TORQUE OF TOWN

Torque Takes The Platform On Work Rights For Expatriate Spouses

2011-12-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

On the 10th anniversary symposium of Permits Foundation on Tuesday 22nd November at the BT Tower, London, Torque was a part of a panel discussion on the Challenges and Successes of the efforts of the Foundation.

Excerpts from a report in Re:Locate: This highly commendably not-for-profit organisation has been fighting the corner for expatriate spouses and partners to work since 2001. At Re:locate, we have been following its progress since the early days, and Fiona Murchie was delighted to take the opportunity to catch up on developments by attending a celebratory symposium, held at the BT Tower, in London, on 22 November.

There were some heavyweight speakers, including Andrew Gould, chairman of Schlumberger, and Doug Baillie, chief HR Officer of Unilever, putting the business case.

Government challenges were highlighted by Professor David Metcalf, Chair of the UK Migration Advisory Committee, Kristina Lindahl von Sydow, Member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Malstrom, representing the European Commissioner responsible for Home Affairs, and David Wilden, Minister-Counsellor (immigration), Australian High Commission, and Anne Arnott, Minister (immigration), Canadian High Commission.

According to major surveys from organisations such as Brookfield, ECA, Mercer and PwC, concern about partner employment is one of the main reasons for an employee to turn down an international assignment.

The Permits Foundation’s 2008 global survey of 3,300 partners revealed that 25% of international staff had turned down or terminated because of concerns about the partner’s employment or career. 70% of partners said that their own employment was important in the decision to relocate, with almost 60% stating they would be unlikely to relocate to a country where it was difficult to get a work permit.

A powerful case study given at the conference by Supriyo Gupta, adviser to the India steering committee, of how the Permits Foundation had worked within India with local partners clearly illustrated the effectiveness of this approach.

The Permits Foundation is currently working via local sponsor networks in Brazil, India, Japan, Indonesia and Russia to bring about visa changes. Contact them via contacts@permitsfoundation.com to lend your support.

Recent achievements
India – Representation to the Government of India resulted in a change of regulation, permitting spouses of intra-company transferees to apply for an employment visa in India.

UK – Successfully argued against a tightening of regulations for dependants of intra-company transferees.

European Union – Provisions for non-European family members to work were included in the Blue Card Directive due for adoption by Member States in December 2011.

USA – Supports an extension of employment authorisation to all skilled work-permit holders, as well as recognition of unmarried partners

The legal expertise behind the Permits Foundation is of the highest calibre. Julia Onslow-Cole, Partner and Head of Global Immigration at PwC, is a founding board member. Answering questions at the event, she emphasised the importance of focusing on the right countries where the Permits Foundation could have most success.

Sponsors obviously want to see the organisation getting to more countries more quickly. The way forward is possibly developing the notion of a global immigration treaty – apparently, project work is afoot in the immigration world over the next 12 months. As Ms Onslow-Cole pointed out, once you get to a global level and attach to human rights, this makes everything much easier.

Happy Diwali

2011-10-27T01:37:00.000-07:00

The digital ‘Wings of Icarus’

2011-10-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

By Supriyo Gupta writing in Exchange4Media

Very many years ago, my M.Phil dissertation on the Middle Eastern oil economies, which subsisted on ‘unearned’ bounty of oil that nature had graciously provided, opened with a chapter titled ‘The Wings of Icarus’. Greek mythology has it that Daedalus and his son, Icarus, fled from the wrath of King Minos by attaching wings to their bodies with wax and taking flight. As they were escaping, Icarus flew too near the sun. The wax melted and the boy fell into the sea.

Today, the digital world looks like a merry conglomeration of Daedalus hastily fastening ‘digital’ wings to ‘fly’ in the digital space. Let’s face it. Until Facebook came along, most companies and brands were at their wits end, apportioning minute spends on experimental banners and search engine and browser trackers.

For all the lip service (and podium stomping!) that brands provide to digital efforts, the much lamented truths remain: no one is willing to put real money into it; much of the effort is dovetailed to ride print and television campaigns; the ‘like’ buttons often mean no more than “seen it once”; less than 5 per cent of the much touted ‘number of likes’ or followers engage on any series of posts; brands continue to struggle to ‘fit’ in the medium and oscillate wildly between phenomenal creativity and crippling conservatism; companies struggle to fit the play between marketing and corporate communications…

My submission is that companies and brands are simply like Daedalus (companies) trying to fix wings (loosely social media, mostly Facebook, Twitter, bits of YouTube, some blogs) on to their Icarus (brands). Problem is, like all borrowed wings, the wax will give way sooner rather than later and Icarus’ digital efforts will be swallowed in the sea of digital junk. This is not to decry the very many efforts at flight that are surely building knowledge amongst ‘digital marketers’, but much of the science currently is tactical, scarcely a part of strategy or an organisational outlook.

Where then is the solution? It is simply not possible for companies or brands to turn their back on the digital world and pretend it does not exist. The market is a harsh and unforgiving master and every tool counts. Much of what is being done is right and gives the brand gains, albeit short lived ones, in making themselves a part of the ‘social life’ of their customers.

However, I think most companies and brands need to recognise the larger truth hidden in their own efforts: The fact that their customers ‘like’ to relate to their brands ‘socially’. Current consumer and behavioural philosophy understands that people today are organising their identities around their brands. Digital media is strengthening that identity adoption of ‘know who I am by what I associate myself with’.

Social media does not merely “bring” customers to brands, but actually “takes” users from brands. What that essentially means is that after most people have exhausted their natural extension of friends and acquaintances, clients and colleagues, they seek to expand their engagement by relating to ‘like’ people.

The corollary to this is available in any search analytics. After sex and stars, religion and politics, the highest searches are for brands. The more serious discussions on brands are taking places in blogs and forums, discussion boards, news sites and video sites. Most such conversations are built around brands or category of brands. When these digital spaces combine with the other carriers of digital information (feeds, viral mails, news alerts, content aggregators), the effect can be a devastating. Dell, and more recently BP, faced severe challenge in the digital space when the digital eco-sphere combined against them.

Most companies and brands that command a large retail following find themselves challenged by their audience becoming participants in independent digital spaces.

What companies can do
Which brings up the question of what ought to be the grand digital strategy to command spaces where customers sit? The answer lies in the simple proposition that companies, and their brands, need to build their own digital real estate. As Dell has demonstrated, the best bet lies in owning spaces which are strong watering holes for people who want to talk about them, talk to them and talk with others who see a commonality in their brand association.

While social media offers companies an opportunity to ‘source’ their audience, they need to replicate ‘social’ spaces while creating strong ‘mastheads’ for their brands. They need to create their own spaces that not only provide creative, social and marketing engagement, but also a fair and free space for their constituency to hold the brand accountable, provide insights and, mostly, let them be themselves as they relate to people just like themselves, with similar interests and values. A lot of it is happening by default as these brand aficionados have set up digital interface platforms recognising the power of collecting people around the brand. Most large companies are troubled by these ‘people owned’ brand mastheads but have failed to take a leaf out of their book.

For that to happen, companies need to make two fundamental changes in their outlook to the digital space. First, they need to recognise the need to build their own unique spaces because they are the mastheads of the digital world, not simply search tags or social media ‘like’. (In other words, people go looking for them on the web just like people go looking for their favourite newspaper in the offline world). Each brand and company needs to build its own grand strategy of owning all its constituents and making their own masthead the most powerful gathering point for the brand.

The architecture of these spaces will be distinct for each brand and based upon the power of the content that drives conversations around the brand. Just as advertising has learnt that the most effective way to build memorable brands is by creating cultural connects, the task for digital brand architects is to create de novo spaces where their constituents are offered the whole panoply of experiences that one obtains offline from a newspaper, a gossip session in a café, a hyper mall, a throbbing neighbourhood, a well-stocked book shop, a debating hall and maybe even a gaming zone. The current approach of easy engagement is dangerously shortsighted for the simple reason that brands are failing to engage the real conversations on the brand and the ‘wings’ that are giving them flight are ‘borrowed’.

The new architecture will require companies to think differently about how they handle their communication because the old rules don’t apply. For the real future digital platform, companies need to make the second fundamental change: Companies need to start thinking of themselves as angel investors in the digital space. They need to invest in experimenting with a variety of platforms, seeking out digital outfits which have deep brand appreciation and are able to create not just momentary smart or ‘wicked’ ideas but long term mastheads. They need to think of the investment from the point of view of ‘docking’ in the entire range of customers in a concerted enough fashion so that the brand has its own online version of real people living out in the brand owned space the entire spectrum of their virtual association with the brand.

Damage Control

2011-07-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sayantani Kar, Mumbai
BUSINESS STANDARD

India Inc is learning the ropes of corporate reputation management the hard way.

Earlier this month, media baron Rupert Murdoch drew the shutters on the 168-year-old News of The World after the News Corp-owned tabloid was hit by a phone-hacking scandal that saw the media group’s shares drop in the market. Closer home, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met five editors of different print publications last month in what was largely seen as part of an image makeover exercise.
In today’s formidably competitive marketplace, reputation management has become important more than ever before. While India is not new to political scandals, a series of corporate crises has brought the issue of corporate reputation management under the spotlight. Whether you are a public relations representative or a marketing manager of a corporation, the big question today is: What can one do to deal with a PR crisis effectively? The short answer comes from an old saying in journalism: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” On a serious note, how one emerges from the crisis is determined by the way one goes through it.

Take the case of public relations firm Vaishnavi, which was in the eye of the 2G scam storm along with its founder Niira Radia. The firm chose to remain silent when the controversy broke. A senior official at Vaishnavi who did not wish to be named says, “While we advise our clients to talk to the audience during their crises, we chose to keep quiet. There was dissent within the company to this approach. But then we decided not to give in to the temptation of hitting back with a defence. We knew that the frenzy had to subside for the facts to come out. Our silence ensured it happened quicker. Those who opposed this now agree it was the right thing to do.”

But then Vaishnavi has to mollify primarily its clients in a B2B market unlike companies that have to deal with faceless and nameless end consumers.

Hard to handle

When a bush fire starts, it spreads with devastating speed. Supriyo Gupta, managing director, Torque Communications, says, “There are two aspects to business reputation. One is building it and the other is its management during a crisis. Indian companies must learn that handling bad publicity is not about networking with the editors of the main news vehicles. It is not about brokering a silence. How many news bulletins can you cork? Earlier there was only the word of mouth besides traditional media. Today, you have mobile phones and the Internet, so you wake up to stories even before you turn to traditional media.”

The first question before the company therefore is to decide whether to remain silent or come clean. Santosh Desai, managing director and CEO, Future Brands, “In a crisis, the first thing you do is centralise communication and decide who is going to be the spokesperson. Then you need to get out in the open quickly, without overclaiming.” The key would be to get back with one’s own version of the story. And, there should be no discrepancy or more than one version.

Gupta says, “Around 80 per cent of crises allow the company lead time to prepare for it — a court case, for example, or a business situation that had been expected to escalate such as bad financial results.” Gupta says early exposure could avoid disaster. “Revealing the real course of events and the company’s point of view early on in some news vehicles diffuses the impact of the bad news on the audience.”

Communication or a dialogue, according to Gupta, paves the way for the next stage. “It creates breathing time and space for you to act because it gives your audience something to wait for. Keeping quiet can work only if you have a plan,” points out Gupta.

Not everyone is so lucky. Sometimes a crisis can hit a company from nowhere. There can be an accident, probable but unpredictable, demands that the information is relayed across the ranks so that the senior management has an immediate visibility of the situation and react accordingly. It may demand a pharma company or an auto maker to withdraw entire product batches from the market due to faults and take a financial hit. But it helps to build the credential of the company as a responsible one that is willing to sacrifice and ready to make amends.

Consider the worm infestation controversy that tailed Cadbury India for much of 2003. A few days after worms were detected in its flagship chocolate brand Cadbury Dairy Milk in parts of Maharashtra, Cadbury went to work. While it squarely blamed retailers’ storage facility at the beginning, it quickly launched a dealer education programme and spent Rs 15 crore in revamping the brands packaging without hiking the product price. The investment was unavoidable, says an executive who worked on its communication at that time, because the controversy caught other Cadbury chocolate brands in its slipstream.

Abhijit Awasthi of O&M who heads Cadbury’s creative account says, “Once the changes were made, it was only right to highlight them. The communication had to be part rational and part emotional and it had to come from a credible source that the consumer would recognise instantly.”
Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan was signed on as the ambassador and was taken to the factory first to see the change. Two ad films followed, one in which he explained the packaging change and another where he was cast in the role of a granddad giving his granddaughter a Cadbury chocolate. It helped that one of 2003’s sleeper hits was Bachchan-starrer Baghban, which proved the star was still capable of taking the crowds along with him, thanks to the goodwill he enjoys.

Events unfolded quite differently for Coca-Cola India when the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found pesticide in samples of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in 2003 and again in 2006. Coca-Cola General Manager (public affairs and communications) Kamlesh Sharma says, “We already had stringent checks in place checking every batch of every product at our bottling plants. We knew the only way to counter it (2006) was through scientific proof.” A joint media statement with Pepsi had failed to inspire confidence, according to experts and Coca-Cola’s sales had fallen in 2003. Even though CSE insisted that it was targeting the two companies only because of their huge shares in the soft drinks, it did lead to moves such as state-wide bans of the two drinks, which were later annulled.

But Coca-Cola had learnt from the 2003 spat to opt for a more collaborative approach.
In 2006, Coca-Cola sent samples to Central Science Laboratory, Britain’s largest lab with a sizeable pesticide detection centre and got a clean chit that it put up on its website. It also brought the scientists who headed that research to address the media and shareholders in India. The dealers were also briefed by the salespeople. Coca-Cola followed it up by opening its plants and helplines to queries from the public. Along with NGOs, it held press conferences in smaller towns as well. “Our sales grew in that quarter and more importantly, we were able to work with the government to come up with standards for beverage products which had not been stipulated before,” says Sharma. It meant no one could level allegations out of the blue anymore since there was now a definite reference point.

Rebuilding trust

Says Desai of Future Brands, “As you move forward, it is vital to see from the other side’s point of view, rather than just try and plug your point of view.” The communication department at Satyam (now Mahindra Satyam) battled its leadership crisis in 2009 keeping the concerns of each of its stakeholders in mind. What started as a failed bid to acquire two family-owned companies by Ramalinga Raju went on to expose the audacious accounting fraud that he had pulled off. Billions in wealth were wiped off from shareholders, the founders were in jail, thousands of jobs were on the line and Satyam was staring at endless litigation.

“For about a few days, we had clammed up and shared information only on a need-to-know basis,” says Hari Thalapalli, chief marketing officer and chief people officer, Mahindra Satyam. “But then we realised that the media, in its anxiety to get information, was turning to all kinds of sources, credible or not. It was then that we did a volte-face.” Thalapalli and his team launched a daily communication platform that addressed every query/rumour and put up an update. “There was a mission control room which got to work at 5 in the morning, gathering the previous day’s news that had been reported and put the organisation’s responses to them up on the website by 7/ 8 am,” says Thalapalli.

This continued for three months. At the same time, the team came up with a newspaper, called News Today, and an in-house news channel, News Today TV, that replayed the news on Satyam and the organisation’s clarifications on every point raised that day. “Close to mid-February, we realised that News Today had become the primary source of information for reporters too,” recalls Thalapalli. He also invited reporters to talk to employees and partnered with them in obtaining information.
While the media’s point of view was taken care of, Thalapalli’s team went on to bolster its clients’ confidence. “The news of one client walking out would result in four others contemplating the same,” explains Thalapalli. The team decided to connect clients to other clients who committed they would stand by Satyam. “The latter reasoned with them saying, ‘Yes, we have put them on notice, altered the contract but we want to wait and watch rather than withdraw immediately’,” says Thalapalli. Clients such as Cisco and GlaxoSmithKline publicly endorsed Satyam at that time. Clients were also brought on the New Today platform to talk about how their projects with Satyam were progressing. The team also worked with the Indian government so the latter gave out timely assurances to the stakeholders of remedies being worked out.

Its employees are another set of stakeholders that a company in a crisis cannot ignore. Satyam’s Thalapalli, for instance, organised roadshows and held meetings in person to allay some of their fears. Both Vaishnavi and Satyam admit the decision of senior members to stay back to ride out the crisis acted as a glue for the lower echelons. A Vaishnavi senior manager says, “It helped to boost confidence internally. The senior team would come back and share the feedback they had gathered from the world outside, that were in contrast to the obvious virulence.”

At Satyam, senior officials pledged they would stay back and see the company through its hurdles till the formal takeover that the government was planning. Once Mahindra took over, the message changed to highlighting the conglomerate’s credentials, promising corporate governance, financial stability and the request for an extension from its various stakeholders. From 300 customers leaving in January-April, attrition was down to zero in September 2009.” Amid all that, we reiterated that our deliveries were undisturbed. We stabilised our critical resources with guarantees and they too had a sense of ownership,” says Thalapalli. For its audience abroad who were more active on the Internet, there was a team of 20 who scanned cyber conversations and were authorised to counter with Satyam’s clarifications.

This brings us to the issue of social media and how it has made things both easy and difficult for companies. Gupta who is also managing director of Digilogue, a digital reputation firm, says, “Online publishing does not call for due diligence that traditional media is supposed to follow. But the following is massive. The digital space can morph a crisis faster than ever before and even aggravate a small crisis.”

Given the changing nature of media consumption, there is a simultaneous outcry in the virtual world. But here people need to take a longer-term view not as places to launch campaigns when there is a problem. “Crowds, including those on the net, are rarely pro-corporation. They tend to work against them. Hence, if companies have brands, they should build them in a way to evoke passion,” says Desai.

According to Gupta, companies should turn their brands into mastheads online, so any searches of the brands can lead them to pages with information that won’t sound like PR-speak or sales-speak. A mis-step in crisis in the virtual world can be costly as the beleaguered BP found when it received heavy criticism for directing all Gulf oil related searches to its web-page.

Gupta cites the example of Dell. Five years back, videos of its exploding batteries went viral generating scathing criticism. A huge recall took care of the operational issues, but it left Dell with insights on how to address opinion on the internet. Its Ideastorm platform allowed users to give suggestions about what all they were unhappy about in their Dell products. Users voted on the ideas and the most popular ones were implemented by Dell.

Of course, there typically isn’t a pat rebuild process, but such crises can serve as effective learning experiences for smart corporations. Says Gupta, "Most businesses know the faultlines; so they map their probable crises. Most of all, a crisis seldom develops overnight. There would be cases of near-misses somewhere in the business which collectively snowball into a crisis, say contamination in branches of a food company. These details have to be ploughed back into the system for keeping tabs on.”

Coca-Cola, for example, put in place an incident management and crisis resolution cell with members from different functions, led by Deepak Jolly, head of communication, to review issues in operations every year, be they supply chain, manufacturing or marketing that need to be addressed through the year.

In the end, the overall reputation of the company or the group also plays a huge role when a crisis strikes. The 2G brouhaha did not harm the reputation of the Tata group simply because of its overall image as a high integrity business group. And that is far more important in the long run than any image management strategy during a crisis.

Why Fedex Is Like A Physical Internet

2011-05-03T02:15:00.000-07:00

An excellent piece on Fedex in The Economic Times Corporate Dossier

Teeing Off At The Classic Golf Resort

2011-03-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

If this looks like a lot of fun in action, its the usual grueling offsite!

Aero India: The Torque Top Guns!

2011-02-25T08:27:00.000-08:00

The photo says it all! Meet The Leader! Aero India 2011 was a celebration of the awesome might of air power.

But it was much, much more for Saab and Gripen with the Gripen Top Guns setting the aero fans agog with an unprecedented contest that saw a young student from Bangalore fly in the Gripen.

But before that came all the excitement of a contest in which over 4000 contestants from 81 Indian towns and cities participated and people from over 75 countries came to look at the Gripen Top Guns.

Even while Digilogue Communications put together the site, it was serious work afoot as the entire Saab leadership reached Bangalore to make a serious statement of intent.

For Torque, the Aero Show ended with an offsite for the finance team.

At the end, an awesome experience, an awesome effort!

The First Flight On The Gripen NG

2011-01-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

Indian Journalist Vishnu Som, Associate Editor and Senior Anchor, New Delhi Television (NDTV) was the first civilian and journalist to 'fly' the Gripen NG Demo. Today, his flight on the Gripen, on which he has written about earlier in the Vayu, was telecast on NDTV. Take a look.

The Christmas Bash

2010-12-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

Have a Very Merry Christmas and a Great 2011! The Torque Christmas bash on the terrace of the new office at Gurgaon.

India: PR Growing, but Major Challenges Remain

2010-11-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

An interesting overview of the challenges and responses of the Indian PR industry.

India: PR Growing, but Major Challenges Remain

by Arun Sudhaman

After a week observing the Indian PR market up close, a few thoughts spring to mind. The country is an increasingly confident, optimistic place - fuelled by double-digit economic growth. Unsurprisingly, in this environment, business expansion is viewed as inevitable.

Instead, in common with many emerging markets, most of the people I spoke to are grappling with how best to manage the issues that stem from rapid growth. These challenges often appear universal, but they are also defiantly local. Here are a few:

Fees

It is easy to lose count of the number of agency heads who complained that their firms were not being remunerated at a fair level. Griping about fees is not exactly unheard of within the agency world, but India’s complaints are magnified by some troubling factors. To begin with, there appears to be no standard fee-per-head ratio, which makes over-servicing a very real scenario. The proliferation of agencies, meanwhile, means that under-cutting is rampant.

Not that agencies should be held totally culpable. Client PR budgets are static and, in some cases, have declined. In this video, Six Degrees CEO Rishi Seth explains how the recession sparked a vicious circle of budget cuts on the client side, and poor servicing on the agency side.

At the Holmes Report’s inaugural In-House Roundtable, sponsored by Genesis Burson-Marsteller, communications directors from the likes of Microsoft, Philips, Bharti Airtel, Nokia and Mahindra all agreed that agencies needed to be paid more. Unfortunately, they also pointed out that their own budgets were not increasing.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that corporate communications functions themselves are a relatively recent phenomenon. Thus PR agencies are often retained by, as one agency head pointed out, marketing directors, company secretaries, even finance departments. Until PR becomes accepted by companies and their CEOs as an important budget item, agencies will struggle to see fee growth.

The issue is brought into further stark relief by the continuing growth in agency costs, notably salaries. And it has implications for the level of investment that agencies can make internally, on such critical areas as training, professional development and innovation.

Paid editorial

India’s media is a feisty many-headed beast that is growing at a rapid clip. In print, vernacular media is primed for expansion, while a mind-boggling array of TV channels compete to shout the loudest. For PR agencies, this brings a number of opportunities - but concerns over ethical practices remain.

In particular, a number of people pointed out that the practice of paying for editorial space is rife, with both media and PR agencies complicit. Some agency heads I spoke to said that it was simply too late to change this system now, while others believed that readers - by now - are aware that editorial is often commercialised.

Some Indian journalists, notably The Hindu’s P Sainath, have made attempts to bring the issue to light, but the country’s Press Council appears uninterested in an investigation. The consequences for the PR industry are not hard to fathom.

“Somehow, a lot of clients have found it is more influential to use cash than to have a great idea,” said one PR agency head on condition of anonymity. “It’s less hardworking and more satisfactory to the clients. It also tends to confirm long-held client beliefs as to how the media works.”

The issue first reared its head when the country’s bigger media groups introduced the notion of ‘Private Treaties’, where they takes stakes in companies in return for advertising space. “That has the potential for compromise, so it is troublesome,” said the agency head. “But more troublesome is that you can buy editorial space against ratecard.”

Policy & Public affairs

India’s complex regulatory environment, and its growing importance to major foreign and domestic companies, means that public affairs is becoming increasingly critical. But the industry remains dogged by a reputation for backroom deals, what one agency executive described as “suitcase diplomacy”.

Powerful lobbyists - and there are several - are one thing. More and more, though, a number of agencies are developing broad advocacy campaigns on behalf of corporates or trade associations, designed to spark grassroots support and build mainstream awareness of an issue, and ultimately influence regulators.

A good example of this trend is Torque Communications’ work on behalf of the Shell Foundation’s ‘Room to Breathe’ campaign. The programme attempts to wean rural Indians off their dependency on dangerous, primitive cookstoves. The agency has used digital, rural activation, local government outreach and conventional public affairs, to ultimately change how both people and government see the issue.

“You don’t have to lobby individual ministers and ministries,” says Torque CEO Supriyo Gupta. “You can create media platforms”.

Talent

In India, it is not so much a war for talent as a kind of industrial fratricide. Staff turnover at mid- and entry-level agency positions can reach as high as 50 per cent. Poaching is only set to rise, meanwhile, as more international players - including the likes of Ketchum, Waggener Edstrom and Bite - enter India.

“There is enough business for everyone to grow well,” says Zach James, co-founder of Six Degrees. “What there isn’t enough of is the talent pool. The big guys are going to start to apply pressure on the cost of acquiring this talent.”

Torque’s Gupta believes that now there is a “basic talent pool”.

“Today there are a lot of people coming in because it has emerged as a profession,” he notes. “That does not necessarily mean that you have great talent at the mid- and senior-level. So there is a large pool of talent, but how do you develop that?”

Madison PR CEO Veena Gidwani agrees that attracting people into the profession is no longer as difficult as it once was. Instead, she wonders about the type of person that is joining. “People think it is glamourous”. On that misconception, at least, maybe India’s PR market is not so different after all.

Note: This article is from the Holmes Report

A Japanese View Of Festival of Lights

2010-10-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

Snapshots from the India Japan Initiative-hosted workshop on Diwali in Bangalore. The event was attended by around 60 Japanese ladies residing in Bangalore. Colourful bindis, Jasmine flowers and Diwali cards were given to the ladies to welcome the festival. The ladies witnessed a video on the history of Diwali, which was followed by a presentation depicting the history, culture, food, clothing, rituals and customs associated with the festival. The event concluded with the ladies trying their hand enthusiastically at rangoli and toran.

Check out the team Bangalore sharing a moment with their guests. The action was put together by Kaveri, and Rashi.

Chronicling A Story of Success

2010-09-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

The Nanda's led Escorts is back up there, trumping the stock markets and returning quarter on quarter record breaking results. The Wall Street Journal's Indian avatar, the Mint, captures the remarkable story through the eyes of investors, merchant bankers and a market watchers. Worth a read.

Dressing Up the Indian Way

2010-09-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

Japanese women in Delhi get a flavor of Indian tradition when a session on ‘Contemporary Indian Wear’ was organized by Team Delhi on August 13.

Over a 100 Japanese ladies learnt about the origin of the Indian Sari and witnessed for themselves different Indian attires when their peers dressed in splendid garments walked the ramp.

The Delhi Team had their hands full with the Japanese wanting to get draped in the traditional Sari. The event wrapped up on a happy note with hi tea and the ladies applauding and gasping in appreciation at the colorful spread of bangles, bindis and mehendi!

The action was put together by Bincy, Rashi, Shradha and Khushbu.

The Future Is Made In India

2010-08-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Yet another instance of Great Thinking, Superb Execution.

A 32 page supplement on the Gripen IN proposition for India on the occasion of India's Independence day and India Today's Independence Day Special, capturing the many different dimensions of the Gripen NG.

Combining some extensive discussions with India Today, Thomson Press, various partners in producing the 32 page along with painstaking scrutiny of each page and photograph, this superbly produced supplement goes out with every copy that gets sold in New Delhi and the National Capital Region, reaching out to opinion makers, the armed forces and people at large. Ira and Bibechana's exhaustive -- and exhausting discussions -- also resulted in additional advertisements, rock bottom rates, on time deliveries and a high quality production.

The supplement has evoked reactions ranging from 'brilliant' to 'audacious' even as it is a perfect fit with the India Today Independence Day special and, is in indeed, a Prime Candidate for the MMRCA.

A Himalayan Odyssey, an Epic Endeavour

2010-06-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

Its that time of the year when the Royal Enfields gets the start up Torque from the Delhi team before thundering to a Himalayan Odyssey. The seventh edition of the Himalayan Odyssey was flagged off on Saturday at the India Gate.This year the Himalayan Odyssey charts a different course and extends the definition of arduous adventure riding. Going beyond Khardung La into Nubra valley and exploring virgin territory, the seventh edition of this annually organized Royal Enfield ride promises incomparable excitement to all its 60 participants. Starting today, the bikers will cover a distance of 2560 kms before they reconverge at Delhi on July 3.

Yogic Union

2010-05-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

India Japan Initiative's Yoga Workshop held at Bangalore on April 28. Japanese ladies learn about Indian yoga traditions and a few asanas along the way. Team Bangalore

I am Just Lovin It

2010-04-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

Its been a happy time at McDonalds and the team has been out there rolling out themes that go all the way from Rs 20 pack to

Chatur gives a hand to the McDonald's "Har Chotti Khushi Ka Celebration.” Ronald crowns the fourth in the 3 Idiots. Hopefully, there was no speech in Hindi from Chatur aka Omi Vaidya.

The “Navibbaroo bere-Berene” separation of Veg and Non-veg all the way from peel to plate kick started n Bangalore with Kannada actress Aindrita Ray and Ronald. Also, Ranjit Paliath-Director, South India.

CHANDIGARH CATCHES THE SIGNAL

2010-04-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

Videocon launch in Chandigarh... as you can see, Rahul is covering a lot of ground!

EDITOR'S PICK

2010-04-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Now, that's a study. Rahul keeps an eye on the proceedings in Chennai as Mr Venugopal Dhoot connects with the media.

THE 100 DAY SPRINT...

2010-04-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

The indefatigable BKS and Rajat (Videocon) with Ira and Team Ahmedabad of Hardi, Chandni, Swapan, Dushyant and Anish take the bows after a gruelling weekend to launch Videocon's mobile services in Ahmedabad shortly after the launch in Chandigarh. With 100 cities to launch in 100 days, watch this space!

One Hundred Days, One Hundred Cities

2010-04-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

Videocon Mobile Services (VMS) has set a mammoth target of achieving 10 crore customers in three years and would invest Rs 15,000 crore in the sector.

V N Dhoot, chairman of Videocon group, while launching its services in Gujarat said that telecommunication is one of the focused areas of the group and it will invest Rs 15000 crore (about US $4 billion) to develop necessary infrastructure in the country.

Over the past three weeks, Torque team has been driving the PR strategy for the aggressive roll out with quickfire launches in Chennai, Mumbai, Chandigarh and on Sunday in Ahmedabad. With a plan to roll out in 100 cities in 100 days, Videocon will be going at it hard in the market.

Says Mr Dhoot, ""In coming months, we will target to cover 100 per cent of the urban population and 50 per cent of rural population in the state. Our services will be offered from around 20,000 retail outlets at the beginning and plan to cover 45,000 outlets in next two months."

Shimoga's Village Health Workers Campaign on Indoor Air Pollution

2010-04-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

In a pathbreaking initiative Torque Communications has enabled Shell Foundation to join hands with village level health workers, the Anganwadi workers, in the Shikaripur Taluk of Shimoga district to spread awareness on the dangers of smoke in the kitchen and propagate the adoption of improved cook stoves.

The Anganwadi system is managed by Anganwadi workers from the community who are trained in health, nutrition and child-care. She is in-charge of an Anganwadi, which covers a population of 1000. A group of Anganwadis is supervised and guided by a Child Development Projects Officer (CDPO). There are about 300 such workers in the Shikaripur Taluk who report to the Taluk Health Officer and CDPO.

Over two days, nearly 100 anganwadi workers have been trained to take the IAP campaign to over a 100 villages of Shikaripur Taluk, effectively covering 100,000 people over the next one month. Each Anganwadi worker has a coverage of around one thousand people.

The launch of the campaign brings together efforts that have included support from the Karnataka Chief Minister's Office, various ministries of the state government, the district authorities, the Zilla Parishad and the Community health officers. Over the past six months, the Torque Team reached out to government officials at the state, district, Zilla and Taluk level and received enormous support for this campaign that is a

The campaign being run with support from stove manufacturers Envirofit and SELCO who are training and providing stoves for demonstrations.

This route to market is expected to provide yet another avenue for category education as well as outreach for adoption of stoves.

Based on the results of the current phase, the campaign can be extended to all the 2000 anganwadi workers in Shimoga district. The first batch of 100 anganwadi workers were picked by the CDPO in the taluk to launch the exercise.

Workers were trained in batches of 50 on the health issues of indoor air pollution and the formats of communicating the issue to village people.

Thereafter, they were also trained in stove demonstrations. The angawadi workers would now take the campaign on their own to their villages and provide the campaign grassroot outreach.

This is part of the Shell Foundation's wider 'Room to Breathe' campaign, which aims to save lives, improve livelihoods and reduce climate change emissions by tackling kitchen smoke.

Gripen doing well in India MMRC Field Trials

2010-04-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Gripen Campaign for the Indian MMRCA seems to be gaining good ground. With trials in India and Sweden going fairly well so far, the Gripen has emerged as a strong contender even as defence writers have noted the performance of the aircraft.

Vishnu Som, a defence expert and associate editor of India's leading News Channel NDTV writes in the Bharat Rakshak forum:

"The Gripen Ds did sensationally in their tests when they were in India recently. The D restarted and took off from Leh with a loadout of 2.6 tonnes which included air to air missiles and underwing fuel tanks. The heat test went off very well in Jaisalmer. It meant placing the aircraft in the sun for a designated period of time, firing her up and flying her at maximum speed at low altitude while checking out all the systems. They also dropped a bomb flying out of Jaisalmer. They also did tanking ops.

And ... no need to hold your breath any longer ... the Demo will be here in mid May and will likely do the Leh trip again and anything that the Indian Air Force requests. They were earlier unable to bring in the Demonstrator because of tasking with the Swedish Air Force which happened at exactly the same time that they were supposed to come to India.

Indian Air Force pilots travel to Sweden in the next few days. They are free to fly the Demo there if they want though they will be firing an AMRAAM off a D platform. My sources tell me that Indian Air Force pilots loved the jet while it was here, particularly its man-machine interface and the intuitive nature of the setup ..."

Incidentally, Vishnu makes it clear in his post that:

1. I do not endorse any of the MMRCA competitors.
2. I sincerely hope the Indian Air Force gets the plane it wants and the decision is NOT a political one.
3. I am not aware of the performances of the other competitors though I have NOTHING to suggest that they have done badly.

John Players has Ranbir Kapoor as Brand Ambassador

2010-03-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

John Players, men's apparel brand from diversified business firm ITC, in Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor as its brand ambassador.

The company has also announced the launch of new advertising campaign, ITC said in a statement.

"Scheduled to be launched in April this year, the advertising campaign, which is simple and clean, captures the various moods of Ranbir...," it added.

Speaking on the occasion, ITC's divisional chief executive Atul Chand said, "With Ranbir, we plan to strengthen John Players's connect with the youth and the foundation has been laid today with the launch of new brand logo."

The signature line of Ranbir by John Players is dedicated to the young Indian male. It includes the tastes and preferences that Ranbir has as an individual and not as an actor. “Our design team will work along with him to create this range and it will be retailed and marketed as such,” Chand says. Ranbir obviously associates himself more with denim. So the line would be John Players jeans, short shirts, T-shirts and knits with graphics, words and attitude, slim fits; basically clothes that are more fashionable, casual and informal.

THIS IS FUN!

2010-02-25T07:19:00.000-08:00

A workshop on Holi was organized by IJI with 40 students from grade I and II from the Japanese school New Delhi on February 24^th 2010