PR industry in India The Cake That Went Bad

Will this get me famous? is usually how most of my sales calls start, and oh is usually how they end.

Primarily, most people need to understand that PR can mean two things :

Public Relations (appropriate) and Press Releases (not-so-appropriate).

You see, what I thought when I entered the industry was that Public Relations is the art of influencing the masses in the right way for the good of a person, community or company; what I now woefully realise is that Public Relations is ‘who can get the most number of articles placed’.

The PR industry in India is similar to that of a cake made by a 6-year-old on mothers day;

At the top, we have the crème de la crème of the industry, the only part of the cake that tastes good, these are companies that have been established for over a century and have been growing at a consistent rate for decades on end.

For Instance, when I rang a leading PR  agency and spoke to their sales executive, his words, after quoting a daylight-robbery rate for a Public Relations campaign were, “our services are a cut above”

These guys are so far ahead leading the pack, that they’ve forgotten about the pack itself.

Unrivalled and dominating the industry with over 400 clients on retainer, and a journalist network that spans 5 continents, other agencies don’t even get close to the empire they’ve built.

Now comes, the milk-and-eggs part of our Cake-PR-Industry, the eggs are expired and the milk went bad, but be that as it may, the glitter of hope in your 6-year-old’s eyes pushes you to eat nonetheless.

These are the “agencies” that have an auto-response set on Whatsapp with a TML (targeted-media-list), which is in essence a rate card to purchase media.

Now, most news/media houses have found a way to circumvent this by adding a ‘disclaimer’ that is, in a nutshell, a three-line pre-text that says that the article that their reader is viewing is paid for by a third party and that their journalists were not involved in the making of said article.

This is where our cake starts getting incontrovertibly, bad.

What we know is that media is credibility. It’s a source of information for the masses, and while our Expired-Egg agencies are flooding the media with disclaimer articles, over time, the public loses interest, which is amusing since most of these “agencies” claim to create stories in ‘Public-Interest’.

However, there are certain PR Agencies that will, in actuality, put in the resources to help their clients, clients who can’t afford the crème de la crème, these are agencies that are ethical and will beyond doubt put their best foot forward to create a positive trend in the media, these agencies are the once slice of our cake that was cooked surprisingly well; in spite of that, these agencies are so overwhelmed by competing with the industry that clients have to find a combination of a-diamond-in-the-rough plus a-Lilly-in-a-dirty-pond, and that, is no small feat.

As we slice our way into the depths of our PR cake, it’s important to understand that this industry is fairly new to the country and there are bound to be a few kinks along the way, as for someone looking in from the outside, it may look as if all is well, our cake is golden brown and to temperature, they would be forgiven to assume that our cake might actually taste good too, it’s only when they take that first bite, do they realise the horrors faced by this industry on a daily basis.

To put it concisely, the Indian Public Relations sector is in high demand, higher than most agencies can handle. Journalists’ inboxes are brimmed with commercial articles, it would be valid to say that we’ve become comfortable with the chaos, nonetheless, as PR professionals it’s our duty to teach our 6-year-old baker, how to cautiously and wilfully take charge and make a change.

Yes, our cake is rotten at the bottom and filled with batter, but all it might need is a few more minutes in the oven and all might just fall into place, one can hope.