I want to address something that has bothered me deeply for the better part of two decades: the rampant undervaluation of PR in India. Not by clients alone — we do it to ourselves.
We undercharge. We over-deliver. We accept retainers that do not reflect the strategic value we bring. We allow clients to treat us as execution vendors when we should be sitting at the strategy table. And then we wonder why the industry doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
Look at what a PR professional in India does in a single week. We write content across multiple formats. We manage stakeholder relationships with journalists, influencers, government bodies, and internal teams simultaneously. We provide counsel on everything from product launches to crisis scenarios to ESG positioning. We track media, analyse sentiment, advise on messaging, and still somehow find time to pitch a column by Friday.
And we do all of this, in many cases, for a retainer that a single consulting hour with an American or European firm would exceed.
Part of the problem is our own reluctance to quantify and articulate value. We deal in intangibles — trust, perception, narrative — and we have been terrible at translating those intangibles into business outcomes. The consultancy that can walk into a boardroom and say, ‘Our media relations programme contributed to a 23% increase in unprompted brand awareness in this target segment’ — that consultancy can charge what it is worth.
The other part of the problem is a market that has historically rewarded volume over strategy. Coverage counts over quality analysis. Activity reports over outcome reports. That cultural default needs to change — and it starts with us refusing to participate in it.
Indian PR has produced some of the most sophisticated communications thinking in the world. We operate in one of the most complex, multilingual, multi-stakeholder markets imaginable. That expertise deserves to be priced accordingly. Stop underselling yourself. The industry is watching — and so are the clients who will pay for excellence, if only you ask for it.
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