We are in a new era of Public Relations. In the last few years, the importance of reputation management has undergone a sea change. More brands and clients, especially from the leadership teams, are viewing Public Relations from a close range. The industry has undergone a radical change with the advent of social media, which has to a large extent changed the approach to Public Relations. We have a relatively new and young audience that we need to face in the coming years so there are bigger challenges for brands and PR practitioners, who have to be more agile and proactive in their thinking to draw up business solutions for clients.In our exclusive weekly column ?Çô PR Conversation ?Çô Adgully interacts with leading business leaders and obtains their exclusive views and insights on the various trends in the PR and communications industry.In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Rahul Jain and Sudhir Shetty, Partners and Joint CEOs of SGA PR, delve into various aspects of their roles at Strategic Growth Advisors. They share insights into their leadership within the PR practice, discuss the evolving role of public relations in today?ÇÖs dynamic business environment, and explore the opportunities it presents for Strategic Growth Advisors. They also highlight a recent successful PR campaign, detailing the key strategies behind its success and the approach they use to measure the impact and ROI of their PR initiatives. Additionally, they discuss how SGA PR sets itself apart in the industry, offering unique value propositions to clients.Could you tell us about your roles as Partner and Joint CEO at Strategic Growth Advisors, particularly focusing on your involvement with the PR practice?Rahul Jain: Our objective is to create a consulting business that is in alignment with the new world order and understands the dynamic and complex client requirements. As partners to clients, our intent is to not just provide solutions to their communication needs, but also closely work with the founders and the senior managements to collectively develop a ?ÇÿGo-To-Market?ÇÖ strategy that eventually helps clients to achieve their business goals.We figured there is a big mismatch in ideas proposed to clients during the pitch process and the eventual execution of those ideas. We believe in addressing this gap and, therefore, our motto has been to remain deeply integrated with clients and provide hands-on execution to ensure successful and impactful delivery of ideas.SGA has thoughtfully developed holistic communication solutions along with deep domain expertise that cuts across public relations, investor relations, branding & designing and corporate reporting.How do you see the role of public relations evolving in today?ÇÖs rapidly changing business landscape, and what opportunities does it present for Strategic Growth Advisors?Sudhir Shetty: Communications, over the years, have gotten much more integrated than ever before. With the multitude of disruptions being witnessed thanks to technology, the need of the hour is an all-encompassing corporate reputation programme that addresses the priorities of the C-Suite as well as decision makers across product, technology, compliance and human resource.Therefore, it has become imperative that future PR professionals adapt to this new world order and become more hands-on about these emerging priorities of businesses. This will enhance their consulting skills, provide solutions that are more integrated and gradually elevate them to be the eyes and ears of the corporate leadership team. And that?ÇÖs exactly what we are trying to inculcate among every team member at SGA PR right to the last executive.This approach has helped in our journey of the last 18 to 20 months. During this period, we have witnessed a great mix of portfolios from both internet economy such as fintech, SaaS, DeepTech, AI as well as listed entities from corporates, BFSI space, manufacturing, renewable energy, chemical among others.We are very bullish on the growing need of reputation management among corporates and start-ups at a time when India is poised for an accelerated growth path.Could you discuss a recent successful PR campaign or project that you were involved in? What were the key strategies that contributed to its success?Rahul Jain: Thanks to the agility and proactive thinking, in the last 18 to 20 months we have delivered various content-driven campaigns, data-led narratives and brand IPs. Some of those include:For a healthtech brand ?Çô Fitelo ?Çô which offers a unique weight loss programme using psychology, SGA proactively recommended ?ÇÿState of Your Plate?ÇÖ study to understand the relationship of Indians with their food and eating habits based on emotions.On the other hand, for one of the major B2B Saas companies, Bizongo, we drove a shift in their market perception by crafting a narrative that became a new industry categorisation ?Çô ?ÇÿVendor Digitisation?ÇÖ. It reflected the value proposition the company was offering to its stakeholders.As consultants, our aim has always been to deliver an idea that not only creates a resonance with media but also drives business impact.With the increasing emphasis on digital media, how important is it for PR strategies to integrate seamlessly with digital platforms?Sudhir Shetty: Narrative driven communications cannot work in silos, especially in a country like India which is vast and where demography changes in every few hundred kilometres. In order to ensure that the messaging reaches to the relevant audience, across the length and breadth of the country, a perfect blend of traditional and digital mediums would be ideal.How do you approach measuring the impact and effectiveness of PR initiatives, especially in terms of quantifiable results and ROI for clients?Sudhir Shetty: PR measurement metric has come a long way from the days when the success of a PR programme would be determined by the advertisement value equivalent of every clip. Today, thanks to the startup ecosystem and the new-age founders, consulting firms like ours have innovated to re-orient our measurement metric from a different lens like reach of the PR programme, building and/ or reshaping the narrative, opening doors for new business partnership opportunities and finally often PR?ÇÖs success metric is aligned with strong brand acceptance in the ecosystem.In what ways does Strategic Growth Advisors differentiate itself in the PR industry, and what unique value propositions do you offer to clients?Rahul Jain: We are a team of agile and proactive thinkers. As an invested partner with a client, we not only provide counsel on public relations, but owing to our expertise in capital markets we also handhold them in their investor communications and accordingly deliver bespoke storytelling.As an integral member of the client?ÇÖs leadership team, we believe in stepping in to the shoes of the client?ÇÖs CEO and accordingly develop strategies that address the business goals/ problem. Therefore, we have never limited ourselves to media coverage only and many a times have delivered stakeholder engagement programme for clients directly tapping into the core constituencies relevant to client.Moreover, we have always maintained a razor-sharp focus on execution, thereby ensuring that ideas just don?ÇÖt remain on paper, but are implemented in reality.Could you share your insights on the future trends and innovations we can expect to see in the PR and communications sector in the coming years?Rahul Jain and Sudhir Shetty:AI will play a key role going ahead. It will not substitute our jobs, but will help us in sharpening our thinking capabilities and enhance the narrative building competencies.PR will no longer be just for media coverage. It has already started engaging with broader business stakeholders. PR professionals will be equally involved in developing Go-To-Market strategies along with marketeers, will play a crucial role in conflict management and eventually communication professionals will contribute to the growth of the business.We will see more use of data in storytelling. Data brings authenticity and credibility, which will be key in augmenting corporate reputation.Increasingly, brands are focusing on sustainability and compliance communications. Going ahead, PR professionals will have to enhance their learning curve to successfully deliver communications strategies around these and many more areas.
