“Any kind of publicity is good publicity!!”, now that’s a killer dialogue… and I am 100% sure that whoever coined this term must have kept Rakhi Sawant in mind while doing so. Any thing that is in her radius and is even a teeny weeny bit controversial will definitely explode into at least a couple of hours of news programming with the word “Jhejus” being used by her with such frequency and fervor that you might believe that she is the one who authored the bible!! Now that’s a quality on its own because that is what most of the businesses these days are about, being seen and being known.
Apart from sponsored ads created by the companies, the sale of a product or a service depends on many factors these days, one of which is the image of company in the market and in front of the layman who can be their potential customer one day. So these companies go out of their way creating an alternative image of their brand thus making them the good Samaritans and not blood sucking corporate ventures. This is where a PR firm steps in, to guarantee a creation of a positive and a clean image of an organization, individual, product, service or a brand to the outside public.
In a true corporate sense, this might be one of the most well paying and at the same time the most under rated profession in the corporate sector these days. Under rated because today everyone right from the makers of luxury cars to luxury inner-wears want to promote themselves as a caring, innovative and concerned organization. So when they hire the services of a PR firm they invariably think that they not matter what their goods are, their image will be that of a philanthropist though they may be miles away from charity. So it goes without saying that PR definitely isn’t a cake walk, events promotion & publicity topped with heavy media coverage is what a day of an average PR person would look like. In addition to this, there is damage control, which a PR firm has to do on regular basis if they have clients who have the capability of getting into trouble frequently. So when Tiger Woods delivers an emotional speech after his return from enjoying in the woods it is safe to assume that his speech has be written by a PR professional who must have had sleepless night thinking why is Tiger such a dog!!!
In the hierarchy of the PR firm are account executives starting from junior to those who handle multiple clients on their own. These are actually the people who slog to get journalists and press to events & promotions that normally wouldn’t attract even flies. Contacts, excellent communication skills and a calm head is something that an aspiring PR professional would want to cultivate as this industry demands these attributes in addition to many other that keep on fluctuating. In stark contrast to advertising where a focused communication message flows from the seller to buyer, PR has to ensure that a non focused message comes across to seller with the ideology and effect wanted by the buyer. Neither does that sound simple nor it is…but nonetheless it’s challenging and it’s not for everyone!!!
Targeted courses directed towards teaching PR in communication institutes do their best to train young & enterprising minds with innovative communication techniques and case studies to prepare them to face clients who want nothing less that 100% productivity from them. The day these clients understand that a PR professional works on building goodwill for him/her and the same cant happen over night would be the Independence Day for PR professionals around the globe. Often my blogs end with movie connotations, but in this case it would be appropriate to end this blog with article a case study which is not only useful but engrossing for any reader who has endured my ramblings till here, because the link below is seriously much better!!!
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