“Technology can’t replace key aspects of communicating a brand’s voice to the world”

As part of our series on ‘PR Conversation’, we at Adgully are speaking to some of the industry leaders from both PR agencies and the corporate communications world about how PR as a business and communication tool has evolved and grown over the years. In the last 10 years, PR has taken a different dimension, especially after the entry of social media in a big way. While the PR business has grown, some of the challenges that the industry is facing have also multiplied as clients are becoming more demanding and are expecting their consultants to be on their toes to manage their brand reputation, as news today travels fast and clients are expecting quick response and action in case of a crisis situation.

In conversation with Adgully, Sadaf Khan, Head - Corporate Communications and Advocacy, HCL Corporation and Shiv Nadar Foundation, stresses on investing in meaningful relationships with journalists, creating compelling storytelling to break through the clutter, bringing in standardised metrics in the PR industry that everybody adheres to, and more.

How has PR evolved in the last 10 years? Going forward, how will the Industry shape up as the dynamics of the PR will keep changing with digital transformation? 

Public relations as an industry practice has come a long way – from being custodians of press relations to drivers of integrated communications. We are living in a digitally obsessed world, dealing with an absolute explosion of platforms and influencers. Our audiences are faced with an information overload and how brands find mind space in this clutter is the biggest challenge that PR pros are dealing with today. Add to this is the 24x7 news cycles driven by digital mediums, where news has moved from once-a-day product to an ongoing event, to be consumed real-time. As a business, speed of response is critical in this evolved world, along with keeping an eye on everything that goes on as a small tweet can snowball into a full-blown crisis.

On the brighter side, digital media has created larger reach potential and brought in diversity in the platforms available to communications professionals to reach their target audience.

Technology has also made our jobs more efficient. You can use tools to disseminate press releases targeting the right journalists and geographies, etc. If you are trying to pitch stories, tools can help you identify who wrote about a certain topic in a defined period, how these stories performed on social media, how many other journalists shared it, etc. You can connect with journalists on social media and contribute to their narratives.

While technology can make us more efficient, I don’t think it can replace the human instinct and interaction required to drive the key aspects of what we do when communicating a brand’s voice to the world. Crafting compelling pitches and investing in meaningful relationships with journalists – these are all processes that technology can never replace.

The Shiv Nadar Foundation has been doing some great work on the education front. What kind of PR strategy and initiatives have you been applying to communicate the right message to your audience?

The Shiv Nadar Foundation was set up with a vision to create a more equitable, merit-based society by empowering individuals through transformational education to bridge the socio-economic divide. Towards this, the Foundation has established institutions and programs in the underdeveloped disciplinary areas in India related to rural and urban education and art.

Driving a holistic communication program for a philanthropic organisation is no different from doing the same for a business. At end of the day what matters is if you have established clear communication goals, identified your target audience, tailor made compelling stories for different audiences – stories that inspire people, and attract their attention. And lastly, are you using different communications channels available to connect with the diverse target audience.

While we do all of the above, what has truly worked well for us is when we are able to demonstrate the impact that the Foundation is creating. This story is told through our stakeholders, be it students whose life is being transformed through world-class education, faculty who are driving research that help solve problems of national importance, or innovations that help us drive both breadth and depth of impact.

Another important aspect of our communication strategy is keeping an active eye on our peers and industry and use that intelligence for agenda setting and surfing. We constantly work towards seeding ideas that benefit our brand, but at the same time also monitor topics and react quickly with our own messages. Speed is of essence in this strategy, and there is huge advantage as you don’t need to spend time convincing target groups of the importance of the content itself.

Education has moved to online in a big way and we have so many entrants in this space. How has the Foundation been handling the current situation where educational institutions are still not opened?

The field of education is a truly exciting space, given that it is witnessing fundamental shifts not just in terms of mode of delivery, but also innovative pedagogy, nurturing 21st century skills and incorporating ICT.

Progressive institutions had started incorporating technology solutions to move towards a blended model of learning much before the pandemic hit. The Shiv Nadar Foundation institutions, including our schools and universities, were already working on such programs. So, moving into a purely online mode of learning happened very quickly for our institutions with minimum disruption.

From a communications’ perspective, our focus during the last year or so has been to ensure that all stakeholders, including parents, students, faculty and staff, are well informed about the various efforts that we have undertaken to make sure the learning journey for our students continues. We have also focused on sharing our learnings openly to help other institutions make the transition quickly and guide our students and parents on how to deal with the challenges from the pandemic and work on their emotional and mental wellbeing.

Internal communication and external communication with stakeholders are very important for any organisation. What process and framework you follow to continuously stay engaged with both your internal and external stakeholders?

I don’t think one can truly distinguish internal and external communications as separate streams today. The two are gradually merging, allowing communicators opportunities to bring consistency in messages and develop integrated approaches. However, it is also important to understand that your audiences for these two modes of communication are different and while there is overlap in messages you want to share, the timing of communication and tools you use may vary between the two.

As communicators, we constantly compete with the various information sources that our stakeholders have access to. Compelling storytelling has never been more important as that truly allows us to break through the clutter.

At HCL and Shiv Nadar Foundation, our focus has been on content quality as we try to capture the attention of our busy stakeholders. Our approach ensures that we are not communicating ‘to’ our audience, rather ‘with’ our stakeholders. It is a two-way process that is grounded in building transparency and gaining trust. This has allowed our stakeholders to become the champions of our brands and be invested in our journey and success.

PR measurement and effectiveness of PR has always been a subject of debate. As a PR professional, what steps the PR industry should take to bring in uniformity so that everyone speaks one language when it comes to PR measurement?

Even though it is easy to measure the output of a PR campaign, outcomes are comparatively harder to measure. Output would typically look at media mentions, share of voice, retweets or volume based metric. I wouldn’t say that these are not important, but it is crucial to use some science to analyse the data and establish if you are really being able to contribute to organisational goals. This is the outcome part. A highly effective way of measuring outcome is to invest in research and measure if and by how much are you being able to move the needle for your brand.

At HCL and Shiv Nadar Foundation, we are laser-focused on measuring the outcome of our campaigns and how we stand on some pre-agreed industry attributes vis-a-vis our competition. I think identifying clear goals and agreeing to these with the organisational leadership is critical to effectively measure outcomes.

For the PR industry as a whole, I think it is time that there are some standardised metrics that everybody adheres to. Yes, there will be nuances that will have to be taken into consideration depending on your sector, objectives, etc., but we should agree on the broad metrics.

Getting the right skillset and training has always been a challenge in the PR profession. What is your view on the same and what would be your valuable tips to aspiring PR professionals?

I firmly believe that nurturing young talent within the PR industry and helping their careers grow is something that will contribute to the growth of the entire PR industry. It is crucial that all PR organisations invest extensively in providing training in integrated communications. I went through a year-long on-the-job training program when I started my career and that helped me implement my learnings in the real-world while being able to access continual mentoring.

A huge area of development that I have seen in my interactions with young talent within the industry is the ability to tell good stories. This will happen when time is invested in understanding clients’ industries, issues that matter, who the key stakeholders are, etc. I also want to point beginners to basics – read the news, understand the media landscape, identify which journalist writes on what, and invest time in building relationships. You are the first person who interacts with the media for the brand, the impression you make is critical to the success of the campaign!

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