PR Beyond 2020....And we have miles to go...

As a tribute to veteran communicator DR. C.V. NARASIMHA REDDI, who passed away at Hyderabad today, PRapport presents his last article written, literally from his bed, on the occasion of the 14th Global Communication Conclave held at Bengaluru on March 6 & 7, 2020. Dr Reddi was a recipient  of the Dr Anil Basu Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Relations instituted by PRCI. He was also honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award by ABCI .

“If I were to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations” said Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. In fact, public relations (PR) has emerged as a key component of any business in this day of instant communication.

Before we enumerate the future of public relations in the 2020, it is most appropriate to take stock of the state of the art public relations in India. PR played a significant role in the two remarkable achievements of independent India – Emergence of India as the world’s largest vibrant democracy and that India has been transformed into global economic player, poised to become world’s third biggest economy.

With one lakh PR professionals, over 30 lakh extension communicators including nine lakh ASHAs on the one side and one lakh newspapers; 1000 TV channels; 500 radio stations; 36 lakh internet connections; and about 120 crore cell phones; 1.6 lakh post offices; on the other, constitute the world’s biggest communication network.

What is the state-of-the-art public relations in India? It is a mixed bag, containing a few sophisticated and competent PR professionals second to none in the world on the positive side, while a majority of non-professionals without any professional education reflecting the negative aspect of the profession. According to Adfactors, PR Agency that 90% of PR personnel have not read any book on PR. The distinguishing trait of the profession is “Quantity of PR Personnel”, rather than “Quality of the Profession”. The need of the hour is professional excellence.

I visualize seven trends of PR in 2020. They are as follows:

1.      Adaption of PR 2.0 New Model

            As a measure of revamping PR in the decade ahead, the need of the hour is a paradigm shift with PR 2.0 new model as coined by Brian Solis, it is otherwise called convergence of traditional PR with internet and social media.

            Dr. Doug Newsom, Professor Emerita, Texas Christian University, USA observed that “convergence of traditional PR with internet is a pragmatic approach to manage stakeholders relationship. However, understanding, how to use and manage social media channels is of great importance”.

2.      Artificial Intelligence (AI)

            In 2020, no organisation can escape from AI, to maintain effective relations with the public. Transcriptions, automated translation, speech to text services, printing of publications, relations with customers will be some of the AI driven technologies to reach largest section of masses. The machine driven human intelligence opens new frontiers and opportunities for PR professionals.

3.      PR Education and Training

            In the UK PR is offered as a major course both at UG and PG level such as BA (Hons), MA PR, MS PR. The University of Sterling offers MSc (PR), both in regular and distance mode. Four majors are offered in USA at UG level – Journalism, PR, Advertising and Mass Communication.

In contrast, Public Relations Education in the Indian universities is still a nascent stage. Notwithstanding the fact that PR is one of the growing professions, most of the conventional universities in India offer multi-cuisine, all-in-one communication and journalism courses in which, out of eight courses, public relations is one.

When Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University submitted proposal to the UGC for recognition of MA Mass Communication and Public Relations, it has rejected the proposal on the plea that this course is not in its approved list. It clearly means that the UGC has not recognised PR as an academic discipline.

The New Education Policy (NEP) Draft 2019 recommended the introduction of a four year bachelor degree especially in liberal arts. It is most appropriate and relevant that in tune with the NEP, the UGC must launch a four year Bachelor’s Degree with three majors as Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising. Such a policy, undoubtedly, will produce proficient PR personnel.

Training: In fact, PR is skills oriented profession. One can be successful in this profession when PR personnel are equipped with professional skills – Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, etc. A major lacuna in the practice of Indian PR is lack of any induction or in-service PR training. As opposed to developed countries, where the percentage of skilled workforce is between 60 to 90 per cent of the total work force, India has an abysmal 4.69 per cent of workforce with formal vocational skills. It is worse in the PR field. The Indian Institute of Mass Communication was established in New Delhi for imparting training and research. Unfortunately, this institute confined to the training of Indian Information Service officers and conducting Diploma courses in Journalism, Advertising and PR, which are nothing but replication of universities courses. Therefore, it is suggested that all State Governments should establish Mass Communication and PR Academy at the State level for the training of communication and PR professionals.

4.      PR Research and Innovation

Lack of research and innovation are the two major pitfalls of public relations practice in India. If the US has reached great heights in the fields of science and technology and emerged as the number one in the world’s economy, it is because of its priority for research and innovation. A National Research Foundation proposed by the draft NEP is a good step in the direction of research in India. The Government as well as corporates spend crores of rupees both  on image building advertising and public relations campaigns, but rarely their impact on the public mind is assessed.

An international PR firm, BBDO in its survey revealed that “PR industry may never be fully respected, unless it can provide measurement of its value of different programmes. Therefore, research is the rocky but sunlit pathway for PR professionals to climb once for all out of the quacks and spin doctors’ status, where our work is judged by instinct and intuition. Each PR department must have a research division on par with All India Radio’s Audience Research Unit with adequate budget.

Innovation is yet another field of activity to project new theories, new practices that enlighten the stakeholders. Innovation alone can take PR to greater heights.

5.      Consolidation of PR Departments

If the 2019 decade made presence of PR as management function, 2020 envisages consolidation of PR departments with specialised branches such as Media Relations, Internal Communication, External Stakeholders relationship, Advertising, Publications, Social Media, Feedback mechanism, etc.

6.      PR Reporting

Lack of measurement of PR programmes is the greatest lacuna of PR profession, like marketing, management demand results from PR in improving the image of the organisation. One of the short comings of Indian PR is lack of management recognition for PR on par with HRD or marketing.

Public relations reporting is a process of keeping the management informed about PR activities and accomplishments. The PR manager has to periodically report progress to the top management. It is a report card of the PR department. PR reporting is a challenge to PR professionals. However, if they do it systematically, management undoubtedly recognise their hard work in projecting the corporate affairs to both internal and external public.

CEO as Chief of PR Strategist at the board level

If PR is regarded as strategic top management function, the Director of PR must find a place in the Board which formulates policies for all management disciplines. Unfortunately, the PR by and large is at the middle level under HR or Marketing. Therefore, public relations must be placed at the top management level with a Director or Vice-President (PR) who should be made responsible to the CEO. And CEO, who is accountable to all disciplines, must assume the role of Chief of PR for designing PR strategy.

A Bright Future- Five Factors: 

If challenges are converted into opportunities and if all such opportunities are tackled with a vision, a bright future beckons Indian PR, because of five important factors. These factors include (i) India continues to sustain world’s largest democracy; (ii) India is poised to become world’s third biggest economy; (iii) India will become world’s largest English speaking nation; (iv) India will be the hub of world’s largest media network with over one lakh newspapers; and (v) India is likely to have 50 states instead of 29. (The author was Editor, Public Relations Voice & Former State Director, Information & PR Department, AP)

Dr. CVN Reddi (extreme left) receiving  Dr.Anil Basu Memorial Life Time Achievement Award for Public Relations  at the 11th  Global Communication conclave, Bengaluru, on March 03, 2017.