the publications its customers actually read. Media strategy is knowing the difference, and having the discipline to pass on coverage that looks good but does nothing.Underneath the media hits sits a layer most agencies undersell, and the one that does the quietest work: the content engine. Op-eds. Founder bylines. LinkedIn posts. Podcast appearances. Internal notes that never see the outside world. None of this belongs on a retainer sheet as a line item to tick off, it's what makes the narrative feel true rather than announced. I've seen smaller-budget brands outperform bigger-budget competitors on this alone, simply by publishing more often and thinking harder about what they put out.Get this right for long enough and something else starts happening: influence. Not follower counts, something closer to pull in rooms you're not even standing in. An analyst quotes your data in a report. A founder you helped once vouches for you on a panel without being asked. A policymaker references something your team put in front of them months earlier. None of it is glamorous, and most of it looks like generosity long before it looks like strategy.And underneath all of it has to sit measurement. For years, our industry got away with vanity metrics: AVE, impressions, clipping books nobody read. Boards have wised up. Measurement today means linking activity to shifts in share of voice, sentiment movement, inbound deal flow, recruitment signals, even valuation conversations. If you can't show the line between the work and the outcome, you don't have a programme. You have an expense.The reason these layers matter is simple. Reputation isn't built in the moments people are watching. It's built in the long stretches when no one is, through choices that compound. A founder who treats narrative as a quarterly task, content as outsourced filler, and measurement as an afterthought will eventually run a campaign that flops, and won't understand why.Modern PR isn't about being loud. It's about being legible to the right people, in the right order, with proof at every layer.That's the architecture. Everything else is decoration.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Authored by Unnati Gala, Founder & CEO, Chakrum Brand CommunicationsGujarat has long been home to large, family-owned businesses. While second- and third-generation entrepreneurs continue to lead established family businesses, the entrepreneurial ecosystem has evolved significantly over the last five to seven years. We've seen a growing number of startups emerge from Gujarat, with several even securing national visibility through platforms like Shark Tank India over the past few seasons. Despite this entrepreneurial growth, the region has historically been slower to adopt modern marketing and communication practices. Businesses have largely thrived through strong relationships and word-of-mouth, reducing the perceived need for structured public relations. Even digital marketing, which today is widely accepted, reached Gujarat much later than metro and Tier I cities. Since businesses were already performing well, there was little to no urgency to explore newer communication channels.Why PR has been a Slow Cell One of the biggest challenges has been the perception that PR doesn't generate immediate leads. Unlike digital marketing, branding campaigns, or paid advertising, which offer measurable metrics such as leads, impressions, and conversions, PR is often viewed as intangible. While you can count the number of advertisements placed or evaluate campaign performance through dashboards, the impact of PR isn't always immediately visible.This has made PR a difficult investment to justify, particularly in markets like Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, where businesses often prefer initiatives with clearly measurable returns. There is naturally some hesitation in investing in something whose outcomes are perceived as long-term rather than immediate. However, PR has never been about lead generation. Its true value lies in building credibility, strengthening founder reputation, enhancing brand image and establishing long-term trust. Historically, Gujarati businesses already enjoyed credibility within their own networks because relationships have always been central to how business is conducted in the state. With Vadodara being an 80% industrial hub, word of mouth about the business community travelled fast. Additionally, a lot of Gujarat-based companies are now eyeing an IPO, which is where having the right PR agency can help you with the process.  Changing Perceptions Around PR As businesses look to expand beyond regional markets, the role of PR has become increasingly important. It's no longer just about visibility but also building authenticity, trust and industry authority while showcasing innovation. The PR landscape itself has evolved tremendously. Earlier, PR primarily meant newspaper coverage. Today, it encompasses digital publications, expert articles, founder interviews, media bytes, podcasts, social amplification, and multiple content formats that together shape public perception. Our objective in building a strategy-first PR agency in Vadodara has been to help businesses understand that many of them have been practising PR informally for years, but without a structured, strategic approach. Making PR Tangible One of our biggest responsibilities has been making PR feel tangible. Rather than asking businesses to make a large upfront investment, we often begin with a modest three-month engagement. This allows founders to experience the value and to believe in how PR can work for them and their businesses firsthand before committing to a long-term strategy. During this period, we demonstrate how media coverage can be amplified through social media, integrated into business communications and leveraged to strengthen credibility. Many of these businesses have existed for 25, 30, or even 50 years, yet their reputation often remained confined to Gujarat. Through PR, we've helped founders gain recognition well beyond state boundaries. People in cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru and other parts of India have begun discovering these businesses. Increased visibility has also opened conversations around startup funding, investor interest, IPO launches, industry collaborations and opportunities on platforms such as Shark Tank India. Explaining PR in the Right Context One important learning has been that strategies that work in metro cities cannot simply be replicated in Gujarat. Instead of using industry jargon or following the same playbook as Mumbai or Delhi, we've focused on explaining PR in simple, relatable terms that resonate with local founders. The first objective isn't to sell PR but to build belief in its value. Once founders understand that PR contributes to long-term business growth through credibility and trust, strategic conversations naturally become much easier. The newer generation of entrepreneurs who have now taken over their family businesses have helped accelerate this shift. With expansion being their focus, they're more open to exploring structured brand-building initiatives. Their willingness to adopt PR has grown considerably once they see its long-term business impact.  Bridging the Awareness Gap More than anything else, the biggest challenge has been awareness. We are Gujarat’s first strategy-focused PR agency. Most agencies in the region have traditionally limited PR to press releases or press conferences. emphasising more on the regional visibility. However, strategic reputation management, founder positioning, thought leadership, and integrated media planning have largely remained unexplored. Over the last two years, I have personally interacted with more than 150 founders, entrepreneurs, communications professionals and business leaders to understand their perceptions of PR. A clear pattern emerged: ?     Many simply don't know what PR actually involves.?     Those who understand its importance often don't have the time or internal bandwidth to execute it effectively.?     Others outsource their PR to agencies in Mumbai, Delhi, or Bengaluru because they haven't found the right partner/ agency capable of delivering the same strategic quality and results. That gap in understanding and in execution is precisely what we're working to bridge. Building a Strategy-Focused PR Ecosystem From a founder's perspective, another challenge has been access to the right talent. Vadodara is home to one of the largest colleges, Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), which produces a large number of journalism and media graduates every year. However, because Gujarat has historically lacked strategy-led PR agencies, many talented professionals have either moved to metro cities or transitioned into adjacent fields such as digital marketing and social media. Finding experienced strategic PR professionals has therefore been challenging. Fortunately, remote working and hybrid work models have significantly reduced this limitation.  Today, I can say Chakrum came to life to bring PR to Gujarat and drive brands towards purpose-driven communications. Now that vision has extended beyond Gujarat, we cater to clients PAN India.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Public relations is entering one of the most consequential phases in its evolution. In an era where artificial intelligence can generate content in seconds, creators rival traditional media in shaping public opinion, and every stakeholder has the power to influence brand perception, the industry's role is expanding far beyond securing headlines. Reputation today is built across multiple touchpoints—earned, owned, shared and executive-led—and organisations are increasingly looking to communications not simply for visibility, but for strategic counsel that strengthens trust, manages risk, shapes narratives and delivers measurable business outcomes. The shift reflects a broader transformation in how businesses view communications. Once measured largely by media coverage, impressions and clip counts, PR is now being evaluated on its ability to influence stakeholder perception, support corporate strategy, navigate crises, enhance executive visibility and create long-term brand equity. As media consumption fragments, AI reshapes information discovery and audiences become more discerning about authenticity, communicators are finding that credibility—not reach alone—has become the industry's most valuable currency. On the occasion of World PR Day, Adgully spoke to communications leaders across agencies and brands to understand how the profession is evolving. Their insights reveal an industry that is moving decisively from media relations to reputation management, from campaign execution to strategic business advisory, and from chasing visibility to building influence, trust and sustainable business value. While technology is transforming how PR is planned, measured and executed, industry leaders agree that the profession's future will ultimately be defined not by automation, but by human judgment, authentic storytelling and the ability to shape narratives that stand the test of scrutiny. From media relations to reputation managementFor Shalini Gupta, Co-founder & Director, Secret Sauce Communications Pvt Ltd, public relations has evolved far beyond media relations to become a critical driver of corporate reputation and stakeholder trust."PR today is beyond mere media relations and is a corporate reputation and an indispensable tool for every organisation focused on long term growth in creating credibility and stakeholder trust," she says.Gupta believes one of the industry's biggest challenges lies in changing client expectations. Rather than treating PR as a commodity or evaluating it by the number of media placements, she says organisations need to recognise its strategic value."For clients, we need to remind them that PR isn't a commodity. PR agencies need to stop selling mere articles and instead thrive on the foundation of transparency and truth."While acknowledging the growing role of artificial intelligence, Gupta believes technology should enhance strategic communications, not replace it."PR holds and will forever hold tremendous worth, especially in an era of AI generated misinformation. AI helps consultants work more efficiently and with agility, but the real thinking, customer research and strategic counsel continue to come from people."Reflecting on six years of building a strategic communications consultancy, Gupta adds that the industry's future lies in creating sustained narratives rather than chasing coverage metrics."Our clients continue to value strategic counsel that creates credibility beyond clip counts. Until Indian clients stop asking 'How many articles?' As the first question, the golden age of PR will remain largely aspirational. The real question is what narrative are we driving and how can we sustain it in line with the organisation's larger purpose."The AI era demands credibility beyond visibilityThe rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is also reshaping how brands are discovered and evaluated online. Communications professionals say PR is no longer responsible only for earning media attention, but also for building a credible digital footprint that AI driven search engines can trust.For Sayesha Arora, Associate Vice President, Tech for Consumer, Zeno India, discoverability has become just as important as visibility."The biggest shift we are witnessing in public relations is that discoverability has become as important as visibility. Search has evolved from keywords to AI generated answers, which means brands are now being evaluated long before someone visits a website or speaks to a spokesperson."Arora believes this shift places PR at the centre of reputation building, where earned media, expert voices and authentic storytelling serve as trust signals for both audiences and AI."PR is no longer just about earning media coverage. It's about building a credible digital footprint that AI can trust, cite and surface. In a world flooded with AI generated content, credibility is becoming the ultimate differentiator, and that's where strategic public relations has never been more valuable."The fundamentals of communication remain unchangedHaving witnessed the industry's evolution over nearly two decades, Namrata Aswani, Director, Marketing & PR, MiQ, says communications has transformed from celebrating newspaper coverage to building integrated brand narratives."Going back nearly two decades, when I started my career in PR, tracking newspapers was a great start to the day. What was once focused on traditional storytelling and celebrating every client mentioned in print has evolved into crafting powerful narratives within an integrated ecosystem that strengthens brand perception and drives business outcomes."Despite the rapid rise of the creator economy and AI powered insights, Aswani believes the essence of effective communication has not changed."One thing shall remain constant, the essence of communication and the relevance of content. It is no longer just about what you say, but about how and when you say it, authentically, consistently and meaningfully to stay relevant and make an impact."Business impact is becoming PR's biggest metricAs organisations increasingly integrate communications with business strategy, industry leaders believe the success of PR can no longer be measured through coverage alone. Instead, its contribution to trust, brand preference and commercial outcomes is becoming a defining benchmark.Tarun Joshi, Founder & CEO, IGP, says successful PR in today's landscape is ultimately about influencing business outcomes."When we talk about successful PR in 2026, it won't be defined by just headlines alone but by its ability to influence business outcomes. The real measure of success is whether it fosters consumer trust, influences brand preference and contributes to business growth."According to Joshi, media visibility, creator partnerships and executive thought leadership are no longer independent pillars but complementary elements of a unified communications strategy."Today's audiences move seamlessly between traditional media, creators, communities and digital platforms. PR has evolved from a communications function into a business function that connects storytelling with culture, commerce and credibility."Drawing from IGP's campaigns including In My Lover Era, To Mom, With Love and To Papa, My Hero, he adds that communications today must create meaningful engagement while remaining closely aligned with long term business growth.One brand story across multiple touchpointsFor Nivedeeta Moirangthem, Country Communication Manager, IKEA India, the communications landscape has fundamentally changed because consumers now interact with brands through multiple channels rather than a single source."People don't experience brands through one channel anymore. They discover us through conversations, stories, creators, news, colleagues, communities and their own experiences. Communications today is much bigger than PR in the traditional sense because it helps businesses stay relevant, build trust and create meaningful connections."She says successful communications is no longer about treating media, creators and executive voices as separate channels but integrating them into one consistent brand narrative."At IKEA, we don't see media, creators, executive voices or our own channels as separate parts of the story. Our role is to make sure every touchpoint comes together to tell one authentic and consistent story that reflects who we are as a brand."According to Moirangthem, visibility alone is no longer enough. "The strongest communications connect culture, consumers and business with consistency and purpose. Visibility will always matter, but its true value lies in the impact it creates, whether that's building trust, strengthening brand preference or supporting long term business growth."Executive thought leadership is gaining prominenceAnother notable shift within modern communications is the growing importance of executive thought leadership. As audiences increasingly seek authentic perspectives over promotional messaging, industry leaders believe organisational voices are becoming one of the strongest assets in building credibility.For Hemendhira Muralidharan, Vice President of Marketing, Blackstraw.ai, authentic leadership creates a lasting impression that extends beyond traditional media coverage."I would always lean towards executive thought leadership, but not in the way many companies approach it. Everyone is competing for attention, but one thing that stands out is a leader who provides an authentic opinion that stems from experience and real conversations."He believes sustained leadership communication builds stronger recall than isolated media mentions."Media visibility gradually disappears. Readers may forget the headline, but they remember leaders who consistently share real world stories with clarity and purpose."Credibility will outweigh visibilityAs artificial intelligence becomes deeply embedded in communications, Nikita Manchanda, Co-founder, Brandsadvert, believes authenticity and credibility will become even more valuable."We're entering a defining era for public relations where influence is earned through credibility, not just visibility."While AI has transformed how agencies analyse data, generate content and monitor conversations, she believes the industry's future will continue to depend on human judgement."Strategic PR today is about helping brands navigate complexity with purpose, respond to cultural moments with sensitivity and build lasting relationships with stakeholders."Looking ahead, Manchanda believes agencies that combine technology with ethical storytelling and business understanding will define the next phase of communications."The 'Golden Age of Strategic PR' is not about doing more communication. It's about delivering communication that creates measurable trust and long term business value."Trust remains the profession's strongest foundationDespite rapid technological advancements, communications professionals agree that the core principles of public relations remain unchanged. While AI may reshape workflows and new platforms may continue to emerge, trust, credibility and sound judgement remain central to the profession.For Anushka Dey, Vice President, PR, SRV Media, the ability to build and sustain trust has become more important than ever."If there's one shift that has stood out to me over the years, it's that trust has become harder to earn and easier to lose."While AI and data continue to improve efficiency, Dey believes they cannot replace human understanding or strategic judgement."Our role has never been just about securing visibility. It has always been about helping organisations communicate with credibility, build meaningful relationships and protect their reputation."Looking ahead, she says the communications industry will ultimately be judged by its ability to earn trust consistently."Technology will continue to evolve, but trust will remain the one thing every brand will have to earn, every single day."As the communications landscape continues to evolve, one message resonates across agencies and brands alike. Public relations is no longer measured by the volume of coverage it generates, but by its ability to build trust, shape reputation and deliver meaningful business outcomes. In an era increasingly influenced by AI, creators and fragmented media ecosystems, the industry's greatest strength may still lie in what has always mattered most: authentic storytelling backed by strategic thinking. 

The artificial intelligence conversation has entered a new phase. After three years of relentless investment, experimentation and boardroom enthusiasm, the debate has shifted decisively from whether organisations should adopt AI to how they can deploy it responsibly, securely and at enterprise scale. As AI Appreciation Day 2026 is observed globally, one message is becoming increasingly clear: the next wave of competitive advantage will not be created by organisations that simply use more AI, but by those that combine intelligent automation with trusted data, sound governance and human judgment.  ManagementWhat began as a race to launch AI pilots has evolved into a far more complex  business challenge. Across industries – from marketing, manufacturing and financial services to healthcare, enterprise software, cybersecurity and consumer technology – AI is rapidly moving beyond productivity tools and copilots to become the underlying operating layer of modern enterprises. It is increasingly shaping customer experiences, influencing  strategic decisions, orchestrating workflows and redefining how organisations innovate, compete and create value. Yet, as AI becomes deeply embedded in business operations, executives argue that technology alone is no longer the differentiator. The real questions facing leaders today are far more fundamental: Can AI be trusted with mission-critical decisions? Can it scale without compromising governance, privacy and security? Can organisations harness autonomous systems while preserving accountability, transparency and human oversight? And perhaps most importantly, can AI augment human intelligence rather than replace it? The consensus emerging from industry leaders is that the AI conversation has matured beyond fascination with models, chatbots and automation. Success is increasingly being measured not by the number of AI tools deployed, but by measurable business outcomes, better decision-making, stronger customer experiences and resilient enterprise ecosystems. In this new phase, trusted data, explainable AI, cybersecurity, responsible governance and human expertise are becoming strategic assets as important as the algorithms themselves. To understand how this transformation is unfolding, Adgully spoke to more than 40 business leaders, founders, technologists, marketers and AI strategists across sectors. Their insights reveal an industry at a pivotal inflection point—one where AI is quietly transitioning from a disruptive technology into critical business infrastructure. From agentic AI and intelligent automation to enterprise governance, creative collaboration and cyber resilience, the conversations point to a shared conclusion: the organisations that will lead the next decade will not necessarily be those with the most advanced AI models, but those that build the greatest confidence in how those models are deployed. If the first chapter of AI was defined by experimentation and speed, the next will be defined by trust, responsibility and intelligent execution. AI Appreciation Day 2026, therefore, is less a celebration of artificial intelligence itself than a reflection on how businesses are learning to transform technological capability into sustainable competitive advantage, by ensuring that every algorithm is matched with accountability, every automation with oversight, and every breakthrough with human judgment. From AI adoption to AI executionA recurring theme among industry leaders is that enterprises have largely moved beyond debating AI adoption. The real challenge now lies in embedding it into everyday operations.Venugopal Ganganna, Co-Founder and CIO of LS Digital, believes the conversation has evolved from awareness to measurable business outcomes. Organisations have already decided to invest in AI, he says. The differentiator now is how quickly businesses can integrate AI into customer experiences, operational workflows and strategic decisions that directly drive growth. Shrish Anand Lal of MiFiX.ai echoes a similar sentiment. Enterprises are no longer questioning whether AI works, they’re questioning whether it can be trusted in production. While AI models continue to improve, scaling them across organisations still depends on governance, auditability and enterprise-ready architecture rather than technology alone.Suraj Victor, Vice President, Go-to-Market, Pegasystems India, puts it even more bluntly: everyone is buying AI, but very few are buying outcomes. The winners, he argues, will be those who convert AI into measurable business value instead of merely accumulating AI pilots.Ambika Sharma, Product Architect, Neuro Rank & Chief Strategist, Pulp Strategy, says most of the appreciation for AI goes to the systems we all can see working like the copilots, the agents, the models writing code. She further says quieter story is the one with the widest reach and AI search is where artificial intelligence touches the most people, most often, with the least ceremony.That growing maturity is evident across sectors. The excitement surrounding AI tools has given way to discussions around business transformation.Competitive advantage isn't AI, it's better decisionsPerhaps the strongest shift emerging this year is the recognition that AI itself is no longer a differentiator.Ajay Varma, Managing Partner at 0101.Today, argues that organisations are celebrating AI for the wrong reasons. Too many companies proudly count the number of AI tools they've adopted instead of measuring the problems they've solved.Real success, he says, can already be seen in organisations like HDFC Bank using AI for fraud detection, Apollo Hospitals improving clinical decision-making, and Flipkart delivering personalised customer experiences. These are examples where AI has quietly improved business decisions rather than becoming the headline. Rahul Garg, Founder and CEO of Moglix Credlix and Cognilix, believes enterprise AI is entering its second phase. Earlier, AI automated individual tasks. Today, it is beginning to influence strategic decision-making by transforming scattered data into insights that businesses can actually trust.Rama Rao, Creative Director – Video, TheSmallBigIdea, says it feels like a good time to look at just how quickly AI has gone from being something he spoke about as our future to something that we use almost every day at work. Nikhil Vijay Bagalkotkar, Director, AEC India & SAARC, Autodesk, sees a similar evolution in architecture, engineering and manufacturing. AI is becoming an intelligent collaborator that helps professionals evaluate alternatives, detect risks early and make better decisions when they matter most, long before projects are completed.The common thread is unmistakable as AI is moving from execution to judgement.Human intelligence becomes more valuable, not lessContrary to early fears, executives increasingly see AI enhancing rather than replacing human capability.Prashant Puri, Co-founder and CEO of AdLift, calls this one of AI's greatest ironies. As machines become increasingly capable, they make distinctly human qualities such as empathy, creativity and strategic thinking even more valuable. Technology may provide speed, but humans continue to provide direction.The future, he says, belongs to organisations that master collaborative intelligence, knowing precisely when to keep humans in the loop.This philosophy resonates strongly across industries.Shemaroo Entertainment, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer Anuja Trivedi says AI is helping decode audience behaviour, personalise content discovery and strengthen storytelling. Yet its real value lies in amplifying creativity rather than replacing it.Rishabh Suri, Co-founder and Chief Content Officer at Studio Blo, believes AI has removed creative barriers for young storytellers, allowing teams to build ideas that were previously impossible. But creativity, he insists, still originates with people.Vishal Rajani, CEO of Synergos, argues AI has taken over the repetitive work marketers never enjoyed in the first place like research, reporting and endless iterations, freeing strategists to spend more time understanding clients, asking better questions and solving the problems that actually matter.Nitin Burman, CRO, Balaji Telefilms says AI is no longer just a tool for efficiency, it is becoming a creative collaborator across media, marketing and entertainment. He further adds how AI is redefining how content is created, distributed and consumed from enabling immersive storytelling and reducing production costs to delivering hyper-personalised audience experiencesSaket Dandotia, Co-Founder and CEO, Onetab.ai honours the minds that are building India's intelligent future - and remind ourselves that the smartest technology is the one guided by human values.Across creative industries, AI is increasingly being viewed not as a substitute for imagination, but as an amplifier of it.The rise of the invisible enterpriseIf the first phase of AI focused on chatbots and copilots, the next wave is likely to be far less visible.Anjaiah Surgi, CTO of Hindware, believes the future lies in making AI almost invisible across customer interactions. Today, AI already helps the company automatically triage complaints, improve dealer receivables, support HR operations and enhance customer service.The next evolution, he says, will see AI moving beyond dashboards and alerts into autonomous action, following up with dealers, supporting sales teams and quietly improving every interaction without customers consciously noticing the technology behind it.Albert Nel, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, Genesys describes this transition as the emergence of agentic AI, systems capable of reasoning, coordinating enterprise workflows and orchestrating actions instead of merely generating responses.Yashwant Singh, Founder & CEO, AmbitionHire says AI Appreciation Day is a timely reminder of how rapidly artificial intelligence has become an integral part of the way we work, recruit, and make decisions and how AI is helping organizations automate repetitive tasks, uncover meaningful insights from data, and improve efficiency. Rather than replacing customer service employees, these intelligent agents will handle routine work while humans focus on complex decisions, empathy and relationship-building.It marks a significant evolution in enterprise AI, from assistance to orchestration.Trust becomes AI's biggest competitive advantageIf the first wave of artificial intelligence was defined by speed and automation, the next will be defined by trust.Almost every executive agrees that as AI becomes more autonomous, governance, transparency and accountability are moving from compliance checklists to boardroom priorities.Sonia Nahar, Group Head – Social Media & Strategic Initiatives at Barcode, believes AI has quietly become the invisible engine powering modern workplaces, from decision-making to customer engagement. But as organisations deepen AI integration, she argues that transparency, ethical governance and human-centric design can no longer be optional. The businesses that thrive will be those that balance technological capability with human judgment.That sentiment is echoed by Sameer Kanodia, Vice Chairman and CEO of Lumina Datamatics & TNQTech, who says the future will belong to organisations that integrate AI across end-to-end workflows while maintaining strong governance, intellectual property protection, data privacy and human oversight. For him, the next breakthrough isn't merely agentic AI or multimodal intelligence, it is trusted AI.Deepak Sharma, CTO, Thriwe says next phase of AI is moving beyond automation to intelligent assistance. He further adds consumers no longer just expect faster service, they expect brands to understand context, anticipate needs, and simplify decisions in real time.Priti Sawant, Founder & CEO, Joules to Watts says their focus has increasingly been on helping organizations develop AI Charters that go beyond a list of tools, pilots, or technology investments as they bring together leadership alignment, talent readiness, operating models, governance, customer impact, and execution discipline.Subhash Kalluri, Founder, FreJun shares an interesting perspective on how Voice AI now sits inside some of the most sensitive conversations a business has like a candidate discussing a job change, a patient booking a medical appointment, and a customer disputing a loan repayment. Niraj Nagrani, Chief Data and AI Officer at Altimetrik, believes enterprises are now entering an era where success depends less on building bigger models and more on operationalising AI responsibly. Trusted context, cyber resilience, governance and intelligent orchestration are becoming the real differentiators as organisations scale AI across business functions.Agentic AI changes the enterprise playbookBeyond copilots and assistants lies what many executives describe as AI's next defining chapter – Agentic AI.Unlike traditional AI tools that generate responses, agentic systems can reason, plan and execute tasks across multiple workflows with minimal intervention.Deepak Dastrala, CEO and Business Head of Purple Fabric, describes this as a shift from isolated co-pilots to “Digital Experts” that augment human judgement across enterprise workflows while remaining accountable within clearly defined guardrails.Bhavin Turakhia, Founder of Neo, goes even further, calling AI the biggest force multiplier of his lifetime, larger than both the internet and smartphones. The real opportunity, he argues, lies not in gaining access to increasingly powerful models but in fundamentally redesigning how work gets done, where intelligent agents and humans collaborate seamlessly to solve bigger problems faster.Yet executives are equally clear that autonomy cannot exist without accountability.Security can no longer be an afterthoughtGreater intelligence also creates greater vulnerability.As enterprises deploy AI agents with access to customer records, financial systems and sensitive enterprise data, cybersecurity is emerging as one of AI's defining challenges.Bikash Barai, Founder and CEO of FireCompass, warns that every autonomous AI agent becomes a high-value target for cybercriminals. While marketers celebrate AI-driven personalisation, attackers are leveraging AI with equal sophistication. Security, governance and human accountability therefore need to be designed into every AI workflow from the outset rather than added after a breach.Bhavyan Mehta, Vice President - Engineering, Commvault, points to recent demonstrations showing how AI can compress vulnerability discovery from weeks to minutes, fundamentally changing the economics of cyber risk. The organisations that succeed, he argues, will build resilient ecosystems where humans provide judgement while AI accelerates execution.Similar concerns are raised by Ankur Kanaglekar, Vice President – India, Thales; Chetan Jain, Managing Director, Inspira Enterprise; Hariprasad PS, Head of AI, HyperVerge; Vasanthi Ramesh, Vice President of Engineering and Site Leader, NetApp India; and Srividya Kannan, Founder and CEO, Avaali Solutions – all of whom stress that trusted data, explainable AI, robust governance and secure infrastructure will ultimately determine whether AI earns long-term enterprise confidence.Infrastructure becomes AI's silent enablerBehind every impressive AI application lies an increasingly sophisticated digital backbone.Dr Badri Gomatam, Group CTO, STL, notes that as AI models become larger and more compute-intensive, demand for high-performance, low-latency and energy-efficient AI data centres is rising dramatically. Fibre networks, connectivity infrastructure and scalable digital ecosystems are becoming just as important as the models themselves.Ishank Joshi, Founder, MD and CEO, Mobavenue AI Tech Limited believes the future of advertising will be defined by systems that continuously learn, predict, and optimize. He further adds how AI is enabling marketers to move beyond campaign execution towards intelligent decision making, where every impression, audience signal, and media investment contributes to measurable business outcomes. Vikram Raichura founder and MD of helo.ai reflects how twenty years from now people will look back at this period the way we look back at the internet in the early 2000s and The businesses that are paying attention to what AI is actually demanding of them right now are the ones who will have the most to show for it.AI becomes deeply personalWhile enterprise AI dominates headlines, consumers are experiencing AI in quieter but equally meaningful ways.Pankaj Rana, CEO, Hisense India, views AI as an enabler that helps us better understand and address evolving consumer needs. Rajeev Singh, Managing Director, BenQ India and South Asia, sees AI creating value only when it improves everyday experiences consistently rather than existing as a flashy marketing feature.Ravi Agarwal, Co-Founder and MD, Cellecor Gadgets Limited, similarly believes India's AI journey must balance innovation with affordability, ensuring intelligent technology remains practical and accessible rather than exclusive.For consumers, the most successful AI may ultimately be the AI they barely notice.The future of work isn't human versus AIOne of AI's earliest fears, that it would replace human jobs wholesale, is giving way to a more nuanced reality.Saumitra R Chand, Career Expert, Indeed India and Singapore, believes AI can help employers identify overlooked talent while enabling jobseekers to be recognised for skills that traditional résumés often fail to capture. But the final hiring decision, he insists, must always remain human. Sivakumar Ekambaram, India Site Leader, GoTo, similarly argues that AI's greatest contribution lies in helping employees focus on higher-value work while intelligent systems handle repetitive tasks. Naresh Agarwal, SVP, Engineering, India, Harness, describes AI as a multiplier rather than a shortcut—one that increasingly rewards judgement, contextual thinking and decision-making over routine execution.Across industries, executives agree that human expertise isn't becoming obsolete; it is becoming more valuable.The next decade belongs to responsible AIPerhaps the most striking takeaway from this year's AI Appreciation Day is how dramatically the conversation has matured.Gone are the days when success was measured by the number of AI pilots launched or tools deployed.Today's leaders are asking harder questions: Can AI be trusted?Can it scale responsibly?Can it remain transparent?Can it improve human judgement rather than replace it?Can it deliver measurable business outcomes without compromising security, ethics or customer trust?The consensus is remarkably consistent. AI's future will not be defined by increasingly larger models or ever-faster automation. It will be defined by the organisations that successfully combine intelligent machines with human judgement, robust governance and trusted data.AI has undoubtedly become one of the defining technologies of this century. But perhaps its greatest achievement is not that it is replacing people, it is forcing businesses to rediscover what only people can uniquely contribute.In that sense, AI Appreciation Day is no longer simply a celebration of technology. It is a reminder that the next era of innovation will belong not to artificial intelligence alone, but to organisations that know how to combine machine intelligence with human wisdom. 

Artificial intelligence may be changing the way public relations professionals work, but if there's one message that echoed across the industry on World PR Day 2026, it is that technology alone cannot build reputation.From AI-powered workflows and the rise of the creator economy to integrated communications and data-driven storytelling, the PR landscape is undergoing one of its biggest transformations in decades. Yet, communications leaders believe the future of public relations will be determined not by the sophistication of technology, but by authenticity, credibility,  counsel and lasting relationships. To understand where the profession is headed, Adgully spoke to communications leaders, founders, strategists, and PR professionals across agencies and corporate communications. Their perspectives reveal an industry that is moving beyond media relations to become a strategic business function, where reputation, authenticity, and measurable impact matter more than ever.One of the strongest themes that emerged from the conversations was the growing importance of transparency and trust in an age where information is abundant and audiences are more discerning than ever.Echoing this sentiment, Abhinay Kumar Singh, Founder and MD, Adgcraft Communications, said: “The most significant shift has been the growing expectation for transparency; audiences today are more likely to verify a brand's claims before trusting them, which means PR built on messaging alone isn't as effective as it once was. AI and data have given communicators sharper tools for storytelling, but the organisations seeing real results are using these tools to communicate more clearly and honestly, not just more efficiently. Looking ahead, successful PR will be less about broadcasting a message and more about sustaining an ongoing conversation with audiences, grounded in accurate data, delivered through the right channels, and supported by substance that holds up to scrutiny.”Another recurring trend highlighted by industry leaders was the evolution of PR into a strategic, integrated business function, extending well beyond traditional media relations.Sharing her perspective, Sonalika Pawar, Founder & CEO, Bold & Beyond, said: “One of the most significant shifts in PR has been the evolution from isolated tactics to integrated communications. Today's audiences are more informed, discerning, and harder to impress than ever before. They don't engage with fragmented campaigns - they connect with authentic, consistent narratives across every touchpoint. Media relations or influencer marketing in isolation are no longer enough. The most effective communications strategies seamlessly bring together earned media, creator partnerships, digital campaigns, and on-ground experiences to build reputation while delivering tangible business outcomes. AI is undoubtedly transforming the industry by enabling greater speed, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making. But while technology can enhance how we work, it cannot replace the essence of public relations. Great storytelling begins with empathy, cultural understanding, strategic thinking, and human intuition- qualities that remain irreplaceable.” Looking ahead, Pawar believes, “Successful PR will be defined not just by the stories we tell or the coverage we secure, but by the trust we build, the reputation we shape, and the measurable business impact we create. As communications professionals, it's time we stop viewing PR as a support function and recognise it for what it truly is, a strategic business driver that influences perception, builds credibility, and fuels long-term growth.”The growing influence of AI on search, discoverability and earned media was another area that experts believe will significantly shape the future of communications.Rahul Jain, CEO, SGA PR, observed: “In a world where AI and digital platforms have made information accessibility easier, the role of PR has evolved significantly. It is no longer just about disseminating information; rather it is about ensuring credibility and relevance. As the communications landscape is evolving, human relations and human intelligence (HI) have become indispensable. It is important in adding a perspective that is emotionally and culturally relevant and authentic.” Jain further said: “In a future-forward AI driven world where AI engines favour citing earned and organic content over paid advertorials, we are likely to witness more emphasis and focus towards building brand reputation through earned media campaigns. PR will play an important role in shaping narrative by driving optimal answer engine visibility.”“Looking ahead, I believe that the future of PR belongs to those who can tell original stories rooted in real consumer insights and create positive impact on client’s business growth, is what will define great PR,” he added. Similarly, Sonam Shah, Founder & CEO, Treize Communications, believes PR has become deeply embedded in organisational strategy.One of the key shifts that has been seen is how the clients see PR as an add-on value to the brand. Today, Public Relations strategy is part of the larger strategy from initial stage. The integration of PR is done in a much smarter and better way as compared to few years ago. This helps in better storytelling and building a stronger brand recall. The focus today is on more intent driven stories which brings quality value to the table. As consumption patterns evolve, there is a dynamic shift in how media performs, and this has been a larger contributory factor in the evolution of PR in India. This definition of successful PR will tilt towards how the activity helps the business in the larger perspective and not on an immediate outcome. Long term brand building will hold more importance.Beyond technology, many industry leaders pointed towards authenticity, empathy and human intelligence as the qualities that will continue to differentiate successful communicators.Reflecting on this, Harsheeta Gandhi, PR Consultant & Strategist, said: “The communications industry is evolving faster than ever. AI, the creator economy, predictive analytics, and changing media consumption habits have transformed how brands communicate. However, the most significant shift is not technological it is the growing demand for authenticity, credibility, and relevance.” She noted, “Today, anyone can create content, but not everyone can build trust. While AI has made communication faster and more efficient, successful public relations still depends on human judgment, strategic thinking, empathy, and a deep understanding of stakeholders. The ability to interpret insights, craft meaningful narratives, and respond with sensitivity remains irreplaceable.” Data-driven storytelling has also become a defining force. Every campaign is expected to deliver measurable impact, making PR more integrated with business outcomes than ever before. At the same time, journalists continue to play a pivotal role by validating information and bringing credibility to stories in an increasingly crowded information ecosystem.“Looking ahead, the organisations and professionals who will lead the industry are those who embrace innovation without compromising ethics, transparency, or relationships. Technology will continue to change the tools we use, but it cannot replace the human connection that lies at the heart of communication,” Gandhi said, adding, “After all, while the industry evolves, the “R” in PR will always stand for Relationships—because trust is earned through people, not platforms.” The expanding role of communications within organisations was another major takeaway.According to Yetesh Sharma, Assistant Manager, Content at Adfactors PR, PR today has outgrown its traditional definition. He observed, “The biggest change in the PR industry is that the profession has outgrown its own definition. What many organisations still call 'PR' today is, in reality, integrated communications. The mandate extends far beyond earned media to include executive visibility, digital platforms, social media, podcasts, creator ecosystems, owned content and stakeholder engagement. Reputation is no longer built through one channel. Rather, it is shaped across all of them.” According to Sharma, “This evolution has also changed where PR sits within an organisation. Earlier, it was largely viewed as an extension of marketing, focused on visibility and media outreach. Today, PR has found a place in boardroom discussions because reputation has become a business asset. In an always-connected world, where every stakeholder can influence public perception, reputation impacts investor confidence, customer trust, talent, partnerships and even business growth. Communications is, therefore, a strategic business function.” The success of PR in the years ahead will depend less on producing more content and more on making better strategic decisions. Every situation demands a different communication approach which is sometimes sustained visibility, sometimes a single, high-impact intervention. Getting that balance right requires deep business understanding, credible research, meaningful conversations with clients and insights that can shape perception with purpose. Technology will continue to change execution, but strategic counsel will remain the true value that PR brings to the table.As AI-powered tools become increasingly embedded into everyday communications, professionals also stressed the need to balance automation with human judgment.Speaking about this shift, Zohra Shamim, Account Manager, PR & Communications, Bloomingdale PR, said: “Over the past few years, the PR industry has witnessed a remarkable transformation driven by artificial intelligence. The shift from manual research, content creation, media monitoring, and reporting to AI-powered workflows has significantly improved efficiency. Today, professionals have access to specialised tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude for research and content, alongside media intelligence platforms like Cision, Meltwater, etc., for monitoring, journalist discovery, and sentiment tracking, making it easier to manage multiple clients and fast-paced communications with greater agility. What has changed is not just the availability of these tools, but the need to develop the skill to handle and operate them well.” Alongside this, the very definition of PR has broadened. While earned and paid media remain important pillars, the rise of digital PR and content creators has added a new dimension that is grabbing eyeballs and driving conversations. PR today is no longer confined to traditional media relations, it has rather become a 360-degree approach that blends earned coverage, paid amplification, digital storytelling, and creator collaborations to build a brand's narrative across every touchpoint.However, no matter how advanced AI becomes, there is always something left behind that requires human intelligence and human touch. AI can accelerate execution, but it cannot replace critical thinking, contextual understanding, empathy, or sound judgment. In Public Relations, every strategy crafted for a brand, every media pitch, every analysis report, and every client recommendation requires a nuanced understanding that only humans can bring. More importantly, the relationships built with journalists, clients, content creators, and other stakeholders are deeply personal and are based on trust, credibility, and consistent engagement, something no AI tool can replicate.Successful Public Relations in the years ahead will be defined by the ability to strike the right balance between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence. The smartest professionals will be those who know how to leverage specialised AI tools to improve productivity while applying their own expertise to ask the right questions, provide the right prompts, interpret outputs, and ultimately add the human perspective that makes communication authentic, meaningful, and impactful."The industry’s growing alignment with broader business objectives is another recurring theme. Sharing his views, Kunal Gupta, Assistant Manager – Corporate Communications @ Yukio & sirrus.ai | Founder – Media & PR Folks, said: “In the past couple of years, the most significant change in PR has been its transformation into a strategic business function from a media relations function. Organizations now demand that communications help in building trust, reputation, support business goals, and make an impact and not necessarily earn media coverage.” “Although technology such as AI, data analytics, and creator economy have changed how we communicate, what has remained consistent in PR is credibility, authenticity, and relationships. Technology can help us be efficient, but it will never help us think strategically or empathise with our audiences,” he maintained. Gupta further said, “In one of my recent LinkedIn posts on thought leadership, I mentioned “clients don’t hire agencies for PR. They hire them for growth”. It was quite evident from the overwhelming feedback received from industry experts that organisations today require 360° integrated communication where PR needs to work together with corporate communications, digital marketing, thought leadership of executives, content, events, podcasts, and reputation management to deliver measurable results.” “Being the Founder of Media & PR Folks, a community of more than 12,000 PR, Corporate Communications, and Media experts, it is my pleasure to get connected to the communicators from different industries. And one point becomes clear the future will belong to those communicators who will know how to combine all of PR, Corporate Communications, Marketing, Branding, Digital, Content, and Reputation Management into a single strategy for a business. Communications and marketing cannot exist in isolation from each other anymore, as they create trust, build brand equity, engage stakeholders, and achieve sustainable business results,” Gupta added.For Zainab Jariwala, Senior PR Executive, Milestone PR, the conversation is also about balancing the pressure for instant visibility with the need for long-term brand building.She pointed out, “We are living in a different era today, and PR has evolved with time and so has the approach. At times, the need for showcasing results in the pr domain and number games being at its peak determining someone's worth and credibility in a virtual world overpowers real human connection. Getting paid awards and paid features is considered an achievement because clients today want quick results and they are paying for it so are right to expect the same. But is it worth their money and does the platform and association match the brand values is where we step in. Being their advisors and having a long term vision and strategy is what is important. 2026 is a year of unexpected events and PR in the advent of AI evolution will have to keep up with the times. Short messaging forms such as 10 second Reels need to convey the crux of what you are trying to say without saying it entirely. And for long extensive and engaging discussions, speakership platforms and podcasts are booming. Networking is becoming one's net worth slowly. If you have managed to communicate effectively and create a lasting impact, half the battle is won. The rest, will find its way through all the clutter with authenticity and sincerity. Ultimately, connecting with people and becoming or associating an emotion and maintaining the human touch will be the ultimate winning streak for brands.” Meanwhile, Dr Sarvesh Tiwari, MD, PRP Group, brought the discussion back to one of PR’s oldest and most enduring principles. He noted, “Every PR person has a contact list. Far fewer have relationships. The practice I would retire is the one where a journalist hears from us only when we want something. A pitch lands, then silence, until the next pitch. We call that media relations. It is closer to a transaction with a very long gap between payments. The people who cover our clients are doing a hard job under real pressure. They deserve to be treated as professionals with their own deadlines and judgment, rather than a channel we activate when a client needs coverage. So, call when you have nothing to sell. Point them to a story you have no stake in. Say when your own story is weak. That last one costs you something today and earns you a hearing for years.” “Contacts get you a reply. Relationships get you believed. Only one of those survives a bad week,” Tiwari emphasised. Adding another perspective, Aakanksha Gupta, Founder, The Other Circle PR and Cavalry Media, noted that audiences now play a much larger role in shaping brand reputation than ever before. She noted, “The biggest shift in PR and communications isn’t that brands are telling more stories. It’s that audiences have become editors. Every interview, campaign, founder quote and customer interaction is now examined, debated and reinterpreted in real time. That’s why reputation won’t belong to the loudest brands, but to the most coherent ones. Today, PR isn’t just about earning attention; it’s about ensuring every touchpoint tells the same story, because reputation is no longer defined by what a brand says about itself, but by what people choose to believe, question and pass on.” 

In an era where reputation can shape business outcomes as much as financial performance, strategic communications is emerging as a vital pillar of corporate leadership. As organisations grapple with AI-driven disruption, misinformation and increasingly complex stakeholder expectations, public relations is being called upon to provide not just visibility, but strategic counsel. Reflecting on this year's World PR Day theme, "The Golden Age of Strategic PR", Roshan Mohan, Founder of Tharaa Labs and Group Managing Director of Pepper Communications Group, discusses the growing influence of communications in executive decision-making, the need to measure reputation capital, and why human judgement will remain indispensable in an AI-powered future.This year's World PR Day theme is "The Golden Age of Strategic PR". Do you believe public relations has finally earned a seat at the executive decision-making table, or do communications leaders still have to prove their strategic value?I believe PR has undoubtedly moved closer to the executive decision-making table. However, it is only a matter of time when more and more business decisions will be driven by PR advisory. The organisations that see communications as a business function, that understand the importance and value of building trust are involving communications leaders much earlier in decision-making, whether it's navigating reputation risks, managing stakeholder trust, driving transformation, or supporting business growth. In those environments, PR is no longer reacting to decisions; it is helping shape them.That said, the industry as a whole still has work to do. Communications professionals need to move beyond reporting media coverage and start demonstrating how their work influences business outcomes. Today's communications landscape is driven by data, technology, audience intelligence, and integrated storytelling. The value we bring lies in connecting these disciplines to business strategy.The theme of this year's World PR Day, 'The Golden Age of Strategic PR', is particularly relevant because the role of PR has expanded far beyond earned media. We are increasingly expected to advise leadership on reputation, stakeholder sentiment, crisis preparedness, policy shifts, and the broader narrative surrounding an organisation.Strategic PR is no longer about being the loudest voice in the room. It is about ensuring the organisation is communicating the right story, to the right stakeholders, at the right time, with measurable business impact. Those who consistently deliver that value have already earned their place in the boardroom. The rest of the industry is steadily moving in that direction.In an era marked by AI, misinformation, geopolitical uncertainty and heightened stakeholder expectations, how should PR professionals balance speed with accuracy while maintaining public trust?In today's communications environment, the challenge isn't just responding quickly; it's responding responsibly. AI, misinformation, and an increasingly complex stakeholder landscape have made trust more valuable than ever.While speed is important, accuracy and credibility cannot be compromised. A delayed response can be explained; an inaccurate one can damage reputation and erode stakeholder confidence. AI can certainly enhance efficiency, but all AI platforms say “AI can make mistakes.” Human judgement, context, and ethical decision-making remain indispensable.The role of strategic PR is to help organisations communicate with clarity, consistency, and credibility. In an era of constant information flow, trust will continue to be the defining measure of effective communication.Trust has become one of the most valuable assets for organisations. What role do you see strategic PR playing in helping businesses navigate crises, regulatory changes and increasingly complex stakeholder relationships?Trust is built over time but could be eroded in an instant, which is why strategic PR has become a critical business function rather than just a communications function. We at PCG have worked out a particular formula to calculate Reputation Capital and Reputation Efficiency. It allows us to assess how communication contributes to stakeholder trust, reputation and business performance, demonstrating that while reputation is an intangible asset, it can be measured, managed and strengthened through a strategic communications approach. PR earns trust. PR helps navigate the landscape of communicating with various stakeholders, providing leadership with clear, timely, and credible counsel. PR helps anticipate risks, aligning communication with business strategy, and ensuring transparency across every stakeholder touchpoint.However, we also need a way to measure this beyond just human instinct. Despite all the PR done over decades, for instance, how long can a brand withstand a crisis? At what point does the trust start to erode? As gatekeepers, we also need to have a measure of these, hence the RC and RE scores. Having a tangible score helps us understand what’s the distance to be covered and the most effective way of doing it.As the communications industry enters what World PR Day describes as the "Golden Age of Strategic PR", what skills and mindset do you believe the next generation of PR professionals must develop to remain relevant and influential over the next decade?The professionals who'll matter most in the next decade are the ones who can combine the power of AI with sound judgment. AI is a powerful tool, but it doesn't alter the fundamentals of public relations. The communications professionals who will create the greatest impact in the next decade are those who can combine the power of AI with sound judgment. Familiarity with AI tools is becoming a baseline capability, but what will truly differentiate professionals is their ability to think critically by understanding the business context, evaluating stakeholder perspectives, anticipating reputational impact and knowing which stories deserve attention, which conversations matter most for a client, and when human insight should take precedence over automation.I'd also encourage young professionals to develop a deeper understanding of business, not just communications. The best communication strategies are rooted in an understanding of industry dynamics, competitive challenges, and business objectives. Creativity is important, but it delivers far greater value when it's backed by commercial context. Technologies will continue to evolve, and audiences will change, but authenticity, strategic thinking, and credibility will always remain the foundations of meaningful communication.

As brands navigate an increasingly complex landscape shaped by AI, misinformation and evolving stakeholder expectations, the role of communications is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Public relations is no longer confined to generating visibility or managing narratives; it is becoming central to building trust, shaping reputation and delivering measurable business outcomes. On World PR Day and its theme, "The Golden Age of Strategic PR", Sonalika Pawar, Co-Founder and CEO of Bold & Beyond, discusses why integrated communications has become a strategic business imperative, the enduring importance of authenticity in an AI-powered world, and the skills tomorrow's communicators must cultivate to remain influential. This year's World PR Day theme is "The Golden Age of Strategic PR". Do you believe public relations has finally earned a seat at the executive decision-making table, or do communications leaders still have to prove their strategic value?The more interesting question isn't whether PR has earned a seat at the executive table; it's how the role of communications itself has evolved.Today, businesses aren't looking for partners who simply execute campaigns or generate visibility. They expect communications leaders to understand business priorities, anticipate market shifts, build stakeholder confidence and help navigate uncertainty. PR has evolved from being a support function to becoming a strategic business enabler.This shift is also redefining the agency model. Brands no longer want fragmented partners managing PR, creator marketing, digital and brand strategy in silos. They increasingly seek integrated consultancies that bring these disciplines together under one cohesive strategy to solve business challenges - not just communication briefs.Ultimately, the future of communications won't be defined by the number of stories we secure. It will be defined by the trust we build, the reputation we shape and the business value we create. Reputation is no longer just an intangible asset - it's a measurable business advantage and one of the strongest drivers of long-term growth.In an era marked by AI, misinformation, geopolitical uncertainty and heightened stakeholder expectations, how should PR professionals balance speed with accuracy while maintaining public trust?The pace of communication has accelerated dramatically, but trust is still built the same way - it begins with accuracy, credibility and context.AI has become an invaluable tool for communications professionals. It enables faster research, real-time monitoring, sentiment analysis and quicker execution. But in a world where misinformation spreads just as quickly as facts, speed cannot come at the cost of accuracy.More than ever, PR professionals need to slow down where it matters most - fact-checking, validating information, conducting deep research and understanding the broader context before a story is told. The ability to separate signal from noise will become one of the profession's most valuable skills.Technology can help us gather information faster, but it cannot replace critical thinking or editorial judgement. Great storytelling has never been about simply creating content; it's about uncovering meaningful insights, asking the right questions and telling stories that are truthful, relevant and rooted in credibility.The future of communications won't be defined by who publishes first, but by who earns trust. In an AI-powered world, authenticity, rigorous research and human judgement will remain the strongest foundations of reputation.Trust has become one of the most valuable assets for organisations. What role do you see strategic PR playing in helping businesses navigate crises, regulatory changes and increasingly complex stakeholder relationships?Trust has become one of the few competitive advantages that cannot be replicated overnight.Organisations spend years building credibility, yet a single misstep can erode stakeholder confidence in moments. That's why strategic communications shouldn't begin during a crisis—it should be embedded into the way organisations lead, communicate and make decisions every day.Whether navigating regulatory changes, market volatility or evolving stakeholder expectations, communications today plays a far broader role than managing external perception. It helps leadership communicate with clarity, align stakeholders and build confidence when uncertainty is at its highest.The organisations that emerge stronger from crises are rarely those with the most polished messaging. They're the ones that have consistently invested in transparency, leadership visibility and authentic relationships long before challenges arise.Strategic PR today isn't about controlling narratives - it's about building credibility. Reputation isn't built through a single campaign or announcement; it's built through every interaction, every decision and every promise a brand consistently keeps. And increasingly, reputation isn't just an asset - it's one of the most important drivers of resilience, trust and sustainable business growth.As the communications industry enters what World PR Day describes as the "Golden Age of Strategic PR", what skills and mindset do you believe the next generation of PR professionals must develop to remain relevant and influential over the next decade?The next generation of PR professionals will need to be naturally curious, have a sense of urgency, be deeply informed and willing to continuously evolve. In an industry that's changing faster than ever, technical skills alone won't be enough - it's the mindset behind the work that will set great communicators apart.Today's audiences are more informed, discerning and harder to impress than ever before. They don't engage with fragmented campaigns - they connect with authentic, consistent narratives across every touchpoint. That makes great storytelling more important than ever, but storytelling without substance simply won't cut through.The strongest PR professionals will be those who invest time in deep research, understand consumer behaviour, immerse themselves in the brands they represent and uncover insights that lead to authentic, meaningful narratives. Before you can tell a brand's story well, you need to understand it inside out.Equally important is agility. Communication is constantly evolving, and professionals must be willing to adapt, experiment and pivot quickly when strategies aren't delivering the desired outcomes. The ability to learn continuously, embrace change and make informed decisions based on data and feedback will become a defining strength.Finally, integrated thinking and measurement will become essential. The future belongs to communicators who can see the bigger picture - bringing together earned media, creator partnerships, digital, content and experiences into one cohesive narrative, while understanding how those efforts contribute to reputation, brand equity and measurable business impact.

As communications evolves from a support function to a strategic business discipline, public relations professionals are increasingly being called upon to shape reputation, navigate uncertainty and build enduring stakeholder relationships. Yet, many organisations continue to engage PR only after critical decisions have been made. On the occasion of World PR Day and this year's theme, "The Golden Age of Strategic PR", Gaurav Jain, Founder and Managing Partner of Morning Star BrandCom, argues that the industry's biggest challenge isn't proving its value, but changing perceptions about when and how that value should be deployed. He shares his views on trust, AI, crisis preparedness, media relationships and why empathy remains the most indispensable skill for the next generation of communicators.This year's World PR Day theme is "The Golden Age of Strategic PR". Do you believe public relations has finally earned a seat at the executive decision-making table, or do communications leaders still have to prove their strategic value?PR has long earned its credibility. People know the value it brings. What has not caught up is how that value is deployed. Too many organisations still call PR into the room after the decision is made and the damage is done. The proof of strategic value still has to be made in every boardroom, every budget cycle, and every brief, not because the value is in question, but because the understanding of when and how to use it has not yet fully taken hold. That is not a seat at the table. That is a seat in the aftermath. Reputation is not a post-crisis consideration. It is a business asset that must be built into the strategy from the start, not retro-fitted onto it later. The Golden Age of Strategic PR begins the day organisations stop treating communications as a response function and start treating it as a founding one.In an era marked by AI, misinformation, geopolitical uncertainty, and heightened stakeholder expectations, how should PR professionals balance speed with accuracy while maintaining public trust?Speed should never come at the cost of accuracy. That sounds simple. In practice, the pressure to respond instantly is enormous, and the temptation to fill the silence with something, anything, is real. But credibility is not recoverable the way a news cycle is. In a world where information travels instantly and misinformation spreads just as quickly, credibility, or trust, has become the most valuable currency a communicator holds. The communicator who rushes and gets it wrong does more damage than the one who pauses, verifies, and speaks with authenticity. Trust, once lost, is extraordinarily expensive to rebuild. That trust is built the same way it always has been: through consistency, honesty and accountability, applied every single time, not just when it is convenient. The discipline the moment requires is knowing the difference between being first and being right. They are not the same thing. AI has a role here too. It can help with faster research, drafting and analysis, but it cannot replace human judgement. Whatever content AI helps create, the communication that ultimately goes out has to be verified thoroughly by PR professionals before it reaches the public. The organisations that have earned lasting public trust are almost always the ones that chose accuracy over immediacy when the two were in conflict. Trust has become one of the most valuable assets for organisations. What role do you see strategic PR playing in helping businesses navigate crises, regulatory changes and increasingly complex stakeholder relationships?The most revealing thing about how most organisations handle a crisis is that they were often not ready for it. PR often gets called when the situation has already deteriorated, when the narrative has already been formed, and when the options available are significantly reduced. That is not a crisis management problem. It is a relationship management problem that was never addressed upstream. Regulatory changes follow the same logic. An agency truly embedded in a client's business tracks the regulatory environment continuously, shapes the narrative ahead of any announcement, and ensures the organisation is never caught explaining itself reactively. Complex stakeholder relationships do not become crises overnight. They deteriorate gradually, through neglect, through assumptions left unexamined, through conversations that never happened. But this is a shared responsibility. The client has to remain an active partner, providing the agency with the access, context, and transparency it needs to serve them effectively. When both sides commit to that, consistent and authentic communication becomes possible. When either side does not, the gaps show.As the communications industry enters what World PR Day describes as the "Golden Age of Strategic PR", what skills and mindset do you believe the next generation of PR professionals must develop to remain relevant and influential over the next decade?Curiosity and critical thinking will matter enormously. So will the ability to analyse data and draw genuine insight from it. But the skill I would place above all others is empathy. The ability to understand what another person, a journalist, a client, a stakeholder, the public, needs from a given situation is what separates good communicators from great ones. It cannot be automated and it cannot be taught purely through technique. It comes from a sustained interest in people and a willingness to listen before speaking. The professionals who will lead this industry a decade from now are the ones who invest in understanding people deeply before they invest in understanding platforms. Alongside this, there is a very practical skill that will define the next decade: knowing how to use the technology available and deploy it the right way to get the desired outcome. The input you give it matters as much as the tool itself, and not everyone can do this well. It takes judgement to know what to ask for, how to shape it, and when to trust it versus when to override it. Tools will keep changing. Human motivation will not. That is where the real work of this profession has always lived. How do you build trust with the media and clients in an environment where everyone is competing for attention?In an environment this saturated, the instinct is to shout louder. The approach that actually works is the opposite. With media, trust is built through mutual respect and understanding. A journalist's time is finite and their credibility is their currency. When you pitch something that does not serve their audience, you are signalling that you do not understand their work. Building genuine media relationships means knowing what they need, not just what your client wants placed. That takes consistency and the willingness to sometimes say this is not the right story for you right now. It also means nurturing the relationship over time, understanding what a journalist covers and supporting them with useful inputs even when there is nothing to gain from it immediately. At the same time, that relationship needs boundaries. Respecting a journalist's time and independence means never taking advantage of the access or goodwill you have built with them. With clients, it comes down to genuine partnership. That means being honest from the very first conversation, setting expectations that are grounded in reality, and explaining every decision and every step along the way. What a client believes is newsworthy and what a journalist finds newsworthy are frequently different things. Navigating that gap transparently, rather than papering over it, is what builds the mutual trust and respect that makes long-term relationships possible. Do you think the industry has created an expectations problem by promising more than it can realistically deliver? If so, how can agencies balance honesty and ambition?Yes, and it is one of the industry's most persistent self-inflicted wounds. The balance between honesty and ambition is not complicated. Be ambitious about what you pursue. Be honest about what you can deliver. The two are not in conflict unless an agency makes them so by promising outcomes it has not earned the right to guarantee. Public relations can influence perception and build credibility, but it cannot compensate for weak business fundamentals or guarantee media coverage. Agencies create stronger partnerships when they clearly define success, communicate what is within their control, and remain transparent about what is not. Ambition should always be accompanied by honesty. In the long run, clients value trusted advisors who provide realistic guidance far more than those who make unrealistic promises. But beyond process and promises, what the industry really needs is a return to first principles. Agencies that do PR the way it is meant to be done, with genuine investment in each client, with quality of counsel over volume of output, and with relationships built on substance rather than deliverables, do not face this problem. The ones that chase numbers at the expense of meaning are the ones that create it. Quality over quantity has always been the answer. The industry simply needs to find it in itself to commit to that as a core principle rather than an aspiration.

As reputation becomes one of the most valuable assets in business, public relations is increasingly moving beyond its traditional role of managing media and messaging. In an age defined by artificial intelligence, misinformation, regulatory complexity and heightened stakeholder expectations, communications leaders are expected to serve as strategic advisers in the boardroom. On World PR Day's theme, "The Golden Age of Strategic PR", Noopurr R Chablani, Founder and Image Strategist at Words Matter, shares why PR has earned its place at the executive table, the importance of balancing speed with credibility, and the skills the next generation of communications professionals must develop to remain influential in the decade ahead.This year's World PR Day theme is "The Golden Age of Strategic PR". Do you believe public relations has finally earned a seat at the executive decision-making table, or do communications leaders still have to prove their strategic value?I believe that public relations has earned a seat at the executive decision-making table because reputation has become a business asset and not just a communications outcome. Organisations have increasingly recognised that reputation cannot be managed only when a crisis arises or a campaign is launched. It needs to be built intentionally and protected consistently because perception influences stakeholder decisions.That said, the role of PR today goes far beyond media visibility. It is about understanding the complexities of the business environment and helping leadership communicate with clarity, consistency and credibility. Strategic PR today is no longer limited to communicating decisions after they are made but it has a role in shaping them. As businesses navigate a more visible and interconnected world, communications leaders who bring a reputation lens to business decisions are becoming an essential part of the leadership conversation.In an era marked by AI, misinformation, geopolitical uncertainty and heightened stakeholder expectations, how should PR professionals balance speed with accuracy while maintaining public trust?In an environment shaped by AI, misinformation and constant information flow, the challenge for PR professionals is no longer just getting a message out quickly but ensuring that the message is credible but speed should never come at the cost of credibility. The balance here lies in the preparation phase and not in the reaction phase.Stakeholders today expect organisations to respond with transparency and accuracy while also being swift. This requires PR professionals to establish clear messaging frameworks, streamlined approval processes and have a strong understanding of stakeholder expectations long before an issue arises. While technology can help monitor conversations and identify emerging risks faster, every communication decision must still be guided by a human judgment.The balance lies in being prepared enough to respond quickly, while remaining disciplined enough to ensure that what is communicated is accurate. Public trust is maintained when organisations are transparent about what they know, honest about what they do not know, and consistent in both their messaging and actions. Trust has become one of the most valuable assets for organisations. What role do you see strategic PR playing in helping businesses navigate crises, regulatory changes and increasingly complex stakeholder relationships?Trust is one of the few assets that organisations cannot build overnight, especially during a crisis. It is earned through consistent communication and credible actions over the time. That is where strategic PR plays a critical role.Whether it is managing a crisis, communicating regulatory changes or engaging with stakeholders with multiple expectations, strategic PR helps organisations communicate with clarity, consistency and credibility. It ensures that concerns are addressed proactively, messages are aligned and relationships are nurtured even during periods of uncertainty.More importantly, strategic PR helps leadership understand how decisions may be perceived and received by different audiences even before the crisis arises. Its role is not just to communicate during periods of uncertainty, but to build the trust and credibility that organisations can rely on when those challenging moments arise.As the communications industry enters what World PR Day describes as the "Golden Age of Strategic PR", what skills and mindset do you believe the next generation of PR professionals must develop to remain relevant and influential over the next decade?The next generation of PR professionals will need to move beyond thinking like communicators and start thinking like business advisors. Understanding media relations and content creation will remain important, but it will no longer be enough.They will need to develop a deeper understanding of business, reputation, consumer behaviour and the broader environment in which organisations operate. Equally important is the ability to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, contribute to business conversations and bring perspectives that help leaders make better decisions. They must also understand that PR is not just about telling stories, but about shaping narratives that influence perception, build credibility and support long-term business goals. The mindset shift is from seeking visibility to creating value. As the industry evolves, the professionals who will remain influential are those who can connect communication to business outcomes and help organisations make better decisions along with telling better stories. In the coming decade, influence will not come from being the loudest voice in the room, but from being the most trusted advisor at the table.

Authored By: Minesh Raja, Founder & Partner, Carmine Communication LLPHow AI-led discovery is reshaping PR, credibility and brand relevanceAI is no longer sitting inside a search bar waiting for a question. It is slowly becoming part of everyday life — in phones, watches, cars, home devices, cameras, voice assistants, search results and digital recommendations. This shift is called ambient intelligence: technology that quietly understands context, anticipates needs and influences decisions.For brands, this is a wake-up call. Reputation will no longer be shaped only by what companies say about themselves. It will be shaped by what intelligent systems, online communities, media stories, customer reviews and digital signals say about them.This changes the role of public relations completely.Earlier, PR was largely about media coverage, press releases, interviews and crisis response. Today, it is about building trust signals across every place where a customer, investor, employee or AI-powered platform may evaluate a brand. A hospital, for example, may have excellent doctors and infrastructure, but if online reviews speak only about high bills, delayed responses or poor patient experience, that becomes the dominant reputation signal. A real estate developer may have premium projects, but if search results highlight delayed possession or unresolved complaints, the brand story weakens before the sales team even enters the conversation. This is why modern PR professionals must think beyond visibility. They must build reputation architecture.Ambient intelligence will make decision-making faster and more invisible. A customer may ask an AI assistant, “Which financial advisory firm is credible?” or “Which builder should I trust in Mumbai?” The answer will not come only from advertising. It may be influenced by media mentions, leadership articles, Google reviews, social conversations, website clarity, employee feedback, podcasts, industry awards and even unresolved negative chatter.Modern PR must move from visibility to reputation architecture.What Companies Need to Watch Out For• Credibility will beat noise. Brands that chase only viral content may get attention, but brands that consistently offer expert views, transparent communication and proof of performance will build trust.• Reputation will become searchable and conversational. People will not only search for company names; they will ask comparative questions: Is this hospital expensive? Is this developer reliable? Is this company ethical? PR must prepare brands for these questions.• Silence can become a risk. If a company does not actively tell its story, others will define it — customers, competitors, employees, influencers or anonymous platforms.• Leadership visibility will matter. Founders, CXOs and domain experts must become credible voices on industry trends, customer concerns, innovation, ethics and future readiness.• AI adoption must be communicated responsibly. Companies using AI in healthcare, finance, real estate or customer service must explain how they protect privacy, ensure accuracy and retain human accountability.What Cutting-Edge PR Should Look Like NowBrands need an integrated PR strategy that combines earned media, thought leadership, digital reputation management, review building, social listening, content marketing, podcasts, LinkedIn influence, crisis preparedness and AI-search readiness. The goal should be simple: make the brand trusted, discoverable and relevant before the customer asks the question.Modern PR must also create content that solves real doubts. A hospital should explain treatment costs and patient safety. A real estate company should communicate construction progress and delivery discipline. A financial firm should simplify market risks. An infrastructure company should showcase safety, public impact and community engagement.The future belongs to brands that are not only visible but verifiable. Ambient intelligence will make technology smarter, but it will also make reputation more exposed. Companies that invest in authentic storytelling, transparent communication and consistent digital signals will stay ahead. In the AI-first world, PR is no longer about managing headlines. It is about shaping trust before decisions are made.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Dubai-headquartered luxury communications agency Maison Ellyse recently expanded its international footprint with the launch of its first full-scale European office in Paris, alongside the appointment of Sabrina Saad as PR and Communications Director, Paris. In this interview, Sabrina Saad, French PR Director at Maison Ellyse, discusses how Paris and the GCC are shaping the future of luxury communications, the changing role of agencies in the AI era, and why authenticity will be critical for brands expanding across both regions. As luxury brands increasingly view Europe and the Gulf as interconnected growth markets, communications strategies are evolving beyond traditional PR to focus on cultural intelligence, experiential storytelling, and long-term brand building.Maison Ellyse is positioning Paris as a bridge between Europe and the GCC. How do you see the luxury communications landscape changing as brands increasingly look at these two regions as interconnected growth markets?I believe we are entering a new era where luxury communication is no longer confined by geography. European brands are increasingly looking to the GCC not simply as a high-growth market, but as a region that is shaping global luxury trends. At the same time, GCC brands are becoming more ambitious internationally and are seeking meaningful visibility in Europe.Having worked in Paris for over a decade and now joining Maison Ellyse, I see a real opportunity to bridge these two worlds. Success today is about understanding cultural nuances, building long-term relationships and creating communication strategies that feel authentic in each market rather than simply translating campaigns from one region to another.You've worked with global luxury houses including Valentino, Delvaux and Gianvito Rossi. What are the biggest differences in how luxury brands engage consumers in Europe compared with the Gulf, and where do you see the strongest opportunities for convergence?Both regions have a deep appreciation for craftsmanship, heritage and exceptional quality; but they engage with luxury differently.In Europe, storytelling often revolves around history, savoir-faire and artistic direction. In the Gulf, luxury is much more experiential. Relationships, hospitality and exclusivity play a central role, and consumers expect highly personalised experiences.What excites me most is seeing these worlds come together. European brands are becoming more experience-driven, while GCC brands are investing heavily in craftsmanship and long-term brand building. I think this convergence will redefine the future of luxury communication.Luxury PR is evolving rapidly with the rise of creators, AI-driven discovery and social commerce. How is the role of a luxury communications agency changing beyond traditional media relations?Today's luxury communications agencies have become strategic business partners rather than simply media relations specialists.Our role now is to build ecosystems around brands by combining editorial storytelling, influencer partnerships, experiential events, strategic collaborations and cultural relevance. Technology and AI are transforming how audiences discover brands, but relationships, creativity and trust remain at the heart of luxury.At Maison Ellyse, we see communication as something much broader than press coverage. It's about creating meaningful conversations that build long-term brand equity.Paris remains the global capital of luxury and fashion. What unique value can Maison Ellyse bring to European brands that are looking to build deeper, long-term relevance in markets such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia?Paris represents heritage, creativity and excellence, while the GCC represents one of the world's fastest-growing luxury markets. Our strength is understanding both.Maison Ellyse combines an established regional presence with international expertise, allowing us to advise brands with genuine market insight rather than assumptions. We help brands navigate cultural expectations, connect with the right media, influencers and partners, and build credibility through meaningful local engagement.For European brands, it's about creating relevance rather than simply visibility.GCC luxury brands are increasingly expanding into Europe through retail, hospitality and fashion. What communications strategies are most critical for Middle Eastern brands seeking credibility and visibility in mature luxury markets like France and Switzerland?The key is authenticity.European audiences are genuinely interested in discovering new luxury brands, but credibility takes time. It requires thoughtful storytelling, consistent media engagement, carefully selected partnerships and a long-term vision.Rather than trying to imitate European luxury, GCC brands should embrace what makes them unique. Their cultural identity, craftsmanship and perspective are exactly what differentiate them within today's luxury landscape.Looking ahead, what will define success for the Paris office over the next three to five years? Are there specific sectors, partnerships or emerging luxury trends that you believe will shape Maison Ellyse's European growth strategy?For me, success isn't just about growth or expanding our client portfolio. It's about becoming a trusted partner for brands looking to build meaningful connections between Europe and the GCC.Over the next few years, I'd like to see Maison Ellyse recognised as one of the leading agencies operating across these two regions. I see tremendous opportunities in fashion, jewellery, luxury hospitality, beauty and lifestyle, but also in cross-cultural collaborations and experiential storytelling.Ultimately, our ambition is to help brands build long-term desirability by creating communication strategies that are culturally intelligent, internationally relevant and genuinely impactful.

As the communications industry shifts from traditional media relations to reputation-building, creator ecosystems and strategic advisory, independent consultancy WordsWork is positioning itself for its next chapter with a renewed focus on culture-led storytelling and integrated communications.WordsWork founder Neha Mathur Rastogi told Adgully that the agency's latest evolution is about preparing the business for the future of communications rather than simply introducing a new visual identity."Communications today is no longer just about securing visibility. Brands are looking for partners who can help shape narratives, build trust and create meaningful cultural relevance. Our evolution reflects that shift and where we see the industry heading," Rastogi said.Founded in 2009, the New Delhi-headquartered consultancy has grown from a boutique PR firm into an independent communications agency serving more than 300 clients across sports, luxury, lifestyle, corporate and public diplomacy. Over the years, the agency has built specialist expertise in managing communications for sports federations, professional leagues, global sporting events, premium consumer brands and international organisations.As client expectations evolve, WordsWork is broadening its focus beyond media relations to encompass strategic advisory, creator engagement, executive positioning, experiential storytelling and long-term reputation management."Our business has evolved alongside the industries we serve, but our commitment to impactful storytelling and strong relationships remains constant. We want to build an agency that's not only relevant today but prepared for what's next," Rastogi said.Supporting this new direction is a refreshed brand identity created by award-winning creative director Aaquib Wani, whose portfolio spans some of India's leading entertainment, sports and cultural brands.Rather than functioning as a cosmetic redesign, the identity is intended to represent the agency's three core practice areas: Sports, Brands and Public Diplomacy. The logo features three converging lines that form a stylised "W", symbolising collaboration, movement and the interconnected nature of modern communications."We've admired Aaquib's work for a long time because it sits at the intersection of many worlds we also work in: from sports to premium brands. Bringing his creative thinking into our own evolution felt like the right fit," Rastogi noted.Explaining the creative approach, Wani said the design was inspired by the agency's long-standing strengths while reflecting its ambitions for the future."The logo is rooted in WordsWork's three pillars of strength. Through simple lines, movement and structure, we wanted to create an identity that feels dynamic, confident and contemporary while reflecting the credibility and energy that define the brand," he said.The agency's repositioning comes at a time when communications consultancies are increasingly competing with creative, digital and strategy firms for a larger role in brand-building. Clients are looking for integrated partners capable of navigating fragmented media ecosystems, creator economies, executive thought leadership and rapidly evolving digital platforms.WordsWork believes this changing landscape presents an opportunity for independent agencies that can combine agility with specialist expertise.Looking ahead, the consultancy plans to deepen its capabilities across premium communications, strategic advisory and culture-led storytelling while expanding collaborations across India and international markets.With offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, supported by affiliate partners across Asia, the GCC, Europe and the US, WordsWork is positioning itself as a communications consultancy built for an era where influence is driven as much by credibility, communities and culture as by media visibility.

Authored by : Rohit Sharma, Vice President – Client Relations & Content, PR Professionals.Adages reflect mindset that traverse fundamental dimensions of perceived reality i.e., space and time. They may or may not depict what is true, but for sure hold up a distorting mirror to what is passed off as truth. I have grown up hearing much like anyone else would have that ‘Content is King’ and I challenge this maxim at its very hypothesis. Stereotyping content rigidly in a gender specific mould for ages is absolutely undesirable. Any creative person holding an unfounded gender bias cannot do much justice with creativity. Picking sides without fundamental basis makes one ephemerally sorted only until the mighty epiphany strikes and when that happens, the entire narrative on which the erstwhile stance was mounted comes crashing down.People since time immemorial have treated content as King, lived life King Size, believed that King can do no wrong and what not! Most popular maxims have smelled all too masculine that they snowballed into toxic masculinity over the years. Toxic masculinity is an undesirable fixation with the gender, justifying many follies as acceptable. I choose to say, “Content is Queen”. Queen is no less significant. Real queens fix each other’s crowns. Queens represent self-mastery, resilience, and inner strength rather than literal royalty almost all the qualities of a winner. Queen is a woman. She conceives. She delivers. She shapes personalities and destinies. Will it be wise not calling Content Queen? In psychology, the feminine principle represents receptivity, intuition, nurturing, and incubation. Highly creative individuals of any gender embrace these qualities, allowing them to balance the action of masculine side with liberal-minded energy of the feminine. That’s how best of both the worlds is attained. That’s how creativity blooms. Content is no exception. I have been a content creator for myriad sectors be it engineering, real estate, retail, human rights, packaging, clean energy and climate action. Making content that draws eyeballs and evoke sustained interest is never easy. To make content creation tad simpler, don’t cling on to pre-conceived notions. Let your mind be at ease. Let inclusion govern your instinct.  Think through all aspects relating to the title. Shed hypocritical masculine toxicity. Treat your canvas as your sacred space and transform it into the holy grail just the way you would want it to be. Weave your magic by donning the creative cap. What emerges will be absolutely magnificent, something that you shall be proud of!I am a firm believer that real beauty lies in asymmetry. Celebrate imperfection because perfection is much like that space where earth meets the sky which we all know they don’t. Horizons are illusionary. Approaching content with your softest side while synthesizing and finishing it with your strongest side will bring out the best. Let people’s content be King, I am happy with my Content Being Queen!DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

There was a time when public relations was largely measured by one question: “How many media features did we secure this month?” Today, founders and brands are asking something far more layered: “What are people associating us with and how are we being remembered?” This speaks largely to where the industry is heading. PR today is evolving and it is not just seen as a support function but also as a strategic business tool. Today, visibility without narrative direction is temporary, and modern PR is increasingly leaning towards shaping perception.Media Coverage Is No Longer the End Goal For years, PR was largely associated with media visibility - press releases, interviews, announcements, and securing headlines. While these remain significantly important tools, the role of PR today extends far beyond earned coverage. In today’s world, a certain brand can trend and be on top of the charts in the morning, face criticism in the evening and by the end of the day, they are already solving a crisis. In such an environment, communication cannot only be reactive. It has to be intentional. This is where many brands are beginning to rethink PR entirely. Instead of asking agencies to simply “get coverage,” they are also looking for partners who can help define the brand’s messaging and narratives, what the brand should stand for, what authority and recall it should build and most importantly, how the brand should consistently communicate across platforms. In simple words, there is a shift from just media management to narrative strategy.Since the beginning of time, humans have always used stories to connect, and brands are finally catching onThe rules of business have quietly rewritten themselves. Today, you aren’t just competing on the price tag or the product features; you are competing on how you make people feel. We buy from people we trust, people we relate to, and people who feel real. We want to look behind the curtain to see what a company actually stands for.That is why storytelling is no longer a luxury, it is the heartbeat of communication…it’s a necessity and it isn’t about flashy slogans or slick, over-produced campaigns. It is about showing up as yourself, day after day. A great story isn’t told all at once in a single interview; it is built quietly and consistently across every single conversation you have. Today audiences can spot a script from a mile away, but they will always remember a true story.The Rise of Founder-Led Communication Another noticeable change in recent years has been the rise of founder visibility. Earlier, many businesses preferred keeping founders in the background while the company remained the primary focus. Today, founders themselves are becoming narrative carriers for the brand. Their opinions, interviews, LinkedIn presence, public speaking, and thought leadership increasingly influence how their business is perceived. From legacy businesses to emerging brands, leadership communication is becoming an integral part of reputation building. Investors want to understand what the leadership is thinking, the consumers want relatability, the media wants perspective and the employees want vision. As a result, founder branding is no longer optional but it is strategic positioning. In fact, some of the strongest PR outcomes today are coming not from brand announcements, but from credible founder voices leading industry conversations.PR Today Is Closer to Business StrategyOne of the biggest misconceptions about PR is that it begins after a business milestone is achieved. Today PR professionals are increasingly expected to understand business models, consumer behaviour, industry trends, and cultural sentiment. The role has expanded significantly. This shift is happening because communication decisions today influence investor confidence, employer branding, market credibility, stakeholder trust and vendor partnerships. A PR agency is expected to make a PR plan on the pillars of narrative, authority, perception and even long term positioning. These are strategic business angles and not just media visibility metrics anymore. Additionally, today brand perception is shaped not only by traditional media but also by social media, founder communication, customer reviews, podcasts, and real-time digital conversations. In an environment with continuous communication, every statement, collaboration or even silence contributes to public perception.The Future of PR Lies in Narrative Building The future of communications will belong to brands that understand the importance of long-term narrative building over short-term visibility. Today, PR is no longer just about getting brands featured; it is about helping brands stay relevant, credible and consistently remembered in an overcrowded information ecosystem. As the industry continues to evolve, PR professionals will increasingly be expected to act as strategic narrative architects rather than just media facilitators. Because at the end of the day, people may forget campaigns and headlines, but they always remember how a brand made them feel.

As brands navigate an increasingly fragmented communications landscape, the lines between public relations, digital marketing, search visibility and reputation management are rapidly blurring. Yet many agencies continue to treat these disciplines as separate functions, often missing the opportunity to build a more cohesive and effective brand narrative.In this email interaction with The PR Post, Lalit Sharma, Founder and CEO of PR Companion and Ethane Web Technologies, discusses the evolution of PR Companion from an in-house communications practice to a standalone agency, the growing convergence of PR and digital, the importance of proactive reputation management, and how an integrated communications model is helping brands build credibility, visibility and long-term trust in an increasingly competitive marketplace.PR Companion has been doing this work quietly within Ethane Web Technologies for 15 years before it became its own agency. What made 2025 the right moment to give it its own identity?When we laid the foundation of the communication business, we knew that we would have to adapt to the changing landscape of the industry over time. While we started as a digital marketing agency, we were managing media relations, disseminating press releases, and building reputations for our clients. It was a service we were offering our clients additionally. As India witnessed a boom in startup culture in recent years, and founders became more aware of brand building, reputation, and visibility, we started receiving a lot of PR inquiries as well.After multiple conversations with our team and existing clients, we realised we needed to position PR as a primary service for brands rather than just an add-on offering.There is a growing conversation about PR and digital converging. You have sat at that intersection for a long time. What does that actually look like in practice, and why do most agencies still treat them separately?I have always treated these two as inseparable entities. For me, you cannot function without either of them if you are building a brand that is here to stay. Think of a PR campaign that does not appear in Google searches, or a digital mandate that gives visibility but no credibility.When you see an article published in a credible publication that also appears among the top Google search results, that is when communication outreach has worked effectively.Most agencies still operate in a traditional way. They look for structure more than experimenting. PR agencies are built on the foundation of media relations, client servicing, and content. Digital agencies just focus on performance marketing and SEO. However, very few agencies think about the impact created when these two functions are integrated. We feel that PR and digital are and always have been connected. Crisis communication is something most brands prepare for only after they need it. From what you have seen, what separates the brands that come out of a difficult moment stronger from the ones that do not?This question reflects a large part of my professional journey. I keep asking every founder I meet, why do they only need to resort to PR or reputation management once something goes wrong? As an agency, we always recommend our clients prepare in advance so that they never have to panic when such a situation arises. Let me explain this with two examples. Think of a company that has spent years building its reputation and then faces a crisis, compared to a company with no media presence or public credibility. In both cases, crisis is a misunderstanding where the brands are not at fault. When a crisis hits the latter, journalists and consumers may struggle to trust the company again. On the other hand, for brands that have consistently built their presence online, addressing a crisis transparently becomes much easier.You recently expanded the PR Companion leadership team. What does that say about where the agency is headed, and what kind of practice are you trying to build?Creating PR Companion as an independent brand was a strategic step towards building a more focused and scalable communications practice. While communications and reputation management have been part of our work for over 15 years within Ethane Web Technologies, establishing a dedicated agency structure allows us to invest more deeply in talent, specialised expertise, and service capabilities.As client expectations evolve, agencies need to move beyond generic execution and offer strategic counsel tailored to different stages of business growth. Our focus is on building a team that combines strong media relations, digital understanding, and sector-specific expertise so that we can support clients ranging from early-stage founders seeking visibility to established brands navigating complex reputation and stakeholder challenges.The vision is to create a communications partner that remains accessible to growing businesses while also having the depth and experience required to manage high-impact mandates. By strengthening our team and expanding our capabilities, we are positioning PR Companion to deliver more meaningful and long-term value to clients across industries..Reputation management has become a much bigger conversation for businesses in India. What are brands still getting wrong about it, and what does good actually look like?The biggest mistake continues to be perceiving reputation management as an afterthought, only something done when a crisis arises. Many brands approach us after they have a bad review, a negative story floating online. Until that time, the situation becomes tricky, and it is a challenge to undo the damage caused.  Brands also tend to confuse visibility with reputation. A brand can receive extensive media coverage and still have a weak reputation if the messaging is not right or if it is not reaching the relevant audience. Reputation management is similar to maintaining a garden.Effective reputation management is akin to the task of a gardener. You plant your flowers, and gradually they blossom over time with regular watering, but even a single period of neglect can damage them. Or you put your reputation garden in good shape every now and then but then suddenly neglect it, and a slew of weeds and pests can ruin your work. Reputation is an intangible asset, and like other intangible assets, it is the result of sustained effort. Those efforts, of course, have to be done well to actually produce the kind of reputation that you want to have.You have built three distinct but connected practices under one group. Ethane Web Technologies, Ranking By SEO, and now PR Companion as a standalone. How do you think about the relationship between them, and what does that integrated model mean for the clients you work with?Each of these verticals works well independently, but bringing them together created a much stronger communications ecosystem. I wanted to create a full 360-degree marketing and communications agency for my clients, and by combining all three of them, I very much achieved that. While Ethane helps in managing the brands’ broader digital communications and marketing, Ranking By SEO boosts their search visibility and organic growth. And with PR Companion coming into the picture, our clients have access to earned media, reputation, and communications strategy. For clients, it is far easier to work with one integrated agency rather than coordinating with three separate partners at the same time. We make a strategy for them that serves all the aspects of communication for them.

Authored by: Shiva Bhavani, Founder & CEO of Wing Communications There’s a quiet crisis happening inside Indian boardrooms that nobody wants to talk about openly. The Chief Marketing Officer — once the voice of the customer, the architect of brand narrative, the person who sat at the table when business direction was being decided — has slowly been reduced to a campaign executor. A budget manager. A performance dashboard owner. And the worst part? Most CMOs don’t even realize it’s happened to them.How Did We Get Here?The digital revolution did something paradoxical to marketing leadership. It gave CMOs more tools, more data, more channels — and in doing so, quietly buried them in execution. Suddenly, the CMO’s week looked like this: review the Meta ad performance, align with the agency on the content calendar, chase the SEO team for rankings, sit in a product launch sync, approve creatives, justify the quarter’s CAC to the CFO, and somewhere in between, try to think about “brand.”Strategy became a word used in presentations. Not in practice. Meanwhile, the CEO moved on. Hired growth hackers. Brought in consultants for market positioning. Made narrative decisions without the CMO in the room — because frankly, the CMO was busy managing campaigns. This is not a talent problem. It’s a mandate problem.What the Role Actually Demands NowI work closely with founders and leadership teams across sectors — from funded startups to established enterprises. And one pattern I see consistently is this: the brands that are winning aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest marketing budgets. They’re the ones where the marketing leader thinks like a business strategist first, and a marketer second.The new CMO mandate is not about running better campaigns. It’s about three things:1. Owning the Narrative Before the Campaign ExistsMost CMOs wait for a product, a launch, or a brief before they start thinking about communication. That’s backwards. The CMO’s job is to own the brand narrative at the business strategy level — before anything is built, before a campaign brief is written. What story are we telling the market? What position do we want to occupy in the customer’s mind three years from now? What does the media say about us today, and what should it say? These are not marketing questions. They are business questions. And the CMO should be answering them in the boardroom, not in a campaign debrief.2. Making Earned Credibility a Business AssetThere’s a fundamental shift happening in how brands build trust — and most CMOs are still operating on the old playbook. Paid reach is getting more expensive and less trusted. Consumers are skeptical. Algorithms are unpredictable. But a founder’s byline in a credible publication? A quote in Economic Times on an industry trend? A leadership perspective that gets picked up across twenty media outlets? That compounds. That builds authority that no ad budget can replicate. The modern CMO must understand that earned media and thought leadership are not PR department tasks — they are core strategic assets that the CMO should be driving, protecting, and measuring with the same rigor as any paid channel.3. Sitting at the Revenue Table, Not Just the Marketing TableFor too long, marketing has been treated as a cost center that produces creatives and awareness. The CMO who accepts that framing will always fight for budget and never have real influence. The shift is this: CMOs need to reframe their function as a revenue-generating, market-positioning, and credibility-building engine — and they need the language, the data, and the narrative to prove it to the CEO and the board. This means connecting PR and brand activity to pipeline. It means showing how thought leadership shortens sales cycles. It means demonstrating how brand authority reduces customer acquisition costs over time. The CMO who can make that case owns a seat at the revenue table. The one who can’t will keep getting cut in the next budget cycle.The Founder-CMO Tension Nobody Talks AboutHere’s something I observe constantly in the startup ecosystem: founders are increasingly bypassing their CMOs on brand and communication decisions.Not because the CMO isn’t capable. But because the CMO hasn’t established themselves as the authority on narrative strategy within the organization.When a journalist calls, the founder picks up — not the CMO. When a positioning decision needs to be made, the founder and the product team figure it out in a room — without the CMO. When the company is about to raise a round and needs to build investor narrative, someone hires a consultant — because the CMO “handles campaigns.” This is a failure of positioning. The CMO’s own positioning within the company.The irony is sharp: the person responsible for positioning the brand has failed to position themselves as an indispensable strategic voice. The fix is not political. It’s not about fighting for turf. It’s about earning the role through the quality of strategic thinking — showing up to every conversation with a point of view on narrative, market context, and long-term brand equity. Not just campaign metrics.What Separates a Strategic CMO from an Execution CMOThe difference shows up in the questions they ask.An execution CMO asks: “What’s the brief? What’s the budget? What’s the deadline?” A strategic CMO asks: “What’s the story we want the market to tell about us in two years? What do we need to do today to make that true?”An execution CMO measures success by reach, impressions, and click-through rates. A strategic CMO measures success by share of voice, narrative ownership, media authority, and the quality of conversations the brand is generating in its industry.An execution CMO reacts to the market. A strategic CMO shapes it.The AI Dimension That CMOs Are UnderestimatingThere’s one more layer to this that very few marketing leaders are factoring into their strategy yet. We are moving into an era where the first point of discovery for a brand — for a customer, an investor, a potential hire — is increasingly an AI engine. ChatGPT. Perplexity. Google AI Overviews. These systems don’t surface brands based on ad spend. They surface brands based on the quality, consistency, and credibility of information available about them across the web.What that means practically: the brands that have invested in consistent earned media, thought leadership articles, credible third-party mentions, and structured narrative presence are going to have an enormous discoverability advantage in the next three to five years. CMOs who understand this will start treating PR and earned content not as a quarterly activity — but as long-term infrastructure. As searchable, citable, AI-trainable brand equity.This is the new frontier of marketing strategy. And right now, the CMOs who are in campaign execution mode are not even looking at it.The Mandate is ClearThe role of the CMO is not to manage campaigns. It’s to architect how the world perceives and talks about the company — across media, across conversations, across the digital landscape that increasingly runs on AI.That requires a different mindset. A longer time horizon. A willingness to measure things that don’t show up in a weekly performance dashboard.It requires the CMO to stop waiting for a brief and start writing the narrative.The companies that will dominate their categories in the next decade will not be the ones with the biggest ad budgets. They will be the ones with the clearest, most credible, most consistently communicated story — driven by a marketing leader who understood that their real job was never to run campaigns.It was always to own the story.Shiva Bhavani is the Founder & CEO of Wing Communications, a strategic PR and reputation management agency working with high-growth brands across India & International DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Authored by: Shiva Bhavani, Founder & CEO of Wing Communications There is a word that gets used more in brand communication today than at any other point in marketing history. That word is storytelling. Every agency pitches it. Every brand claims it. Every content strategy document opens with it. And at the precise moment the word has reached peak usage, the actual practice of it is disappearing. AI did not cause this. But it is accelerating it at a pace that the industry is not being honest about. What we are witnessing in the digital economy right now is not the redefinition of storytelling. It is the replacement of storytelling with something that resembles it closely enough to pass — in a dashboard, in a content report, in a client presentation — but carries none of the weight that made stories matter in the first place. What a Story Actually Is Before we talk about what AI is doing to storytelling, we need to be precise about what storytelling actually is — because the word has been so thoroughly diluted that it now means almost nothing in most brand contexts. A story is not a narrative arc. It is not a content format. It is not a three-part structure with a hook, a body, and a call to action. A story is a specific type of human communication that creates genuine emotional investment in an outcome. It requires a protagonist with something at stake. It requires tension — a gap between where things are and where they need to be. It requires truth — not factual accuracy necessarily, but emotional truth that an audience recognizes from their own experience. These are not technical requirements. They are human ones. And they cannot be reverse-engineered from pattern recognition applied to successful content.AI can produce content that has the structure of a story. It can identify that successful brand narratives tend to follow certain patterns and reproduce those patterns with technical competence. What it cannot do is generate the specific, irreducible human truth that makes a story land — the detail that is so particular it becomes universal, the tension that is so genuine it creates actual emotional investment. The digital economy is filling up with content that has the architecture of storytelling and none of its soul. And most brands cannot tell the difference because they stopped measuring for soul a long time ago. The Volume Problem The most immediate impact of AI on storytelling in the digital economy is not qualitative. It is quantitative. And the quantitative change is producing a qualitative crisis. Brands are producing more content than ever before. AI has removed the production constraint that previously acted as a natural quality filter. When creating content required significant human time and creative investment, there was an implicit standard — this needs to be worth the effort. That standard has been eliminated. The result is a digital economy drowning in content that was produced because it could be, not because it needed to exist. Stories that nobody asked for, told to nobody in particular, optimized for distribution metrics that have no relationship to genuine audience engagement. Volume without intention is not storytelling. It is noise with formatting. And audiences — even ones who cannot articulate why — are tuning out at a rate that engagement dashboards consistently underreport because the metrics being tracked are the wrong ones. What Gets Lost When Craft Disappears The storytelling craft that AI is displacing in the digital economy was built over decades by writers, journalists, filmmakers, and communicators who understood something that no training dataset can fully encode — that the difference between a story that changes how someone thinks and one that is forgotten in thirty seconds is almost always a single specific, unexpected, human detail. The founder who describes the exact moment they knew their company was going to work. The customer whose life changed in a way nobody anticipated. The product failure that led to the breakthrough. These are not narrative devices. They are moments of genuine human truth that create the kind of brand connection that no amount of optimized content can manufacture. AI cannot find these moments because finding them requires human conversation, human intuition, and the ability to recognize significance in something that does not look significant until a skilled storyteller sees it. What is being lost is not just craft. It is the institutional knowledge of how to find the raw material that real stories are made from. As brands increasingly outsource content production to AI systems, the human capability to identify, develop, and tell genuine stories is being quietly decommissioned. That capability does not come back easily once it is gone. The Trust Consequence There is a direct commercial consequence to the hollowing out of brand storytelling that the industry is not connecting clearly enough to AI-driven content strategies. Consumer trust in brand communication is at a historic low. Audiences are more skeptical of branded content, more resistant to narrative manipulation, and more capable of identifying inauthenticity than at any point in the history of modern marketing. Into this environment, the industry is deploying AI-generated storytelling at scale — content that is technically proficient, structurally familiar, and emotionally empty. The audience response is not outrage. It is indifference. And indifference is the outcome that no brand communication strategy can afford and most cannot recover from. The brands that are cutting through in the digital economy right now are not the ones producing the most content. They are the ones telling fewer, truer, morespecifically human stories — and trusting that genuine emotional resonance will do what volume never can. What AI Should and Should Not Own AI has a legitimate role in the storytelling process of any modern brand. That role is in the infrastructure, not the craft. Research, distribution, optimization, audience analysis, performance tracking — these are areas where AI genuinely improves the storytelling operation without touching the storytelling itself. Finding the right audience for a story, understanding what format works on which platform, identifying when and where to distribute — these are problems AI solves well. The story itself — the identification of genuine human truth, the craft of building emotional investment, the editorial judgment of what deserves to be told — that must remain human. Not because AI cannot produce a functional substitute, but because a functional substitute is not the same thing and audiences are increasingly able to feel the difference even when they cannot name it. The Redefinition That Is Actually Happening AI is not redefining storytelling in the digital economy. It is redefining the economics of content production — and that economic shift is creating pressure on every brand to produce more, faster, cheaper. The brands that resist that pressure — that protect the human craft of genuine storytelling even when AI makes the alternative cheaper and faster — will build something that cannot be replicated at scale. Authentic stories, told well, by brands that have done the human work of finding genuine truth in their own narrative, are becoming rarer. Which means they are becoming more valuable. That is the actual opportunity AI has created for storytelling. Not in the tools it provides. In the scarcity it has manufactured for the real thing.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and theprpost.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.

Public relations is entering a defining phase of transformation. As artificial intelligence reshapes how content is created and algorithms dictate how it is distributed, the industry is being pushed far beyond its traditional role of narrative management into a more complex mandate: safeguarding credibility in an environment where visibility can be engineered, but belief cannot.What was once a relationship-led discipline anchored in editorial trust is now evolving into a hybrid model—where storytelling must intersect with platform logic, data signals, and machine-led amplification. The result is a paradox at the heart of modern communications: reach has never been easier to achieve, yet trust has never been harder to secure.From Media Relations to a Distributed Influence EcosystemThe most visible shift is in the very definition of media relations. No longer confined to newsrooms, it now spans a fragmented ecosystem of influencers, brand collaborations, and algorithm-driven discovery platforms.“Media relations today are no longer confined to editors in newsrooms. It has evolved into a dynamic ecosystem that includes influencers, brand collaborations, and algorithm-driven discovery,” said Manauti Walecha, Founder of Communication Casa.Yet, even as the channels diversify, the foundational principles remain intact. “PR at its core is still about relationships, credibility, and trust. Nobody can ever automate authenticity,” she added.This duality is redefining the role of PR professionals. The function is no longer limited to crafting narratives—it now requires an acute understanding of how those narratives travel across platforms.“Our role is no longer just that of a storyteller. We are narrative strategists who balance human insight with algorithmic intelligence. The ability to craft a compelling story must now go hand in hand with the ability to distribute it intelligently,” Walecha noted.AI Efficiency vs Human Judgment: The Industry’s Central TensionAs AI tools become deeply embedded in communication workflows, PR professionals are grappling with a critical question: how far can automation go without compromising authenticity?“Algorithms dictate how content is pushed out today, but the relationship between PR experts and editors will remain timeless as consumers crave authenticity which algorithms cannot provide,” said Neha Bajaj, Founder and Director of Scroll Mantra.Her assessment underscores a growing industry consensus—that while distribution may be automated, credibility still flows through human filters.“Editors possess traits that algorithms lack, such as integrity, judgment, and trustworthiness. An organization's presence in a reputable media outlet holds far greater significance than algorithmic push,” Bajaj said.This places clear boundaries on the role of AI within PR. “AI should be considered a powerful tool for augmentation, not a replacement for authentic human judgment. The core message, intent, and final voice must remain human-led,” she added.In an environment where content can be produced and scaled rapidly, the risks of over-automation are becoming more apparent. “If narratives feel overly manufactured or lack genuine perspective, credibility erodes quickly,” Bajaj warned.The Visibility Vs Credibility Divide WidensEven as data and predictive analytics become central to communication strategies, the industry is confronting a deeper structural reality: control over distribution does not equate to control over trust.“Editors still decide what gets pursued, and journalists still decide what gets trusted. Algorithms may shape what reaches audiences first, but they do not build belief,” said Srishti Sharma, Lead – Social Impact PR at ON PURPOSE.This distinction between visibility and credibility is becoming increasingly pronounced as AI-led newsrooms and content ecosystems expand.“Distribution is not trust. As AI-first newsrooms grow, audiences will ask who they can rely on, and the answer will still be human,” Sharma added.The implications extend beyond strategy into responsibility. As misinformation risks rise in an AI-amplified ecosystem, the burden on PR to ensure quality and accountability is intensifying.“The solution is not more content, but better content that is rigorously sourced, factually grounded, and editorially accountable,” she said.Ultimately, the industry is being reminded of a fundamental truth. “Trust is built through behaviour, not communication alone,” Sharma noted.A Structural Reset, Not Just a Tactical ShiftTaken together, these shifts point to more than just an evolution in tools or channels—they signal a structural reset in how public relations operates.The future of the industry will be shaped by its ability to navigate three defining tensions: the balance between human judgment and algorithmic optimisation, the trade-off between efficiency and authenticity, and the widening gap between visibility and credibility.In this new paradigm, success will not be determined solely by how far a message travels, but by how deeply it is believed.Trust as PR’s Ultimate DifferentiatorAs communications ecosystems become faster, more fragmented, and increasingly automated, the role of PR is being recast in sharper terms. It is no longer just about managing narratives or maximising reach—it is about ensuring that what is said is trusted, and what is amplified is credible.In an age where algorithms can manufacture visibility at scale, the real competitive advantage lies in something far less programmable: human trust.And for an industry built on perception, that may prove to be its most enduring—and most difficult—currency.

Authored by: Gaurav Bansal , Director Marketing & Communications - SHRM India, APAC, & MENAFor a long time, corporate purpose mostly existed on paper. Companies carefully crafted purpose statements to explain what they stood for and how they hoped to contribute to society. These statements often featured in annual reports, leadership speeches and brand campaigns. They helped define a company’s identity and gave employees something meaningful and inspiring to connect with.But very often, purpose stayed exactly there -- in the narrative.It helped tell the organisation’s story, but it did not always shape the way decisions were made inside the business. Choices around investments, technology, hiring and leadership incentives often continued to follow familiar, traditional approaches—even when the company’s stated purpose pointed to a much broader ambition.That gap is becoming much harder to sustain.We now operate in a world where organisations are far more visible than they once were. Employees openly discuss workplace experiences. Customers pay attention to how companies behave, not just what they promise. Investors and regulators increasingly examine governance, technology practices and workforce policies.At the same time, artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping how businesses function. Decisions that once happened quietly within departments are now embedded into digital systems and data-driven models. In such an environment, purpose cannot remain a message layered on top of operations. It has to influence the architecture of how the organisation actually works.Take technology as an example. Many companies say they believe in responsible innovation. But the real question is how that belief shows up when AI tools are deployed. Are there systems to monitor bias? Are employees trained to understand the ethical implications of automated decisions? Is transparency built into technology governance? When purpose becomes operational, these questions are not handled as reputational concerns; they become part of decision-making processes.Workforce strategy offers another example. Almost every organisation today speaks about investing in people and preparing employees for the future of work. Yet those commitments become meaningful only when they influence real policies — how budgets are allocated for reskilling, how career transitions are managed, and how organisations support employees when technology changes roles. If purpose is genuine, it should shape how companies respond when workforce realities evolve.This is where the shift becomes clear.Purpose is gradually moving from storytelling into performance systems. In practical terms, that means it begins to influence how organisations measure success. Leadership performance, for instance, has traditionally been assessed through financial results and operational efficiency. Those measures remain critical. But today, organisations are also paying attention to how leaders develop talent, build inclusive teams, manage ethical risks and guide responsible technology adoption. These elements increasingly form part of leadership evaluation.Capital allocation is another place where purpose is becoming visible. Companies that speak about sustainability, social responsibility or long-term value are now expected to demonstrate how those commitments affect investment choices. Which projects receive funding? How are supply chains evaluated? What long-term societal risks are considered in strategic planning?These are not communication questions. They are governance decisions.For marketing leaders, this shift changes the nature of brand strategy. In the past, a strong narrative could exist somewhat independently from internal systems. Today, that separation is far more difficult to maintain. Audiences are quick to notice when a company’s message and behaviour do not match.As a result, marketing increasingly reflects what the organisation actually does rather than simply what it says.Human resource leaders and organisational designers play an important role here. Purpose becomes real for employees when it appears in everyday systems -- in how people are hired, how leaders are developed, how performance is evaluated and how organisational culture is reinforced.When those structures reflect purpose, employees experience it directly.None of this means storytelling is unimportant. Narratives still help organisations explain their direction and inspire engagement. But storytelling alone no longer creates credibility.Today’s stakeholders expect alignment between words and systems. The organisations that recognise this shift are beginning to treat purpose less as a branding exercise and more as part of business design. They understand that trust grows when internal practices reinforce the values the organisation claims to stand for.Purpose, in that sense, is changing shape.It is no longer simply a statement crafted for communication. It is becoming part of the frameworks that guide decisions, leadership behaviour and organisational priorities. Because in today’s economy, purpose is not defined by what companies declare. It is defined by what their systems consistently demonstrate.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully does not necessarily subscribe to it.

In an ecosystem defined by overflowing inboxes, algorithm-driven visibility, and rapidly shrinking attention spans, public relations is undergoing a structural reset. The traditional playbook—built on persistence, scale, and frequency—is losing relevance. In its place, a more disciplined, insight-led approach is emerging, where credibility, contextual relevance, and human connection determine success.At the heart of this shift lies a simple but powerful recalibration: relationships with journalists and influencers are no longer transactional—they are strategic, long-term, and rooted in trust. As the media landscape fragments and competition for attention intensifies, PR professionals are being forced to rethink not just how they pitch, but how they engage.Industry leaders including Anand Prakash (Adfactors PR), Mansi Sheth (Veritas PR), Yashoda Sharma (Communication Casa), and Paromita Ghosh (Candid by Paromita) converge on a clear consensus: relevance—not reach—is now the defining currency of effective media relations.From Transactional Outreach to Trust-Led EngagementFor Anand Prakash, the foundation of any meaningful media relationship begins with respecting the journalist’s craft—an aspect often overshadowed by the pressure to deliver visibility metrics.He argues that volume-driven outreach has become counterproductive in a saturated media environment. Instead, PR professionals must invest in understanding editorial priorities, tracking journalists’ work, and engaging in ways that extend beyond immediate pitching needs. Consistency, when practiced without intrusion, fosters familiarity—and over time, trust.Crucially, Prakash points to a counterintuitive insight in a digital-first era: offline engagement retains disproportionate value. Informal, in-person interactions—whether at industry events or over brief meetings—often accelerate relationship-building in ways that prolonged digital exchanges cannot replicate.When it comes to influencers, the paradigm shift is even more pronounced. Engagement is moving away from transactional “collaboration requests” toward deeper creative alignment, where understanding content style, audience behaviour, and brand ethos becomes essential. The underlying principle is clear: meaningful connections emerge when individuals feel understood, not targeted.The Long Game: Why Authentic Relationships Take TimeMansi Sheth reinforces the idea that strong media relationships cannot be engineered through short-term tactics. Instead, they evolve gradually, often over months or even years.Her perspective challenges a common industry tendency to engage only when there is an immediate ask. By contrast, she advocates for “no-agenda interactions”—conversations and engagements that are not tied to a pitch or deliverable. These moments, while seemingly low-yield in the short term, lay the groundwork for credibility and rapport.The payoff is significant. When trust exists, conversations shift fundamentally: they begin not with a pitch, but with context and mutual understanding. In such scenarios, access is not negotiated—it is extended.Execution Matters: Personalisation as a Competitive AdvantageWhile strategy sets direction, execution determines outcomes. Yashoda Sharma highlights personalization as one of the most underutilized yet high-impact levers in modern PR.Generic, mass-distributed emails, she notes, are increasingly ineffective. Instead, successful outreach requires a granular understanding of a journalist’s or influencer’s body of work. Referencing specific articles, themes, or content styles signals intent and effort—two factors that significantly improve engagement.Sharma also underscores the importance of proactive, low-friction engagement on platforms like social media. Thoughtful interactions—such as commenting on or sharing relevant content—help build familiarity over time, making eventual outreach more organic and less intrusive.Equally important is the principle of value-first engagement. Whether through exclusive data, unique insights, or well-considered collaboration ideas, offering something useful upfront shifts the dynamic from solicitation to contribution.Her observation from on-ground experience reinforces a recurring theme: informal, human interactions often serve as inflection points, turning casual exchanges into durable professional relationships.Precision Over Scale: A Strategic ResetWith over two decades of experience, Paromita Ghosh offers a blunt assessment of the industry’s biggest challenge: irrelevance, not volume.Her critique targets the persistence of “spray-and-pray” tactics, which prioritize scale over substance. In contrast, she advocates for a sharply focused approach where a handful of highly targeted, insight-rich pitches consistently outperform mass outreach.For Ghosh, the role of PR professionals must evolve from information distributors to value creators. The most effective practitioners, she argues, are those who enhance a journalist’s ability to tell a compelling story—by providing access, surfacing exclusive data, or offering perspectives that are otherwise difficult to obtain.Despite rapid changes in platforms and formats, she maintains that the core principles of media relations remain unchanged: respect, consistency, and relevance.What Makes a Pitch Work TodayAcross the board, there is strong alignment on what differentiates effective pitches in today’s environment. Three elements stand out as non-negotiable: relevance, clarity, and timeliness.A successful pitch must immediately answer a critical question: why does this story matter now? Without a clear and compelling answer, even well-crafted communication risks being ignored.Equally important is reducing friction for the recipient. Clear structure, concise messaging, and ready-to-use information increase the likelihood of engagement by minimizing the effort required to act.An audience-first mindset is another defining characteristic. The most effective pitches are not built around what brands want to say, but around what journalists need to tell their audience. This shift in perspective often determines whether a pitch is opened—or overlooked.Finally, simplicity and alignment play a decisive role. Messaging that is direct, tailored, and free of excessive promotional language resonates far more effectively. As Ghosh succinctly puts it: the best pitches do not sell—they serve.The Bigger Shift: PR as Relationship CapitalTaken together, these insights point to a broader transformation in the PR industry. Success is no longer driven by how widely a message is distributed, but by how meaningfully it is received.In a landscape where attention is scarce and credibility is hard-earned, relationships themselves are becoming a form of capital—built slowly, sustained through consistency, and activated through trust.For PR professionals, the implication is clear: the future belongs not to those who pitch the most, but to those who understand the most. 

In an era where reputations are built—and destroyed—at the speed of the news cycle, the role of public relations is undergoing a fundamental reset. What was once largely measured through media visibility and press coverage is increasingly being evaluated through its ability to influence business outcomes, manage reputational risk and shape long-term narratives.Across industries, companies are asking communication partners to move beyond traditional media outreach and become strategic advisors capable of linking narrative strategy to measurable organisational impact. The shift reflects broader changes in the communications landscape: real-time digital discourse, increasingly fragile corporate reputations and a growing expectation that communication strategy must be embedded in core business decision-making.Industry leaders say this transformation is forcing PR agencies to rethink not only how they operate externally, but also how they structure talent, capabilities and internal culture.According to Radhika Nihalani, Founder of Think Ink Communications and Think Talkies, the shift is already visible in the way success is defined.“The number of media clips is no longer the central ask,” Nihalani says. “What matters today is how the PR strategy and its outcomes directly impact the business. PR is no longer operating as a silo; it has become an integrated function within the business.”She notes that traditional metrics such as column inches or volume of coverage have gradually given way to measures such as audience sentiment, engagement and narrative resonance.“The measure of PR today is not in square centimetres of coverage but in the sentiment and engagement it creates,” she adds.Real-time news cycles reshape expectationsThe acceleration of digital news cycles has further altered client expectations. Communications teams now operate in an environment where narratives can emerge, escalate and evolve within hours, leaving little room for delayed responses.Nihalani points out that two capabilities have become non-negotiable for agencies: crisis preparedness and rapid response.“With news cycles now unfolding in real time, readiness for crisis has become a baseline requirement rather than a premium service,” she explains. “Equally important is the speed of response—timing is everything in PR.”The broader transformation, she says, is also making the industry more dynamic. “It’s one of the most exciting times to be in this space because no two days are alike and the possibilities to shape narratives are endless.”Strategic advisory requires new agency structuresThe demand for business impact is forcing agencies to reconsider internal structures that historically prioritised media outreach and campaign execution.Nihalani argues that the first step toward repositioning as strategic partners lies in rethinking team capabilities.“Agencies need to build teams that think in terms of narrative and positioning—not just media outreach,” she says. “That fundamentally changes the DNA of campaigns.”She also highlights the growing need for integrated capabilities spanning partnerships, creator ecosystems, communities and media relationships.“Clients increasingly expect holistic advice that brings together multiple communication channels,” she notes. “This also requires organisational cultures that support long-term thinking and constant upskilling.”Reputation management becomes central to communicationsA similar shift is visible across other segments of the communications industry. According to Sunanda Rao-Erdem, Founder and CEO of Seraphim Communications, the definition of PR success has broadened significantly in recent years.“Earlier, success was often measured largely through visibility metrics—media coverage, press releases or campaign reach,” Rao says. “While those remain relevant, organisations today are far more focused on how communication contributes to tangible outcomes such as reputation, stakeholder trust, policy alignment or market positioning.”She notes that the digital era has also made reputation increasingly fragile.“Narratives can form and spread rapidly, and organisations may find themselves responding to scrutiny within hours,” Rao explains. “Communication therefore needs to focus not only on amplification but also on anticipation and preparedness.”In addition, shorter attention spans and faster news cycles are forcing brands to think beyond one-off announcements.“The challenge today is sustaining relevance beyond the initial announcement,” Rao says. “Clients expect agencies to contribute to long-term narrative building and strategic positioning.”From tactical execution to strategic influenceFor PR agencies seeking to reposition themselves as business solution partners, Rao believes internal capability development is critical.Traditional agency models were built around media relations and campaign management. The emerging model, however, demands interdisciplinary skills that combine communication expertise with policy insight, research capabilities and stakeholder engagement.“Agencies need interdisciplinary skill sets that combine communications expertise with sector knowledge, policy understanding and analytical capability,” Rao says.Equally important, she argues, is earlier involvement in client decision-making processes.“Agencies create the most value when they are part of conversations around partnerships, initiatives or market entry strategies—not only when communication needs to be executed,” she explains.This deeper integration requires consultants to think like strategic advisors rather than service providers.“They must identify opportunities, anticipate risks and align communication with broader organisational goals,” Rao adds.Credibility will define the next phase of PRAs more agencies position themselves as strategic partners, industry leaders say the real differentiator will lie in credibility and consistency.For Nihalani, the foundation of strategic influence lies in honest counsel.“The simple answer is honest counsel—what works, what doesn’t, and what can be done to make it work,” she says. “Great campaigns are built on realness, not unrealistic promises.”Ultimately, she believes the distinction between tactical and strategic PR comes down to one fundamental question.“The biggest difference lies in whether an agency is helping shape the direction of the business narrative—or simply executing a communication brief,” she says.As corporate reputations become increasingly intertwined with business performance, that distinction is likely to define the next evolution of the communications industry.

For decades, the success of public relations was measured in headlines, column inches, and the scale of media visibility a campaign could generate. That metric is rapidly losing relevance.Today, brands are asking a far more pointed question: What did the communication actually achieve for the business?As companies increasingly link reputation management with growth, investor confidence, and stakeholder trust, PR agencies are being pushed to move beyond traditional press relations and position themselves as strategic partners in shaping business outcomes. The shift is quietly redefining how agencies structure their work, measure success, and participate in corporate decision-making.A structural shift in the client–agency relationshipAccording to Madhurima Bhatia, Head of PR & Partnerships at Ipsos India, the relationship between brands and their communication partners has already undergone a structural transformation.PR agencies are no longer expected to operate as external vendors executing predefined mandates. Instead, they are increasingly treated as strategic collaborators aligned with leadership priorities and broader organisational objectives. Agencies working on long-term retainers now spend significantly more time understanding a company’s business strategy, financial goals, and stakeholder landscape. Communication planning, Bhatia says, must reflect those priorities.“If the organisation’s focus is top-line growth, the narratives we build through earned media must create stakeholder momentum and support that objective,” she explains.Even project-based mandates are now evaluated through a similar lens. The key question, she notes, is whether communication efforts trigger meaningful action—whether that is stakeholder interest, customer enquiries, or measurable engagement with the brand.“Outcome decides the strength of the agency,” Bhatia says.<img src='https://erp.adgully.me/artical_image\7545ea61a0993dc6bc0d8e5b46686632.jpeg' class='content_image'>The expanding scope of modern communicationsAcross the broader communications industry, leaders say the definition of PR itself has expanded.Komal Lath, Founder of Tute Consult, believes the industry has moved well beyond its traditional association with media relations.“The communication landscape today looks very different from what it did a few years ago,” she says. While visibility remains important, clients are increasingly focused on long-term brand narratives, reputation architecture, and measurable outcomes rather than media outputs alone.This shift has forced agencies to adopt a more integrated communication approach. Modern campaigns often combine strategic storytelling, digital amplification, influencer engagement, experiential marketing, and partnerships to create impact across multiple touchpoints.In this environment, agencies are expected to understand a client’s market dynamics, expansion plans, and competitive positioning before crafting communication strategies.The role, Lath argues, increasingly resembles that of a strategic advisor rather than an execution partner.The perception gap within the industryDespite this evolution, she also sees a gap between how the industry talks about strategy and how it sometimes operates in practice.While many professionals position PR as a strategic function in industry discussions and thought leadership forums, some client mandates continue to prioritise traditional output metrics such as media coverage volume or impressions.For agencies attempting to reposition themselves as strategic advisors, this can create a dilemma.“Agencies need to assess whether certain mandates align with the strategic direction they want to pursue,” Lath says.<img src='https://erp.adgully.me/artical_image\af340a28fb5f84123ce2de13e2e3723d.jpeg' class='content_image'>The rise of data-driven PRFor Jagriti Motwani, CEO of Cha-Chi Communications, another defining element of PR’s transformation is the growing emphasis on data and audience insight.Public relations, she says, is gradually shifting from being perceived as a marketing expense to being recognised as a function capable of influencing business outcomes.“Businesses increasingly understand that reputation affects credibility, stakeholder trust, and market opportunities,” Motwani explains.As a result, communication strategies must be grounded in research, audience understanding, and clearly defined objectives rather than simply pursuing media placements.The agencies that stand out, she adds, are those that think beyond publicity and focus on how narratives influence perception, trust, and ultimately consumer behaviour.<img src='https://erp.adgully.me/artical_image\e40186955fc9a941498c35be104119e5.jpeg' class='content_image'>The future of PR: influence, not just visibilityIndustry leaders believe the real differentiator in the coming years will be an agency’s ability to influence decision-making rather than simply execute communication plans.Agencies that operate as trusted advisors are often involved in early-stage conversations—helping brands shape narratives during periods of expansion, navigate reputational risks, and build long-term credibility.Motwani notes that public relations has always had the potential to shape business outcomes through investor interest, stakeholder confidence, and market perception. The difference today is that companies increasingly expect those outcomes to be visible and measurable.For PR agencies, that expectation represents both an opportunity and a challenge.As communication becomes more tightly linked to commercial performance, the industry’s role is being recalibrated. Visibility may still matter—but the real test of PR is increasingly whether the stories it tells can move the business forward. 

In this edition of PR Pulse, Adgully speaks with Kunal Gupta, Asst. Manager – Corporate Communications at Sirrus.ai, Yukio.in & Ziki, and Founder of Media PR & Folks, to decode how public relations has evolved from a media-relations function into a strategic business driver. With over two decades of experience, Gupta shares sharp insights on trust-building, leadership visibility, AI-led communication shifts, and why integrated, credibility-first narratives will define the corporate communications landscape in 2026 and beyond.How has the role of PR evolved from media relations to becoming a strategic business function?When I started in this business two decades ago, we measured success by the thickness of press clipping files, often over 100 per campaign. Those days are long gone. Today, what matters is belief. We're seeing 20-30% higher investor confidence and 15% better talent retention in India's competitive markets when communications is done properly.The landscape has fundamentally shifted. Seventy per cent of stakeholders now distrust unverified claims, which means communications directly shapes how investors evaluate you. We've tracked PR-led narratives boosting valuations by up to 25%, how customers choose you, and critically, how employees decide to stay with you.Here's what I tell boardrooms: silence has become riskier than visibility. Modern PR integrates earned, owned, and paid ecosystems seamlessly. The top firms? They're achieving 40% more cohesive narratives because they understand this. Organisations treating PR as strategy are building credibility worth billions, not temporary noise.In an era of constant content and noise, how can brands earn trust rather than demand attention?Audiences today evaluate alignment over volume. 85% abandon brands the moment they spot a mismatch. That's not a small number to ignore.Earned media still carries weight precisely because it provides third-party validation, contributing three times more trust than paid advertisements. Leadership visibility adds genuine perspective. When you have consistent voices in the market, you're looking at double the recall after five to seven touchpoints.In India, where we're dealing with over four billion monthly social impressions, restraint and proof consistently outperform amplification. The brands sustaining 25% higher loyalty? They've learnt that less is often more.What role does corporate communications play in shaping stakeholder confidence during moments of change or uncertainty?Stakeholders expect clarity, pure and simple. Structured communications cuts speculation by 50%. That's what global benchmarks tell us consistently.Look at what happened in India during 2025's market volatility. Organisations with aligned messaging preserved 30% more share value than those scrambling to get their story straight. That's not coincidence.The critical bit is internal-media-leadership synchronisation. When these elements work in silos, trust erodes 40% faster than it does during actual crises. I've seen this play out too many times. Communications anchors belief; it doesn't spin narratives.How should leaders communicate when AI is accelerating speed but audiences are becoming more sceptical?AI generates content at ten times the speed, no question. But credibility? That's lagging significantly. About 75% of audiences can detect "manufactured" tones now.Leaders must blend data clarity, and yes, AI boosts efficiency by roughly 35%, with genuine human authenticity. The top executives I work with maintain double the engagement levels through transparent discussions about technology and its implications.The fundamental truth remains: trust scales through people, not automation alone.What separates brands that build long-term reputation equity from those that rely on momentary buzz?Equity builds in layers through consistent visibility. Panel discussions, thoughtful commentary. These yield four times the memory compared to one-off spikes.Buzz fades in 48 hours. Always has. But reputation equity? It weathers 30% sentiment drops and emerges stronger.The patient brands in India are accumulating 25% premium valuations through sustained relationships over hype. That's the difference between strategic thinking and tactical noise-making.How can communication teams ensure alignment between leadership messaging, brand purpose, and on-ground actions?Embed listening mechanisms early. When communications teams have access to decisions before they're finalised, you prevent 40% of narrative drift. That's significant.Responsive communications boosts trustworthiness by 35%. When your messaging around sustainability or purpose is authentic and sustained, you're looking at 20% higher growth over time. The numbers speak for themselves.What does an effective 360-degree communication framework look like across internal, external, and digital touchpoints?Think orchestration, not separate channels operating independently.Earned media delivers credibility with three times the ROI. Owned channels provide continuity. Paid extends reach. We're seeing 150% amplification when it's properly integrated. Internal communications drives belief and delivers a 25% retention lift.In India specifically, when you synchronise these channels effectively, you achieve 40% more cohesive presence. But it requires discipline and strategic integration from the top.As we head into 2026, what key shifts do you foresee in the PR and corporate communications landscape, and how should brands prepare for them?2026 will reward credibility above all else. Trust is outperforming reach. Believability metrics are already up 50%. Leadership visibility will increasingly define authority, with visible CXOs generating double the confidence levels.Integration is converging previously siloed functions. Unified strategy lifts impact by 30%.What concerns me is the rising scepticism. Sixty-five per cent of stakeholders now approach communications with doubt. My advice? Invest genuinely in storytelling and engagement.

From the rural background of Govandi, a small village near Mumbai, to the power corridors of India’s public relations industry, Madan Bahal – now all of 70 – has been reshaping this industry in several stages. As Co-founder and Managing Director of Adfactors PR, Bahal is regarded for providing leadership to the Indian PR industry during major adverse events such as the global financial meltdown during 2008, and the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ever since founding Adfactors PR in 1997, over the years, Bahal has served as a lead communication counsel in many of the milestone events of Corporate India, including fundraises, M&As, disputes, litigations, issues, and crises. The seeds of entrepreneurship has been sown when Bahal was still a young boy, encouraged by his father to set up his own business. He even worked in his family’s small grocery shop at Govandi. As a young graduate, the pharma industry almost beckoned, but Bahal maintained his individuality by refusing to conform by wearing a neck-tie! It was a norm in those days for pharma salesmen to wear a tie. Curiosity led him to expand his knowledge – whether it was at a market research agency or a local ad agency. He soaked up the experience of working across sectors. Seeing an opportunity in the market at that time, Bahal first set up Adfactors in 1981, when he was just 25, in an office measuring 78 sq ft, and with a startup capital less that Rs 500. Three years later, the agency moved the office to Fort. The booming IPO market of the 1980s presented an even greater opportunity to Bahal’s fledgling agency when he realised the power of public relations. With more discipline brought on to the financial markets with the setting up of SEBI, PR, rather than advertising hardsell became a more viable route to influence public perception. There has been no looking back for Bahal and Adfactors PR. But more than the impressive clients list built up by the agency over the years, what has been a standout has been Bahal’s approach to the PR business. It has been fearlessness mixed with a keen observation of where the market is headed. Bahal has been highly adaptable to changes, pivoting the business with the least disruption and being open to new ideas, innovations and a fast-paced approach to adopt the best practices. 

In conversation with Adgully, Amardeep Singh, Co-founder & President of Gutenberg, discusses the strategic thinking behind the company’s shift to an AI-native way of working and why traditional agency structures are no longer equipped to meet the evolving demands of modern CMOs. He explains how a human-led AI approach, enabled through its partnership with CambrianEdge.ai, is helping Gutenberg deliver speed, scale, and governance simultaneously. Singh also reflects on the broader industry inflection point marked by shrinking budgets, rising performance expectations, and the need for integrated, accountable marketing systems—while outlining how leaders can prepare for the next phase of AI-driven marketing. Gutenberg has completed a two-year journey toward becoming a fully AI-powered marketing organisation. What prompted this transformation, and why now? The transformation began when we recognised that traditional agency structures built around silos, manual handoffs, and linear workflows could no longer deliver the speed, consistency, or accountability enterprise CMOs need. We realised that adding AI tools to those structures wasn’t going to solve the problem. We needed to rethink the operating model itself.The timing is critical. AI capabilities have matured to a point where they can support complex, end-to-end marketing workflows, but most organisations still treat AI as a productivity add-on rather than an operating system. McKinsey’s research shows that while 72% of companies use AI in some form, only 6% achieve scalable, measurable impact. We made a deliberate decision to be in that 6%.Our partnership with CambrianEdge.ai made this possible. It allowed us to rebuild our workflows natively around AI, rather than bolting tools onto legacy processes.You’ve often said this announcement is about an industry inflection point, not just a partnership. What signals tell you that the marketing industry is undergoing a major structural shift?The signals are visible in the pressure marketing leaders are under. Gartner reports that 65% of CMOs expect AI to dramatically reshape their roles within two years, yet 71% are facing flat or declining budgets. At the same time, traditional agency economics are under strain, while expectations around speed, personalisation, and measurable outcomes continue to rise.This creates a structural tension. The challenge isn’t access to tools—it’s the lack of integrated operating models that can deliver scale with governance. Marketing is shifting from campaign-based execution to always-on, system-driven delivery. That requires new structures, new roles, and new accountability frameworks. This transformation for Gutenberg into the world’s first AI-powered marketing agency and our partnership with CambrianEdge.ai, is our response to that shift.What were the biggest learnings from rebuilding Gutenberg’s operating model around cross-functional pods and human-led automation?Our biggest learning was that transformation is fundamentally about people and culture—not tools. We found that initially, even with LLMs, our global teams were still working in silos. To change that, we reorganised into cross-functional pods that bring together strategy, creative, media, analytics, and Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDEs) into a single workflow.This eliminated the friction of handoffs and allowed us to move from concept to execution in days rather than weeks. But speed alone wasn’t the breakthrough—governance was. Human-led automation, where humans set strategy, judgment, and quality thresholds, allowed us to move faster without compromising brand integrity or trust.We trained 100+ employees across seven countries on AI literacy—not just tool usage, but prompt engineering, creative automation, and workflow design. Most importantly, we learned that meaningful AI transformation requires cultural change, not just process change.Most organisations adopt AI tools but fail to scale results. Why do you think AI still struggles to deliver measurable impact for marketing teams globally?The fundamental problem is that most organisations treat AI as a productivity layer rather than an operating model. Many teams deploy point solutions for copy, images, or analytics, but leave underlying workflows unchanged.AI struggles when it’s bolted onto fragmented processes without training, governance, or role redesign. That’s how organisations end up in “pilot purgatory”—lots of experimentation with very little transformation. Real impact only happens when people, processes, and platforms evolve together.Global research shows CMOs face shrinking budgets yet rising expectations around AI-driven outcomes. How does an AI-native model help solve this tension?This tension is exactly why AI transformation has become existential. You can’t solve a resource constraint by working harder—you must work differently. An AI-native model fundamentally changes marketing economics in three ways.First, it compresses the time from idea to execution—campaign cycles move from weeks to days.Second, it enables intelligent scale, allowing teams to manage complexity across multiple markets understanding local nuances.Third, it embeds data throughout the workflow, enabling optimisation while campaigns are live, instead of post-campaign analysis.Could you walk us through what ‘human-led AI’ actually looks like inside Gutenberg’s day-to-day operations?Human-led AI means humans define the strategy, narrative, and creative standards, while AI handles the operational complexity.A good example is our multi award-winning Indonesia Palm Oil Association campaign. The strategic challenge was repositioning palm oil sustainability for global audiences—a complex narrative requiring deep cultural sensitivity and regulatory awareness.Our human strategists defined the core narrative, audience framework, and brand guardrails—work rooted in judgment, context, and cultural understanding that can’t be automated.Once that foundation was set, AI accelerated execution. Using CambrianEdge.ai, we rapidly generated and adapted creative concepts, produced market-specific content and video variants, and optimized formats across channels—at scale, without diluting the strategy.Governance is central to this model. Every AI output passes through human checkpoints—creative approval, strategic validation, and performance review. Forward-Deployed Engineers within each pod continuously monitor workflows to ensure quality, consistency, and compliance.The result is work that’s faster, more scalable, and often stronger creatively—because humans spend their time on judgment and insight, while AI handles execution.How has retraining and reshaping the roles of 100+ employees changed the way your teams collaborate, create, and deliver for clients?Retraining was the most important investment we made. Over 24 months, we focused on AI literacy—not just tool usage, but workflow thinking, prompt engineering, and governance.Roles shifted from repetitive production to higher-value strategy and creative leadership. Teams now collaborate inside integrated pods rather than across departments. We can present multiple strategic options with execution-ready outputs in days and maintain brand consistency across global markets while allowing for local customization. That level of delivery simply wasn’t possible before.Marketing teams worldwide are stuck in what you call ‘pilot purgatory.’ What governance or structural barriers need to be dismantled to move beyond pilots to enterprise-wide AI adoption?Pilot purgatory happens when organisations treat AI transformation as a technology problem rather than an operational redesign challenge.The biggest barriers are unclear ownership, lack of guardrails, and fear-driven governance. Without defined accountability, embedded brand and legal controls, and leadership support for scaled experimentation, pilots remain isolated and risky.Moving beyond pilots requires treating AI as infrastructure—not experimentation—and redesigning workflows accordingly.How does the strategic partnership with CambrianEdge.ai strengthen Gutenberg’s AI-first operating model and help scale outcomes for global clients?CambrianEdge.ai provides a unified, AI-native marketing backbone designed specifically for real-world workflows. It integrates content, video, SEO/AEO, social media, analytics, and team collaboration into a single governed system.This eliminated the coordination overhead of disconnected tools and allowed us to scale AI responsibly, with human oversight built in. The result is consistent outcomes across markets without sacrificing quality or compliance.From your vantage point, what will the AI-powered marketing organisation look like by 2026, and how should leaders prepare for this shift?By 2026, marketing organisations will look less like departments and more like interconnected systems.A successful AI-powered marketing organisation will have several key characteristics. First, integrated workflows where strategy, creative, media, and analytics function as unified operations rather than departmental silos. Second, human-AI collaboration models where humans focus on judgment, creativity, and strategic direction while AI handles operational complexity and optimisation. Third, real-time performance feedback loops that enable continuous optimisation rather than post-campaign analysis.We’ll also see new roles become standard—Forward-Deployed Engineers, prompt specialists, and AI governance leads. For leaders, the priorities are clear: invest in AI literacy across teams, redesign structures for cross-functional collaboration, and choose integrated platforms over fragmented tools. The future belongs to organisations that combine human judgment with AI-powered operational excellence. 

In conversation with Adgully, Tejas Totade, Chief Technology Officer, Ruder Finn, offers a global perspective on how artificial intelligence is redefining the future of communications—from a functional tool to a strategic partner embedded across workflows. He discusses the growing influence of AI-led search on reputation and risk management, India’s role as a critical innovation hub, and why transparency, human judgment, and ethical deployment will be central to building authentic, future-ready communication strategies in an increasingly AI-driven world.AI is rapidly moving beyond automation. How do you see the shift from AI as a tool to AI as a strategic partner reshaping the future of communications?When you think about it from a big-picture perspective, the reason AI is shifting from being just a tool to becoming an integrator or a platform is because there are far more opportunities today to embed AI into daily workflows. That, I think, is the key opportunity for everyone in the industry—to embrace AI in a way that hasn’t fully happened yet.So far, the focus has largely been on which tool to use and how to use one tool versus another. But the tools themselves are reaching a level of maturity where most of them are capable of doing very similar kinds of work. If you compare large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or others, their capabilities are converging.Now, the real question is how you embed AI into your day-to-day functions and make it pervasive, rather than treating it as a siloed solution that you turn to only for specific tasks. That’s where the true value of AI lies, and those who are able to unlock that value are the ones who will ultimately be successful.In an always-on, hyper-connected world, how should organisations rethink risk management and reputation building in the age of AI?One of the biggest challenges organisations are facing today is that search is increasingly dominated by AI. It’s no longer just about going to Google and scrolling through links. People now rely heavily on AI overviews in search results or the first response they get from tools like ChatGPT, and they make snap decisions based on that.Customers are increasingly depending on AI-driven search and prescriptive feedback from large language models. This, in turn, is shaping public perception and brand sentiment. Most users will not scroll past the AI overview or go beyond the first response they receive.Managing this new reality is a major challenge for brands. Many organisations are actively working to ensure that the key messages that accurately represent who they are and what they offer are reflected in these AI-generated responses. This is still an evolving landscape, and it goes beyond crisis readiness. From a brand health standpoint, this is the new frontier that organisations are trying to understand and prepare for, ensuring they are equipped to handle queries coming from AI-driven channels.What unique advantages does India bring to the global AI and communications ecosystem, and where does it still need to catch up?That’s a difficult question because there are many nuances involved. One of India’s biggest advantages is its massive user base. India has also always been very open to adopting technology.If you think about the mobile revolution or digital payments like UPI, these technologies became mainstream in India much faster than they did in many Western countries. India also has a very large and young population that is inherently digitally native, which further accelerates adoption and creates demand.There is significant talent, strong appetite for experimentation, and a willingness to be digitally first. This openness to adoption, combined with scale, makes India uniquely suited for the age of AI. As long as new services meet certain baseline expectations, there is very little resistance to trying and adopting them.From your global perspective, what makes India a critical growth and innovation hub in the evolving AI and communications ecosystem?The answer is closely linked to what I just described. The same advantages—India’s digitally native population, scale, and openness to technology—also translate into strong growth opportunities.This population is driving change and is among the most active users of emerging technologies. Education is also evolving rapidly in India, with a growing focus on incorporating new technologies into digital curricula. This creates opportunities not only for products and services but also from a talent perspective.There is a large pool of talent that is eager to enter this space and think beyond conventional approaches, which makes India a critical innovation hub in the global AI ecosystem.As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, how can brands preserve authenticity and human judgment in their communications?Authenticity will always be critical, regardless of the technology involved. If brands want audiences to respond positively to campaigns, products, or services, there has to be a genuine human element.One important step is transparency. When AI is being used—especially in situations where audiences may not realise it—brands should disclose that the content is AI-generated. That has become table stakes.Beyond that, understanding context, messaging, and audience expectations is key. AI still struggles with context. Interestingly, when Google redefined its approach to search in 2023, it moved from E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trust) to E-E-A-T, adding “Experience” as a core pillar.This places greater emphasis on human experience and subject-matter authority. Content created by people with lived or professional experience is ranked higher. This is where the human element becomes essential and will continue to grow in importance.There’s also the growing concern of “AI slop”—low-quality, generic AI-generated content. Human intervention is critical to ensure brand communication doesn’t fall into that category. A human-in-the-loop approach is essential to preserving authenticity and ensuring AI-generated content adds value rather than diluting it.What ethical red lines should communications leaders never cross when deploying AI at scale?Transparency is fundamental, especially when engaging with public audiences who may not fully understand how AI is being used. That should never be compromised.Equally important is empathy and human oversight. AI-generated content must go through human review to ensure it aligns with brand values and doesn’t miss critical context.While there are legal considerations around copyright and fair use—which organisations are already addressing with their legal teams—the two non-negotiables for communicators should always be transparency and human intervention.In 2026, how critical will data-led communication and real-time sentiment tracking be in shaping proactive rather than reactive crisis strategies?We are already moving beyond real-time detection towards scenario planning. Scenario planning involves using AI to build audience personas and anticipate how different groups may respond during a crisis.Even when you don’t have direct access to test messaging with a specific audience, AI allows you to create synthetic personas and test responses against them. This helps predict whether reactions will be positive, negative, or neutral, and enables brands to shape communication strategies accordingly.Real-time sentiment analysis and incident tracking are already becoming table stakes, thanks to tools like Talkwalker. The next phase is proactive planning—message testing, scenario simulations, and AI-powered crisis playbooks. That’s where risk management is headed by 2026.Looking ahead, what skills and capabilities will define the most future-ready corporate communications teams in 2026?This is something we are actively working on as an organisation. I lead a team of around 20 individuals with engineering and technology backgrounds who are driving this transformation globally.We are launching initiatives to extend these capabilities across the organisation, focusing on upskilling the existing workforce and creating a blueprint for future talent.Understanding AI will soon be table stakes. But more importantly, knowing how to implement AI and integrate it into daily workflows will be a critical skill. The real shift will be in mindset—moving from seeing AI as a standalone tool to viewing it as an integral part of everyday work. That shift needs to happen at all levels, starting from the most junior roles in the industry.

As businesses enter 2026 amid accelerating technological change, rising stakeholder scrutiny and compressed crisis cycles, trust has emerged as the most decisive—and fragile—form of corporate capital. No longer built through polished narratives or campaign-led visibility, reputation today is shaped in quieter, more consequential moments: how organisations act under uncertainty, how transparently leaders communicate when answers are incomplete, and how consistently values translate into decisions on the ground. In this wide-ranging conversation with Adgully, Seema Ahuja, Senior Vice President – Corporate Brand & Communications, Chairperson’s Office, Biocon Group, argues that corporate communications is undergoing a fundamental shift—from storytelling to stewardship. As AI-generated content scales, ESG expectations harden, and leadership visibility becomes inseparable from credibility, Ahuja outlines why trust can no longer be managed as a soft metric, but must be earned as a long-term asset. From crisis readiness and data-led foresight to authentic leadership communication and employee advocacy, she explains how organisations that play the long game on trust will define the reputations—and valuations—of the future. As trust becomes the ultimate currency in 2026, how are corporate communications teams rethinking credibility, transparency, and long-term reputation building? Trust is no longer an outcome of products & services and corporate narrative built by communications teams, it is a form of corporate capital that directly influences valuation, resilience, and long-term growth. More importantly, it is the responsibility and accountability of the leadership. In 2026, corporate communications teams are shifting from visibility-building to credibility stewardship. That means less rhetoric and more authentic action on ground. Stronger campaigns supported by consistency across behaviour, decisions, and disclosure. What has changed today is the stakes. Studies show that over 70% of a company’s market value today is driven by intangible assets, with trust and reputation at the core. Credibility is now built in the quiet moments – how organisations act in uncertainty, how transparent they are when answers are incomplete, and how aligned leadership actions are with stated values. The strongest reputations will belong to companies that play the long game: say less, mean more, and deliver consistently. Trust today isn’t built by what you say – it’s built by what you sustain. With AI-generated content becoming mainstream, how do you see the role of human judgment and authenticity evolving in corporate storytelling next year? AI will dramatically improve speed and scale, going forward, but authenticity will remain profoundly human. In 2026, the role of communications leaders will be to apply judgment, context, and conscience to AI-generated outputs. While nearly 80% of organisations are already using AI in content creation, audiences can instantly sense what is manufactured versus what is meaningful. Human storytelling will shift from writing everything to curating truth, asking the harder questions, and ensuring narratives are grounded in lived experience. AI can assist storytelling—but credibility will always come from authenticity and human accountability. AI can generate content, but only humans can generate credibility. In 2026, how critical will data-led communications and real-time sentiment tracking be in shaping proactive rather than reactive comms strategies? Data-led communications will be foundational but not sufficient on its own. Real-time sentiment tracking helps organisations anticipate risks, but data without insight and interpretation is just numbers. By 2026, leading teams will integrate data with judgment—combining dashboards with institutional memory and stakeholder understanding. While companies using real-time analytics report up to 30% faster crisis response times, the real advantage lies in early pattern recognition, not instant reaction. Proactive communication is less about speed and more about foresight. Stakeholder expectations are expanding beyond customers to employees, investors, regulators, and communities, how is corporate communications preparing to balance these voices effectively? Corporate communications is fast evolving into a stakeholder management function. The challenge is not listening, it is customising the story without fragmenting the narrative. Research shows that nearly 65% of stakeholders now expect companies to take a stand on societal issues, yet inconsistency erodes trust quickly. In 2026, comms teams will succeed by anchoring all stakeholder engagement to a single, credible core narrative, one that adapts in tone but not in truth. Balance comes from clarity, not compromise. Crisis communication cycles are getting shorter in the age of social media, what preparedness shifts do you foresee becoming non-negotiable in 2026? Preparedness will move from manuals to muscle memory. In 2026, crisis readiness will be judged by decision velocity, not documentation. With misinformation spreading up to six times faster than factual news, organisations must empower leaders closer to the issue, pre-align values-based responses, and rehearse scenarios continuously. The most resilient organisations won’t wait for comprehensive information, they will respond with speed with in principle clarity of the situation. Crisis communication will be less about control and more about credible authentic communication to connect with the audience to be seen as responsible and accountable. Organisations with strong trust capital recover faster both financially and reputationally after a crisis, because stakeholders are more likely to extend the benefit of doubt. In a crisis, credibility travels faster than facts. As leadership visibility becomes increasingly important, how are communications teams enabling CEOs and CXOs to be more accessible, credible, and purpose-driven? In today’s environment, every visible leader is effectively managing the organisation’s trust capital in real time. And leadership visibility in 2026 will be about substance, not spotlight. Audiences expect leaders to be present, but they reward those who are thoughtful, consistent, and human. Data indicates that employees are over three times more likely to trust information shared directly by their CEO. Communications teams will therefore focus on sharpening leaders’ narrative for clarity and conviction, helping them speak with confidence, connect purpose to performance and acknowledge uncertainty when it arises and recognise that every visible interaction contributes to organisation’s trust capital. Authentic leadership communication is no longer optional, it is reputational insurance. How do you see ESG and purpose-driven narratives maturing in 2026, from intent-led messaging to measurable impact storytelling? ESG storytelling will move decisively from aspiration to accountability. In 2026, credibility will hinge on measurable outcomes, not eloquent intent. As regulators and investors demand stronger disclosures, and with over 90% of global investors now considering ESG in decision-making, communications teams must translate data into meaning. The narrative will focus less on what companies believe and more on what they have tangibly changed. Purpose will only matter if progress is provable. With earned media competing against owned and creator-led platforms, what will ‘media relations’ look like in the coming year? Media relations will evolve into credibility partnerships. While owned and creator platforms offer reach, earned media still provides validation, especially in high-stakes sectors like science led healthcare. In 2026, success will come from depth over frequency: fewer stories, stronger relationships, and higher-quality engagement. Trust in traditional media remains significantly higher than in influencer-led content during crises, which is a reminder that credibility cannot be crowdsourced. Earned media will matter less for visibility and more for legitimacy. Internal communications is emerging as a reputation driver—how will corporate communications leverage employee advocacy more strategically in 2026? Going forward, employees will become the most credible brand ambassadors. Research shows that employees are trusted nearly twice as much than the leadership or communications team when speaking about company’s culture and values. In 2026, internal communications will focus on alignment, not amplification, ensuring employees understand the why before being asked to share the what. Advocacy will be earned through transparency, inclusion, and pride and not toolkits. Strong reputations are built inside before they are believed outside. Looking ahead, what skills and capabilities will define the most future-ready corporate communications teams in 2026? In 2026, the strongest organisations will be those that recognise trust for what it truly is, not just soft power, but corporate capital that compounds over time. The most future-ready teams will combine strategic judgment, data literacy, ethical clarity, and emotional intelligence. Technical skills will matter, but wisdom will matter more. In a volatile world, communications leaders must act as institutional guardians, balancing speed with substance, technology with trust, and narrative with truth. The future belongs to teams that understand one simple truth: reputation is not managed, it is earned, every single day, through action by every individual of the company. Each individual matters, each action matters. ?Reputation is the sum of decisions made when no one is watching. 

Public Relations has entered a bold new era. No longer just a back-office function, it has transformed into a strategic powerhouse shaping brand reputation and influence. Companies and leaders now see PR not as an afterthought, but as an essential force driving credibility, trust, and long-term success. The industry has undergone a radical shift with the rise of social media, fundamentally transforming PR strategies. Influencers now play a crucial role in shaping consumer perceptions and engagement. PR is no longer confined to securing media visibility; it has expanded into a dynamic, results-driven discipline focused on meaningful interactions and measurable outcomes. With a younger, more digitally savvy audience emerging, PR professionals face new challenges. Brands and practitioners must be more agile, data-driven, and proactive in crafting business solutions that resonate with their audience. The future of PR lies in adaptability, authenticity, and strategic storytelling that build lasting trust and impact. In our exclusive weekly column, PR Conversation, Adgully interacts with leading business leaders to gain their exclusive views and insights on various trends in the PR and communications industry. In conversation with Adgully, Amit Bhandare, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communication at YES Securities, shares how the brand is reimagining financial education through purpose-driven initiatives like WongaWits. As BFSI marketers navigate the twin challenges of trust and complexity, Bhandare discusses the long-term impact of WongaWits – Season 2, evolving consumer expectations in 2025, the growing importance of brand-building, and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead as the industry moves into 2026. WongaWits blends financial education with engagement. How do you measure its real impact on improving financial awareness and investor confidence? The impact of initiatives like WongaWits cannot be measured immediately because financial education is a long-term exercise. If we look at short-term indicators, the most visible impact is in terms of reach and participation.Last year, WongaWits was limited to just one city, with around 200 participants. This year, we expanded to multiple cities and saw participation grow to nearly 4,000 people. That clearly indicates increasing awareness and engagement. Beyond these direct numbers, the ripple effect is equally important. These 4,000 participants will go on to share their learnings with 10 or even 100 others. So, the reach continues to expand organically.When it comes to impact on investment behaviour, we are firmly in this for the long term. We are not chasing immediate outcomes. Much like investing itself, both money and brand impact compound over time. We believe in sustained effort, and we will continue building this platform with a long-term vision rather than focusing on short-term results. Financial literacy in India remains uneven. What were the key gaps YES Securities aimed to address through purpose-driven initiatives like WongaWits – Season 2? There is a clear gap in how young people approach finance today. Many are attracted to the idea of making quick money. A large section of younger audiences is actively participating in F&O and trading.SEBI reports show that nearly 90–97% of traders end up losing money. What we observed was that trading had started to resemble gaming for many—quick gratification, instant results, and the thrill of competition. That was the core gap.While it’s encouraging that young people are entering the financial ecosystem, many are doing so with the wrong expectations. Trading is often mistaken for investing, whereas investing is inherently long-term and disciplined.We wanted to shift this mindset—from trading for quick bucks to investing for long-term wealth creation. Unless the fundamentals of investing are inculcated early and people are made aware of the risks of trading, this gap will persist.That’s why we chose a quiz-based format. Competition, engagement, and gamification resonate strongly with younger audiences. The quiz format made learning exciting while subtly reinforcing the right financial principles. BFSI marketing is often seen as complex. How are you using personalisation to simplify investing conversations for first-time and young investors? BFSI marketing is complex largely because marketers have made it complex. We’ve over-jargonised finance. Terms like “blue chip,” “NAV,” or “alpha” mean very little to a common person.People understand finance better through simple language and relatable analogies. When finance is simplified, people understand it better—and once they understand, they begin to trust you. Trust is the cornerstone of BFSI.Personalisation plays a key role here. Everyone is unique—just like the people in this room. We all dress differently, have different styles, and different preferences. Similarly, everyone’s financial journey, needs, sources of income, and goals are unique.That’s why we use “style” as a universal, colloquial concept. It’s easily understood across India. If your style is different, your investment approach cannot be the same as someone else’s. This philosophy helps us personalise conversations and make investing more relatable. With data and AI driving marketing decisions, how do you maintain trust and a human connect in financial communications? The foundation is simple—help people understand. The world operates on the law of reciprocity. When you genuinely help someone, they feel a natural inclination to trust you.When we simplify finance and help people understand complex concepts, trust begins to build. Once people realise that you’re not pushing risky products or chasing quick returns, but genuinely guiding them, the relationship deepens.Our focus is not on promoting high-risk products. It’s on explaining why finance is essential, how it fits into one’s life, and how it can be customized to individual needs.That’s why our campaigns are centered around investor education and financial literacy. Data and AI help us scale, but trust and human connection come from clarity, honesty, and consistent value delivery. What were the key learnings from WongaWits – Season 1 that shaped the strategy and format of Season 2? The biggest learning from Season 1 was the overwhelming response we received. It reaffirmed that young people genuinely want to learn—provided the format is engaging, competitive, and entertaining.At that age, competition is a strong motivator. That insight encouraged us to expand beyond Mumbai into other cities.Interestingly, we made a conscious decision to move beyond metros. Cities like Kochi, Indore, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Pune were chosen because financial education is even more critical in these emerging growth centers.The next wave of penetration and growth will come from non-metro and semi-urban India. That’s where awareness is needed the most, and that’s where we want to focus our efforts. Looking back at 2025, what was the biggest shift in consumer expectations from financial brands? In a world increasingly affected by cyber fraud, digital scams, and financial uncertainty, consumers today want trustworthy brands.Finance is still not well understood—India’s financial literacy rate is only around 25–30%. People are looking for brands that can handhold them, guide them, and help them navigate their financial journey with confidence.Trust, transparency, and education have become non-negotiable expectations from financial brands. From a marketing leadership perspective, what was the most defining BFSI marketing trend of 2025? The biggest shift has been the renewed focus on brand building.For a while, performance marketing and influencer marketing dominated the space, while brand building took a back seat. In 2025, marketers have started realising that long-term success requires strong brands.Going forward, brand building and brand management will play a much more central role in BFSI marketing strategies. How was 2025 for YES Securities and the overall BFSI sector? The BFSI sector has performed well in 2025. Many brands launched initiatives focused on cyber awareness and financial education—such as YES Bank’s ScoreCare, which helps people understand creditworthiness.At YES Securities, it was a phenomenal year. We created our third IP this year. WongaWits was our first IP, followed by Wise Whisper—a comic-based initiative for school children.In 2025, we launched our third IP, the YES Securities Cyclothon. Overall, it was an eventful and rewarding year for us. As we move into 2026, what will be the biggest opportunity—and the biggest challenge—for BFSI marketers in India? The biggest challenge will be scale. India is a vast country with over 140 crore people. While our initiatives have reached 4,000–5,000 people so far, the real question is how we scale these efforts meaningfully.Another challenge is language. Many initiatives are still primarily in English. While Wise Whisper has already expanded into vernacular languages, we need to do much more in regional formats to reach the masses.????The opportunity lies in finding cost-effective, scalable, and impactful ways to deliver financial education across languages and geographies. 

Veritas Reputation PR made its mark not by following trends, but by setting them. The year saw the firm cement its position as a specialist powerhouse in BFSI and corporate PR, earning accolades across Asia-Pacific and doubling down on innovation with its new Research & Innovation Unit. It was a year where focus met impact, and recognition followed naturally.Under the leadership of Hemant Batra, Founder & Managing Director, Veritas also expanded its global footprint by joining the Financial Narrative Agency Network and strengthened its client portfolio with industry leaders like Canara Bank, RIR Power, and Karur Vysya Bank. Amid rapid AI adoption and changing news consumption patterns, the firm demonstrated that PR today is less about visibility and more about earning trust, driving engagement, and shaping meaningful narratives that reach decision-making tables.How would you describe the year 2025 for your organization, and were there any standout moments that defined it?From inception, we focused on building Veritas Reputation PR as a ‘specialist’ firm, not a generalist and the year 2025 reaffirmed our choice. It witnessed our focus get translated into impact.We continued to register robust growth with the help of our team, our domain expert army that makes us the specialists. In just eight years, we have established ourselves as one of the leading BFSI and corporate PR firms, with recognitions extending across the Asia-Pacific region.  Being named in Provoke Media’s Top 12 ‘Best PR Agencies in India & South Asia’ and Top 10 ‘Best PR Agencies To Work For’ in Asia-Pacific region, were the defining moments that endorsed our model.Over the past year, we have strengthened our innovation capabilities by establishing Veritas Research & Innovation Unit. This internal group focuses on devising new PR ideas and tools, ensuring we stay ahead of the curve and deliver future-ready PR.Another significant moment was our induction into the Financial Narrative Agency Network, a global alliance of independent PR communications and marketing consultancies specialising in financial services. When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defined this year for the industry?The year witnessed a drastic shift in its news consumption habits and patterns. Readership across online / digital-first formats, news apps like DailyHunt, NewsInShorts, etc. and social media has shot up. We also witnessed an explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) growth and adoption. From search engine to content creation and rich media enabler, it saw tremendous growth. This shift redefined our outreach strategies and tools.PR today is no longer about just visibility; it’s about earning trust and credibility in a highly fragmented ecosystem.Which new big clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special?In 2025, we continued to onboard some of the leading segment players, reflecting the industry’s trust in our domain expertise and consulting-led approach. Some of the names that we added include Canara Bank, Bharat InvITs Association, RIR Power, Karur Vysya Bank and many others. How has the role of PR evolved—has it shifted from managing images to creating deeper engagement?Certainly, while managing image is important, building credibility and trust is more important. This shift has been underway for some time, and now we can see visible results.Technology, in my opinion, has accelerated this shift in a decisive way. With robust measurement tools, better analytics and AI-assisted monitoring, PR professionals can have deeper audience segmentation and thereby focused messaging.It is safe to say that PR professionals have reached or are closer to decision-making tables, beyond their communication desks, due to these developments.

In Adgully ME’s REWIND 2025, PRHub.ae marked a breakthrough year, transitioning from a fully remote team to opening its first office in Dubai’s One Central. Under the leadership of Vlada Lomova, CEO, the agency strengthened its Middle East presence while delivering creative campaigns that captured attention and sparked conversation. A highlight was the “moon pizza” Ramadan campaign with Dodo Pizza, which not only resonated with audiences but also earned a Silver Mercury Award, cementing the agency’s reputation for inventive, impactful storytelling.Beyond individual campaigns, 2025 was defined by client trust and retention, with nearly all clients renewing their partnerships, including major players across ticketing, travel, and tech-driven B2B sectors. The year reflected the broader industry evolution, where PR is no longer limited to visibility or image management, but a 360-degree discipline encompassing creative activations, influencer engagement, and authentic, relationship-driven communication across multiple touchpoints.How would you describe the year 2025 for your organization, and were there any standout moments that defined it?2025 was a breakthrough year for PRHub.ae Agency. We opened our first office in Dubai, One Central, which was a major step and strengthened our presence in the Middle East. Before that, we worked as a remote team.Another standout moment was our creative Ramadan campaign with Dodo Pizza, where we launched the “moon pizza” concept and secured coverage in all major Tier-1 outlets — Khaleej Times, Arabian Business, and What’s On. This campaign not only resonated strongly with the audience but also earned us a Silver Mercury Award, which became a defining achievement of the year.When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defines this year for the industry?This year was defined by a surge in bold, creative campaigns across the industry. Brands and agencies were more focused on ideas that truly stand out, spark conversation, and build emotional connections with audiences. Creativity became a key differentiator.Which new big clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special?Beyond onboarding new clients, what truly defined this year was retention. Around 99% of our clients extended their contracts into 2026, including major players such as a top MENA ticketing platform, a travel platform, and other tech-driven businesses, B2B startups. These renewals show strong trust in our work and confirm the long-term value we deliver, not just one-off campaigns.How has the role of PR evolved — has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement?PR today is a 360-degree discipline. It goes far beyond media features and reputation management. It now includes events, influencer and blogger collaborations, creative activations, and deep, strategic communications. The focus is on authenticity, tailored approaches, and building real relationships with audiences across multiple touchpoints.

2025 was a year that stripped away the gloss from public relations and demanded substance, steadiness, and sharper judgement. In a landscape shaped by uncertainty, AI acceleration, geopolitical flux, regulatory scrutiny, and rising reputational risk, Bloomingdale Public Relations navigated the year with what it calls “quiet confidence,” choosing depth over noise and counsel over theatrics. For Adgully’s REWIND 2025, Diana Fernandes, Founder & Group CEO, Bloomingdale Public Relations, reflects on how the year reshaped client expectations, elevated the role of advisory-driven PR, redefined accountability, and set the tone for a future where credibility, clarity, and ethical conviction will matter far more than surface-level visibility.How would you describe the year 2025 for your organization, and were there any standout moments that defined it?2025 was a year of quiet confidence for us. Not flashy, not noisy, but deeply defining. What stood out was not one big win or a headline moment, but the consistency with which we showed up for our clients in a year full of uncertainty. An uncertain environment, rapid digital transformation driven by AI, geopolitical noise, regulatory shifts, and rising reputational risks became part of everyday conversations; and that changed the nature of our work. One defining moment for us was how often clients brought us in before decisions were made, not after things went wrong. That shift from reactive execution to early-stage counsel told us that trust had deepened. We were no longer being seen as just an external agency, but as a thinking partner who understands context, consequences, and nuance.Another standout was internal. We invested time in sharpening our fundamentals: talent, process, and judgement. We said no to work that didn’t align with how we want to practise, and yes to work that demanded rigour, maturity, and long-term thinking.If I had to summarise 2025 in one line, it would be this: fewer fireworks, more foundations. And in an industry like ours, that’s often the most meaningful kind of progress.When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defined this year for the industry?For the PR and communications industry, 2025 was the year the illusion finally dropped. The idea that PR is only about visibility or storytelling quietly gave way to a far more serious expectation. Brands needed judgement. They needed context. They needed partners who could help them think through consequences, not just headlines.What defined the year was uncertainty becoming the norm. Leadership transitions, regulatory pressure, geopolitical tensions, social media volatility, and AI-led misinformation meant that reputation risk was no longer episodic. It became constant. That changed how PR was valued.Another big shift was accountability. Clients started asking tougher questions. Not just “what coverage did we get” but “what did this actually change” and “what risk did we avoid.” Measurement moved beyond volume to impact, credibility, and trust. The industry also saw a clear separation. Agencies that stayed transactional struggled. Those that leaned into advisory, ethics, and long-term reputation found stronger relevance. There was also a noticeable pushback against overpromising. Realism started to matter more than hype.If I had to sum it up, 2025 was the year PR stopped trying to look glamorous and started being useful again. And honestly, that’s a healthy place for the industry to be.Which new big clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special?We did onboard a few significant clients this year, but what made those wins special wasn’t the size of the brand or the logo value. It was the nature of the conversations that led to the partnership.Most of these clients came to us with very clear problems, not vague mandates. They were looking for counsel in moments of transition; leadership changes, market expansion, regulatory scrutiny, or reputational sensitivity. In many cases, the brief was less about “getting coverage” and more about “help us think this through.”What stood out was that these relationships didn’t begin with pitch theatrics. They began with honest discussions about what PR can and cannot do. That mutual clarity upfront set the tone for a healthier partnership.Another important aspect was trust transfer. Several of these wins came through referrals; from existing clients, journalists, or senior leaders who had seen us work in high-pressure situations. In an industry crowded with options, that kind of endorsement still matters.So for us, the real win wasn’t onboarding new names. It was onboarding clients who value depth over noise, realism over hype, and long-term thinking over short-term visibility.How has the role of PR evolved, has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement?PR has definitely moved beyond managing images. In 2025, its real value lies in shaping understanding and building trust over time. Earlier, PR was often called in to polish perception or manage moments. Today, it is increasingly involved in helping organisations engage with their stakeholders in a more honest, human, and sustained way. That means listening as much as speaking.What has changed is the depth of engagement expected. Audiences are more informed, more sceptical, and quicker to call out inconsistencies. Brands can no longer rely on one-way narratives. They need to show intent, action, and accountability - repeatedly, not occasionally.PR now sits closer to business decisions. It plays a role in how leaders show up, how organisations respond to criticism, and how values are communicated through behaviour, not just messaging. The focus has shifted from visibility to credibility.So yes, PR still manages reputation, but the method has evolved. It is less about controlling the story and more about earning the right to be believed. That shift is subtle, but it defines the future of the profession.

2025 was not a year for safe bets or surface-level storytelling, and the communications industry felt that pressure acutely. In this interview with Adgully ME, Anastasiya Golovatenko, PR Director at Sherpa Communications, breaks down how the year tested agencies and brands alike, with tighter budgets, sharper expectations and a clear shift towards performance-driven communications. For Sherpa, a B2B-focused consultancy operating across complex sectors and diverse geographies, the year became a proving ground for strategic thinking, local expertise and execution at scale.Golovatenko also offers a candid view of how PR in the Middle East is evolving beyond media placements into a respected advisory role. From supporting multinational brands entering the UAE and Saudi Arabia to shaping nationwide awareness campaigns across the wider region, she explains why authentic engagement, sector depth and measurable impact now define successful communications, and why PR today is as much about business counsel as it is about visibility.How would you describe the year 2025 for your organization, and were there any standout moments that defined it?2025 has been a demanding but very rewarding year for us. Being a B2B-focused communications agency is never the easiest route. We look after some of the most challenging industries, from logistics, construction and real estate to technology, oil and gas, energy, manufacturing and even satcom. What made this year special is how much our portfolio of global multinationals has grown, and how we’ve been able to support them not only with market entry, but with nationwide awareness campaigns across the wider region from the UAE and Saudi Arabia to Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Africa and even Turkey.We see more and more companies open to complex ideas, participation in various events and exhibitions, joint projects with local businesses and active support of government initiatives and their visionary national projects. That has created the perfect environment for us to step in as a quality business consultant offering local expertise, helping brands avoid costly mistakes and achieve the strongest possible visibility and impact in each market.When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defines this year for the industry?While the market is getting more dynamic, budgets are getting tighter and brands are far more demanding. I’d describe 2025 as a year where winning new business and fully satisfying the needs of existing clients has become harder. Only those PR agencies that can consistently deliver strong, measurable results will be able to hold their ground in the long run.Another Interesting observation is how the “performing” industries are shifting. Sectors that used to dominate are now taking a back seat with smaller budgets and a more cautious approach, while others are stepping forward and investing more aggressively. This makes it absolutely crucial for PR specialists to have diverse sector expertise and deep market knowledge, so they can continue to support brands effectively as their business priorities change.How has the role of PR evolved, has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement?I’d say the understanding of PR has significantly evolved. Many brands know exactly what they want and they definitely don’t want a “distribution company” or a team that only secures interviews and pushes press releases. Especially for brands entering the UAE, KSA and the wider region, PR is now seen as a strategic function. They are looking for a PR partner who can support with a strong communications strategy, bringing deep knowledge of the local market and its specifics, and a strong network of business and media contacts.Being a PR consultant in this part of the world is very reputable and it requires a lot of knowledge and cross-disciplinary experience, from traditional PR to social media, marketing and digital, all working together.

For Ruder Finn India, 2025 was a year defined by momentum, resilience, and reinvention. As the communications landscape continued to evolve rapidly under the influence of AI, automation, and shifting stakeholder expectations, the agency focused on strengthening its people-first culture while deepening client relationships across sectors. From expanding social-first communication strategies to scaling new capabilities through the global launch of rf.StoryLab, the year reflected Ruder Finn India’s commitment to curiosity-led growth, responsible innovation, and delivering meaningful, future-ready outcomes for its clients. As part of Adgully’s year-ender special, REWIND 2025, we spoke to Shivaram Lakshminarayan, COO, Ruder Finn India, about how the organisation navigated a transformative year for both the agency and the PR industry at large. In this conversation, he reflects on key milestones, evolving client demands, the changing role of PR from amplification to accountability, and what lies ahead for communications in 2026—offering a grounded perspective on what’s next for the industry. How would you describe the year 2025 for your organisation? What were the standout moments that defined it? 2025 was an exciting year for us at Ruder Finn. We began with momentum, celebrated significant successes, and managed a few departures—some anticipated, others unexpected. The team kept their heads up, always finding creative solutions and sticking together no matter what came their way. Being a people-first focused agency, we continued to engage more, upskill and reskill our craft and above all continued to have fun while we delivered our what’s next promise to our clients. We grew deeper in our current client relationships with more social first communication strategies. With the global launch of rf.StoryLab, we expanded our AI capabilities to elevate the work we do. With AI and emerging technologies shaping our industry, we aim to lead with curiosity and prioritise responsible innovation. When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defines this year for the industry? For the industry at large, 2025 marked a shift from amplification to integration and accountability. PR is no longer measured only by reach or share of voice, but by its ability to manage risk, guide leadership, and sustain credibility in uncertain environments. At the same time, automation and AI have fundamentally changed how communications is executed, enabling faster insights, smarter monitoring, and more precise targeting. Together with geopolitical shifts, economic pressures, and evolving consumer expectations, these advances have pushed PR firmly into the realm of strategic decision-making. Which new big clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special? This year, we grew all of our business portfolio. We continued to grow stronger in the technology space with client acquisitions across storage, semi-conductor, AI Tech, FinTech and Start-ups. We added a few brands in our brand, lifestyle & entertainment portfolio with live -entertainment and snacking. We continued momentum in the healthcare practice with a few wins in the pharma space, while consumer technology remained consistent in its growth with a few strategic wins especially in the smart phone segment. How has the role of PR evolved? Has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement? The role of PR has decisively evolved beyond image management. Today, it is about building credibility through consistent, transparent engagement with stakeholders. Audiences are far more discerning, and authenticity cannot be manufactured. PR now sits at the intersection of culture, policy, and business, helping organisations articulate not just what they do, but why they do it and how they respond when conditions change. What are your expectations for 2026 in terms of growth, industry direction, or new opportunities? In 2026, we expect growth to be driven by complexity rather than scale alone. Opportunities will emerge in areas such as public affairs, ESG communications, crisis preparedness, and cross-market reputation management. Agencies that invest in strategic talent, data intelligence, and geopolitical understanding will be best positioned to lead the next phase of the industry’s evolution. So, as we look to 2026, let’s keep telling great stories, experimenting, and challenging the status quo. Here’s to what’s next. 

For much of the communications industry, 2025 was a year of recalibration rather than expansion. As newsroom capacity tightened, AI-driven content flooded the ecosystem, and brands questioned the value of noise, PR was forced to confront a fundamental shift—from visibility-led execution to value-led counsel. In conversation with Adgully for its annual recap of the year – REWIND 2025 – Priyanka Shetty, Founder of Clarity Comms, speaks about how this industry-wide reset mirrored a deeply personal one. 2025 marked her return to solo entrepreneurship and a deliberate move back to first principles: clarity over scale, conviction over velocity, and long-term reputation over short-term headlines. From securing mandates with high-stakes brands such as Rebel Foods and the International Olympic Committee to working with purpose-led organisations in health and social impact, the year reinforced a central truth—PR’s future lies not in amplification alone, but in restraint, relevance and trust. How would you describe the year 2025 for your organisation? What were the standout moments that defined it? I turned 40 this year, and 2025 turned out to be a landmark for me professionally as well! A year of restarting and rebuilding as a solo entrepreneur! It marked a transformation where I went back to first principles, clarity of thought, quality of work and relationships over scale. The year wasn’t about dramatic spikes but about steady progress, consistent retainer partners, and doing the work with conviction. When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defined this year for the industry? I think the PR industry has had a clear shift from 'visibility' to 'value', and 2025 just defined that in many ways. Across global and Indian markets, the comms industry moved away from 'vanity' metrics towards credibility, context, and depth. With AI-generated content flooding our ecosystem and newsroom bandwidth shrinking, PR professionals were pushed to think harder about what truly deserves attention. This year also reinforced that PR is no longer about chasing headlines, it’s about earning trust, understanding cultural nuances and building narratives that can stand scrutiny. The year's finest works came from practitioners who understood restraint as much as amplification. Which new big clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special? For Clarity Comms and myself, the standout win was getting the communications mandate for Rebel Foods, and this happened while we were in this transition. Its timing reaffirmed my confidence at a time of change, and my belief in my independent journey. We had to find our A-game to manage their pan-India presence in an ever evolving sector. On the other hand, we had the privilege to work with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on a project, as also indulge in bold, consumer storytelling with Dr Vaidya’s Shilajit campaign with Baba Sehgal! Additionally, we continue to work with purpose-driven platforms like Rangeet, a social enterprise that partners with governments, communities, private and public schools to equip every child, aged 6-16, with the skills essential to thrive. Looking back, I think our range was fabulous and diverse! This year I also acted upon a long-pending self-commitment to give back to society in some way through work, by onboarding Access Life, which provides a loving and temporary home for the parent or care taker and the child undergoing the treatment for cancer. How has the role of PR evolved—has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement? I feel PR has decisively moved beyond image management. Today, it’s about reputation, relevance, and responsibility. Audiences and media can quickly sense inauthenticity, and brands are being held accountable not just for what they say, but for what they stand for over time. The role of PR now means we as older practitioners must have sharper listening, recommend clearer positioning, and should be able to connect brands meaningfully with culture, policy, and public sentiment. Authentic engagement isn’t engineered, it’s built with consistency, honesty, and restraint. What are your expectations from 2026 in terms of growth, industry direction, or new opportunities? 2026 feels like a year where focus will matter more than scale. I expect growth to come from deeper client partnerships, long-term retainers, and work that sits at the intersection of business, culture, and impact. For the industry, I see opportunities coming in in the thought leadership space, narratives that are real to the current world scenario and with purpose, and advisory-led PR, especially in sectors such as health, wellness, education, and social impact. Personally, my goal for 2026 is to continue building a practice that values clarity over clutter and trust over trends! 

As 2025 pushed India’s PR industry closer to the boardroom, agencies were forced to choose between scale without substance and strategic relevance with impact. For Zeno India, the year marked a decisive pivot from rebuilding to acceleration. From rebuilding foundations to scaling impact, the firm sharpened its identity as an earned-first communications partner, blending creativity, intelligence, and strategy. As part of Adgully’s annual REWIND 2025 series, we spoke to Abhishek Gulyani, Managing Director – India and Head of Corporate Affairs, Asia Pacific, ZENO Group, who reflects on a year defined by sharper positioning, talent-led investments and intelligence-driven communications. He unpacks how Zeno strengthened its earned-first proposition, delivered strong new-business momentum, and aligned itself with a broader industry shift where reputation, data and strategic counsel have become business-critical. How would you describe the year 2025 for your organization, and were there any standout moments that defined it? 2025 was a defining year for Zeno India, a year of transformation translating into accelerated growth. Over the past 6 months (we follow July 1-June 30), we moved decisively from rebuilding foundations to scaling impact. We made significant investments in talent, especially across creative, digital, data and senior media advisory, opened a new office and have designed ourselves for collaboration across teams in APAC and the world, content creation, and embedded intelligence-led thinking deeper into our work. The most defining outcome of these efforts has been performance: increased new business, with double digit margin growth and a 70%-win ratio, which reflects strong client confidence in our evolved offering. More importantly, along with our strong client centric 2025 helped us sharpen who we are: a modern, earned-first communications partner that blends creativity, intelligence, and strategic counsel. That clarity of purpose has been the standout moment for us. When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defined this year for the industry? 2025 marked a clear inflection point for the PR industry in India. This was the year when communications firmly moved closer to the C-suite. Reputation, trust, policy, culture, and values became business-critical conversations, not just communication mandates. Another defining shift was the industry’s accelerated move toward data, AI, and insight-led storytelling. Clients increasingly expect PR partners to bring intelligence, not just execution. Creativity, too, evolved — from tactical ideas to culturally relevant, earned-first platforms that drive participation. At the same time, the industry began questioning traditional, media-heavy business models and exploring higher-value advisory, creative and intelligence-led offerings. That mindset shift will define the next phase of growth. Still, I feel as an industry a lot more can be done in building growth culture, talent and data-led communications. Which big new clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special? This year has been good for us with record wins. What stood out about our new client wins in 2025 was both the sectors and the scope of work. We onboarded several clients across B2B technology — particularly data centres and AI — business consulting, B2B healthcare and education, consumer tech, lifestyle sectors that demand deep domain understanding and strategic maturity. These wins were especially meaningful because clients chose us for high-value capabilities — including analyst relations, creative and digital solutions, and strategic media and crisis advisory — rather than only traditional media engagement. In many cases, we were brought in to help shape category narratives, influence ecosystem stakeholders, and drive long-term reputation outcomes. In parallel, our strong focus on partnership and outcomes led to organic expansion within existing clients, reinforcing the trust they place in Zeno as a long-term growth partner. Together, these wins underscore a clear shift in how clients view PR — not as a service provider, but as a strategic advisor. How has the role of PR evolved — has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement? Absolutely. PR today is far less about managing perception and far more about building belief and authentic storytelling. Audiences are more informed, skeptical, and values-driven than ever before. They don’t just want to hear what brands say, they want to understand what brands stand for and how they behave. This has shifted PR from image management to authentic engagement, narrative stewardship, and trust-building. Modern PR sits at the intersection of data, creativity, culture, and conscience. It involves listening as much as speaking, using intelligence to shape narratives, and helping brands show up consistently across stakeholders. This evolution is both exciting and essential for the future relevance of our industry. I feel Zeno is rightly placed to meet that requirement if clients. For clients too, it is not large teams but agile teams with the right knowledge and execution capabilities that will make a difference in the future. 

2025 wasn’t just another calendar year for Vicara PR; it became a defining chapter in its evolution under the leadership of Jigar Chatwani, Founder of Vicara PR. In a year where boutique agencies battled scale, speed, and survival pressures, Vicara PR focused inward first, stabilising its core team, strengthening institutional knowledge, and building a culture that values growth, commitment, and long-term client trust. That internal strength became the launchpad for broader diversification into social media, SEO, and lead generation mandates, signalling a confident shift beyond traditional PR. As part of Adgully’s annual recap of the year gone by – REWIND 2025 – we spoke to Jigar Chatwani, Founder of Vicara PR, reflects on how the year reshaped not just the agency’s capabilities, but also the very definition of PR itself. From navigating increasingly demanding clients and idea-driven mandates to embracing deeper strategic thinking and authenticity-led communication, he shares how Vicara PR positioned itself for the future in a rapidly maturing communications ecosystem. How would you describe the year 2025 for your organisation, and were there any standout moments that defined it? 2025 has been transformative for us, honestly. As a boutique firm, we've always struggled with talent churn - it's probably the biggest challenge any small PR agency faces in India. But this year, something shifted. We finally found our rhythm with team stability.The current group we have isn't just working for Vicara PR; they're growing with us. That's a game-changer when you're trying to build deep client relationships and maintain consistency in service delivery. When your team believes in the vision and wants to stick around, everything else falls into place - better client servicing, stronger campaigns, and that institutional knowledge that takes years to build.That stability gave us the confidence to diversify our offerings too. We've expanded into social media, SEO, and even executed three lead generation projects this year. It's exciting to see the team embrace these new challenges.When you look at the broader PR and communications industry, what defined this year for the industry?Ideas are king now - that's what I've observed throughout 2025. Clients have become incredibly sophisticated in their expectations. They're not just looking for coverage anymore; they want fresh, unique ideation that cuts through the noise.I've seen this shift firsthand. We'll pitch 20 different concepts to a client, and if even one truly resonates and gets executed brilliantly, that's considered a win. The days of recycling the same old press release formats or following template-based campaigns are over.The industry is demanding more strategic thinking, more creativity, and frankly, more courage to try unconventional approaches. Clients now understand PR nuances better than they did five years ago, which means agencies need to step up their game significantly.Which new big clients did you onboard this year, and what made those wins special?While I can't share specific client names, I can tell you about the sectors that embraced us this year - private equity, venture capital, fintech, healthcare, and BFSI. These are sophisticated clients who really understand what good PR can achieve.What made these wins special wasn't our pitch deck or our rates - it was the in-depth knowledge and expertise our team demonstrated. These clients appreciated that we understood their industries, their challenges, and their stakeholder ecosystems.When a PE firm is evaluating PR agencies, they're not looking for someone who can just send press releases. They want partners who understand portfolio company communications, investor relations nuances, and regulatory considerations. That expertise gave them the confidence to choose us over larger agencies.How has the role of PR evolved, has it shifted from just managing images to creating deeper, more authentic engagement?Absolutely. The transformation has been remarkable, especially in the last couple of years. Traditional image management - that defensive, reactive approach - is almost obsolete now.Today's PR is about building authentic narratives that resonate with specific audiences. It's about understanding that every stakeholder group needs a different story, told in a different way. A fintech startup's story for potential investors is completely different from their story for end customers or regulatory bodies.We're seeing clients who want us to be strategic partners in their business growth, not just communications vendors. They're asking us to help shape their market positioning, influence their product messaging, and even provide insights on market sentiment.The authenticity piece is crucial - audiences today can spot manufactured stories from miles away. The brands that succeed are the ones telling genuine stories about real impact, real innovation, real change.