Tara Kapur, Vice-President, Euro RSCG PR & Events

The key to successful integrated marketing communications is to treat all marketing disciplines as equal. All key players, advertising, PR, promotions, direct marketing, online marketing, and event marketing collaborate as equal partners to develop the best strategy for achieving marketing objectives. Euro RSCG is committed to the ‘Power of One’, and when we pitch for a new business, Euro RSCG Advertising, Euro RSCG PR, 4 D and MPG all strategise together. Closing the credibility gap is the biggest value add PR brings to the 360-degree marketing solution for clients.

Tara Kapur has nearly 20 years’ experience in marketing and PR. She began her career with Good Relations before moving to IL&FS to head their corporate communications division. Subsequently, she headed the Ogilvy PR Mumbai office, which is their largest office, before moving to McCann-Erickson India to set up their PR division in 1997.

Kapur left McCann in July 2001 to start the PR division of Euro RSCG, taking with her the entire team and clients at McCann to Euro RSCG.

The clients that she has worked with include World Gold Council, Philips, Singapore Tourism Board, SBI Capital Markets, SBI Mutual Fund, IL&FS, Reckitt Benckiser, Seagrams, Glaxosmithkline, Britannia, Textile Committee, and Godrej, among others.

In a freewheeling conversation with exchange4media’s Pallavi Goorha, this PR veteran talks about how Euro RSCG PR manages its clients, the qualities required of a good PR professional and the changes taking place in the discipline.

Q. What factors do you take into account before deciding on the communications strategy for a client?

The communications strategy is designed to achieve the client’s communications objectives, which in turn is related to the client’s business goals. It considers the client brief, the environment, including current perception about the client, as well as the competition. The environment would include issues, if any.

For example, a client may want to double sales of his brand over the next 12 months and has planned expansion of outlets, appointing a brand ambassador and an advertising campaign to support it. But the situation on the ground may show that there are some quality concerns as well as a new entrant in the market, an international category leader. So the strategy recommended would consider all these aspects and we may advise the client to make some product changes without which he will be unable to even maintain his current level of sales.

One crucial point to note is that perceptions do not change overnight and clients need to realise that just appointing a PR agency or changing one does not lead to an overnight change of perception.

At Euro RSCG Worldwide PR we use proprietary global tools to map a corporate’s (or a brand’s) current reputation, which is a very useful, starting point of the communications strategy.

Q. Who are your major clients? Do you have specialised teams to handle specific domains?

We have several practices – brand, corporate, healthcare, technology and financial communications. Each client is handled by a team with relevant experience and each team is headed by a senior manager. In order to ensure proactive response and deliver high quality service, we do not let each team handle too many clients.

Since we have global practice area experts in our agency, we conduct training for all team members to ensure they stay up to date with global best practices and are constantly learning. This has helped us add value to our client’s communications programmes and retain clients over the long term. We also have a crisis communication team comprising the senior most team members who have handled a variety of crises across industries and who are available to clients any time they find themselves facing a serious issue or a full fledged crisis.

Q. On the personal front, you’ve had a successful career in brand management before you shifted to PR. What made you switch your profession?

I got into PR when the industry was at its infancy, almost 15 years ago… It seemed so very exciting and now I am totally hooked onto it.

Q. How do you distinguish the role of PR and advertising? Do you think PR plays a secondary role in the entire communication process of a client or a brand?

There are several industries that do not rely too much on advertising – if they advertise at all – and depend mainly or entirely on PR to build their brand. For example, corporates who do B2B marketing might not do any advertising. Management consultants, law firms and medical consultants also cannot advertise as the law doesn’t permit them to do so.

Again, several premium brands might rely only on PR, events and direct marketing as they are targeting a very select audience. Liquor companies, too, rely hugely on PR to build their brands due to the restrictions on advertising.

High-tech and healthcare brands also rely heavily on PR to build their brands. PR’s role varies in the communication programme depending on the client’s audience. For mass or FMCG brands with huge ad budgets, PR gets a smaller share of the total communication spend. Even for FMCGs who advertise heavily, PR can bring a brand to life as it involves consumers of the product. It can also revitalise an existing brand.

Q. On a broader platform, what are the concerns facing the PR industry today?

There are several concerns that come to mind. Some stem from the client’s side, while others are related to the PR industry itself. Most importantly, there are few clients who understand exactly what PR can contribute to their communications exercise. So, they think appointing a PR agency (or changing the one they have) is like waving a magic wand. Sign on a PR consultancy and hey presto, experience immediate awareness and a doubling of sales! At Euro RSCG, we try to educate clients on what PR can and cannot do so that we can work together as a team to achieve realistic goals.

Again, when clients ask about evaluation they only think of the ad cost equivalent, which does not do justice to PR. At Euro RSCG, we set a 12-month goal jointly with our clients, as well as goals for each quarter. Every quarter, we evaluate PR delivery to check if we are on track to meet programme objectives. We have a proprietary method of evaluating PR, called the PR Dashboard, which measures message transmission, message reception, and outcome in terms of attitude and behaviour changes.

Also, many clients think PR is only about media relations. They do not know much about how the media operates and say things like we want to be in tomorrow’s Brand Equity or on STAR News tonight! But over the years, I have found more clients becoming knowledgeable about PR. At Euro RSCG PR, we assist in educating clients on how the media operates, creating a ‘News Hook’, etc. We do media training and understanding the media sessions for clients.

As for the fee structure, vastly differing fees are being quoted for the same programme. I’ve had clients who told me that they had received quotations from Rs 15,000 to Rs 3 lakh for the same work. How are they to evaluate these quotes? We recommend doing a reference check with current and past clients of the shortlisted agencies and never going for the lowest quote.

Also, there is a great shortage of good PR people, so often agencies recruit freshers and unleash them on the media and clients without providing them the necessary training. Even when we recruit experienced people we train them before sending them out so that they project our standard of professionalism and know what they are talking about.

Q. What, according to you, are the essential qualities of a good PR professional?

A good PR professional needs to be a great communicator, well networked, with good interpersonal skills, ability to be a team member, have good analytical skills, creative thinking ability and a keen interest in the business environment. They must be voracious consumers of the media. They need to read widely, watch lots of TV across channels and finally pay attention to detail. While we follow several guidelines when hiring, we also administer psychological tests to candidates to enable us to identify the right person.

Q. How organised is the PR industry today? Where do you see this industry panning out in the years to come?

The PR industry in India will mature. There would be consolidation with the big global consultancies on one hand, the ‘boutique’ specialist agencies on the other hand, and yes, there will always be small time freelancers. The industry will also become more professional. There will be higher standards of delivery and wider use of evaluation tools.

Q. Has the Internet changed the way PR agencies work?

Yes, information dissemination is much faster. We can search for the information we need on the Net with ease; news, both positive and negative, travels instantly, it’s really more of a global village now. Despite this, there are few if any agencies in India offering online PR. Euro RSCG PR is one of the very few consultancies to offer online PR in India. However, not very many clients have shown interest in it as yet.

Q. What are the core values of your PR agency?

We are totally committed to delivery. Each team is headed by a senior person and each team handles only a few clients. There is relative stability within teams. We train our people very well, it is constant and on the job. Also, I am a task master and am always exhorting the team to push the boundary and achieve the impossible. I never accept delivery of ‘low hanging fruit’. We also work well in integrated marketing communication programmes – both with Euro RSCG or with other ad agencies. We also pride ourselves in being proactive, professional and creative. Most team members have forged strong relationships with the media.

Q. Is there a concrete role that PR agencies can play in 360-degree solutions for brands?

The key to successful integrated marketing communications is to treat all marketing disciplines as equal. All key players, advertising, PR, promotions, direct marketing, online marketing, and event marketing collaborate as equal partners to develop the best strategy for achieving marketing objectives.

Euro RSCG is committed to the ‘Power of One’, and when we pitch for a new business, Euro RSCG Advertising, Euro RSCG PR, 4 D and MPG all strategise together. Closing the credibility gap is the biggest value add PR brings to the 360-degree marketing solution for clients. Take the example of Lacoste. Euro RSCG began with PR, then events and finally started advertising. And though they advertise regularly now, PR is a crucial part of their integrated communications programme.

Advertising and promotions are about salesmanship, but PR is about information. By providing information through PR to consumers, directly or through trusted third parties, PR makes advertising more believable and promotion more actionable.

Take the example of Maruti Suzuki Swift. All Swift owners who I know say they bought the car not because of the advertising, but because of the great press headlines, which told them what a superior car the Swift is! Some buyers did not remember seeing the ads at all. My interest stemmed from the fact that Euro RSCG PR provided PR support to the Swift launch campaign in Andhra Pradesh.

Q. How do you see the growth of this industry in the next few years?

There will be exponential growth. More and more companies will appreciate the value PR brings to their communications and hire agencies; also PR’s share of the total communications pie will also increase.

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