Away.

Tending to my dissertation - "How important a management function is public relations in Inida: A comparative study between multi-national companies and domestic companies.

Will get back soon.

CSR or Greenwashing?

Corporate social responsibility does not have a universally accepted definition and thus organisations globally, who practice it, do it differently. CSR has seen a huge take up with companies since 1970s, everything from cars to food is being sold to consumers as 'green' or 'sustainable'.  In some companies, CSR falls to be crucial and genuine but the majority of them use it as a spin to damaging events - a concealer for dark circles. In the UK less than 1% of an organisation's budget is allotted for CSR activities. 

BP Green Fiasco

The baddies like organisations in the oil and gas industry, coal and mines or any sector that directly harms the environment try very hard to sell their products/services as green/sustainable . One example was British Petroleum (BP)'s revamp to Beyond Petroleum, a green project to ensure responsible and sustainable activities of its organisation. While they did invest huge time and money on this project - changing their logo to a green one took up most of the investment. It not only pinched the organisation hard on the waste of investment, it trampled their little existing reputation.

The need for something like CSR arose with varied and increasing environmental issues and increasing number of NGO watchdogs, reduced trust in companies, 'more than just business' attitude of companies and the economic turndown to an extent. With these factors in hand, most companies developed CSR strategies to show their participation in different ways. There has been an observation made by most CSR strategists that CSR plans and strategies have not yet been merged with business objectives and when that happens CSR may not be viewed as such a green sell off. 

Due to media exposure on companies with good and bad CSR initiatives, NGOs cracking the whips on companies to be increasingly sustainable, consumers are highly aware and alert about CSR vs green washing. Websites like greenwashing index equips consumers with a information and tools to spot CSR as green spin offs. 

The Green revolution

Organisations need to recognise the opportunities behind genuine sustainability initiatives as it not only builds their financial performances but also is an excellent way of maintaining high brand value, reputation and trust. For public relations such authentic CSR planning and strategies is a recipe for positive communication for all stakeholders, tailoring CSR strategy planning and free and positive news coverage. The PR department in the baddie organisations, on the other hand, will keep brushing green to mask its damages.

Political Communications

Like public relations, political communications finds it hard to define itself and its remits. A simple way to understand this field is to understand what political communicators do. Political communicators use various paid and free media to communicate messages of their political parties to their audiences, who are the citizens. While this explanation is fairly simple, it remains highly debated and in some sense controversial.

Breaking down the above explanation, three important words can be spotted - media, messages and citizens. Media - the evolution of media has carried with it the evolution of its usage at different periods. Political leaders and preachers, historically,  stood on boxes at market places to reach out to their audiences in a rather personal fashion. While that mode of communication did disappear for a few decades, it's back and so is the 'interpersonal' and 'conversational' medium of communication between politicians and citizens. Citizens more and more want to directly communicate with their leaders and leaders on the other hand have their own agenda behind conversational communication. 

Media bias

The print media, in Britain at least, has been relatively open about their political stance, which again is not fixed. Reporters and reportage on politics is biased, highly opinionated and influential. The people reading the newspapers know it, and the political communicators have a great opportunity to pitch stories with papers that would use it without refining it too much. 'Objectivity' in journalism sounds good in theory rather than in practice. McNair affirms that, "Media biases are of key importance. In democratic political systems media function both as transmitters of political communication which originates outside the media organisation itself, and as senders of political messages constructed by journalists." Another important factor while considering media is the ownership. At the end of the day it all boils down to whose powers outweighs who, defining the agenda-setters and gate keepers of journalistic information.

To get back their personal touch with citizens, politicians worldwide have begun to use the digital space which is argued to be 'two-way' and 'conversational' medium of communication. The Obama campaign is one of the best examples of successful political communications and online election campaign. He was able to touch base with millions of Americans and continues to do so. It ticked all the boxes of the role of a PR professional or communicator. Not only did Obama win the elections, but also proved  to skeptics that strategic usage of the online media can deliver. 

Obama campaign poster

The Obama campaign used all forms of media - advertising, merchandising, online and offline party broadcasts, posters and above all earned media through news coverage. The political messages were simple, clear and extremely effective. The election campaign messages connected with the audience and showed 'un-mashed' resonance. Not only did his campaign churn out 'effective messages', it crafted an image for Obama. This almost 'celebritization' of made him an idol of many Americans and significantly raised trust in him and his policies.

Political communicators today need to not only focus on media management, but need to dive into more creative ways to produce messages and content that remain in the minds of the audiences intact and opens new methods of conversations with their political leaders both on online and offline medias.

Virtual revolution, at what cost?

We had a class on social media, no this time it was not about the greatness of social media and how its going to consume the world! but, it opened a new perspective to this greatness.

Free information?

"The Virtual Revolution" is a series of episodes on the evolution of the internet documented by BBC's Aleks Krotoski. The episode we watched was "The Cost of Free". 

While the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee didn't get a penny one of the greatest inventions in history, Google, with its simple business model is now one of the richest companies in the world. How did Google do it, why should we be concerned and what it is in for the public relations industry?

Google's link counting algorithm made Google the number one search engine and provided search results to users for free. Really? Google devised a model that monopolised online advertising and the usage of the world wide web. They knew that no user would be willing to pay and also that the principle behing the invention of the internet was to provide users free and unlimited access. Google's money making minds linked the concept of online advertising and search results. So now when a user searches for free, he/she often gets a list of advertisements related to the search terms on the right hand corner. This is how they made money and provided users free information. 

Ads based on search terms

As the internet fire is catching up, and with the introduction of social media and exciting application, advertisers have access to personal and professional information of users hence providing tailored and targeted messages and advertisements. Emails are scanned, browsing habits can be tracked leading to filtered and behaviour advertising. 

Users unknowingly and knowingly pass on private/professional information but at what cost and is it really worth it?

Media has always been prime to public relations practitioners. Online media has gained an integral status and for public relations practitioners it has become challenging to address these online audiences. Till the mid 90s, public relations practitioners just needed to call journalists and brief them, but since then, the job of a public relations person has become difficult as the content creation needs to be creative and appealing for audiences to chose to view it. Gone are the days when information and messages needed to be pushed to gain public attention, in today's social media age, users have the discretion to view or discard information.

Agenda setters: PR or Media?

Spin - Good, Bad?

In a pluralist society, a market place of voices, one voice tries hard to be louder than the other and seek attention, each voice has it's own agenda, so what the agenda of PR and the media, and who spins the most.

Public relations has long been associated with spin, propaganda and persuasion. Arguably, this may be true, the principles of spin have altered in today's time. Call it lazy journalism or 24X7 global news requirements, 54% of the news is PR material.

Spun and Spinnig

So who owns the news-Journalists or PR professionals? A look at the Number 10 news on BBC gives a uncovers a new angle to spin. In this broadcast, Alastair Campbell, press secretary to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his relationship with Westminster's lobby journalists provide give an insider view to the world of politics, PR, spin and media. The telecast shows a how Campbell, categorically drip-feeds information to journalists that is favourable and often shunning those are of controversial in nature. He chooses his journalists, looks out for the "good" angle in stories and publicises them. On the other hand the media is seen to ask Campbell to provide packaged information and also agreeing to publication of certain information.

After giving this broadcast a thought, the questions that arise are - Who does a layman or a concerned citizen believe? Is news still ethical and reliable? For all the code of ethics, the reasons to be transparent, the debate in the PR industry about control and the trust in politics,  this broadcast answers the questions and to a wide extent.

With the power of social media, can spin still survive or is surviving? Will the media take their share of agreement of spin, or will PR spin their accusation on spinning on the media?

Top 10 social marketing tips revealed!

We had a guest lecture on Social Marketing by Sean Kidney, here is an encapsulated version of it.

Social Change

Social Marketing?
Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other communication concepts to achieve specific behavioural goals  by designing "change campaigns" for social good. According to Kidney, "It is the technology about achieving social change."In social marketing, individuals directly or indirectly act as "personal social agents". Marketing is an exchange for mutual benefit, similarly, social marketing bridges constraints between two factors - you sell your "story" to achieve social good - mutual benefit relationship.  


The Change
According to Kidney, social marketing aims at behavioural change and attitudinal change. "Compulsion change" - bringing about changes in law and regulation through lobbying, insider and outsider approaches, helps activist organisations achieve their main outcome - social change by tactically targeting powerful people.  It aims at mainly using the structural change approach with an element of individual behaviour change as an "engagement strategy".

Four P's of social marketing camapigns

Top 10 social marketing campaign tips:

1. In-depth research of the problem
2. Ascertain target audience
3. Establish key advocates, influencers and decision makers
4. Plan, prepare and frame messages
5. Tell stories, not just facts
6. Chalk out collective, realistic, measurable solutions
7. Build coalitions
8. Neutralise your opponents
9. Test your campaign
10. Than go public!

NGO, Activism and Public relations

Perceptions of the sectors

Greenpeace - David vs Goliath

NGO, non-profits and activists have often been categorised under "third sector" or "the fifth estate". This sector mushroomed in the 90's and since then have been the new watchdogs for the public. The perception of corporates by activists and NGOs was - "capitalist structures with exploitative relationships with communities" - and corporates in turn viewed activists as potential "threats". When corporates acknowledged the power of NGOs/activists and their increasing trust among the public, they were grouped as "active publics" that need to be managed. As an anti-activism strategy, corporates undertook "astroturfing" and "greenwashing" to paint a rather clean picture of their activities and practices.

The issue

Demetrious (2006) raises an important issue, "Activists have ignored the constructive practices of the PR industry and the PR industry has ignored the constructive practices of activists." But gladly these views have changed, Tench and Yeomans (2006) have asserted that, "Activists are regarded as a challenge to PR practitioners working for corporations but it should be borne in mind that activist organisations employ PR practitioners too." Though the PR industry has acknowledged NGO PR, there is limited existing literature on this subject.

PR practice in the NGO sector

PR in the NGO sector is different from the generic PR practice. Their practice requires in-depth ans extensive research, an aim for social change and above all undying passion and hope. They use tactical approaches to address social problems to achieve social and behavioural changes. Some activist/NGO organisations undertake lobbying and insider relations with the people in power in a view to achieve substantial, arguable compulsive results to achieve social change and the other kind like to go out loud and radical mobilising rallies, protests, marches to arrest attention of decision makers and powerful people. There are two main theories adopted by activists - structural behaviour theory and individual behaviour theory. While most activist campaigns use a combination of the two theories, many organisations, arguably, have spent more time, resources and energy in individual behaviour theory which has minimum scope of reaching their overall objective - social change.

Online activist based organisation

Online Activism

Arguably, a new type of activist organisation has sprung up which is online activism. Online activism uses internet to create political and social movements in order to achieve social change. While it has it's own limitations, online activism empowers individuals and engages them to be activists and social agents   to bring about a change. NGOs have been early adopters of online activism and has been able to highlight the power of it.  

PR is highly valued

NGO, activism and PR have gone a long way with strategically and more often successfully utilising  public relations practice and being a communications driven field has valued public relations more than any other industry.

Stakeholder Mapping

The concept of stakeholder originates in political theory. Interest in this concept grew among corporates and stake-holding ideas emerged as an alternative way of understanding the interests at stake. Stakeholders are those who influence or can influence the organisation as well as those affected by it. there is a thin distinction between publics and stakeholders and these terms are more often used interchangeably. But, Grunig and Hunt (1984) distinguish publics as stakeholders that face a problem or have an issue with the organisation.

Stakeholders, publics, audiences, is the "public" in public relations. Despite the synonymity in these terms, the management of these stakeholders is of prime importance in the more contemporary practice of strategic management and organisation-public relationships.

Stakeholder mapping has been central to many theories. A look a few theories/models that take different approaches to stakeholder management.

1. Bernstein's Wheel

This model was developed in 1984 and given the growth of public relations since then, it may seem rather obsolete. Contemporarily, public relations in both theory and practice, has acknowledged public relations function to be a more strategic component of an organisation, than just another spike in this wheel. The wheel doesn't help organisations prioritize its audience or suggest two-way communication, restoring the traditional linear process of communication. It has been argued by many researchers that public relations to gain a strategic position, needs to listen to and monitor its audiences, emphasizing the importance of two-way communication.

Bernstein's Wheel

2. Esman's Linkages Theory

Developed during the same time period as Bernstein's wheel, the Linkages theory is a little advanced in the way the model has been structured. It divides the public in four linkages and also has an input and output channel. Whilst the different grouping of stakeholders, the model does not address the priority given to each of them. The publics under the four linkages have either towered up or dropped down in priority. For instance, the non-profit sector and activists are a vital public to organisations and can be categorised under "Normative linkages".

 Esman's Linkage Theory

3. Power Interest Matrix

The more contemporary model is the power-interest matrix. Stakeholders are mapped in accordance to the level of power and interest. The model ticks three important boxes in stakeholder management, one- stakeholders are chosen on the level of power they hold and can influence, two- the degree of interest in/with the organisation, third- stakeholders can be prioritised differently in different situations. The third tick is very crucial as every situation may have to cater different audiences, especially with the growth and influence of online media, that have a certain grade of power an interest.

 Power-Interest Matrix

Crisis: Dangerous Opportunity?

Crisis is synonymous to business since its evolution. Traditionally, crisis was "an unexpected, unanticipated or surprising event". The focus, then, was more on post-crisis management, information dissemination and image restoration. The more contemporary approach taken by crisis experts and researchers is to break down crisis under different stages - incubation stage, acute stage, dramatic trigger event and post-crisis stage. A further understanding of the term crisis is that a crisis can be natural or man-made. Natural crisis, as the name suggests is usually beyond human control. A man-made crisis is one that is anticipated and can be detected. 

The role of public relations practitioners during the times of crisis can have two-fold results. Crisis communication can either pose a threat to the organisation's repute, objectives and profits or it can provide an opportunity to enhance the its profile, status and trust.

While the contemporary view of crisis is - "crisis is a natural phase of an organisation's development", it is vital to emphasize on issues management and risk communication. A public relations practitioner's boundary spanning role comes to aid to avoid a possible dramatic trigger event stage. Monitoring the environment, listening to what is being said about the organisation, it acts like an anti-virus software detecting the virus before it crashes the computer. Once this virus is detected, PR practitioners need to respond quickly and responsibly before external publics do.

The environment in which businesses thrive today is bigger, freer and more scrutinising. During crisis, the business community needs to pay attention to key stakeholders, especially, - media, both traditional and online and the non-profit sector and activists. The diversification of media has made it almost impossible, in the online landscape, to mitigate the impact of a crisis. There is space only for organisations who are open and honest, the rest learn it the hard way. Though words like transparency and honesty are arguable to its extent of projection in reality, it is vital for organisations to know that consumers have acquired great amounts of power through online and social media. Activism has soared leading to higher scrutiny, giving little space for making obvious mistakes.

The chaos theory, sensemaking theory and the organisational learning theory, undertaking contemporary crisis management, stress on the importance of environmental scanning, issue recognition, issues management and risk communication to help limit an identified man-made issue into an potential damaging crisis.

For further insights on crisis communication, here is a presentation:

How to manage a crisis ?

View more presentations from Philippe Roques

Social Media - Vidcast

As a part of a project, we have to produce a vidcast on social media which introduces prospective clients to certain key aspects and issues regarding it. 


We at 'Wired PR' present a short video that encapsulates what social media is all about, the benefits of using this medium and vital information on its shortcomings.

"Wired PR" is a fictitious name used for this project, but the research and the data used for the video are real. Images used in the video have been taken from sources referenced below:
http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/social-media-marketing-27-awesome-stats-soundbites-and-slides
http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-is-social-media-2005829
http://www.slideshare.net/ndecrock/social-media-the-rainbow-theory
http://www.slideshare.net/PresentationAdvisors/social-media-for-business-5456817
http://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanDigital/social-media-is-dead-long-live-common-sense-by-david-armano
http://www.rocketmedia.com/images/uploads/iChat_Image_884668675_copy.jpg
http://mimitank.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/socialphone.jpg
http://meghanlane.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/social-media-monitoring-1.jpg
http://www.interactiveinsightsgroup.com/blog1/wp-content/2009/02buildnetwork4.jpg
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/musiccentre/facebook-icon_copy.jpg
http://fc02.devianart.com/fs14/f/2007/049/b/c/digg_the_wallpaper.jpg
http://creativenerds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/twitter-icon-button.jpg
http://www.trybpo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Trust.jpg

PR Manufactured: War on Iraq

A class on PR issues began with war spin and the role of PR during war. The public relations industry gained its negative connotations duly after wars and the political campaigns surrounding it. One such war was the Iraq War. There was a lot written and spoken about the Iraq war but what most people including journalists missed was the fact that every information and evidence supporting the war was fabricated and carefully managed by some really intelligent public relations strategists and propagandists.

A meticulously planned propaganda campaign was launched to "sell the Iraq War" to the American and British populations. The justification to attack Iraq were based on two grounds - Iraq's connection with Al Qaeda and the generation of "weapons of mass destruction". While the real motives behind the war were never near of what was projected, words like "threat" and "security of America" were being played till its resonance plagued the minds of the public to believe them. The psychological battle was won and the second prong of the propaganda was to "drip-feed" information to the media with absolute control in the hands of the spin-doctors.

The American public, not fully recovered from the infamous 9/11 attacks were ready to back the "war on terror" without substantial reasoning and the media sis not question either. The media was convinced and glossed over basic facts and the basis for the war.

Taking maximum advantage of media submission to the war, the spin doctors and the public relations agency involved thought of a tactic which was more than clever. 600 international journalists were embedded near the war site to give first hand reports of the war. Little did the media understand that their power was being exploited and that they were mere used merely as middlemen to reach their vast audience. Events were misreported by the media as propagandists spun stories in their favour and also manufactured news to keep public support and morale high.

Then how did all these secrets be revealed? Wikileaks unfolded the true facts of the Iraq war. The Bush and Blair governments were at gun point by the media and its population. Questions that should have been raised before the war began were now being asked and answers were demanded.

The Jessica Lynch case was a tactic devised to arouse sentiments among the public followed by repeated sloganeering and symbolisation of the war. The media realised that they were poached and misused by the governments to successfully run their campaign. Although much of the truth is still being heavily blocked, there is enough in the open that uncovers the propaganda and truths of the war.

 A small clip of the Iraq's Secret War Files

Social Media and why you should be on it

There is a lot being said about social media. But what is Social Media? Social media is a virtual platform where people share information, videos, photos, opinions, ideas and interests.

Why you should be on Social Media
1. It reaches a large audience
2. Customise your strategy
2. Faster reach
3. It help build networks
4. It can influence your audience
5. It costs less

Some of the things you can do on social media
* Social Bookmarking: You can interact by tagging websites.
* Social News: These are websites that follow trending news which can keep you updated about your audience's likes and interests.
* Social Networking: A platform where people share interests and information
*Social photo and Video sharing: Youtube and Flickr are websites that help you share video and photos and give you a rating and ranking of your videos/images

Top 5 Blogging tips revealed

Here are top 5 some tips to consider while starting a blog
1. Know your audience. Understand their profile, what interests them? and what are they looking for?
2. Recognise your blogging style that would bring out your character and follow it. Make sure you don't break the style as it might disturb and confuse your readers
3. Use plug-ing and widgets to get a viral
4. Use keywords and tags to help your readers get to your post faster
5. Don't stop

For more tips on blogging, do's and dont's, take a look at this presentation:

Blogging and video workshop

View more presentations from Matt holland.