The biggest public relations (PR) disasters are always acted out in public. That is in the nature of the craft. If it were not a disaster, it would have involved an anonymous bureaucrat in a spat with his wife-to-be. Nobody is much interested and nobody wants to hear about it. So how professional is a career in PR? 

Indian newspapers have labelled the issue of MSG (mono sodium glutamate) being found in Maggi noodles as a disaster. Rather, they have termed the way the multinational handled it as the “real disaster”. After ignoring it during the time it took to build up public opinion against Nestle, the manufacturer, the company changed horses midstream. It hired APCO Worldwide to represent its interests. 

PR is important not in the normal course of things. It has acquired a bad name because it is associated with wining and dining. “In our company the chief communications manager has a higher entertainment budget than the financial controller,” says the CEO. But it is in a problem situation that PR fails. Faced with a crisis, the PR head fainted, fell sick and promptly retired a day later. In the Union Carbide example Kishore Hattangadi — a professional — had to be hired alongside. 

Most PR people don’t know when to keep quiet. When The Times of India published a supplement on the public sector some 20 years ago, it mislabelled one of the pages “pubic sector” People who noticed had a laugh and forgot about it. But the PR people in the agency that was involved in that particular ad insisted on carrying a correct version. A lot of readers who missed the original mistake (read up on the theory of reduced cues) sat up and took notice. A couple of the persons refused to pay for the advertisements.

Pepsi’s translation of its international slogan “the drink of the new generation” into a south Asian language was rendered as “Bringing your ancestors alive”, producing a run on Pepsi though it must be admitted that some people shunned the drink altogether.  

PR can be a good weapon in the right hands. Especially in industries where there are curbs on advertising, the only solution is PR if you don’t want to take the route of selling your wares as cut glasses, soft drinks, CDs, juices and what have you. For the lucky, they can work the other way. Some of the brands can get established in their new avatar. Wills Lifestyle has evolved as a fashion brand. Aristocrat, a Delhi-based brand of whiskey launched a french fry brand styled Aristocrat in similar but smaller packaging. The novelty had people buy the product. And availability -- this was in the early 80s, long before McDonalds started their conquest of India -- and Aristocrat the french fries was a bigger success than Aristocrat the whiskey. Wills Lifestyle was planned; Aristocrat not so. PR is something like that. Every once in a while, you strike it lucky and perhaps you don’t know that you are lucky. Is Nestle congratulating itself for the crisis having occurred in India rather than in the West with rampant class action suits and huge damages.

Except for the fact that it manufactures tobacco-related products, ITC has enjoyed a clean image. But when accused on fiddling excise duties, the PR department collapsed. All the good work of many years went up in smoke. Which is why you need a Scheherazade to narrate the reasons why PR can fail. She, willy-nilly, did a successful job.

Wrong message

The top 10 reasons why PR doesn’t work

1. The client doesn’t understand the publicity process
2. The scope of work is not detailed and agreed upon by both parties
3. The client has not been properly trained
4. Client and the PR person or firms are not a good match
5. The client has not gotten results quickly enough and ends the relationship too soon
6. PR people don’t explain the kind of publicity placements a client will most likely receive
7. Clients don’t realise that what happens after you get the publicity coverage is sometimes more important than the actual placement
8. Clients refuse to be flexible on their story angles
9. Clients get upset when the media coverage is not 100 per cent accurate or not the kind of coverage that they wanted
10. Clients won’t change their schedules for the media