PR discussions: Re: [prpoint] Is it 'ethical'?

read with interest srinivasan's posting.

its really shocking that
a) the PR agency gave a strategy even before it was hired as the instance reported by srinivasan ji
is not new as such unethical practicises have been indulged in by some corporate guys before also.
b) more shocking that the PR manager brazenly palmed off the agency's strategey as his own and
the top mangement didnt have a clue. most CEOs generally smell a rat as they know the competency of
their employees.

given this , with my limited knowledge of having worked for corporates and agencies , here is what i learnt from
my superiors.

a) at Corporates my CEO told me PR agencies are to be hired for what the internal communications department cannotdo.
event manaement, or a huge press campaign which is generally internally decided and not left to a PR agency. this is because the
corporate knows how its to be executed better than the PR agency while the latter has the advantage of army and multi product explerience which the corporate may not have.
b) as far as Media contacts are concerned, my experience has been that that the corpcom manager and the CEO have better direct contacts with the media than the socalled top management of PR agency. corporates hire PR agency when they want to be seen doing something directly with the media. but as a practise good corporates avoid this practicise.

b) at PR agency: we were told and we did not make any strategy presentation to any client unless a contract was signed. because there was always the danger of it being hijacked. i have personally accompanied the CEO of some leading PR agencies for strategy presentations. something would
be indicated orally with no names of media etc but definitely no strategy is ever prepared or parted with unless there is a written contract.

moral of the story:

1) no agency parts with a strategy in details unless it knows the contract is in its bag --- signed and sealed.
no oral assurance . in this case it appears that the PR agency was keen to get the contract and was willing to run the risk
but it failed to do due diligence of the corpcom manager behaviourial practicises or that of the corporate. so it paid the price.
neverthless it does not justify the corpcom manager's behaviour which was absoloutely unethical.

2) the remedy is for the PR agency to take up the matter with the CEO of the company and say their strategy had been
hijacked by the corpcom manager who was bereft of ideas and had to steal lthem for his own survival. tsk tsk we have such
corpcom managers earning rs 40 to rs 60 lakhs annually bleeding the corporate. they need to be relocated in factory sites to know
commmunications is all about.

at the end of the day: what are consultants ? this is what my CEO used to say jocularly when we hired chairmen of psus as our advisors.
i dont know if it applied to PR agencies as well, maybe and maybe not.

" Consultants are those breed of people, who take your watch and tell you what the time is and then run away with it ".

cheers
ashok

On 2 November 2011 22:02, Prime Point Srinivasan <prpoint@gmail.com> wrote:

hi all

In the past three or four days, there was a discussion about ethics and values, arising out of Nira Radia's episode. The debate was held in three PR online groups. Many of our Corpcom and PR agency professionals shared their views frankly.

While, this debate was going on in all the online groups, two senior PR professionals called me over phone and shared the following two instances independently. They have requested me to share this instance with their members, suppressing the identity. I am sharing this, to show, where we are heading to?

Case Study No 1 - About Corpcom

A new Corpcom Manager joined one of the reputed companies. Immediately, he invited one of the leading PR agencies for a discussion. The Corpcom Manager gave the agency the company profile and the background. The PR Agency sincerely prepared some strategies and made a presentation before the Corpcom manager for pitching the account. After 10 days, the PR agency got surprised when they found media reports in the same angle, in which they suggested during the presentation.

On discreet enquiry, it was found that the company did not engage any PR agency for their services. After listening to the strategies presented by the PR Agency, the concerned Corpcom Manager presented the same strategies to their CEO and the top Management as if it was his own. Highly impressed with the strategies, the CEO advised the Corpcom Manager to go ahead with internal team, without knowing the fact about the presentation by PR Agency.

Even earlier, in our forum, we had discussed about some well known companies inviting many PR Agencies for pitch and finally not selecting any one. The Corpcom Managers get all the strategies from various experts of PR Agencies free of cost and implement them with their internal team.

I understand such unhealthy and unethical practises are practised even by some well known companies. Those companies invite few PR Agencies and make them to present the strategies. These companies get the ideas 'free of cost' from the experts. Finally, they do not engage any company quoting some reasons.

If such unethical instances (making few PR agencies to make presentation without appointing any one) are happening in future, the aggrieved agencies can write to us with full details. We will also seek the views from the concerned company's CEO and Corpcom Manager. We will publish the instance with the company's name in the group openly, even if the company does not respond within reasonable time. The agencies also should 'black list' those companies.

Case Study 2 - About PR Agency

Two well known PR Agencies A and B were trying to capture a prestigious account C. Agency A was trying to 'bribe' the official of Agency B, who was involved in preparing the presentation. Very sadly one of the top persons of Agency A himself tried to bribe the official of Agency B, for getting all the secrets. The official of Agency B is a very honest and loyal person and he refused to oblige, in spite of heavy bribe. Further, the official of Agency B, reported this instance to his CEO.

In this case also, the unethical practise of Agency A is to be condemned. I have suppressed the names of Agency A and B and the customer C.

Both the incidents have happened last month. . The people behind such unethical practises should understand that all the achievements gained through such dubious methods may be only temporary. Once, if their 'tricks' get leaked out in public domain through some sources (like what I have now), what will be their reputation and credibility?

Earning money is necessary. Earning money, by any means is not good.

Srinivasan
Moderator
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