Authored by Ganapathy Viswanathan, Independent Communication ConsultantPR had enough struggle for both respectability and clarity of purpose, but the industry has clearly overcome that today and every brand is very closely embracing with PR as an important communication tool when they draw their overall marketing plan for their company and their respective brands. Clients must be now more open to try and explore new avenues in PR and will be looking at more innovative ways to explore Public Relations especially in today’s digital world.  The year 2023 saw more openness and embracing of brands with PR and it looks like 2024 will drive many clients to examine and explore PR closely in their annual marketing plans. I personally feel we may not see any major shift in 2024 as some of the challenges in the area of talent and content creation will continue to bother the industry. Agencies will have to beef up their technology set up and operations with the right talent so that they can manage clients and meet their expectations set.So, what can agencies and do and how can clients collaborate better with their PR partners and get their best for their brands from a communication point of view. And let us examine how PR can bring in that value and differentiation for the brands for them to leverage this communication tool.I think you cannot build a strong reputation for your brand without PR. To achieve the trust and credibility for your brand there is no other communication tool other than PR. Yes, it is a slow process and it takes time but once your brand establishes the credibility it will stay for a very long time unless something really goes wrong with the brand.PR can help both reputed brands and start up business to build their reputation. Some kind of self-belief should be instilled in the stakeholder’s mind to make them believe that PR works. This can only happen once you explore that channel with a clear clarity of thought.Adaptability is possible when you think of PR. A PR campaign can work in synergy with advertising or any other 360-degree communication. While your messaging should be within the broad pillars of the advertising campaign but you have the freedom to deviate and have different approach to reach your audiences so long as the core messaging is same.Your credibility quotient has more weightage as PR is built through third party endorsements. Consumers and your end audiences tend to believe more on messages delivered by journalists than the paid advertising campaign that is planted in various media.Brands in any case do invest a lot when it comes to advertising and promotional campaign. So, as compared to that PR investments are less but you need to have a clear thought process as to what will be the role of PR and how you will leverage it with your main campaign. The perfect orchestration and the clarity between the both will bring in results.Brand building is a continuous process. Running an advertising campaign in long bursts will always be a challenge keeping in mind the exorbitant media costs and cash outflow. Hence you will be only able to run in short bursts by taking breaks. But with PR you can keep continuing the efforts as the cost you entail will be comparatively low and you can be present in the media with being out of sight.In today’s dynamic media landscape especially after the advent of social media the need of online reputation has become very pivotal. So, you cannot ignore from your brand being trolled and you need to be agile and alert to take the remedial action in case your brand gets some negative publicity. Hence, the need of PR comes into play for brands to embrace it.Education and creating awareness about the role of PR should keep happening. The more we run seminars and panel discussion this will not reach the desired audiences. IMAGEXX summit a PR conference from Adgully which is in the fourth year is one of the best platforms to preach and educate as to how brands can benefit from the power of PR.PR is now the most spoken about communication tool as more and more brands are embracing with lot of confidence. Clients have witnessed results in building the credibility of their brands. As we move forward the PR landscape in India is undergoing a fascinating metamorphosis, driven by a dynamic fusion of digital innovation and more emphasis towards influential marketing.While growth depends on several internal and external factors but the intent shown by many clients both brick and motor and the startups are a good sign for the communication industry. Network companies should use their global expertise and knowledge to widen the canvass for PR being an important communication tool for brands to continuously engage with and build their brands.

Authored By: Ganapathy Viswanathan, Independent Communication Consultant The technology buzz has been around in the PR space for over last two to three years with everyone talking about AI and ML. While everyone is talking about AI and ML and its profound impact on PR one is not sure if everyone in the business is able to leverage the technology tools to the best of their advantage. One of the other reasons that technology is giving the desired boost and encouragement to PR professionals is the rapid penetration of internet and social media which today is the real time go to platform channel to create that rapid awareness and visibility for the various narratives.  The year 2024 will be revolutionised by these advanced technologies as we will see data collaborating with technology tools to give some great analytics which can be used in culling out insights for your PR campaign. If approached  properly with the right tools and talent the AI and data analytics can dwell deeper on your insights and help in spotting your audience behaviour and predict their trends and preferences. With the help of these behavioural study brands will be able to hyper- personalise the content across a spectrum of audience. Here the targeted messaging will also help in reducing your media wastage and cost and you will be able to attain quality reach.  Data and insights will play a major role and are going to be very critical in drawing forceful PR strategies. Innovation and strategic storytelling with strong narratives backed by technology will help in crafting very focussed messaging. Which is where we may see the role of ML and AI coming into play to help in leveraging the data used more intelligently. So, technology will be crucial for agencies to gear up and get their talent in place to meet the client demands. Clients will expect more insights, sharp messaging and data driven audience profiling to reach the right audiences. Today with technology you are be able to craft your messaging and automate your press release dissemination, managing social media which helps the PR professionals to avoid some of the mundane operational activities. Instead, they can now focus more on the client’s requirements and be more proactive in providing some strategic inputs for the brand and add value to the campaign management. More importantly technology will play a pivotal role in managing social media where you need to fight crisis and as we all know these days crisis erupts fast and spreads fast. With real time engagement happening more intensely the need of robust technology tools should be provided for the teams to closely monitor the news happenings.  Here are my thoughts on how one can leverage technology:1.    First and foremost, you have to scale up the skill sets in your organisation. Continuous training and mentoring needs to be imparted to use the available technological tools. 2.    Investment in manpower goes without saying and getting the right skills who have the aptitude to learn and grow with the organisation is a must. 3.    Get your client into confidence on your technology skills so that he will be able to trust you and collaborate well and get the best out of the agency. 4.    Clients must respect the agency efforts and encourage the agency both in terms of giving the right brief and also remunerating the agency well in bringing and using technology.   5.    We can talk about technology endlessly but what is more important is to have the latest in technology and keep updating the same. 6.    While technology is a great enabler one still needs to bring and think on ideas which will what will drive innovation and differentiation to your communication strategy. 7.    There will be plenty of data that will be floating but it is that knack to leverage this data using technology is what is important. Will therefore need the right talent who will be able to read and understand data very well. 8.     The influencers world is growing and they are becoming more important ambassador for many brands. They should also be well versed with the latest technology to bring speed in real time engagement. 9.    I would also recommend a strong IT team in the organisation to collaborate well with the PR professionals so that there is minimum glitches and down time on the tech aspect. 10. Even on the digital media front you need to be well equipped and staffed so that your technology ideas can be seamlessly executed.  The digital disruption has forced many organisations both at the agency and client end to be beefed up with technological solutions. The future as they say will be driven by technology a lot and hence adapting to newer technology will be top on the agenda for companies to move faster and give the best business and strategic solutions to clients. Today a brand reputation hinges a lot on online media and that is where technology will come to play a lot. And actually, the advent of technology has now put PR into a different pedestal to deliver a lot more that will help clients to safeguard their brand reputation and bring in more intense engagement with their audiences.