IPANHILL AND KNOWLTON

(WPP GROUP)

HISTORY

•India's leading public affairs and public relations consulting firm.

•Founded in December 1987 by Mr. Rajeev Desai.

•The first professional PR agency to be set up in the country.

•WPP aligned IPAN with its global communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton in July 2009.

•Hill & Knowlton took over management responsibility of IPAN from JWT India.

INTRODUCTION

•Mission: To provide clients with the best information based PR counsel and services enabling them to understand and influence the business environment in which they operate and thereby achieve their strategic objective in the most efficient manner.

•Specializations: senior counsel, insightful research and strategic communications planning

•Office Locations: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore with a total of 84 offices in 46 countries

•Representation in 20 other major Indian cities, with a combined reach of over 100 towns and cities.

•Staff Strength: More than 100 across India. Globally, it is a large family with more than 10 times India’s employee strength.

•Developed its own media measurement tool, titled ‘INCHE’.

•Comprises both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the media reports generated and a value ascribed, based on a statistical method.

•Has been widely adopted by IPAN Hill & Knowlton clients to determine the ROI for their PR programs.

•Clients represent 46 of Interbrand's 2010 Top 100 Global Brands.

•50 percent of global Fortune 500 companies work with IPAN H+K

•Relationship with WPP — one of the world’s largest communications groups gives us an unmatched worldwide presence.

•Website: www.ipan.com

Rajiv DesaiFounder President 

•Established IPAN in December 1987•Steered IPAN to the top slot in the PR consulting profession•Played a key role for Pepsi in 1988,Citibank’s global consumer bank in 1989,STAR TV in 1991, Microsoft, Cisco and Intel, Nokia, Hughes, Alcatel, BT and BPL Mobile (the first cellular service).

Radhika ShapoorjeePresident 

•Has provided direction to create innovative campaigns like Max New York Life, Sony, The Government of Karnataka, LG, South Africa and Unilever.•Provides media training and conducts messaging workshops for clients across sectors.

SPECIAL PRACTICE AREA

The Resource Centre (TRC)

• Was set up to follow information based approach .

•Manages IPANDOC, which is the most comprehensive media monitoring system in the country today.

•Monitors over 500 publications across the country in over 15 different languages and across 40 different sectors and sends them to clients.

•Also monitors public reports, annual reports, parliament questions and answers relevant to the client’s industry.

Businesswire India (BWI)

•India's definitive platform for corporate news and financial information dissemination in full text and in real time, across India and the globe.

•Associate of the U.S. based Business Wire

•Used by some of the top Indian and multi-national corporations like Infosys, Wipro, Aditya Birla Group, Reliance Infocomm, UNICEF, HSBC, ICICI Bank, European Union and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL). •Provides real-time news feeds to leading newswires including UNI and IANS; news and information portals including Hindustantimes.com, Yahoo India, MSN India, Rediff, Sify; financial newswires and portals including BSEindia.com, Bloomberg, MyIris, Outlookmoney and industry portals including ZDNetIndia, Retailyatra, and showbizindia.

•Also sends news releases on a real-time basis to its own online community of over 4000 journalists and investors across India, in a targeted manner.

KEY CLIENTS

•Commerce One

•Kingfisher Airlines

•Hindustan Lever Ltd

•Goldman Sachs

•Glaxo SmithKline

•Swatch Group

•Special Olympics

•Pramati Technologies

•HCL Group

HOW DOES AGENCY GAIN CLIENTS?

•Referrals

•Solicitations

•Presentations

•Public Relations

•Image and Reputation

•Speculative pitches: A five step approach:a) Research the market and target companiesb)Telephone callsc)The meetingd)The presentatione)Follow up

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FUTURE OF PR IN INDIA

•Public relations is an art of communication and winning over the people around.

•Every company needs someone to speak on matters and issues on their behalf to handle their internal and external communications.

•In order to communicate to the media, news is used as a medium.

•Public relations companies have emerged offering strategic advice and integrated communication solutions.

•In near future PR agencies in India will be used as a content outsourcing hub for international PR agencies.

CASE STUDY OF A CLIENT

Pertaining to the Indian market, one successful case study of IPAN Hill and Knowlton is of Kingfisher which was in deep crises recording loses year on year. Earlier this year the media was adamant to meet the business tycoon Dr.Vijay Mallya over the present crises the airline is facing in terms of flight operations, staff salaries, declining profits and revenues, increasing expenses, ATF prices going up and overall, whether the airline should operate or not. As an agency the company controlled the media and sent the right signals that Kingfisher is here to stay and fly domestically and internationally. The agency studied the reality and briefed the team on media attack regarding all the developments.

Dr.Mallya was also briefed and he has always handled media nicely answering every query shot at him and his company’s operations. He took the questions one by one and answered them to their content. IPAN Hill and Knowlton as an agency guided the company through the storm of media and succeeded in the same. Though it was a very difficult crises to handle, the company as a PR agency prepared for the attack from media who represented the investors of the company. Dr.Mallya already had the investors to further invest in the company. Today, no doubt the operations are still running under losses but the operations are on. Dr. Mallya along with the PR team of IPAN Hill and Knowlton, India will succeed in getting the airline fully operational and one of the successful airlines in times to come.

Straight talk with Mr.Suresh Rathod(Group Account Director)

Future of PR in IndiaA-Every company in India would need someone to speak on matters and issues on their behalf to handle their internal and external communications. Be in touch with media in order to communicate to the media using the news as a medium. So, the future is very bright.

Strategy followed by the company to attract & retain clientsA-Be honest to the client, media and all the stake holders. Execute clients work as your work.

Why brand promotion is considered as a part of public relations?A-We are not into brand promotion. But yes we do ATL and BTL activities along with road shows, Press conferences, seminars, events etc.

What is different about IPAN Hill and Knowlton as compared to other PR companies?A-What makes us different is our marriage with the clients. Today, we are the only agency which has the highest number of clients with having an association of more than 7 years.

How do you manage the drafting and editing of media press releases and marketing articles?A-We employee staff who can draft and edit their own press releases. We don’t market articles or for that matter marketing articles is a wrong word coined by you. We sell ideas for stories which can or may not be bought by the journalist.

How has PR changed since you entered the field?A-Not much. Only it has become more organized. The approach has changed and now its been looked and thought of a pure professional service which commands fees.

Do you feel today’s students are prepared for the challenges of PR?A-For any industry if you have a liking and interest, you will face the challenges in what so ever manner they come.

Presented To:Ms. Mayura Amarkant

Presented By:Jaskirat SalujaMalvika HadaKoshikaSonia SachdevMBA Freshmen(WWI)

THANK YOU!!