PRAXIS is the world’s largest event for the reputation management professionals, being a part of the event this year was an overwhelming experience as we got to interact with eminent professionals of the industry. The topic for the event this year was “building trust is at that core of public relations”. We got to listen to a lot of speakers speak on the topic and that led to an enriching experience where we learned a lot about how things work in the industry. One of the keynote speakers at the event was Barri Friedman Rafferty who is the CEO and president at Ketchum PR. She spoke on how both left and right brain are important to deliver communications and to get good results.
There were several points that she covered in during her talk, one being the importance and power of purpose. To put forth her point she discussed a campaign called “prescribed to death” which established National Service Council as a leader in the fight against prescription opioid overdose. In the campaign it carved 22,000 faces of overdosed victims with the pills. A machine carved a face every 24 minutes. By giving this issue a human face Ketchum was able to get a lot of impressions which led to the success of the campaign.
She mentioned how it is important for a company to have a conscience of its own in order to deliver results. She used the term ‘social commerce’ for it. Doctors have been prescribing opioid for a long time now, without realising the negative effect it leaves. Once a human face was given to the issue through the use of artificial intelligence, the doctor’s too developer a conscience.
Through this specific point I learned that PR can bring about changes in the mindsets of people and in turn bring about a change in the society, making it a better place to live in. One small insight and good strategic planning can lead to major changes the mindset of the members of the society. This specific example can be related to trust in public relations because trust needs to be built between the consumer and the brand in order to build goodwill. The negative effects of the pills was breaching the trust of the consumers. Hence, that needed to be brought to light and a change had to be made in the society and also the mindsets, which was possible through this PR campaign. That is the power of public relations.
–Niharika Dowareh
Niharika Dowareh is an Alumna of the Class of 2020 of PG Programme in PR and Corporate Communications at SCoRe, Mumbai. He completed his winter internship with Avian WE, Mumbai.
She has done her post-graduation in sociology from Ambedkar University Delhi. After that, she was invited to the annual meeting of the pacific sociological association to present her paper. Through the experience, she learned that research excites her. She went on to work for an NGO as a communications executive that led her to the path towards PR as it’s a field that requires one to read, write extensively, and also face challenges on a day-to-day basis. As an extremely patient person and also a good listener, She feels these skills will help her in this field.
