Blog 4 PR here!

230 Mumbai journos to get MHADA flats, courtesy Press Club

2009-08-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

In a well-attended function yesterday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, handed over a letter to the office bearers of the Press Club of Mumbai approving the allotment of 230 Mhada flats for journalists. These include 174 High Income Group (HIG) apartments, and 56 middle income (MIG) flats. The special housing schemes approved by the Maharashtra government also included 300 LIG flats for the Police Department and 28 flats for the Maharastra Legislative Staff. All flats are located at Pratiksha Nagar, Sion.

Most of the office bearers of the Press Club including the President Pradeep Vijayakar, Chairman Devendra Mohan, Secretary Swati Deshpande and senious journalist Praful Marpakwar were present at the official handing over ceremony that was held at Sayadri Guest House, at Malabar Hills.

Police Commissioner D. Shivanandan and C. L. Prasand, Jt Police Commisoiner accepted the allotment letter on behalf of the police staff. Minister Harshvardhan Patil, Housing Secretary Sitaram Kunte, Mhada CEO Gutam Chakraborthy and Principal Secretary to CM Swadheen Kshtriya were present on the occasion.

Chavan said the state government would consider alloting more houses to journalists at the the district level, and requested journalist bodies at the mouffisil and district levels to apply to Mhada for the scheme.

Zzebra bags “Most Promising PR Agency Award” from PRCI

2009-04-09T02:25:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI, APRIL 09, 2009: The Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) has bestowed the “Most Promising PR Agency Award” on Zzebra PR Ltd at its 3rd Global Meet in Bangalore.

The two-day global PR meet titled “PRoactive” focused on the role of public relations and corporate communications with special emphasis on social issues, including communal disharmony, terrorism, social intolerance, global warming, female infanticide, financial chaos, corruption, traffic woes, and water scarcity, amongst others.

The five-year old Zzebra PR is part of Concept Communication, India’s largest independent agency group. Concept acquired a majority stake in Zzebra PR in 2008, acknowledging the company’s growth into a well-known brand delivering successful communication campaigns to a large number of corporate clients across industries, and leading events in the entertainment, lifestyle, sports, and social sectors.

CP Thomas, Managing Director, Zzebra PR Ltd said: “We are thankful to the Public Relations Council of India for recognizing the great work that we have delivered in a short span of time to a large number of happy clients. We are grateful to our clients who have provided us with an opportunity to work on their communication campaigns. Without their support we would not have been able to achieve the remarkable growth we have seen over the years. This Award is a tribute to the commitment and passion shown by our team who will now strive harder to attain greater heights.”

Zzebra built its foundation not just as a pure play public relations agency, but an integrated communication company which included research, content management, CSR and media relations as key enablers in delivering reputation management. Zzebra was one of the early providers of Online Reputation Management for corporate clients by launching social media communities as part of the communication strategy.

From a two-member team, Zzebra has now expanded to over 50 people with presence in multiple cities across the country, and has emerged as one of the leading communication agencies with clients who seek deep engagement, innovative ideas and excellent value.

For more details please contact:
Neha Parab: neha@zzebra.net / +91 98921 49465
Piya Dasgupta: piya@zzebra.net / +91 98900 32478

Concept PR CEO inducted into PR Hall of Fame

2009-04-06T05:59:00.000-07:00

The Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) has inducted Concept PR CEO B N Kumar into its prestigious ‘Hall of Fame’ at its 3rd Global Meet held at Bangalore on April 3 & 4, 2009 for his “outstanding contribution to the PR profession.”

PRCI said in its announcement at the global meet on “PRoactive” that BN Kumar (BNK for friends) joined the mass communications profession over three decades ago as a journalist with UNI where he won laurels for his quick reporting. He was part of the team that set up O&M PR (now Ogilvy PR) in 1986. He also worked with Reliance Infocomm before joining Concept PR at headquarters in Mumbai in 2006.

Mr. Ad De Visscher, India Head of Shell Technology and Mr.M.B Jayaram, Chairman PRCI, and Mr. Vaughn Richtor, CEO & MD ING Vysya Bank, Mr. Mahesh Joshi Director, Doordarshan and noted Kannada film personality Ms Parvatamma Rajkumar, felicitated on BNK.

Concept PR is a wholly owned subsidiary of Concept Communication Limited, India’s leading integrated, independent financial communication agency. Headquartered in Mumbai, the agency has full fledged offices in 6 other cities within India - New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmedabad and an office in Dubai. It is aligned to International Public Relations Network (IPREX), a body formed of PR companies to provide members with an international platform across 48 countries. Concept PR, with a team of over 150 professionals, has been acknowledged as one of the most effective agencies in the country, being felicitated with the ‘PR Agency of the Year, 2007’ by PRCI.

Mumbai journo BNK launches blog

2009-02-02T04:39:00.000-08:00

MUMBAI, February 2, 2009: BNK Blogs here, says a newly created web log ctreated b y veteran journalist-cum-mass communication professional B N Kumar.

With URL as http://bnkblog.blog.com, the site aims at forming a relationship group as BNK says “we are in the business of building and maintaining relationships”.

B N Kumar (BNK to his friends) has over 30 years of experience in mass communications as a journalist as well as a PR professional. He has acquired varied skill sets like Strategy Planning, Media Relations, Media Training, Event Handling, Corporate Events, Networking, Crisis Communications and Corporate Communications and developed wide contacts in corporate and media circles.

Presently he is the CEO of Concept PR, India’s largest Independent PR Company that has no foreign partners and has developed expertise in executing PR assignments in a thoroughly professional way.

About BNK:

BNK began his career with Free Press Journal, the then leading English daily published from Mumbai, and later moved over to United News of India, the news agency with the largest news gathering network. He has also worked with Business India and The Week magazine and contributed content to The Times of India, The Economic Times, Indian Express, Mid-Day, Newstime and a host of other publications covering a wide range of topics like business, science, space science, crime, films and politics. At UNI he was known as the “fastest reporter” and has won several internal awards.

He joined the PR profession with Reliance Industries Ltd where he worked with the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani handling media relations during the largest ever AGMs that the company had and public affairs campaigns.

BNK was part of the team that set up Ogilvy PR (then O&M PR) – the first PR arm of an advertising agency in India. The other PR consultancies where he worked included Capital Images (of Walchand Capital), DeanPielle PR and a start-up company Beehive Communications.

He had his second stint with the Reliance group when he joined Reliance Infocomm handling media for the company’s wireless business and several product launches and media visits to Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) – the largest telecom campus in the country.

He moved over to Concept PR in March 2006 and since then has been handling a wide array of communication for the agency’s clients.

Apart from several IPOs, some of the clients that handled over the years include: Sahara India Group, DLF, GMR Infrastructure, IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd, Rural Electrification Corporation, Aditya Birla group, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, Cbay India, Tech Mahindra, Idbi bank, Tourism Malaysia, Reliance Infocomm (CSR), 20th Century Fox, DaimlerChrysler; Prudential-ICICI, J P Morgan Stanley; Siemens Ltd; Kanbay India Ltd (Software), Boeing, British Airways, HCPL (Cadbury’s)and National Egg Coordination Committee.

One of the prestigious CSR accounts that he handled was for INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural heritage) for Ganga Action Plan to spread the message of keeping the Ganga clean during Mahakumbh (the grand Hindu religious fair).

PM on PR drive with NRIs: Don't worry over slow growth

2008-11-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

MUSCAT: Admitting that the Indian economy growth this year could be slow due to the current global financial crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has averred that there was nothing to worry.

“However, we still hope to achieve a growth rate of seven to seven and a half per cent next year. The fundamentals of the Indian economy are very strong. Our banking system and financial institutions are well capitalized and their depositors are wholly secure,” Dr Singh said speaking at Oman.

“I have constituted a high level committee to monitor the evolving global situation and suggest short-term and long-term measure to use this opportunity to further accelerate our growth,” he told the NRI community at a reception. “I hope that you will continue to display the same confidence in the future and invest in the future of our children and grand children,” Dr Singh said in his major PR drive with NRIs.

There are over 130 companies from India who are currently engaged in Oman. Several Omani companies are engaged in business in India. We will continue to encourage a much greater flow of investment into each other’s countries.

The Prime Minister said; “The Government of India is constantly alive to the welfare of the Non-Resident Indian community. Yesterday, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between India and Oman on Labour Mobility, Protection and Welfare of workers. This important initiative will provide a framework for strengthening cooperation between our two countries in the field of human resource development.”

2008-10-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools

Sea water turns sweet in Mumbai!

2008-10-06T01:35:00.000-07:00

By bn kumar

Sea water turns sweet! Though irrational, this news about sweet water in the sea spread faster than forest fire and engulfed the entire city of Mumbai.

‘Lord Ganesha is drinking milk!’ went the frenzied rumour. In less than a couple of hours, long queues materialized at milk shops and temples across the country. It took a whole day of scientific explanation to convince spell-bound devotees that there was nothing even remotely ‘divine’ about this phenomenon. Yet, they stubbornly refused to see the truth. ..The story doesn’t end here.

For full story pl check: http://www.conceptpr.com/

Press Release? Don’t dismiss it please

2008-10-06T01:34:00.000-07:00

A Press release is an announcement coming from a company or a service organization. While those who issue press releases should keep this in mind, those at the “receiving end” must (yes, must) also look at it in the same way.

Often Press releases serve as a kicker to a major story that can be unfolded in the near future. For instance, if a Press Releases says, a CEO forum has an cautious optimism over the slowing of Indian economy, it gives the journalist an opportunity to b rush up his knowledge bank. The release, with a host names of participants gives enough ideas to media persons to contact them for his or her future stories, participation in industry related stories and features for supplements.

I for one, when I was an active journalist, grab all the releases that would come to my agency, keep important contact numbers in my phone book. Many of my colleagues would often borrow my phone book for contacting people for reactions on major announcements, RBI surveys etc.,

Here are some tips for those who write Press Releases:

• Please remember that a Press Release is what one would like to read in print, in a newspaper.
• It is not meant to be used as an ego massager for your boss or client.
• Sometimes you can be a bit nasty, by showing similar ‘ego massager’ from competition and ask your boss/client if he would like to read the stuff in print! His reaction would be “bull shit”!
• As I have always been telling my clients the size of wastepaper baskets (you may call them dust bins!) is ever increasing. And if your target is those bins, then you may have a field day!
• A Press release should be brief, and to the point. Journalists do not have time to read through your research document, however well written it may be, just you do not have time to read through every news item in its entirety.
• State the most important point first.
• If you have to make an announcement about India winning at NSG, you do not have to begin the release by saying that the nuclear impasse in India began many years ago with the Left parties opposing the deal!
• Nobody would like to read your essay, not even your child!

So, be a reader before you become a writer!

Who needs PR?

2008-10-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Who needs PR? Or put it differently, “Why do I need PR?” These questions are often raised in corporate circles.

From Presidents to president aspirants, from corporate honchos to cops, from publishers to reporters there is no one that doesn’t need PR. Definitions could be dime a dozen, but put it plainly PR is nothing but relationship building and maintaining it. It is planned. It is deliberate and it has to be sustained.

With apologies to Shakespeare let me say that a friend is a friend is a friend! Can any one be a friend of yours for a limited time? If it is so, that relationship is nothing but an arrangement. Similarly, PR can just not be a business of arrangement or a marriage of convenience.

Some may like to dismiss PR is a functionality of HR which is also a relationship business. The result: neglect PR as one ignores HR.

I worked with many corporate houses including some top notch ones. And my experience is that HR people do not get the importance that they deserve. They are looked down upon as people with bureaucratic tendencies and sticklers to the rule book. I know of an HR lady of a PR agency who ultimately ended up a consultant to a housekeeping firm! Not that I have any disrespect for housekeeping people.

Every one needs them to keep the house spick-and-span.
If you have scant respect for your HR, how can you expect yourself to treat PR as something great?

When you need PR, you need people specialized in it – the business of building maintaining relationships. Not certainly those who start PR firms as a pastime or because they have nothing better to do.

These may sound like random thoughts, but thoughts certainly they are! Aren’t they?

So, next time if any one asks “who needs PR” as him or her: who doesn’t?