In a world flooded with information, shaped by AI-led discovery, and defined by shrinking attention spans, Public Relations is undergoing a profound transformation. What was once largely about securing the right headline in the right publication has evolved into something far more complex and consequential—shaping reputation not just for audiences, but for algorithms too. On National PR Day, industry leaders reflect on how PR is no longer a support function, but a strategic driver of trust, influence, and long-term business impact.At a time when stakeholders—from consumers to investors—are scrutinising whether brands truly live their values, the role of PR has expanded into building credibility across every touchpoint. The discipline today sits at the intersection of storytelling, strategy, and societal responsibility, making it more relevant than ever before.Girish Bala, Founder, ON PURPOSE"On National PR Day, I'd like to recognise and celebrate the positive change PR enables in society. Whether its raising awareness of causes that matter or bringing more dignity to the lives of the under-represented, we must bring the power of our craft to tell stories of individuals and organisations driving real change on the ground."Abhi Mahapatra, Senior Strategic Communications & Marketing Advisor"On National PR Day, it’s a good moment to recognise that while many aspects of Public Relations in India have changed, the core of earning trust hasn’t. In a culturally diverse and highly opinionated market, PR professionals are no longer just storytellers; they are custodians of reputation, expected to respond with both speed and sensitivity. The real value of PR today lies in staying authentic while being agile, and consistently translating tha into tangible business and societal impact."Nandini Chatterjee, former Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, PwC"PR has never been more critical, as consumers, employees, investors and communities closely scrutinise whether organisations’ words align with their actions, placing PR at the heart of shaping consistent narratives and corporate reputation.In an AI-driven discovery environment, where search increasingly draws from credible earned and owned sources, the value of well-crafted narratives in trusted publications is only growing.PR and Communications is moving beyond a support role to become a strategic imperative, demanding sharp judgement on what to say, when to say it, and how to navigate crises."Rishi Seth, Founder and CEO, Evoc"National PR Day is an occasion to remind us all that in this age shaped by AI-slop, misinformation, information overload and shrinking attention spans, public relations is one of the most strategic and effective disciplines for organisations and leaders. PR has always had a fundamental role in building trust, credibility, and shaping public understanding, but today this role is more critical than ever. In fact, few disciplines can match the strategic value of a well-run PR program in helping organisations engage with stakeholders with clarity and conviction.”Lovina Gujral, COO, Candour Communications"It's a very interesting time to be in the PR industry in India, and I mean that in the best way. For most of the last two decades, our job was to earn a client a mention in the right publication, in front of the right reader, on the right day. While that hasn't gone away, what is changing is that there's now a second audience reading everything we put out but they don't buy newspapers. A new layer of truth has emerged. When someone asks an AI model about a category or a brand, the model answers from whatever the open web has decided is true about that company. That's the real reputation layer forming right now. PR has always been about shaping what's said about you when you're not in the room. That room just got a lot bigger. PR agencies that will matter over the next ten years are the ones that stop thinking of themselves as media relations shops and start thinking of themselves as credibility engineers for humans and machines alike. On this National PR Day, that's the bet we are making."Madhvendra Das, Co-Founder, The Good Edge"I believe PR's sweet spot lies in becoming a strategic tool for managements and leaders from all walks. National PR Day during this year of amazing global newsflows is a timely reminder for us PR practitioners to become a lot more strategic in client interactions and to harness AI effectively as an enabler. We also need to attract a lot more top talent to our industry."Chetan Mahajan, CEO and Founder, Maverick“PR is transforming, not fading. The craft of earning influence now plays out across media, policy, digital, and AI ecosystems, but the core of the discipline has not changed. It remains about earning trust, not chasing attention. At The Mavericks, we choose fewer, deeper partnerships, measuring success in business impact rather than noise, and treating reputation as the most strategic form of capital a brand owns: the one asset that compounds over time.”Aman Dhall, Founder, CommsCredible"PR has evolved from a relationship-led function to an intelligence-driven one. Today, it’s not about moments of visibility, but about building a narrative that is consistently discoverable across media, search, social, and AI. If your story isn’t structured, it simply won’t show up where decisions are made.The biggest misconception is that one headline or viral campaign can shift perception overnight. It may create attention, but trust is built through consistency. Perception doesn’t change in spikes—it compounds when messaging is clear and aligned across touchpoints.PR now sits at the core of how businesses are evaluated. Stakeholders form opinions before any interaction, based on what they discover and validate online. This makes narrative clarity and credibility critical.Going forward, PR will bridge online intelligence with offline confidence. Companies that invest in structured storytelling won’t just be more visible—they’ll be more trusted. Because today, it’s not just visibility that matters—actual intelligence does.”

Industry leaders from the country?ÇÖs media, marketing and communications converged for the 4th edition of IMAGEXX Summit and Awards 2024, Adgully?ÇÖs premier PR industry event, which was held on July 18, 2024 at the Holiday Inn, Aerocity, Gurgaon. In a short span of time, IMAGEXX Summit and Awards has been recognized as the PR industry?ÇÖs go-to event.A key highlight of the Summit this year was a panel discussion on ?ÇÿNew Paradigms in PR Metrics?ÇÖ. The panel was chaired by Madhurima Bhatia, Head of PR, Media Engagement & Partnerships, India & APEC (Asia Pacific excluding China), Ipsos. The esteemed panellists included:Abhi Mahapatra, Director - PR, Amazon IndiaDr Rajiv Chhibber, Vice President - External Affairs (Policy, Government Relations & Outreach), Sahajanand Medical TechnologiesHimanshu Raj, Head - Reputation and Policy, Pristyn CareNatasha Wadhwa, Head - Strategic Communications and Brand, Shell IndiaRohit Dubey, Vice President, Reliance JioSunita Patnaik, Director of Corporate Affairs, Mars Wrigley IndiaUdita Dutta, Founder, Artsmith Concepts & Visions (Artsmith.in)Commencing the discussions, Madhurima Bhatia remarked, ?Ç£The importance of PR cannot be overemphasized. It builds reputations. It gives you visibility for the great work the company does. It makes you engage with your stakeholders. And these days, companies have their goals defined at the beginning of the year. And PR professionals and custodians, they are entrusted with the task to ensure that we achieve those goals.?Ç¥ She then asked the panelists how they measure the efficacy and effectiveness of the work in public relations.Abhi Mahapatra replied, " We obsess in inputs over outputs. While we track goals and metrics, including , SoV, earned exposures impressions, reach ?Çô are.some of the parameters that we use for measurement, both on social and traditional. But we are very obsessed about what our input mechanisms are because we believe that if the inputs are right, the outputs will find a way.?Ç¥He further added, ?Ç£We are moving away from SOVs (Share of voice) to SOI, which is Share of Influence, because we believe that voice share is probably important to measure competition benchmarking but not impactful for other tracks."Speaking about the regulated industry such as the implants industry, which is actually governed by the Drugs and the Cosmetics Act, Dr Rajiv Chhibber said, ?Ç£Because our kols are largely doctors, hospitals, and the Government of India as well ?Çô be it the Ayushman Bharat setup we are looking at, or the CGHS or the healthcare schemes ?Çô one thing that we define as a communications policy is an acronym ?Çô SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. Doctors can give us a maximum of 10-15 minutes?ÇÖ attention, and after that it?ÇÖs gone. So, our strategy becomes very different. And the methodologies to gauge what we?ÇÖve achieved are very different too.?Ç¥Sharing the perspective of the start-up industry, Himanshu Raj said, ?Ç£Being a start-up, there?ÇÖs no scope for qualitative analysis. ?ÇÿDhanda kitna hua?ÇÖ (How much business has been done) is everything. Vanity metrics don?ÇÖt add anything to your business. We now measure something called Share of Headline. How many times we are in the headline, because it gives you a very clear picture. We also do Google Analytics. For any time we give out a press release, we see how much brand searches have increased. Lastly, every time a patient comes to us, they fill a form. There is a segment we have added. Have you read about Pristyn Care in the media? That gives us an idea of what our patients are reading about, and I can directly correlate it to our business.?Ç¥Speaking about the challenges of upholding the brand and reputation of a company like Shell and policy and regulatory goals, Natasha Wadhwa said, ?Ç£Shell has defined a global strategy, which is called ?ÇÿPowering Progress?ÇÖ, which has four pillars. One is about shareholder value. One focuses on net zero emissions, one focuses on powering lives, the impact that we make on communities around us, and lastly, on respecting nature. We have defined a measurement which we call ?ÇÿMedia Impact Score?ÇÖ, which you can call like an index, which has multiple touch points feeding into it, like sentiment, tonality, prominence. We arrive at a media impact score and then we measure it against all these four pillars. It?ÇÖs a quarterly cadence.?Ç¥Speaking on owned media, Rohit Dubey said, ?Ç£Jio was born as a digital-first company. Whatever we did, digital was on the top of our mind. When we were starting the PR way back in 2016, the first thing we did was get an ORM tool. And that ORM tool was then acquired and internally is now being used for so many years, and it has undergone many changes with the advent of technologies all over. And that is what gives us the first set of feedback. But much earlier in our lives, we realized that you can?ÇÖt just depend on online and social media, you also have to move to the conventional of print and television. He further added, ?Ç£The challenge we initially came across was that you have to make PR relevant. It is not the conventional measurement which is going to work for us. You have to work with a set of measurement tools by which not only the impact is measured, but that impact is converted into a measurable matrix for sales, for management and for your finance, how the sales is looking at what PR is doing. And over a period of time we have been able to do it. The dependence of Jio on PR is very high compared to advertising. So, you won?ÇÖt see Jio?ÇÖs advertising except during IPL.?Ç¥Emphasizing on the importance of reputation, Sunita Patnaik said, ?Ç£Mars Wrigley India is obsessed with how we are perceived by our stakeholders, by our shareholders. We are obsessed with how we recruit our consumers. We firmly believe that reputation is not just getting a few stories in the media, but across the value chain. How are our shareholders or our stakeholders perceiving us? And it also helps us in recruiting talent. We are guided by something called the ?ÇÿCompass?ÇÖ. It gives us a good visibility of how our share and our stakeholders are thinking, feeling and what are they doing about it.?Ç¥Speaking from a sports and esports industry standpoint, Udita Dutta said, ?Ç£I belong to the sports and esports industry, which itself is a very happening industry. But when it comes to the aspect of matrix and measuring, we still are a work in progress, because for us, when it comes to live sports, it?ÇÖs all about engagement. So, sharing a voice is something we?ÇÖve been pushing all our clients to move away from. One size definitely doesn?ÇÖt fit all. For sports, I think education, credibility, engagement, and understanding are important. We prefer it if it is a live sport, including IPL. Input is very important for us.