Rohit Bhargava, Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy & Marketing, is a well known PR and marketing professional and known for his path breaking work in the social media segment. He leads the interactive marketing team at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Washington DC and is a founding member of the 360 Digital Influence team at Ogilvy. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a specialist in combining “traditional” interactive marketing efforts with innovative social media marketing strategy to help clients succeed in the new media landscape. His current list of clients includes Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Lenovo, and Unilever. Prior to joining Ogilvy PR, he was Executive Producer of the interactive team at Leo Burnett in Sydney, Australia and has worked internationally in several countries. Rohit has also been featured as an expert on marketing in BusinessWeek, Wired, Business2.0 and The Wall Street Journal as well as many industry and trade publications. He authors the popular marketing blog Influential Marketing and has recently launched his first marketing book called Personality Not Included.In an exclusive interview with India PR Blog, he briefly talks about his book and more…

IPRB: ‘Personality Not Included’ is definitely an attention grabbing title. How did you think about that in this personality driven corporate world?

Rohit: I wanted something that could stand out, and this title was one that everyone involved in the book fell in love with right away. To be honest, it was the subtitle that took a really long time for everyone to agree to.

IPRB: We always talk about creating personalities - brand, corporate or individual. How does your book really help us to understand issues faced by personality creators

Rohit: One of the main things I tried to do with the book was avoid it being solely and theoretical book. To do that, I included two main sections. The first talks all about why personality matters, how to understand and use it, and how to get past the barriers that may stand in your way. The second part is all how-to style guides and action plans to help you put personality into your business immediately.

IPRB: A very basic but important question -what is personality? why it is so important? can’t we just live in a world where personality is not included?

Rohit: This is a very important question. Personality, as I define it, is a mixture of being unique, authentic and talkable. I believe it is a necessity for brands that want to stand out and build deeper relationships with their customers.

IPRB:Would your book help demystify some of the marketing jargon floating around or will add few more?

Rohit: Actually, there is an element of the book that I have called “Buzzword Bingo.” It is a downloadable file that makes fun of exactly this point - that there are too many buzzwords in business and we all need to simplify.

IPRB: When would it be available in India?

Rohit: The India release will be at the end of May. I am hoping to have a chance to be there later this year!

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We will be reviewing Rohit’s book very shortly and let you know what our panel of experts think about it from the Indian perspective. And when Rohit visits India, we will surely have an opportunity to meet and interact with him. Till then, happy reading and keep visiting.