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?

Does lifestyle PR require PR professionals to bend the PR norm of not paying the media to get editorial coverage? I got this mail from a friend of mine, highlighting a problem that she faces and maybe also by other PR professionals:

I work on a leading lifestyle brand, and understandably the very nature of their business requires visibility in women’s /lifestyle magazines like Cosmo, Elle, etc., most of the time in the form of product notes. Most of these magazines seem to be led by ad spends of companies. In fact some of the magazines have come back to us and clearly said that coverage is advertising led and they can give us a one-page write up if the company takes up X number of ad slots.

We conveyed the same to the client, who turned around and questioned the need for having a PR agency in the first place if we cant get them what they require. From my point of view, this situation is extremely frustrating because I don’t see what I can do to work around a given publication’s editorial policies. But at the same time I can understand where the client is coming from. The retainer amount they pay us seems to be a tremendous waste if we cant get them visibility where they need it most.

I cant help but think that the road ahead for brand PR is very difficult. It’s perhaps not that difficult to work around these policies when you are doing corporate PR or even IT PR. But it’s getting increasingly impossible to leverage brand / lifestyle PR.

In fact I met a couple of journalists from a leading London Daily, and according to them, in the UK, its mostly financial and corporate PR that agencies focus on. The opportunity for brand PR is extremely limited.

I feel that like any other PR (say technology PR, financial PR, or healthcare PR), lifestyle PR is becoming increasingly challenging. There are dozens of stories and brands competing for the same editorial space and the media today know how to take advantage of this. They figured out that if there are companies that are willing to invest money to get covered in the editorial pages, so why not charge everyone who wants publicity? Also another reasoning could be that there is no hard news when a new lifestyle product gets launched or when there is an event, and featuring them is same as advertising.

So for instance, the Times of India’s lifestyle supplement, Delhi Times now wouldn’t write about any private brands, unless the companies come through Medianet and pay for those editorial space they wanted. The only things Delhi Times covers without bringing in Medianet today might perhaps be the celebrity interviews or mega-events that are too good to be ignored.

My friend further wrote that it’s the same with many lifestyle magazines - Even when they don’t have a Medianet-like situation, they still say that they will cover a brand only if they advertise.

Much to my surprise, a features-journalist from a leading mainline daily in Bangalore refused to do a story the other day saying that they have instructions to do brand stories only if the brand advertises. Since my brand was a regular advertiser, they did a review of this innovative store they had just launched. Otherwise I guess it wouldn’t have happened.

So if you want to get coverage in these publications, you have to pay up. But then I don’t think this is PR we are talking about. It’s pure buy and sell of media space. Even if your client and you agree that you will pay up once, consider the side-effects of that to your overall PR campaign. For instance if you pay and getfeatured in Delhi Times, rival publication HT City might not touch your company for a long time, though they won’t admit it openly. I don’t know if there is any such thing between rival magazines.

Another side-effect I see is that as more and more people come to know of such arrangements between media and companies, those brands appearing in such publications will be at the risk of losing credibility. People will start saying - Oh, they have paid for that coverage, no big deal! There are people who now think that it’s mostly upcoming brands and socialites who want to get featured in lifestyle supplements/ Page 3s and can pay for it. Those who are established shy away from such papers. I don’t know how far this is true (I know big liquor companies partnering with Medianet but as they are not allow to advertise, maybe their case is different), but interestingly I have come across many clients who say they don’t want to be photographed by Page 3 journalists while partying, less their pictures come out the next day and people start assuming they have paid for it.

What’s the workaround? One way to build credible coverage in the editorial pages of lifestyle publications, considering the above limitation, may be through developing nice industry stories - stories about trends, from consumer’s perspective, etc. A simple two line inclusion of your spokesperson quote in such stories can go a long way. As PR professionals, the challenge now I feel is to come up with creative industry story pegs and pitch that successfully to the journalist. If you can get your client’s key messages and brand mentioned somewhere in the story, you have done it.

Also, brand PR shouldn’t be about just media relations. We cannot hope to build brands with media coverage alone. It should involve activities that involve the consumer directly. Check out this nice column from the archives of The Hindu Business Line written by Harish Bijoor. An excerpt:

Brand-centric PR is all about getting out there in the great Indian marketplace where the action rests. The great Indian kitchen! The great Indian toilet! And indeed the great Indian bedroom! These are the action spots where consumer loyalty programmes will need to be built! PR agencies of the future will be asked to help in building this! The Harley Davidson and its cult club need to be run! What’s more, this club needs to be built for my brand of toilet cleaner! I need people to go out there into the homes of people and create clubs of users who will meet often and discuss their many problems! I want an agency that will run image groups for my brand in the deep hinterland I want to penetrate! I want self-help groups that will take my brand message, both overtly and subliminally into the rural hinterland. These groups need to be formed, loyalty programmes need to be put together and then run to efficiency!

To conclude in my friend’s words - It’s time clients and agencies re-look the role of PR especially when it comes to lifestyle brands. Number of clips and column centimetres can no longer determine the success or failure of a PR campaign. But how do we get clients to buy this remains a very big challenge.