Last night the Kings XI Punjab made another killing! Shaun Marsh produced what some would colloquially describe as giving a right walloping and Yuvraj Singh followed through with more arson on the pitch; the two are the cynosure of all eyes in the cricket world in India, the Commonwealth continents and many points further.

This wasn’t always the case, suddenly a team that was for long an underdog is making huge waves. The IPL analogy is no different, it came from nowhere and took over the house, and those in the marketing and PR fraternity who were watching the wind speed and its direction are smiling, while the laggards are now wringing their hands in furious frustration at the massive opportunity loss.

A few months have passed since the marketing and PR landscape got hijacked by IPL, the usual heavy-lids marketing and PR veteran, already bored to death with the monotony of the hot summer, mistook it for a flash in the pan, many weeks later it was still there refusing to go away like a bad nightmare, rocketing TRPs and bringing in eyeballs by the truck load for competition; the ones who got on the band wagon are laughing to the brand bank, the ones that did not have conceded defeat. The ’serial shock’ gave all channels a huge scare and the war moved from the pitch to the air waves as the IPL tsunami sucked all eyes to a single channel away from the staple ’soap and serial’ diet!

Team sponsorships that went a begging are now worth their weight in gold and next season; by all means, do please expect to see the phenomenon of inflation translate to cricket sponsorship. In these incredulous times of USD 130 for a barrel of crude oil, why should inflation be confined to steel, onions and cement?

The fight for eye balls has been won by mobile companies, banks and FMCG companies being the usual suspect that also ran and got some successes. The losers were car and bike companies, ringed in first by the RBI triggered, inflation killer, CRR measures, that squeezed the already flat credit situation. Across packed stadium; the howls of delight and screams of incredulity submerged the Bloomberg story reporting how this had been the lowest growth in the last 10 quarters for India.

As crude oil price insanity triggered troubling visions of more tax and ‘cess-upon-more-cess’ crowded my radar, the oil companies were slowly sinking and losses were being reported first time in the current quarters of these public sector behemoths. As ministries quibbled over customs, excise, luxury tax and oil stabilisation funds, the screams of cricket hooliganism in stadiums kept growing louder, so much more dignified than the marauding Chelsea club fans in England that would shame Genghis Khan but the days are not far! Welcome to the Indian version of the superbowl!

As stories got pitched to the print, television and online spaces and the pickled brain of the now smiling senior PR types picked up the sweet stink of plugs a headline or byte away, agencies were being whipped to leverage the sponsorship investment and brand types were churning websites and campaigns by the dime across outdoor, print and online; search or ad word. Here in this very fertile climate unnoticed a bevy of writers, television anchors and producers were taking birth.

In the text message histrionics of Shah Rukh Khan and Vijay Mallya’s tantrums, the hugs of Preity Zinta and the exploits of Ness Wadia with the Punjab Police hijacked dinner and tea time conversations across the homes and offices of the unsuspecting consumer in a heady brew, without alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. Healthy I thought!

In this entire din, the lessons have been many and things have changed forever in sports marketing and PR. The heady mix of entertainment, blaring team songs and not to forget the introduction of cheer leaders in a morality stricken nation, helped tone down changes that would have otherwise not gone down well.

I am talking about the erosion of nationality as the basis for cricket teams. Questions about how ex-team mates will reconcile their fury and belligerence once IPL is over and things are back to normal for the Indian, Sri Lankan, Australian and many other teams. Of course and then unlearning all that when the next IPL starts. In the confines of Wankhede, Eden Gardens, Mohali and many other cricket stadiums, the energy was electric and someone watching the same show on TV would never understand the fury of the music, the hysteria whipped up by the cheer leaders and the crowd as it chanted favourites or booed down others.

The good change that has again gone largely unnoticed like the bad is the new faces that have got the opportunity to play with the reigning cricket gods. Good for India and good for cricket and definitely good for brand endorsement, marketing and Public Relations!

As I wait for the semi-finals, I doff my hat to LK Modi and despite the large headline in a prominent Indian newspaper harking back to a real or imagined misdemeanor 20 years ago in a foreign country, life in India after IPL will never be the same! They are obviously trying to get back at his temerity in bringing in IPL Media Guidelines in the usual petty and spiteful style characteristic of the large egos of the rather spoilt Indian press fraternity. Long live IPL!

More than 250 PR professionals from across India and abroad will meet at the upcoming mega PR conference - the annual 29th All India PR Conference from December 13-15, 2007 at Green Park Hotel, Chennai. Yup, it’s a three day Woodstock, where the networking will flow free and sharing of ideas and PR guru mantras will be the order of the day. The beer and the entertainment will flow in the evenings.

The theme for this year’s conference is ‘infrastructure’. The PRSI site explains - The gains of infrastructure development will be seriously affected if there is failure or delay in its continued progression; failure or delay could affect the lives of the common man and, indeed, GDP growth. PRSI members believe that there is need to take the subject of infrastructure development beyond industrial boundaries, to impress its importance to as many as possible. However, such an exercise is best carried out in a non-technical manner. And that can be achieved by using PR as a tool and as a platform to deliberate upon the subject.

There are more than 30 speakers and the list is impressive. Some of the sessions that should not be missed include:

a. Communications & PR in the Context, by Prof Atul Tandon - Director Mudra Inst of Communications - MICA, December 13, 5.30pm

b. Communications and PR - Critical Role in PPP initiatives, by Mr Rohit Modi, Chief Executive - Roads & Bridges, L&T, Dec 14, 9am

c. PR enabling City Infrastructure build-up - operations & maintenance, by Mr V Suresh - Director Aerens Golk Souk (Former CMD - HUDCO), Dec 14, 10.15am

d. Good PR aspects in enabling DMRC operations, by Mr Anuj Dayal - Chief PRO - Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Dec 14, 10.15am

e. IT Infrastructure and PR / Communication Challenges, by Mr David Appaswamy – Chief Communications Officer, Sify Limited, Dec 15, 10.15am

f. Aspects of Rural Communications, by Mr R V Rajan - MD, Anugraha Madison, Dec 15, 1.15pm

g. PR in Co-operative Society, by Mr S.W.M. Rizvi - GM PR Hindalco Industries, Dec 15, 1.15pm

Also don’t miss out the PRSI Awards of Excellence on the third day of the conference for the best of House Journals, Bulletins, Brochures, Annual Reports, and Corporate Films and awarded to Corporates PR departments, PR consultants and advertising agencies.

So if you are an ambitious PR professional who believes in getting good PR training and networking with the key people in the Indian PR industry, we will see you at the event. Similarly for HR departments of PR agencies or mass communication institutes, sponsoring your young Account managers or students, in addition the top bosses, for such events could be one way of telling your employees you want to see them grow and get exposure.

This year’s conference is being hosted by PRSI Chennai.

There is rarely an important event where you don’t have a media desk or room. This is usually manned by a well known PR agency, who may have also arranged for computers, Wi-Fi and refreshments for journalists. But are they being resourceful enough to meet the more critical needs of the media present?

The answer could be a resounding NO in most cases. And this is true for events in Delhi, London, Hong Kong, and other parts of the world – from small ones to those with multi-million dollar budgets. The reasons for this conclusion, from personal experience, are:

1. Where are the pictures? Why can’t media be provided pictures of the event real time? Eiter these are not being taken, or are being provided after a few days or weeks. The media needs pictures not only today, but now – especially online ones. And of course, with proper captions. Needs all of two people to manage this.

2. Why can’t speaker lists and bios be updated? It is normal for speakers at events to be changed at the last minute – these changes may not reflect in the conference booklets. What does it take to provide updates printed from a computer? Saves a lot of confusion, follow-up effort and misrepresentation later.

3. Are you serving the 2.0 media? Imagine if blogs and other online media started covering the event in the form of podcasts and videocasts? A whole new audience may connect in the process. All it takes for PR managers is place audio recorders and handycams at conferences, upload the files on a server and pass on the links. Media can do their own editing if they want to. Would also be useful to those who missed attending the event personally.

4. Conference summaries? The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is quite good at this – they have someone covering conferences and issuing releases based on the proceedings. Particularly useful when there are multiple sessions on at any given time. Surely this can be done by others too?

No doubt PR agencies bill their clients good amount – surely they can do more than just acting as a registration desk. In fact, the PR agencies themselves would be the biggest beneficiaries: The quality and quantity of media coverage can go up substantially if just a few of the above simple things are taken care of. And they can bill the clients for the additional services – this sum would generally be a small fraction of the overall budget of the event which a client should be able to justify.

Ajay Jain is also a freelance journalist and publishes his blogs AjayJain.com and TechGazing.com. He can be contacted at ajay@ajayjain.com

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