Friday, May 26, 2006

PR and rural insurance marketing

Rural Marketing Agencies Association of India (RMAAI), in association with Public Relations Council of India (PRCI), is organising a seminar on ‘Issues, challenges and opportunities faced by insurance companies in rural India’ in Hyderabad on June 12, 2006.

The keynote speaker is N Rangachary, Advisor to Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and former Director of IRDA. Other speakers include Bipul Chatterjee of Birla Sunlife, Joydeep Roy of TATA AIG, Mukti Bosco of Healing Fields Foundation, Nitya Kalyani of India Insurance Journal, N N Joshi of ING Group, and M Parshad of the Agriculture Insurance Company of India.

“One of the objectives of the Association is to disseminate knowledge on the many aspects of rural marketing among the corporate sector and management students in the country,” says R V Rajan, President, RMAAI. Please see Rajan’s impressive work.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

PR can make or break a brand: Girish Rao

Girish Rao, Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, LG Electronics India, tells exchange4media:

The PR industry is establishing itself at a very fast pace and the functions are gradually shifting from operations to strategy. Building and enhancing brand image and planning fresh marketing strategies are the new facets of PR.

Internet PR is one of the fastest growing functions of public relations today. Globally, e-PR has grown tremendously and has a wide-reaching audience. LG itself has a robust e-PR mechanism in place and its headquarters in Korea monitors the same.

Just like any other subset of marketing, the challenge is to make the corporate world realise that PR can make or break a brand. PR complements advertising when it comes to visibility, brand awareness and enhancing the brand equity of a corporate.