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Diwali and the gifting madness - did you meet any fellow PR people at the journalists’ places?
By Editor on Oct 20, 2006 in industry, mediarelations
Well, it was the Diwali festival and our office prepared an extensive target media list of journalists for presenting the Diwali gifts. Our clients sent in their gifts, we combined all of them with our own and the list was distributed among all employees. Many started complaining. Who did the management thought we were? Some courier people? How could they expect us to go to somebody’s residence? (It’s considered giving gifts to journalists at their offices is not proper, so the residences) Why couldn’t we use the regular courier service? Well, to no avail.
I was handed over my list - no one was spared. Some senior chaps from ET and TOI, and a few more middle level journalists. I had to go to my set of clients’ offices as well. The office agreed to hire cabs. The cab services were in a mess. No cabs available. What about yellow taxis? Do anything but get the hell out of office, everyone - somebody was heard shouting from across the room.
Why did we need to go give gifts anyway? Because all other PR agencies were doing and you didn’t want to be remembered as the only agency that didn’t present gifts, did you?
Calling up journos for their addresses was a funny business. It went like this - Hi Happy Diwali, I was wondering if I could come down personally. What’s your house number?
That was enough to be understood. Some journos reacted instantly - well, it’s this….But some said that they had decided not to give out house addresses around Diwali time. Well, their loss, I thought, and one less on the list. But I was wrong. The boss said, put another one in his place.
So finally, the PR professionals marched out. I supposed CR park, West Delhi, and Noida were hot favourites among other places. I bumped into some seeming PR professionals, looking for the house from where I had just come out from. You should have seen the newspapers editors’ living rooms - seemed like the whole Indian corporate sector had sent in their gifts. From crystals, silver wares, chocolates, flowers, to Ganeshas, the list was endless.
Well, what can I say? Lage raho, PR guys. It’s a cut throat competition out here with three dozens of PR agencies from the smallest to the biggest here in India’s Capital city 
Technorati tags: PR, Public Relations, India, India Public Relations, India PR, Marketing,
On Oct 21, 2006, Freddie Abberline said:
My business partners insisted on only sending greeting cards to journalists. Bad strategy. The cards would be lost in the mountains of gifts in the journ’s living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. My suggestion had been to just call up the top 20 journalists a day after Diwali and ask them if they liked the crystal set we sent them. I can bet my brand new Nokia Communicator they would say ‘yes’.
They would be too embarrassed to say no because they didn’t go through each gift. And since we said crystal set and not a Nokia Vertu or an Xbox, they wouldn’t even remember seeing it and won’t curse themselves for passing it on to their driver or plumber as Diwali baksheesh.
As an ex she-boss of mine once said during my long due appraisal – “Freddie, it’s better to work smart than work hard.” What she meant was that I will get a 0.1025369 % salary hike and no designation change.
Happy Diwali!
On Oct 21, 2006, hobbit said:
hi Freddie, happy diwali..must be really big clients, or your agency is great, if you are gifting 20 journalists Nokia Communicators. wow. Our gifts don’t stand a chance of recall then.
And PR fellows, we have a new PR blogger, check it out -
WhileOn Earth. Keep it up, Freddie.
On Oct 21, 2006, Freddie Abberline said:
Dear Hobbie (hope you don’t mind that), my poor PR company didn’t even gift me a kambal so Nokia Communicators for journos are strictly no-no. Spend a min and read my last comment again. The war room strategy is to create gas while not spending even a single rupee.
BTW, you are doing a great job!
Blog on! (lift from Xbox’ Game On)
On Oct 21, 2006, hobbit said:
Thanks dude. Ya I know, we need a kambal at least. Winter’s coming. Tats our haal
On Oct 23, 2006, sj said:
Pathetic!
On Oct 23, 2006, Anonymous said:
Hi, interesting post … quick question… do you think giving gifts to the media is required? Do they really care? I personally dont think they do… same goes for give aways after press conference.. the guys who serve as bums on seats might care — but none that really matter do…
On Oct 23, 2006, hobbit said:
Maybe they don’t and it’s just the feel good factor.