You are a PR firm

This is one of the articles which have their roots in personal anguish. Over the past 18 months during which, the firm I run has started moving away from traditional, plain vanilla media relations into being a customized communication solutions firm there is one phrase that I hear (and now live in constant mortal fear of hearing again and again) from clients –“You are a PR firm and a PR firm is not supposed to be a specialist beyond media relations.”

Few days back had a potential client who is a start-up spend a lot of time in our office. Our creative head who is a two decade veteran in advertising and I took him through our portfolio and explained to him the process we adopt. He could also see that we had a full fledged team with graphic and interactive capabilities inside. So, we thought it is all sealed and done. Day after we got a call. The board of the company was of the opinion that PR firms are not good at design or anything to do with it and they asked the mandate be split into PR and brand identity development. We of course would get the “PR” part.

It is time retailers and regional FMCG brands looked beyond TV spots!

Since the topic touches and will touch raw chords and nerves let me at the outset categorically state that the views are those of a seasoned communicator looking at the current scenario dispassionately.

Being a not so regular TV watcher and my mother tongue being Tamil end up watching commercial TV in Tamil mostly in the evening prime time slot. Over the past few years have consistently noticed that big retailers (guess there are tens of them out of Chennai and elsewhere) and most regional FMCG brands almost entirely depend on TV commercials for their sales or marketing or communication with customers. It also dawned on me that festive season after festive season, collection after collection, product after product, this formula remained largely untouched.