It is a mess and it is all over the place and it is not going away in a hurry. The stock market is toast, the oil price is freaking out in the USD 150s, real estate and financial services are tanking like the titanic! Everyone knows that we are in the middle of a meltdown and the effects of inflation have just about started to ruin the financial results of companies.

The politics of the nation are in the gutter and the uncertainty that clouds all decision making both in the public and private enterprise will continue well into the next year, if and when another government comes into being. A government that is cross subsidising the oil bill and some other future government will reap the whirlwind and some whirlwind it will be for sure, and I quote Rahul Bhasin of Barings in the DNA, where he said, “We are frittering away our gains made in the last 15 years”.

Against the background of this carnage in corporate India, the bean counters are finally seeing resurgence, like desert plants, they have waiting out the decade of exuberance. Today they are rising like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes, and promise to be the bane of many brands, marketing campaigns and other assorted still born initiatives. Austerity is back like the rude shock of a cold water bath in the freezing winter!

When the accountant’s chop does come down on big-ticket advertising, out-of-home and television commercials, these being the pet peeves of the accountant  PR promises to stay untouched. Having said that budgets for travel, off sites, media training, and all those nice fuzzy things are bound to dry up real quick, if not disappear all together. In all this skirmishing, fortunately for PR, most corporates have come to understand that it is not an on-and-off thing and if anything, some might even find it the last refuge of the marketing to reach their target publics in times of budgetary paucity.

The job market for PR professional and Communicators promises to retain traction and the moaning for talent will stay the wail it is, so here is one area that I again see no effect of the slow down, if anything it could lead to many more corporates hiring for the reasons above.

Challenges bring opportunities and usually constitute the need, the same need that spurs innovation and fosters new paradigms and discoveries. These are the times to service your customer better and to vow to be closer to the business and not lose accounts on reasons of tardiness, inefficiency or downright stupidity! I see many avenues that were shoveled into the “not important or urgent” quadrants due the presence of other ‘lazy cheque’ populars suddenly becoming fashionable. The medium I am talking about and maybe one who’s time has finally come in India, is the online medium.

This is the time to knock again and dust off those online plans, whether it is a programme to engage key bloggers in your space, or kick off that e-mail campaign or spend your remaining rupees in the pursuit of a web-only viral marketing or buzz marketing campaign!

I wish you well in these nasty times, so get dug in and wait it out, this too shall pass, maybe not soon enough but you can always take the time to do something you always wanted to attempt, something forbidden, constructive, intellectual, delicious and inspiring! I look forward to comments here!

As communication gets more complicated and cluttered, confusing and converged into one, I wonder how it is impacting the cultural fabric of our country. Is it impacting in the desired manner? Are we reaching out to the desired target audiences? Are we confusing mass culture with niche metro culture? Are we getting too carried away by the homogenized look of the masses and forgetting that we are a multi cultural, highly heterogeneous, hugely diverse and an enthusiastic populace that is devouring messages by the minute?

How informed are we as sources of communications about our own cultural intricacies ?

Too many questions actually… and they don’t necessarily bother me, but keep me asking for more, wondering how we could customize communication for every bit of that audience.

When you talk of digital communications, it is more or less assumed, (correct me if I am wrong) that it is a homogenized mass of audience. So you could be sitting anywhere in the world, of any religion, region, caste or community, the moment you are on Digital platform, the way you react to messages and information is pretty much predictable. But that is not so in the case of traditional media. There was a time when it was compulsory to understand folk cultures and integrate that in communication plans to reach out to target audiences. I am not sure about how many today are even aware of the various forms of communication, which trust me even tooday are not redundant and are very dynamic and effective forms of communication.

Traditionally we are still very rudimentary in the way we absorb information. We are driven culturally in how we absorb information; there is lot of semiotics at play and communication is multi layered as you tread deeper into the country. The sensitivities are different, issues and priorities are different, geographies are disputed and history is questioned. And yet in all of this resides the consumer we are targeting and the stakeholder of our Clients’ companies. How do we reach out to them?

I don’t know how many of us in the PR or rather communication’s business understands the intricacies of our own cultures? Of how diverse we are, what we read, what we like, what we watch and what we need to know… Knowing the regional media list is one thing…tapping audiences on social networking sites is another thing, but reaching out to the diaspora in their own setting and convincing them of our Client’s profiles and needs is a different ball game altogether.

I would like to leave this discussion open ended. I am not an expert to conclude it in any way. For many of you digital media could be bridging the gap between the heterogeneous mass of audiences… for many of you, traditional media and folk media may still be doing the trick of reaching out to the last man standing…the choice is ours, the call is ours to take…but I would be sad to know that we are homogenizing India to believe that we all have access to internet, we all can read and write and all those who don’t have either of the above i.e. have an internet connection and are literate are not the ones using the goods we sell and services we offer.

Customizing our messages is just the first step…finding alternate forms of media (am not talking of new age media) could just be step two.

I assume you know why I am late in posting this post today.

I assume you know by now what I am going to write today.

I assume that you must have got decent increment this time and your CV is not floating in the market.

I assume that you have been reading and will keep on reading whatever I write in my post.

We all assume. We all assume lot of things. Imagine a world without assumptions. Would you be able to live in this kind of world, where everything is non-politically correct and being expressed as it is? Yes, one such world exists but it may be too personal to involve anybody else than me and my wife! :) But, please don’t assume anything yet. She is the one who taught me the power of expression and she’s my biggest inspiration to continue expressing whatever I feel like with you guys without really bothering to think about whether it is politically correct, whether is this the right platform to talk about everything I have been speaking to you or whether I should just stick to whatever I learnt in my B-school or on the job. She knows quite a few things but doesn’t want to assume those and wants me to express it again and again in many ways. This is getting really interesting and I can write endlessly about my wife and what I learn from her but I have to do a justice to the platform and do not talk too much about my personal assumptions and expressions. So, shhh!!

I had a review meeting with some clients. As usual, they assumed that agency did not do any work as per their wish and command. They expressed their unhappiness to my colleagues as well. They assumed that journalists know everything about them. They spoke to journalists on the false assumption they know the business and the company they are speaking to and made lots of mistakes in the process. They assumed agency will take it easy and say ‘yes’ to whenever they will express their unhappiness.

Unfortunately, they had to deal with me and only thing they might have not assumed is my agency’s ability to express in a manner, which probably not many from service industry are capable of doing it.

To cut the long story short, I walked out on the CEO of the organization and demonstrated extreme displeasure to him about the way they are not listening to the team and agency. After a while, I went back to the CEO and obliged him by talking to them about why they don’t know how to express and living in the world full of assumptions. Told him about his inability to live the brand, informed him about how he’s losing money to us without really utilising the brain my agency has and in the process enlightened him on the power of communication.

In the end, he expressed his pleasure in one line – saying that for the first time in his long career as a CEO someone has really walked out on him to prove a point and he’s convinced that expressing it is always better than assuming it.

Anyways, the objective of the post is to let you know my friends that if you are convinced about what you are doing is right. Just go ahead and do it. Don’t assume anything, express everything and express it effectively.

So, my dear wife, when you want me to express my feelings, I know what you are talking about… I am learning and I am happy to express and admit in front of my readers that I am learning it all from you and only you.

Express yourself! Phir pata nahi kal ho na ho…

Interesting isn’t it? I am Tushar - a small time PR guy trying to find some common ground to be in the league of these two extra ordinary gentlemen. But, whoever has seen all three of us telling stories they might agree to what I am going to say. We all are great entertainers. We all love telling stories. We all love what we do. We all go all out to woo the people whom we love – customers, clients, consumers, teammates and so many other people who matter to us. Well, this story is not about me trying to prove that I am as great a personality as SRK or Steve Jobs is, but this is a story about what makes them what they are today and why I am like them or why you should be like them…

Well, what these guys do? One is the most successful CEO of corporate world and other one is the most successful actor of the Indian film industry. But, both of them have only one job, and the job is to create aspirations.

Look at them. Have you ever seen both these guys making a presentation? I have seen both of them and have learnt a lot from them. And yes, I am reaching somewhere close to them as far as my presentations are concerned… or at least, I would like to pretend that I am in the same league.

When they start, they set the tone right from the beginning itself. They start a story with a gripping headline which grabs your attention from the very first sentence itself. They create larger than life image. The words they use make you feel demanding more and you are in their grip. Steve likes to use superlatives at any given opportunity, so does SRK – excellent, path breaking, amazing, redefining and these metaphors sound so nice when they are used properly (obviously not in our press releases!), so use them…

They make meaningful dialogue with the audience, which reflects their true personality. They don’t hide emotions, they even show their arrogance. They convincingly involve you with their passion for the profession using the great sense of humour and perfect timing of delivering the story with proper voice modulation. The complete showman style – for us our presentations are our movies and we need to live those moments. Even if there are numbers, we have to make it more meaningful so that client doesn’t have to look for a calculator or Dr. Math’s book. If you are using power point – learn the art of Zen, which makes you realise the best known principle of life to live with is minimum is maximum!

The passion and experience combined with in-depth knowledge of what you do is a lethal combination for any presenter. But conditions apply. Use it wisely. When you can kill an elephant with a small needle why to use F-16!? Use everything in right quantity. Focus on quality and enjoy every moment of your interaction with the audience. Laugh with them. Dance with them. Do something they never expected – I remember in one of the presentations, I went with ‘Manjira’ (I am sorry but I don’t know what is it called in English!) and in middle of the presentation I removed them from my jacket’s pocket and played music! Well, it was to prove a certain point and to wake up few of them. Many of the participants whom I am still in touch with remember me as the “Manjira man!” :) and I achieved what I wanted…

Many a times, I won pitches even without opening up my laptop for creds! And it is possible. If I can do it, you can also do it. It’s not a rocket science. It is even easier than participating in “Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?” and winning few lakhs of rupees.

And finally before I end this post, I want to share an open secret of success. Winning is important and losing is even more important. Collaborate every win and celebrate every loss. As the SRK said in one of his movies… Kabhi kabhi kuch pane ke liye kuch khona bhi padta hain, Aur haar ke jeetane wale ko baazigar kehte hain… So my dear friends, sometimes you can even learn few good things from the people you never met and I don’t mind accepting the fact that I have learnt a lot from each one of them – the Eklavya way!

Make winning a habit. Just do it! And do it in style… who you want to follow SRK, Steve or me! Choice is yours…

God Bless! Take care and see you soon.

Someone very dear said this to me. Well, If you are expecting me to share who told this to me and in what context it was told to me, then I am sorry my dear friends, you will be disappointed. It’s a secret!

But, what is not secret is here in this post today. This statement made me realize a very important aspect in our life and I started thinking about it. I discovered that many a times we enjoy this immense invisible power that remains with us all the time and we use it knowingly or unknowingly to make our life better.

What is this power? Well, this power is known in many words – I call it love, you may call it affection, Sachin may call it passion and Shah Rukh may call is Kkkkiran – whatever metaphor you may want to use to describe this, but the fact is that we all have this unique and invisible power to identify and judge our actions. This power drives us to make various decisions in our life – a career we have to select, a partner we have to be with, a house we have to stay in, a job we have to do or even a brand we have to buy!

Look at all of us. We wear certain brands of clothes, wear certain perfume, drive a particular car or ride a nice bike or even pick up one particular brand of Basmati rice! Even if we buy something else because of some reason, we always feel little sadness deep within us that probably I made a wrong choice. Isn’t it happened with you more than once?

I have seen people working in a particular organization or working in a particular profession (say PR!?) and do not want to change the job despite getting many lucrative offers or getting repetitive threats from their bosses. I have seen people watching the same movie again and again. I have seen people getting upset when the kids play on the bonnet of their parked car. I have seen people traveling to other corner of the city to have a special tea from ‘that’ tea vender or to enjoy a special paan from a Muchchad Paanwalah! I have seen people spending millions of rupees for small things like getting that special number for their cellular phone… I can go on and on…

But the question is what this Invisible Power is?

Emotions.

Yes, emotions. We are all driven by emotions and nothing in this world can control emotions. Yes, by doing certain action, you can modify the impact of emotions in a positive or negative manner, but you can not take away the emotions from any individual on this earth. Without emotions you can’t even communicate. Narrate your story with passion and your pitch will be accepted by your consumers. All great stories; all successful movies, all successful brands, all successful business, all successful people are driven by emotions and nothing else!

Add a little bit of power of this invisible force in your life and see the difference. Start now and write back to me before next Thursday with your experience and we will talk further. Till then, enjoy the power! Take care.

Every once in a  while, there comes the case of a company that is unable to throughput communication in stark contrast to its otherwise brilliant performance indices. I have sought to understand this malady now and again but a chance conversation yesterday with a known genius in the Indian Financial Services space triggered this post. If you are the guardian angel of the Aspirational; the evangelist with passion, fire and a head full of mindgames, the PR kind, then read on…

Perception lags performance, due to many reasons. The causes manifest themselves in three primary reasons. For a Public Relations, Communications or Brand consultant, it is important to understand the terrain before they pick up on a project that seeks to break logjams in the media and perception circuits for a customer.

Breaking gridlocks and logjams for late entrants to the perception game requires special skills, the tricks  and tactics have been there forever, question is have you ever thought about it, enough to elevate it to strategy?

Changing share of voice in the media and lecture circuit from a inane buzz to the screaming roar of a Ferrari or shepherding your customer (internal or external depends which side of the table you are sat) from the mind-numbing terrors and traps in the media, triggering a turbo boost for your spokesperson in terms of messaging uptake and effectiveness, is what this post is about.

Firstly, an inability or fear of dealing with the media due to a past bad experience can make efforts hard or non-starters. Media Relations is an art that requires constant practice, the ride comes with bumps and smooth stretches, sporadic crises thrown in for spice.  You give, you get, but you always talk! There is media out there that is out to trick you out, will they hesitate to rubbish your carefully build reputation for an exclusive? Absolutely not for a second! Can PR change the game for your business? Absolutely yes! Good comes with the bad, package deal like with most things in life. If you are going to get anywhere, you need to get started! Tell them like it is, chances are that they take risks in business everyday and will grow into the act with a little hand holding from you, the specialist!

Secondly, there is a clique out there as in most other domains, these ‘usual suspects’ then pretty much control the share of voice in the media, and this maybe specific to a beat. The media is most times too lazy to do any hard digging when mapping a business space and again relies on the ‘usual suspects’, who maybe be convenient darling MDs, CEOs and other assorted rabble rousers. Awards: every publication and their mother has an award stacked with their favourites, breaking into this game needs perseverance, a nose for ‘distress sales’, finally being able to work the apex bodies like CII, FICCI, NASSCOM, etc, for advocacy and influencer relations.

Third and last here, is clearly a lack of process internally at the client organisation be it in terms of communication superstructure, even if one does exist, its ability to deliver strategic advice to management may be suspect in hierarchy driven situations or where communicators are too junior to be taken seriously. Some people use external consultants to tell them what is known already as it brings a credibility they lack.

Anyone can tell you that game changing maneuvers are few and far in between as stereotypes and ’safe’ options abound but if you as a PR professional were ever able to affect changes that made a company’s perception congruent with its performance as benchmarked against its peers, then you indeed deserve to be in the hall of fame. If commitment is your destiny and you can help tell a story that is true and ethical but inconvenient, then you are indeed one lucky person!

We need our heroes just like we need our war stories to feel good about the tribe and what it does, so come on give!

After doing battle with scaremongering for the last couple of posts, here’s me wimping out and spinning my own doomsday special for you. Unusually I have had more than enough sleep so this is not sleep deprivation either. The media is awash with the Union Budget news and I don’t seem to agree with anything that is being sold by various economists, interest groups, lobbyists and politicians. As is won’t, this promises to be an election budget with populist measures that will whittle away tax payers money (yes this usually represents a third of your income on the pay slip!) in rubbish schemes but nothing can make me unhappy today. I am surprisingly happy considering the fact that there is really no good news!

So to the topic of my post: Is Web 2.0 becoming Bubble 2.0 and Social Networking becoming Social Notworking (sic)? If you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ve probably seen the internet bubble of 2000 and its crazy outlandish pony tail visage. Funny part is, nothing was too freak or outlandish to pitch for a business plan if it included a website in it. The market was awash with venture capital dollars and run rate or burn rate were common place terms in those circles. Not much survived that era and the remnants of this internet bubble largesse did not last.

When Google bought a loss making YouTube for USD 1.65 Billion, followed by the crazy valuations at facebook.com and myspace.com, and a seemingly crazier bid of USD 47 Billion by Microsoft for Yahoo, I knew that Free is Back! Recently AOL decided to offer free e-mail, with many free goodies including XM Radio, Anti Virus, 5 Gig online storage, etc, etc. Incidentally the poor cousin Indian version of AOL does not offer these!

There is more bad news on the horizon as Google stock fell 38 per cent on a report by comscore that AD clicks on Google had been flat in the month of January as compared to last year. This was widely reported across the world and created tremors that were felt far away from its epicentre.

Facebook has recently retreated on its aggressive advertising venture known as the Beacon after howls of protest from its subscribers, numbers which incidentally for the first time started to plateau. Google similarly is showing signs of a slow down. All this coupled with the strong privacy issues that have plagued all large players in the social networking are really a cause for worry where the future of the web 2.0 is concerned.

The benefits that it has bought to the enterprise business in terms of collaboration tools like blogs, widgets, twitters and IM as a result of user generated content can not be ignored but at the same time the impact of social networking has been minimal besides online advertising. This is even more pronounced in India due our insulation from the west both in terms of cultural differences and internet infrastructure bottlenecks across 3G spectrum as well as simple broadband. What it can do is hopelessly mix up your personal and professional life and inadvertently give access to people about your personal information, which you’d much rather keep to yourself and your social ilk.

The other is the time spent wasting company resources while on the job doing what is popularly being referred to as social NOTworking! This is a real concern as, while many managements have draconian solutions but it is important for all CIOs and CTOs to consider how much of the technology and infrastructure that they provide is actual used by employees, and how much is in the nature of freeware which certainly brings a lot of productivity to the enterprise including web based e-mail, instant messaging services as well as social networking tools.

Back into the PR paddock in India, I would love to hear from PR Firms who actually have a social media list they actively use, and dedicated resources who are real practitioners, with real customers without getting my bullshit meter in the red.

If you are bleeding from the budget take hope and have a great weekend!

A strong correlation has been observed between a company’s corporate communications and the company’s ranking on Fortune magazine’s ‘World’s Most Admired Companies’ list. The professional background, communications priorities, and inter-organizational relationships of the corporate communications head are also indicators of the ability of a corporate communications department to make a positive impact on a company’s reputation. These are some of the results of a survey ‘The Rising CCO (Chief Communications Officer)’ of 141 corporate communications executives from Fortune 500 companies in the US and Europe, conducted by global PR firm Weber Shandwick, executive search firm Spencer Stuart, and KRC Research.

The research also found that communications executives in the world’s most highly regarded companies have more prominent organizational status and longer tenures than their counterparts in contender companies. Additionally, approximately one-third of CCOs from the most admired companies cite corporate reputation as their number one priority for 2008, compared to fewer than one-quarter of CCOs from contender companies (34 vs. 21 percent, respectively). Contender company communications executives said they were spending more time working on product-related issues and crisis communications, while most admired CCOs said they spent more time on corporate social responsibility and building corporate reputation.

Based on Fortune’s 2006 Most Admired Survey (March 19, 2007). In general, Most Admired Companies are the most highly ranked companies in an industry on overall reputation. Contender Companies are ranked in the industry’s bottom half.

Other key findings are:

1. CCOs’ responsibilities will increasingly shift from tactical to strategic. While CCOs are carving out their role as strategic partners at the highest levels of business, they view work today as predominately tactical (58 percent tactical, 42 percent strategic). This imbalance, as reported by those surveyed, is sure to change as focus shifts from financial communications, media relations and internal communications to the broader strategic issues of environmental/social responsibility and corporate reputation. The tools used to perform their jobs will expand as well, with blogging/social media and corporate Web sites becoming increasingly important.

2. CCOs hold prominent positions at the world’s largest companies. Nearly one-half surveyed report directly to the chief executive officer (48 percent) and are visible to their boards (had a median seven interactions with their board during the past year).

3. CCOs and CMOs are friends and rivals. CCOs’ dynamic relationship with chief marketing officers (CMOs)–often a main rival and ally–reflects the growing influence of communications in today’s marketing mix.

4. Measurement of CCO effectiveness is predominately qualitative. The vast majority of those surveyed report being measured on qualitative measures such as “positive” media coverage (75 percent) and CEOs’ “gut” feel (73 percent). They are least likely to be measured by quantitative metrics such as the number of media mentions (35 percent) and ability to control costs (32 percent).

Am sure you are aware that with the year closing in on us, it was time for reviews and serious introspection. So we all got back to our drawing boards to review the year gone by for our Clients, work on Annual Strategies for the coming year and discuss the highs and lows with regards to plans, achievements and bloopers and at the end of it all we all were unanimous about one realisation that hit us… that clients were no longer willing to be satisfied with Vanilla PR…. not happy with the regular press conference, press briefings, press releases, one on ones et al…WHAT NEXT was the question they all asked! And thankfully since my Agency had always groomed us towards thinking 360 degrees communications and not just basic PR, we were happy and also anxious at the same time.

Happy since we knew that that was coming and like I mentioned earlier, the Agency that I work for has always driven us towards working on Integrated Communication Stratgies… we were always made to understand not only the PR mandate of the Client, but understand his business goals, his business objectives, his need to reach out to various stakeholders and then create a Communication Stratgey that was more holistic. So a lot of research, industry awareness went into all our strategies that gave the Client an insight into what he could expect and what would be the end result. The strategy would not only reflect our understanding of the Client’s market. his audiences, his products and services but give the Client an insight into how we would achieve them. The Communication Strategy would thus include Vanilla PR Strategies of course, but also try and move it to the next level of PR…which was contact programmes, associations, networking meetings with industry audiences, blogging, online discussions, emphasis on collateral creation, events, meet-n-greets with stakeholders and not to foerget CSR. CSR is fast becoming not just a philanthrophic concept, but a crucial tool to reach out to the serious audiences as well… and we integrate a lot of that too at various levels, local,. regional, national and international…

Now why would we be anxious…anxious because this level of advanced Public Relations strategies needs expertise at the work force level and that is somehow missing. Talent is in dire poverty and that sometimes hampers the standard of execution and the convertability of plans into actions. Understanding of basic communication theories is crucial and I am not too sure how much in-depth knowledge do the kids have today to take PR to the next level. You can train resources in-house to understand the ushering new technology and how innovation is quickening the pace of communication…but communication theories by Harold Lasswell and Marshall McLuhan are as relevant today and need to be understood to be able to implement modern technology and inovation into mass communication strategies and make PR more effective.

Am kicked about the new year since I have been lucky to have Clients that are not just media savvy but understand the ethos of communication, know what their end consumers or audiences want and are not happy with mundane text book PR…and why is that good news? Since my team and I are now gonna juggle with some great strategies and bring them to life with encouragement and support of my Clients…and as far as talent is concerned…looks like a session or two on the traditional communication theories will only enhance what we have to offer.

Cheers and have a great new year
–
Madhavi Mukherjee
Senior Consultant and Practice Head Media&Entertainment
Hanmer&Partners
Email: madhavi@hanmerpr.com

Tech Tags: pr public+relations india

We have learned through experience or through academics that there is basic simple model of communication. Here, you have a sender, who creates the message then you have the receiver who receives the message. There are 5 key elements that define a communication process:

Source – the originator of message, codes the message
Message – a set of signs and symbol
Receiver – the message intended to, decodes the message
Channel – a means of communication or access
Noise – any form of disturbance (physical, psychological) that can disturb the original contents of the message

The above is the Linear Model of Communication which was constructed by Shannon & Weaver, 1949. The communication is successful, only when the receiver gives feedback in a particular form of communication.

Basic models of communication were based on one-to-one (letter writing) or one-to-many (speeches, television broadcast) form of communication. Since then models of communication evolved into something more complex, only because more elements have become prominent like the fact technology giving us an opportunity to talk to one-to-many-to-many-to-one form of communication.

New media networked communication model are:

1. One-to-One Communication
2. One-to-Many Communication
3. Many-to-One Communication
4. One-to-Many-to-Many Communication

Source: IAOCblog
Image Source: IAOCblog

One-to-one communication: bloggers writing on a particular topical subject. This could be a crisis situation being faced by the country internally or externally – Bloggers became very vocal with ISP’s banning particular blogs in July 2006 – that is when the popularity and power of blogs took notice. There is a common cause that people start writing about it and then join in on the conversation and spread the word.

One-to-many communication: Robert Scoble says IE7 is slower than FireFox on some web sites on certain websites. Source. Robert Scoble is a technical evangelist, and author; best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer. If an influencer, like Robert Scoble who would give his views on a brand after research and experiencing the product, it would surely affect the brand. Since there are people who follow him diligently and have heard that they would actually try to be the first one to comment on his blog. Similarly his views on micro-blog called twitter did gain a lot of popularity after he penned down his views on his blog.

Many-to-One Communication: discussions being initiated and participated in multiple platforms on various online forums – movies, characters, actors are being discussed on Bollywood forums - India Forums; new technology and usability of technology being discussed on technology forums; New games, new episodes, new virtual characters being a point of conversation on the different discussion boards of Gamers India. But does all this information being discussed on public platforms reaching the organization? Are the organizations tracking these various conversations about their brand? Doubt it!

One-to-Many-to-Many Communication: This model of communication would be a combination of the new media and their power to influence a potential customer to buy a brand. New Media would include blogs, online forums, reviews, podcasts, micro-blogs, video sharing, photo sharing, online groups, social networking sites, second life and MMORPG.
—

I would like to highlight my observations on the key elements of New Media communication models. These key elements would be more progressive and rapidly developing. These elements would be more flexible to include any new form or a combination of forms of communication. There would still be a sender and a receiver but there focus would lie not on the originator and the recipient but the discussion itself. These elements would be:

Create – creating original messages based on the individual’s personal expertise or experience

Content – content can be in the form of video, audio, pictures, images, graphical representation or plain text

Context – the environment in which the message was created – technology platform provided like that of a blog, online forum, social networking site

Collaborate – real time interactivity in the form of comments or discussion threads. For illustration to improvise a particular product and co-creating a brand – works well with technology based products which are in beta mode

Converse – intention to share, collaborate and looking forward to feedback.