An interesting part of our work-in-progress ‘PR agencies and PR freelancers directory’ project might be the community ratings of PR agencies. Any reader of India PR Blog can do a rating out of 5 stars on an agency or a freelancer listed on the directory. We can use the comments section to share our constructive views on any agency. That will be nice.

Have look at some of our pages (in progress):

Index of the PR agencies and PR freelancers directory

Delhi PR Agencies and PR freelancers directory

Maharashtra PR Agencies and PR freelancers directory

Tamil Nadu PR Agencies and PR freelancers directory

Chandigarh PR Agencies and PR freelancers directory

Update:
Orissa PR Agencies and PR freelancers directory

We are adding more. Keep your information on your agencies and services coming. Details on submission are here.

Has it not been debated before? Yes, it has been. Have we not wasted enough cups of coffee arguing over it? Yes, we have. So, are we ready to bury and tombstone the topic? No, not in the near future.

The debate over what a client says he wants and what he really wants will live for as long as the marketing communications and, more specifically, the PR industry lives and thrives. The briefs will always be brief and the expectations will mean ‘under promise, over deliver’ (the mantra that all PR managers chant around their mentees). I would have never brought this up but for an incident that spewed out the rotting question – should I believe what the client wants or am I looking in the wrong direction?

Picture this – the Chairman of a large and well-respected real-estate major briefs a PR team about what is expected from the PR campaign. Brand image, reputations, lineage, forthcoming IPO: almost everything is discussed. The expectations are clear – the company is to be projected as the leading real estate player in India. Everything sounds positive. The agency has bagged the account and is eager, satisfied and very comfortable in the extra soft, leather sofa. The old man seems a decent bloke. “No sweat, Mr. Chairman; your will be done.”

The team steps out of the suite on the 10^th floor and is immediately ensconced by the till-now reticent Corp Comm manager. Two things are made clear. The cheque will be signed after the press coverage report is received. Whatever the Chairman said was gas. The success of the campaign would be directly proportional to the thickness of the media coverage report, which should start thickening as soon as the team leaves the client’s office.

Now, wait a minute! Where exactly do brand strategy, image management, PR policy figure in this dry and very hollow scheme of things?

We can’t deny that there are more opportunities for PR professionals in India than ever before. Companies have started valuing the importance of public relations for their business. But when it comes to measuring its success it is still how thick a press coverage report looks. Building relationships with the target audience, nurturing a public image, paying attention to the demands of that ever important ingredient to your success called Press – these concepts will still take some time to bloom. So when a new luxury store is opened, the thrust is not on the years the brand will spend in India and how it should be perceived by the niche consumers. Sadly it’s on how many video cameras are seen at the launch and how many press clips appear after the hackneyed P3 party.

But we should not be complaining too much. There was a time when PR meant going on media rounds with bad photocopies and even worse media lists. Press coverage was really about cutting every single newspaper snippet and admiring it with the zest of a mother looking at a new-born baby. Things have changed a bit and the same things are now done with much more style…

In hind sight, the days when more and more companies would expect agencies to walk the talk and do some real PR wizardry are round the corner. A few of us need to get out of the complacent mode and be willing to do things differently. If the ‘MNC culture’ (another cliché awaiting burial) has survived and thrived, we can be sure that more professional understanding between PR agencies and companies can’t be far behind. Till then the debate will continue and many more words will be wasted. But only briefly…

It was after a long lunch session that she shared this with us: “They promised me an exclusive. The interview with the Chairman was to happen in the next couple of days. The meeting was cancelled at the last minute. Reason? The Chairman had to fly out of the country. Next day I saw the interview promised to me in three different newspapers.”

This is part of an amusing conversation my colleague and I had with a senior business journalist from a leading English daily. The ‘they’ she refers to is, of course, a PR agency. Have you come across an incident like this in your PR career? Something promised to a journalist is never delivered – an important piece of information, an exclusive one-to-one, a research report. I am sure you have because it happens all the time.

Among the many bad things that we – PR pros – are accused of, not keeping promises tops the list. It’s an age-old discussion: “why can’t they stick to their word?” This happens in other industries and the communications industry is no different. So why is it that PR agencies are seen as incorrigible truants, and why have we created such a mean reputation for ourselves? If you have seen Colin Farrell in the movie Phone Booth, you know what I mean.

I can think of two reasons immediately. First, the stakes in this business are high and sometimes we fail to understand how important content is for a newspaper. Second, the pressure to please the client and keep our bosses in good humour. Actually there are more reasons but I want to end with two.

I have spoken with a few friends in our industry but there is no satisfactory answer on how to curb the ‘menace’. We are also naively unsure if this menace exists. So very often these incidents are shoved under the carpet and the thrust is on moving on with our lives. We are also uncertain if our industry is in need of an image makeover.

A few weeks back, a journalist from a business magazine met our client and was ready to file the article. So far, so good. But there was a problem. The information shared with the journalist was incomplete. Our client would have been in big trouble if the article was published. We contacted the journalist and promised him more information for a much better article. He was adamant. He had a deadline to meet. Even after speaking with him a number of times there was no headway.

We knew nothing else would work now. So we decided to do just one thing, be 100% honest. We called him up and laid bare the facts – if the article was published, our client would have to do a lot of crisis management; a few, very innocent heads would roll; we might lose a very good account. It was not a pleasant call but the article was never published. Of course, the journalist didn’t talk to us again. That is, till last week when we bumped into him. After some initial hiccups, I am happy to say, things were normal again.

There is no moral of this story. At best I would say that being honest sometimes works, even if it means getting badly burnt in the process. I can see many of you shaking your heads in disagreement. If you have a better solution, it’s time we used it.

Image source: http://www.freeimages.co.uk/

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This is a group project - A Google map highlighting the PR agencies in Delhi and NCR region. We are also coming up with PR maps of Mumbai and other cities soon.

If you wish to have a certain agency added in the list, please contact any of the India PR Blog authors.