Recently a friend shared a beautiful African story that lead to explaining all about – Ubuntu – which means – I am because we are! And this struck a chord, making me wonder whether we in the PR profession practice this thought?
Wouldn’t it be easier if the communications profession also had clear categories to work with and every time there would be a client pitch that didn’t belong to your category, it would simply go to a consultancy that commands strength in that particular area? This is not an idealist expectation, infact to an extent a lot of consultancies today are clear on their domain of expertise and have managed to communicate the same externally in the market as well. Yet, at times this does go up in smoke, when a huge billing client calls for open pitches.
In no way am I attempting to straighten anything or work on amending cracks in a system. The objective is simply to highlight how best we are picking on each-other’s strengths, to make this community bigger than it is. Maybe in so many ways, the communications community is already working together, we just need to make these practices stronger.
For instance, we all work together when it’s a stringer team on board. In such cases, PR consultancies are absolutely clear that the focused market strength that a stringer team brings to table, a national player can never manage that. Where both teams get compensated well for their efforts and no one ever bothers to take another’s place. And this hasn’t changed much in decades.
Another flourishing practice these days, is how freelancers get recommended by bigger PR consultancies, sometimes could be due to budget constraints, but most often it’s because of the freelancer’s strength and focused attention to that one brand (which sometimes might not be possible for a consultancy). But its commendable how communication professionals have found their footing as freelancers, choosing specific industries or growing new markets.
Some PR consultancies are known for their domain expertise owing to their dedicated time over decades in that particular industry. Whereas, some consultancies launch to only cater to specific industries. For instance, teams working only for Bollywood, some working for the real estate categories and some focused only on technology. You can look us up here because we launched five years ago only to work with the Food and Beverage industry and have solely done that in the last few years.
The narrowed focus these days, helps one grow better and ensures that the peers around also know that boundaries won’t be jumped simply.
One could believe in the #ChillwithNetflix ideology or showcase new style of #storytelling as #AmazonPrimeVideo managed to do. You would wonder what does this have to do with – growing together – and I’m thinking that Amazon just set a new benchmark pushing competition to #GearUp and pre-empt competition! This could be a great way of ensuring that we are growing and you can too, just continue outdoing yourself!
Just trying to think differently with 2020 kickstarting!
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
Building brands through story-telling is what keeps me going! Having spent 18years in this industry, I am far more excited to experiment on what's next to unlearn. Worked with industries across FMCG, Oil & Gas, Technology, Fashion, Telecom, Media House, F&B and now Sports, my curiosity to craft a narrative only gets deeper. Marathons, Black Coffee, learning about Scotch and Malts, reading everything i can, travelling, are few of other personal passions that I happily pursue.
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