Who Are PR Firms Racing With?

Taking on video, content marketing, social media management, creative work et al - once the exclusive domain of creative and digital agencies - PR agencies today compete not just with one another but creative and digital specialists too

- Neeta Nair

Every once in a while, we see a thoughtful ad and fall in love with the creativity of the creators, who more often than not are sitting in an ad agency, thinking about the next big idea. That’s where the big ideas have traditionally come from, right? But nowadays, the geniuses behind such ideas might well be sitting in a Public Relations agency, which are customarily expected to just circulate these ads to the media. For example, the viral digital video for Oyo Rooms featuring Manoj Bajpayee and Raveena Tandon was not created by Oyo’s creative agency, but by a PR agency called Boring Brands. It is an eye-opener on the fast expanding universe of Public Relations firms and how more and more advertisers are seeking solutions from them in formats which were not the norm earlier.

Nitin Mantri, Group CEO, Avian WE and also the President of Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI) says, “Today, with the advent of social media and Internet penetration, PR agencies are not restricted to working with traditional media. PR has moved way beyond just getting coverage for a client in five big publications. The need of the hour is integrated campaigns - on social media, on digital, creating good content through storytelling, etc. It includes the effective use of multimedia, videos, infographics, creative, etc. If we have to do all that, then we have to have people with those skillsets within the agency itself.”

So, it is not surprising that PR firms like Avian WE today have added a host of new verticals to include designers, website developers, creative heads, digital experts, people who do social media management and in some cases even media planners to manage the online space.