Recently we did an event for an eye wear company for the launch of its new collection. Even though I knew it was totally a lifestyle event, I was expecting a little bit of a corporate element in it. May be because I was running away from the lifestyle part of it as I personally don’t like it much. My experience with lifestyle PR has been not so well.

After handling some of these so called ‘lifestyle’ events, I thought lifestyle PR was nothing but more of a coordination job.

Back to the event, the venue was full of the page three type people and the models were walking on the ramp. We forgot we were there for an event and started getting the feel of a ‘party’ even though, every minute the phone would ring and the journalists would remind you that you are there for work and not to enjoy the ‘party’.

Strangely, I found the media too enthusiastic to attend the event. We did very less of the follow ups.

But there was nothing to be happy about it. Besides it was really a tough job to control the media during such events. Every one of them needs time with a celebrity for a byte and if something goes wrong, then it’s the PR agency that is to be blamed for that.

Talking about that, it’s been noticed that PR agencies are to be blamed for everything that go wrong at these types of events. Despite the fact that the person is out of control after three pegs of a drink, they wanted to speak to the media and give their ’special’ comments. Another problem is the timing, which needs to be taken care of. Most of the time, celebrities are not available before or after the event and sometime they are not in the MOOD to speak to the media. Again the PR agency is on fire.

We had more than five events recently with some famous celebrities for the launch of spas, fitness machines, etc. The only job the PR agency did was coordinating the timing for the interactions with the media. There were lots of fight for getting the interactions first, before any other. We had to refuse interactions for some of the media houses due to time constraint. I felt it could have been done by their secretaries or personal assistants as well.

Lifestyle PR is totally different from corporate PR. Here, we are not selling the company news, corporate figures, or any marketing strategies. The only thing media and the public want is celebrity and related gossip. I felt so odd when celebrity talked about her upcoming movies during the interaction. I felt like limiting their conversation only to the event and the organizer company. But that’s not the way things works. Readers need little more masala.

Sometime this masala creates crisis situation. For example, when one celebrity slapped his girlfriend few hours before an event. Consequently the entire coverage turned to their personal story and the media highlighted the slap case instead of what the event was all about. Everybody enjoyed the masala news and the channels gained their much desired TRPs, but that left the PR agency with a crisis situation. The client wants the event coverage, not the personal affairs of the celebrities.

It is becoming a trend to use celebrity as a brand ambassador to promote the brand. Companies can’t think of launching anything without a celebrity. Even few car manufacturers are using celebrities to launch their cars in the market. So celebrities are anyhow becoming a part of the corporate events as well. Hence PR agencies need to make a tight grip on corporate as well as lifestyle PR. To cope up this situation we need to gear up and accept the case that lifestyle PR is now an integral part of Corporate PR.

It doesn’t happen just with Hollywood or Bollywood stars. Sportsmen are also increasingly participating in this maddening but profitabe melee. The problems are same. I remember when I organised a face to face interaction for the opening batsman of the India Cricket team with one of the biggest publications. This interaction was the result of two days hard work but finally Mr.Batsman denied speaking to that particular publication, due to some personal reason. The PR agency got a major blasting from the journalist, who was waiting for his turn for more than three hours.

Another bad experience was when one of clients decided to take another world famous Indian cricketer (brand ambassador) to shopping for one day. However, the surprise was when Mr.World famous cricketer couldn’t speak much about the company his endorsing before the media. I believe they need proper media training before they face any media on behalf of any company.

All said and done, lifestyle PR seems to need a little more style from the PR agency and PR persons. It reminds me a dialogue from the movie DHOOM: HUM JO BHI KARENGE STYLE SE KARENGE.

I saw this post by Richard at the PR Place talking about expensive press stunts as a waste of money and made me think again about how we organise big media events here in India and do all of them really make sense.

Richard wrote that expensive press stunts are a waste of money which could be better spent on other PR activities. Whilst the quantity of coverage can be extensive, the type and quality of the coverage of poor.

His case study was a PR stunt organised by Motorola in which a PR pro was accompanying a mountaineer (Rod Baber) on his trip up Mount Everest to make the world’s highest mobile phone call. Even though Motorola invested a lot resources in the activity, some of the media didn’t mentioned Motorola at all and there were some negative coverage as well.

Back home, we organise all sorts of media events. Events can be simple, creative, and unique (without much expense) and the media can get interested in covering these. However, there are not many of such that we have heard of. These are particularly those few that are of mass appeal or of those subjects that are already topical and are being talked about among the masses at a particular time.

Then there are events for our clients’ product launches, VIP visits, office openings, anniversaries, etc. For such occasions, we help our clients invite celebrity movie or sport stars, and help organise fashion shows, stage skits, belly dance performance, musical performance, etc. in a bid to attract more audience and media. I even was part of a team once that organised a coyote ugly show for the launch of a bar.  Let’s see the pros and cons of organising such media events.

Pros:

1. Good media and audience turnout at the event
2. High number of media clips can be generated
3. Easy to ideate

Cons:

1. High investment - money, time, resources - if I’m not wrong, the cost of organising a basic fashion show at a 5 star hotel starts from Rs. 3 lacs onwards, excluding the fee of top category models.
2. Risk of losing the key message - The media might just focus on the event or the celebrity guest without mentioning the organiser or the product launched. In case it’s a celebrity, the media might just focus their stories on his/her personal and professional life rather than on his/her association with your client.

Now consider this, if I have client who is opening a showroom or a restaurant in Delhi and wants to get some good media publicity from the opening event, what would I advise him? If we invite a celebrity, I’m sure that many media will turn up to cover the celebrity. The flow of the event is simple - celebrity comes, smiles, and say something nice - and I don’t have to wreak my brains for it. Post the event, so what if we we get just one-word mentions in he media stories - ‘ So and so at the opening of new …….. at Delhi’ - that’s enough to create the desired buzz. But hey, the big question is would my client be willing to shell out Rs. 3 lac for the celebrity fee. Would the results be a good ROI for him?

Now if we don’t recommend inviting a celebrity or a fashion show, etc, what are the alternatives? Organising en event without these props, however creative it might be, might not interest the media much. After all, it is just a showroom/ retaurant launch.

This is just one basic scenario that I have talked about where inviting a celebrity or organising a big fashion show, musical night, etc. might seem like the only way out. These also work more small companies. The scenario might be different for bigger brands and bigger companies. In the case of Motorola, they had an option of not doing the stunt also. Any feedback from anybody?

Check this story out - an adoration of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and how PR agencies could learn from him. Well, the guy is amazing and there’s nothing to say bad. But when he’s that famous, the media would lap it up even if he’s cleaning his nose.

I wonder about the journalist who actually wrote a story like this. Must be a devoted fan. He wrote…

PR agencies should take a tip or two from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on how to turn the charm on the media. The suave and sharp Shah Rukh, who has also been blessed with the gift of the gab, subtly bailed out a high-profile PR agency that was managing an event for Pepsi, the cola giant, on Sunday.

The Pepsi train ferried Shah Rukh, his Don co-star Priyanka Chopra, journalists and others from Delhi to Jaipur for the India-England match.

When some members of the camera-toting brigade refused to budge after they had had their fill of shots of King Khan and Priyanka at a press conference, the already hyper media manager of the PR company became even more edgy.

‘Aap ne apna vaada tod diya (you have broken your promise),’ she shrieked into the mike time and again. “Bhaisahab mere saath co-operate kariye (co-operate with me),’ she pleaded.

But the camera-toting brigade, who were perched on chairs, refused to ‘cooperate’ because she was behaving like a ’schoolteacher’.

Shah Rukh patiently watched her struggle for a few minutes and then took the mike. ‘I am sorry if you are being inconvenienced,’ he told the reporters. ‘But I think it is mostly because of your own selves,’ he chuckled. He had driven home the point most charmingly and no one seemed to object…..

Some lessons in media relations, or just a whole load of Bollywood-starved Delhi media? I wonder what Genesis BM has to say.
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Today’s HT City, lifestyle supplement of mainline daily, Hindustan Times in Delhi talks about how filmmakers are adopting new ways to get more interactivity with the masses to promote films, in addition to the usual media publicity activities that usually surround a film release.

It says soon after Vishal Bharadwajs hunt of the title Omkara for his cinematic version of Shakespeares Othello, Vidhu Vinod Chopra has named the sequel of Munnabhai MBBS as Lage Raho Munnabhai on the basis of a public opinion survey. Khans too catching up Even two of the Khans trio Aamir and Shah Rukh are keen to interact with the viewers right away. Aamir Khan has put up posters in Mumbai that states Wanted Actor! A very naughty boy! The notice also mentions that if the boy is a bundle of mischief, he should drop his photos at Khans office. On the other hand Shah Rukh Khan will coach a team of girls for Yash Raj Films Chak De.

Whats more, during the publicity rounds for Rang De Basanti, the entire crew, including Aamir, conducted a 35-minute long Q&A session with the audiences at two different PVRs in Delhi. Getting close to viewers How does it affect the film? Says the producer of Omkara, Kumar Mangat, Anything that establishes the connection between the film and public helps the film always. The title hunt contest registered the film in the minds of 25 lakh viewers who voted within a span of six days. Talking about Rang De Basantis Q&A act, Ashish Saxena of PVR says, Direct interaction with the public is much better than going over-board with the print or media publicity. Perhaps, Aamir Khan understood this and thats the reason why sidestepped the media and went straight to the public to promote the film. In return, public is emulating his RDB feat.

So I wonder are these the new PR ways for films? Although I have never been lucky enough to do film PR in my short PR career till now, I have heard a lot of stories on how it is done. And these new methods sound really cool. Just a crazy idea I wanted to add. How about bouncing off a story idea to the masses and let it develop with ideas from everyone dictating how the story will flow? Or we can tell the masses a story halfway and let people write in their ideas about it should flow and finish. What story line the film ultimately takes could be the suspense.

Technorati tags: PR, Public Relations, India, India Public Relations, India PR,Marketing, film PR, Open Source PR,