PR EXECUTIVE SHOULD FOCUS ON CRISIS PREVENTION AND AVOID EXIT PLAN
By Nandini Dey Kolkata : Siddhartha Upadhyay, a philanthropist, brand consultant, sportsman, and social entrepreneur, was a speaker on Day 5th of #MediaNext webinar conclave. Day 5th of the webinar is dedicated to “ New Media PR (Branded Content) and Business Ethics” and was moderated by Prof. Mrityunjay Chatterjee, Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Cultural
By Nandini Dey
Kolkata : Siddhartha Upadhyay, a philanthropist, brand consultant, sportsman, and social entrepreneur, was a speaker on Day 5th of #MediaNext webinar conclave. Day 5th of the webinar is dedicated to “ New Media PR (Branded Content) and Business Ethics” and was moderated by Prof. Mrityunjay Chatterjee, Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Cultural Studies, Adamas University.
#Medianext 2020 is being organized by the Adamas University, oatain association with Birla Global University., Sharda University, DME, AIMVC, Lok Samvad Sansthan, exchange4media, ABP Education and IndiaReal. The mega online media conclave is organized over a period of 10 days from June 1, 2020, to June 10, 2020. For each day new area of media industry is covered and how it will be after COVID.
Understanding relevance and creating topical strategies” in PR and Brand communication was the topic Upadhyay discussed at MediaNext 2020 conclave. In today’s session, he had spoken about how a person would make him relevant and in which way the person could make the time profitable.
Upadhyay starts the session with a wonderful story of a Chinese worrier named Sun Tzu, known for philanthropy and his book ‘The Art of Warfare,’ which is the bestselling in the world. In this book, Sun Tzu stated that ‘always leave an exit gate behind your opponent.’ He explained how people usually think about creating an exit gate for their own and making crisis management plans, etc., to avoid crisis and loss. He described Tzu’s view as “when you are fighting with someone and leave an exit gate behind your opponent, the opponent starts thinking as if I lose the war, there is an exit gate, and I can run away by the gate.” This is the tactic to attack the opponent’s mind.
He expressed his observation that on the current situation, the people who already had an exit plan are mostly facing the problem because they focused more on the exit plan rather than the war to conquer and taking it to the next level. Not everyone did the same; there are many organizations like French and Swiss organizations ready to invest money on the platform like agriculture, IOT, OTT. Those people did not focus on the exit plan; rather, they made this exit plan for others, and this exit plan came from the mind of a PR execute.
“Entrepreneur is not a title; it’s a character,” said Sidharth Upadhyay, who also encourages others to think like an entrepreneur as a PR executive. He forbade the newcomer in the field of PR to think just like an ordinary PR person. According to him, every public relations officer is an entrepreneur.
To make the PR profitable, he suggested an emphasis on empathy, on the content, and also on the digital marketing strategies, for own not for the society.
Upadhyay suggested the students that for being a good PR executive, one should always focus on crisis prevention and should avoid the exit plan because the exit plan comes by default. Crisis prevention includes one’s own understanding of market change and making one’s ability on that changing scenario and utilizing the changing situation for oneself and others.
He spoke about how the PR industry changes itself in the last fifteen years. He recalls the memory of his initial days in this industry, which was very simple but driven by Information Technology as a sector. The PR industry used to constitute the HR, PR, Event PR, and trade session. People used to talk, and the media needed a story. Gradually, the situation was changing, and they introduced a new device, sales PR, from communication exchange to communication creation, which became an important part that shows the PR industry’s changing scenario.
Upadhyay noted that if the industry has the ability to read, adapt the change, and react accordingly, the Covid-19 situation will not harm the PR industry. He added that one could work as a PR in many other industries, including business to business, business to government, and government to the government, which will involve several PR.
One has to understand one’s relevance, and so he advised students and young PR professionals who have joined the industry to believe in reading and adaptability. PR people have to be in the habit of reading, what is happening internationally, understanding of the international economy, understanding the changing media and consumer trends.
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