Half Day Workshop on the usage of Internet.

"How to make the worldwide web work for you"

20.08.2005

24.09.2005

Speaker:
Mr. M. Nageswaran
General Manager,
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., Marketing Division, Southern Region and Regional Level Coordinator for Oil Industry (S.R.)

'Yes, an elephant can indeed fly!'

Among Fortune 500 companies, Indian Oil Corporation Limited is ranked 170. The company has a turnover of Rs 150,000 crore, a market share of 56 percent, and has 42 percent of India's refining capacity; it has 9000 km of pipelines and 24000 retail outlets.

In this context, the topic 'Making an Elephant Fly' makes sense. At the meeting
of the Public Relations Society of India, Chennai Chapter, M Nageswaran, General Manager - Marketing, Indian Oil Corporation, Southern Region, and Regional Level Coordinator for Oil Industry (Southern Region) elucidated on the subject while addressing members. A gold medalist in Chartered Accountancy, Nageswaran helped build Lanka IOC from scratch, joining as officer trainee and progressing to become MD of the organisation. Lanka IOC holds 30 percent of the market share in Sri Lanka.

“My team succeeded in making an elephant fly. The elephant is the largest living mammal; the baby elephant comes into the world after a gestation period of 22 months the longest among mammals. The elephant can fend for itself from the 6th year onwards. It grows between six and eight feet in height and weighs 10,000 to 12000 kg. It is the fourth fastest mammal and can run at a speed of 42 km an hour, faster than an Olympic runner,” Nageswaran pointed out. He went on to explain: “IOC is an elephant that has set benchmarks, which are emulated the world over. We have indeed made elephants fly. Take the examples of IOC in India and in Sri Lanka. What succeeds in any managerial effort is innovation and passion. Caltex, Shell and another oil company from France were in the race to enter Sri Lanka but finally the government there welcomed us. A competitor even sent a note stating that the venture would be a total failure and that IOC could not enter the downstream petroleum sector. But we proved competition wrong.”

After the MoU was signed between the Governments of India and Sri Lanka on
26th June, 2002, Lanka IOC was incorporated in 33 days. Sri Lankans usually do not visit Trincomalee, the declared capital of Tamil Eelam. However, the first dealer sales and review meeting was held there, and Lanka IOC shunned requests for army protection. The initial 100 outlets the organisation controlled have now tripled. IOC to many Sri Lankans was a government company, a foreign investor, and an Indian company to boot. “The Government of India and IOC wanted us to first get 100 outlets. There were 13 outlets in Colombo and 87 outlets across Sri Lanka, including 11 in LTTE-infested areas. It was estimated that it would take three days per outlet for a complete takeover of 100 outlets. Although pumps and buildings already existed, there was the issue of stock and staff.” he said. Nageswaran approached the Institute of CA in Sri Lanka and sought the assistance of 100 apprentices to conduct the stock taking.

This enabled IOC to take over the pumps (even the External Affairs Ministry disbelieved that an organisation could act so fast!) and Lanka IOC started selling before anyone expected it to, in February 2003. By March 31, the company recorded a profit of Rs 5.7 lakhs.

Nageswaran went on to explain how IOC Lanka got the dealers in that country to modernise their facilities, providing a mixture of deadlines, money and incentives. Thus, within 14 months, IOC Lanka was able to commission 100 upgraded outlets.

Soon after registering huge profits from 170 outlets (70 were taken over later) Lanka IOC recommended a public issue to the Government to diversify ownership. “We wanted opinion makers and people who matter to become our shareholders. We plunged into road shows and went as far as Hong Kong and Singapore. Needless to add, the issue was oversubscribed 11.04 times and it had to be closed. We drew investors from Australia and Switzerland, all high networth individuals,” said Nageswaran. Lanka IOC's success story became the centre of media attention. Cricketer Muthiah Muralitharan became the company's brand ambassador. The slogan: In Every Part, In Every Heart. With IOC petrol pumps in Jaffna, Vavuniya and Trincomalee, IOC Lanka changed the landscape of Sri Lanka.

Note: What can a public sector organisation do? Well, quite a bit really. Two examples: Indian Oil's highest outlet is in Leh, 19,000 feet above sea level. Indane customers number more than 30 million, yet complaints received per month amount to less than double digits!

Visit to DakshinaChitra - A heritage treasure house on ECR

'A Trip Back in Time'

The festive mood was still in the air. The Pongal pot had boiled over and folks in Tamil Nadu rent cries of “Pongal-O- Pongal!” The fun had not ceased for members of the Public Relations Society of India, Chennai Chapter. Members and families set out on January 15th to DakshinaChitra, which showcases several of the heritage homes of South India. The crowd of 38 boarded the tourist bus in high spirits at the L&T Club House. As we alighted at DakshinaChitra, the reception was typically traditional. We were greeted with aarti and a sandal paste vermillion mark on our foreheads by the hosts, Visalakshi Balakrishnan, the caretaker, and Charles, the administrator.

Soon, we were escorted to the simple yet functional auditorium for an overview of DakshinaChitra and an appreciation of the tradition that has been so well preserved in the ancient rural India. It is indeed a wonder how The Madras Craft Foundation has been able to successfully recreate the old rural environment, across the southern states, right here at Muttukadu, along the sandy dunes of the seemingly never-ending coastline!

The welcome drink took us back in time, to the customary past. It was fresh paanagam, jaggery and dry-ginger water, normally the prasadam on Ramnavami. After listening to Visalakshi's overview of the programme for the next five hours, we all were set for Tamil Nadu's typical Mayilaattam, the peacock dance followed by rhythmic drum-dancing. The dance troupe consisted of three drummers and a peacock-decked dancer. He, very ably, utilised his head and the crown that extended as the peacock's neck and its beak, to gracefully pick up a garland off the ground. Synchronising with the dance beat, the peacock deftly swung the garland on to Raju Arumugam seated nearby.

Our guide soon led us to a typical Chettinad merchant's home. A well-bedecked doorway, its teak wood pillars held the overhead beams. The format included a pyol that was home to visitors and overnight travellers who were often cared for by the residents. The home integrated people's private life with social consciousness for public service. Everything was in place and there seemed a place for everything - the flavours of a large joint family.

Stepping out to the rear of the home, we were in the courtyard of the Tamil Nadu Agraharam Street. Typical of Brahmin homes, the adjacent homes were those of the basket weavers, agriculturists, potters and textile weavers. Every room contained artefacts, including kitchen utensils, which were painstakingly chosen and authentic. Kili josyam and palm reading were the perquisites on offer along the stretch. The textile exhibition housed some amazing references of what was originally known to be the Madras Handkerchief! Mud houses and the Ayyanar Shrines were typical of rural Tamil Nadu. Soon, we gathered to witness potters at work and see the glassmaker work his way with torch-flame and shape intricate designs on glass with deft hands.

Further away, typical Kerala homes came in various forms - the Thiruvananthapuram Hindu home, Syrian Christian home, Calicut Hindu home, each with its own architecture reflecting the social background of the place. The Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh wings are still to be completed.

When hunger pangs took over, we were treated to a specially laid out spread. There was almost pin-drop silence at lunch and it indeed reflected on the quality of the meal. It was then time for us to do what we enjoyed best! While some of us went shopping for bangles, terracotta, hand-woven items, or turned up for the puppet show, the rest went in pursuit of the palm reader to learn about their future. The heat of the afternoon sun did not come in the way of us thoroughly enjoying ourselves. After a hot cup of tea, it was time to leave and as we gathered alongside the bus, we had a group picture taken.

Speaker:
Mr. T.S. Krishnamurthy, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India

'Convincing people, our biggest PR challenge'

Elections evoke a lot of interest. But what about public relations during elections? Well, talking about it and more while addressing members of the Public Relations Society of India, Chennai Chapter, was T.S. Krishnamurthy, the former Chief Election Commissioner of India. Krishnamurthy, a postgraduate in economics, backed by a degree in law and an MSc degree in fiscal studies, had overseen elections at the Centre and in the states, as well as elections for the President of India and the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
“There is a close proximity between PR and election management because the Election Commission manages and deals with the public. PR is an important area
in any managerial exercise, more so in elections,” he felt. According to him, India rightly opted for a democratic system of governance after it embarked on its famous “tryst with destiny”. While the 1951 elections, the first in Independent India, was a one-day affair, the general elections in 2004 lasted more than a month. “Why so, is perhaps the intriguing question,” he remarked.
Krishnamurthy related the reason to the kind of electorate we have today, the politicians, political parties then and now, and the vast changes overall, apart from the increase in population. “The Election has been in existence for 54 years and although elections have been marred in the recent past by violence in certain states, it has had a very good record. Remember, there are 670 million voters today and 800,000 polling stations; there is even one station for two people in the most inaccessible areas in the North. The Commission has all along kept in mind the need to keep the public informed, tried to educate them and encourage participation,” he said, adding, “Almost every polling station is under the television scanner. In 2004, a media research organisation billed the conduct of the general elections in India as the 'most important e-election in the world’.”
Educating the voter on the use of the electronic voting machines, for example, was a massive exercise, he remarked. In 1996, while only 15 percent of the electorate voted in Jammu & Kashmir, in 2005, 45 percent turned out to vote, because the public were encouraged to come out and vote fearlessly, Krishnamurthy stressed. “The voter turnout on an average is 60 percent in India, far better than Western democracies,” he pointed out.
Even so, Krishnamurthy mentioned that the electoral system in India did not properly represent the voice of the people. “We follow the first-past-the-post principle. The votes get split and theoretically, even a 15 percent margin can turn a winner. It is a result of various political developments that have taken place in the country. Therefore, there is the need to exercise your franchise,” he urged the audience.
“The Commission can now provide you information about the candidates; it
is available on the website of the Election Commission. Details of assets and liabilities, the criminal record of candidates are available. Of course, the information may not reach the voter in time. But the Election Commission is proactive and periodically informs through its spokesman its various activities and answers questions from the media. In spite of constructive or destructive criticism from people or political parties, we have always tried to provide information,” he said.
Talking about the use of electronic voting machines, Krishnamurthy said that there were apprehensions regarding its credibility. “In the US, for example, different systems are followed, from conventional ballot boxes to electronic slates to electronic voting machines. In India, the electronic voting system was introduced in phases. It has helped in producing less invalid votes; the queues move quicker, tonnes of paper are saved, and counting is over in a few hours,” he said.
Citing an interesting case, Krishnamurthy spoke about how once after an electronic voting machine was pounded and broken to pieces by hoodlums in a Northeastern state, the results were announced using the broken parts and the decoder machine. “Barring stray incidents, we provide a conducive atmosphere to conduct elections. We are there at every stage to convince the people of this country. That is our biggest PR challenge,” he said.
“The point is that there are bound to be problems in an exercise of this magnitude. However, we put down disruption of elections with a heavy hand. It is necessary that a check be brought about in the quality of candidates; at present, only those with criminal antecedents served with a charge sheet can be barred from contesting. The system of elections also needs to be deba-ted. The advertising in the media, especially on television channels are discouraging, shocking and frustrating in some states. The exit or opinion polls should be announced only after the last phase of polling,” Krishnamurthy pointed out.
“A set of 22 recommendations were sent to the Government when I was
the Chief Election Commissioner. Unfortunately, no action seems to have been taken so far. The electoral system needs to be periodically reviewed and changed. After more than 50 years of elections, the time for review has come. We can't say we are perfect, but certainly we are fair and sincere and committed to conducting good, fair and transparent elections.”

Speaker:
Mr. V. Kalidas
Vice president-Advertising,
The Hindu

'Providing a rounded outlook to life'

In spite of the higher rate of growth in expenditure towards the visual and electronic media, the print media or the press continues to hold out on its own. Some major FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) players, earlier totally wedded to television, have now realised the efficacy of the media-multiplier theory. With a 50 percent share of the advertising spend, the press is the leader, followed closely by television (39 percent). Outdoor publicity (8 percent), radio (2 percent) and cinema (one percent) make up the rest of the advertising pie; thanks to FM, radio has been making some inroads.
Addressing members of the Public Relations Society of India, Chennai Chapter, V. Kalidas, Vice President-Advertising, The Hindu, pointed out that a lot of money was spent on eliciting market feedback, post-mortem research and evaluation of brand awareness. Giving examples of British Airways, Ford and Hindustan Lever (especially Lever’s, which had made it a fine art in India's rural areas), Kalidas said, “PR and advertising definitely co-exist. Sales promotion activity, brand
loyalty programmes, PR exercises, rural involvement such as in haats and melas, and participation in events ultimately perpetuates brand awareness.”
The primacy of the longevity of the printed word far outweighs the transient syndrome of the fleeting image on television. “The brands advertised in The Hindu thrive within the highly credible environment they are placed in. Sometimes, it seems difficult, rather rigid, but the advertiser finally understands,” Kalidas said. Today's savvy brand managers seek new vistas to stretch the image of their campaign. The Hindu answers their needs by hosting various activities and events, events that create a common platform for readers, advertisers and consumers. Prospective consumers, thus, get an actual brand experience.
Outlining The Hindu's staging of various events, Kalidas spoke about The Hindu Metroplus Lifestyle Show, which creates an interface between advertisers (through their stalls) and thousands of readers (consumers). “It was unique in conception and execution; it translated the Metroplus brand into a brick-and-mortar reality, while showcasing its virtues: modern, trendy, youthful. It also reflected fashion, art, music, cuisine and a sense of joie de vivre,” he remarked, adding, The three lifestyle shows (two in Chennai and one in Coimbatore during 2004-05) worked unabashedly on The Hindu image, weaving the contemporary with the classic.”
“The Hindu Opportunities Supplement was another brand. Why not translate this into an event, we thought. The Hindu Opportunities Fair was the result and it gave a new dimension to recruitment. A new roster of clients was developed. The fairs not only provided candidates to interact with a number of recruiters, there were also employability seminars and workshops on how to write a resume and how to attend an interview. These fairs are all about youngsters and positive energy and our own marketing team helps in controlling traffic at these events,” Kalidas explained.
The Hindu Property Plus Supplement opened up yet another vista for brand building. “The virtues of this supplement got translated into the Property Plus Fair,” said Kalidas, adding, “It was literally a cakewalk getting builders, real estate developers, housing loan companies, banks and insurance companies, interior decorators to participate.”
The Hindu has traditionally devoted a large amount of space for education. While earlier, articles on education used to appear on the Open Page, they now appear in Young World and Quest. “The Hindu does not believe in running an event for an event's sake. The Education fair aims at providing precise and reliable information to aspiring students to take informed decisions. The sponsors want to be associated with the newspaper in the laudable exercise,” he added.
While The Hindu Metroplus Theatre festival will be an August feature every year in Chennai, The Friday Review Music Festival will leverage the image built by the Friday Review. “Because of the December music season in Chennai, we decided to have our festival in November and create space for ourselves,” Kalidas said, adding, “While delivering credibility and value, our endeavour is to go the extra mile to serve our advertisers through the value addition of events. We have profited from our experiences and it is all about having a rounded outlook to life.”

'An invigorating time to be in India'

It was Ravi S. Candadai, Consul for Public Affairs (then also Acting Consul General), Consulate General of the United States of America, who inaugurated the Public Relations Society of India activities for 2005-06. Candadai, who joined the US Foreign Service in 1991, and has served in Mexico, London, Cairo, Chile and Islamabad, charmed the PRSI audience. "You can have me here on a regular basis. Invite me to the meetings you think I can attend," he said, adding that he would be delighted to share speaker programmes with the PRSI and even facilitate travel for PRSI members to the US of A.

India-born Candadai recollected how his grandfather used to talk about Jawaharlal Nehru's famous 1949 visit to the USA, and how even the smaller papers in America featured that visit. "It is a great honour to advance bilateral relations, based in the country of my birth. It is indeed a very invigorating time to be in India and my coming to India has helped me understand American priorities better," he added, while speaking about the power of the Indian diaspora - two million people of Indian origin live, work and are prospering in the USA. For the early Indian settlers, though, money was not everything. "They wanted a sense of identity; they were not American enough to be bold about being Americans. And in the 1970s, they would confront people like me in college campuses," he said, explaining how his generation and the ones succeeding were vastly different from the earlier generations of Indians.

Today, many Indians occupy the American public realm. There is the India caucus, comprising members of the Senate and House of Representatives, who try to advance American interests abroad. According to Candadai, the Indian lobby
in Washington is second in strength only to the Israeli lobby. "We are public relations officers who have to be quick adapters to defend a certain line," he remarked, bringing the PR role into perspective. People-to-people relations between India and America have opened up like never before. Candadai cited the examples of growing economic relations, the energy dialogue (delivery of civil nuclear fuel) and the strategic relationship between the two countries. He was convinced that Bush's visit to India would be even more successful than Clinton's in 2000.

Candadai reflected optimism regarding the two countries, India and America, learning to do business with each other. "However, the real India has not yet trickled down to the average Americans, as much as Indians do not know much about Idaho or Texas, the real America. Local papers will carry a story if it resonates for their readers," said Candadai, adding, "We need people who can spread the message," hinting perhaps at the immense PR possibilities to bring peoples of the two countries closer.

Earlier, V.S. Ramana, chairman, PRSI, Chennai Chapter, welcoming members and Candadai, said that the Chapter was one of the most active in India.

Half Day Workshop on the usage of Internet.

"How to make the worldwide web work for you"

20.08.2005

24.09.2005

Why the Internet is an excellent marketing tool

Gopal Singh Golan, director-client services, Nextwave Multimedia, which maintains the PRSI Chennai Chapter website, conducted two informative workshops for members of the Public Relations Society of India, Chennai Chapter. While the first workshop dwelt on the Internet and its advantages and how best to extract information from it, the second focused on making the worldwide web work for
the user.

Golan, a Film and Television Institute product, who has been on the creative and account management side of advertising, exhorted participants to be net savvy because in today's world, "We can't afford to be Internet-illiterate". Indeed, Internet is the fastest-growing medium, much like television during and after the 1982 Delhi Asiad. Internet communication, at the click of a mouse, bridges the geographical gap and, therefore, Golan called it the "most democratic of all media". "We are all working in the information age, and as a means of facilitating access to resources, 24x7, of publishing and disseminating information, and as an excellent marketing tool, there is little to beat the Internet," he added.

The Internet, Golan explained, can be used to research, seek advice, establish contact (not just business and social), train and acquire qualifications, find jobs, and buy or sell products. "Peter Drucker says that the Internet may make universities obsolete. In any case, after pornography, people use the Internet to access jobs," Golan pointed out.

What really is the Internet? It is an international network of computers or a giant network of networks. Started in 1969 as ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency) in the US Defence headquarters in the Pentagon, to safeguard diverse information, it gave birth in the 1970s to technologies such as packet-switching, transport control protocol-Internet protocol and e-mail development. After defence, it was used by universities to share resources.

The Internet and the worldwide web are not the same thing. While the Internet is a vast network of computers linked together, the worldwide web is a way of viewing information stored on the Internet using special language - hyper-text marked-up language or what is commonly referred to as html. The first web browser was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993. Other browsers, Mosaic, Netscape, Internet Explorer, each with its own technology, appeared later. It was in 1994 that Pizza Hut accepted the first online order for a pizza. Today, there are between eight and 20 billion indexed web pages, according to Golan.

After explaining to participants the basic Internet jargon (such as url and html), domain name extensions (.org, .net, .com, .edu, .in, .gov etc.) and the components of a web page (title, menu bar, buttons, address, scroll bar), Golan showed them how to navigate an Internet site using the various buttons. "There are two ways of finding information on the net - by typing in the url (uniform resource locator) of the site or by using a search engine, which follow the links on the website and crawl those pages to ferret out the information you want," he explained. Search engines such as Yahoo, Google and MSN are extremely popular. Ask Jeeves only lists customers who pay to have their sites indexed, while Dogpile, another search engine, goes through other search engines to throw up all the results in one list.

In the second workshop, Golan told the participants why the Internet is such an important medium. What are people doing on the Internet, he asked. Well, they are buying books, music, software, clothes, property…, getting trained, buying air, train and cinema tickets as well as services. Projecting the difference between the real and virtual worlds, Golan explained how the virtual world (the Internet) required very little physical space, no investment in infrastructure, and few staff.

Again drawing the variance between a brick-and-mortar company (Barnes & Noble) and a 'virtual world' entity (Amazon), he provided interesting information: while Barnes & Noble sold 200,000 titles a year, Amazon sold three million; B&N had several million dollars tied up in inventory, while Amazon was, literally speaking, one single warehouse; B&N had 27,000 employees, while Amazon had only 1,600; and, thus, while the sales per employee for B&N worked out to $125,000, it recorded $675,000 for Amazon. And, of course, to purchase a book, you had to go in person to B&N. Golan also gave other examples of successful Internet ventures - Ebay, Bazee, Contest2win, Rediff, Yahoo and Google.

Using tools such as the website, e-mail and e-newsletters, the Internet is ideal for finding, acquiring and retaining customers. "You can have your own website hosted on the Internet, with a domain name relevant to your business activity. However,
if you need your website to work for you, you will have to plan your objectives, understand your target audience and their information needs as well as their use
of the Internet," said Golan, adding that websites had to be user-friendly too
in terms of downloading quickly, ease of navigation etc.

Golan provided participants what he termed 'seven usability tips' to form a website, which included using descriptive headings, writing descriptive link text, employing logical linearisation, using short, succinct text, writing in the journalistic 'inverted pyramid' style, and providing descriptive page titles. "Do you want a site that is
pretty to look at with lots of animation, or a site that's search-engine friendly?" he asked the audience? "People visit your website hoping to find answers, not for entertainment," he replied, adding, "Therefore, choose your page title carefully since search engines scan the titles first. Use key words in the page headline but do not put them as image or in flash text. Also, use key words while describing your company, products and services."

Dwelling on e-newsletters as a relationship-building tool, Golan emphasised that
e-newsletters have to be simple and not heavily loaded with graphics. "Of course, you have to ensure its frequency is maintained and provide the recipient the facility to unsubscribe."