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 conversation with Adgully, Vaibhavi Sanghvi, Founder and Partner, Relacion Global, shares her journey of building a purpose-driven PR agency for India’s MSMEs and SMEs. With over 15 years of experience in strategic communications, she talks about the inspiration behind starting her own firm, the evolution of the PR industry, and how her agency blends global perspectives with local insights to deliver authentic, impactful storytelling. What inspired you to start your own PR agency, and what was the vision behind it? In the last couple of years, India has witnessed an unprecedented wave of entrepreneurship, with MSMEs and SMEs emerging as the backbone of this growth story. Their ideas and impact are powerful, yet many of their stories remain untold. Often, these businesses hesitate to explore PR, believing that meaningful storytelling is reserved for global giants with deep pockets. That’s precisely where we saw an opportunity. With over 15 years of experience each, working with some of the world’s leading brands, we’ve seen firsthand how strategic PR can solve business challenges, shape perceptions, and build long-term trust. We realized that the same principles could be tailored for India’s MSMEs and SMEs, delivering measurable impact while staying grounded in their realities. As we examined the landscape, the gap became clear: most PR solutions for smaller businesses were either cookie-cutter or focused solely on short-term visibility, rather than building sustainable reputations. We knew there was a chance to do something different—an agency that blends global perspective with local understanding, treats every client as a partner, and crafts narratives rooted in authenticity, culture, and business outcomes. Our vision has always been to help these businesses tell their stories with purpose, making PR both accessible and meaningful. For us, PR isn’t just about placements or coverage, it’s about creating lasting value, building credibility, and ensuring that brands are seen, heard, and remembered in a crowded marketplace. How has the PR industry evolved since you began your journey, and how has your agency adapted? When we started, PR was largely measured by the size of a media article or the estimated PR value. Today, it’s measured in trust, influence, and the quality of conversations a brand generates. That shift has been both exciting and challenging. We’ve adapted by blending the old with the new. Beyond traditional media, we now help brands manage their presence on platforms like LinkedIn, where thought leadership and professional reputation play a crucial role. Our approach also includes holistic reputation management, ensuring that every public interaction, from media coverage to social media content, works cohesively. We’ve found that offering a bouquet of these services together creates exponentially better outcomes. Visibility alone is fleeting; reputation management builds credibility, and LinkedIn amplifies professional trust and influence. When these elements are orchestrated together, the result is a brand that’s not just seen, but respected, remembered, and trusted in a fast-moving, attention-driven world. What differentiates your agency’s approach to PR from others in the market? Our approach starts from a problem-solving point of view. We begin by asking: What will actually help this brand, business or founder? Sometimes the answer is traditional PR, sometimes it’s thought leadership, reputation management, or even a digital-first solution. Our focus is always on relevance and impact, not activity for the sake of activity. This mindset allows us to act as genuine partners to our clients. We collaborate closely, identifying what will move the needle for their business and shape perceptions in meaningful ways. Even when traditional PR isn’t the right solution, we provide strategies that address the core challenge, ensuring every effort contributes to long-term growth and credibility. By prioritizing purpose over process, we create campaigns that are strategic, targeted, and measurable; delivering results that go beyond visibility to actually strengthen the brand’s presence, trust, and influence. How do you balance traditional PR practices with the demands of digital and social media-driven communication? For us, it’s not about balancing the old and new. It’s about integration. The industry itself has evolved. Traditional PR was once dominated by print. Today, online platforms are central to how audiences discover and engage with brands, and this shift brings tangible benefits; coverage online not only builds visibility but also contributes to SEO, which can directly support lead generation and business growth.There was a time when PR lived in silos, media relations here, social media there, brand marketing elsewhere. That model doesn’t work anymore. A brand’s reputation exists in an interconnected ecosystem, and agencies can’t treat each channel separately. Consumers don’t experience brands in silos, so why should strategy be fragmented? Our role is to stitch everything together, ensuring consistency without losing nuance. That integration turns isolated efforts into momentum-building campaigns that influence perception, strengthen credibility, and create measurable business impact across platforms and communities. What role do storytelling and creativity play in shaping impactful PR campaigns today? Storytelling and creativity aren’t just important, they’re the heart of modern PR. In a world overloaded with information, people don’t remember statistics or press releases; they remember narratives that resonate. Creativity is what transforms a story from being heard to being remembered and shared. Take Boat for example, the brand has used playful, relatable content and influencer-driven campaigns to position itself as the voice of India’s youth, turning a commodity product into a cultural phenomenon. Similarly, skincare brands like Minimalist and Sheth’s. showcase narratives that go beyond product features, they tell stories about self-care, science-backed solutions, and personal transformation. By blending authenticity, education, and aspirational messaging, these brands make skincare relatable and inspire trust among consumers. When PR leverages storytelling and creativity this way, campaigns go beyond visibility to build culture, spark conversations, and strengthen trust. In today’s world, a story that isn’t meaningful or creative risks being invisible, no matter how strong the product. What are some of the biggest challenges brands face in managing their reputation, and how does your agency help them overcome these? Reputation today moves at the speed of a tweet. A single post can amplify goodwill or trigger a crisis overnight. This makes managing reputation more complex and critical than ever. What sets our approach apart is how we start with listening. We dig deep to understand the brand, ask the tough questions, and uncover vulnerabilities. Our focus is proactive, not reactive. We don’t wait for crises to hit; we build reputational resilience long before it’s tested. By combining insight with storytelling, stakeholder engagement, and reputation management, we help brands rise above the noise with credibility, consistency, and lasting trust. This means crafting narratives strong enough to withstand scrutiny, equipping brands with a clear playbook for challenges, and continuously nurturing trust among all stakeholders; customers, employees, investors, and partners alike. Could you share a campaign or project that you’re especially proud of and why it stands out for you? Something that we are absolutely proud of was the IPO mandate of a specialty chemicals company, which came to us just two months into starting our agency. At the time, neither of us had prior experience with IPO communication. But what we did have was the determination to prove ourselves, the curiosity to learn and unlearn quickly, and the experience and discipline to deliver with precision. We knew that credibility and precision would be paramount in a mandate as regulated and high-stakes as this. Our first step was immersing ourselves in the IPO landscape; studying the industry, examining successful past listings, and deeply understanding the regulatory and compliance directives that govern capital markets communication. This was not just about creating visibility; it was about ensuring that every message was sharp, consistent, and aligned with SEBI’s stringent guidelines, while also strong enough to resonate with both institutional and retail investors. Working hand-in-hand with the company’s leadership team, we developed forward-looking, growth-oriented messaging that captured the business fundamentals and its future potential. From there, we built a comprehensive communications program that spanned media engagement, investor trust-building, and reputation management. The campaign achieved extensive visibility across all leading business dailies and financial platforms, ensuring that the company’s story was told with clarity and credibility. We also positioned senior leadership through interviews and thought-leadership opportunities that reinforced expertise and confidence in the company. The outcome was extraordinary. The IPO received an overwhelming 99x oversubscription, reflecting not just the company’s fundamentals but also the confidence that the communication strategy helped instil in the market. For us, the true reward lay in the journey; the ability to navigate an entirely new domain, master its complexities, and deliver results that were both measurable and meaningful. What advice would you give to young professionals who want to build a career in PR or start their own agency? Start with the basics—read the news every day, understand how stories are shaped, and learn to write with clarity and purpose. These may sound simple, but they are the foundation of strategic PR. Invest in relationships, not just contacts. Build genuine trust with journalists and clients. PR is built on credibility, and credibility takes patience, consistency, and authenticity to earn. Take ownership of your work. Don’t just complete tasks; understand the “why” behind every activity and think like a partner to the business. If you want to start your own agency, be prepared to wear multiple hats. You’ll wear multiple hats—strategist, writer, client servicing manager, sometimes even accountant, but the ownership you take in each role will define the agency’s impact. Finally, stay curious, stay disciplined, and view every campaign, client, and challenge as an opportunity to learn, grow, and make a meaningful difference. The best PR professionals aren’t just executors, they’re problem-solvers, storytellers, and strategic partners.
