Category: Communication

(Communications ideas and writings @ advertising & marketing – as an equal subset of entrepreneurship)

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Change Communication Cinema Communication Health Communication

Toilet: Ek Development Communication Katha

Official Poster: Toilet: Ek Prem Katha

Akshay Kumar is fast emerging as a very unlikely bearer of varied and content-driven Hindi cinema. Derided by the reigning Hindi cinema establishment and its audience bank as ‘Bharat Kumar 2.0’ for his off-screen nationalistic messages and works, the prolific actor’s latest film – despite its shortcomings – could end up as a case study on development communication, or Communication for Development (C4D), in the Indian context.

Director Shree Narayan Singh’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (TEPK) is a social satire revolving around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Keshav (Akshay Kumar) and Jaya (Bhumi Pednekar) are natives of two adjoining rural neighbourhoods of Mathura district in Uttar Pradesh. After a brief period of wooing and cajoling by Keshav, Jaya gives in and the two get married.

But the marriage begins on a disastrous note when Jaya finds out that there is no toilet in the Keshav household – and, after many unsuccessful attempts to fit in, walks away from him.

Left with no other option, Keshav sets out to make things right – and, in the process, takes on the well-entrenched mindsets, social barriers, and the administrative mechanisms of our country.

Acknowledged in the end credits of the film, avid news readers are able to recollect that the genesis of the film lies in the real life story of a young girl Anita Bai Narre from Betul, Madhya Pradesh.

But there have been a few other similar instances too. For example, Kanpur girl Neha Shrivastav had walked away from marriage just four days prior to the date for the same reason. Neha told the media at the time that she had taken the step after getting inspired by a Vidya Balan advertisement about toilets at home.

The two examples are significant. The former has given birth to a C4D driven movie while the latter took inspiration from a C4D message to give birth to a social reaction (from an individual, to begin with).

Put together, the examples illustrate the symbiotic relationship between C4D and society. On the one hand, C4D is about understanding and giving a voice to the needs of the society, but on the other, it is also about drawing out a response from the society by means of that voice.

TEPK is a good example of being an agent of both ends of the cycle.

If a thoroughly utilitarian social communication featuring film star Vidya Balan – in an old DAVP packaging – could inspire a young woman in a conservative society like Kanpur to call off a monumental social milestone like marriage, then the ripple effects of the latest Akshay Kumar film can potentially be immense – especially in those sections of the society that are exposed to and influenced by Hindi cinema.

For, mind you, unlike, say the Vidya Balan communication, a film like TEPK intrinsically possess many elements that stay in the heads and minds of those exposed to it. For instance, Hans Mat Pagli song, a rare old-world melodious composition in the voice of Sonu Nigam, is a runaway hit. How can the person crooning the song not remember, every once in a while, the subject of the film?

Then there is the hilarious episode of the leading man getting married to a buffalo (not a spoiler, it was revealed in the film’s first trailer itself) to fight off the ‘Manglik Dosh’. The episode is played indirectly throughout the film – making it just as memorable as the basic premise of the film. Sometimes, it is imperative to illustrate how archaic some of the beliefs ‘look to the naked eye’ to force the believers to rethink them.

Again, which film had this scene? Ah, the film about building toilets at home, especially for the women of the family.

Then there is that rather strong view by the head of the family on the “impossibility of the Sacred Tulsi (Holy Basil) plant sharing the courtyard with a toilet”. It forms one of the milestone episodes of the film.

And we are not even talking about the very obvious subjects of not just humiliation but security hazards for women who are forced to answer nature’s call in the open. TEPK actually begins by highlighting (via the headlights of a tractor, if you will) the issue.

In other words, TEPK weaves together many such social issues into the singular premise of the film viz., building a toilet at home. And thereby talks about it in a complete socio-cultural context (of a sizeable section of the vast Indian society).

Using the story of the lead pair, their immediate families, and their surroundings, TEPK seems to stay true to the various United Nations (UN) organisations’ approach towards C4D via the following four interlinked goals:

  1. Behaviour Change Communication (in TEPK, it is primarily about the head of the house)
  2. Communication for Social Change (in TEPK, it relates to changing the thinking of both the panchayat and the villagers)
  3. Communication for Advocacy (in TEPK, the stress on overall sanitation is put through advocacy at local and regional government machinery)
  4. Strengthening an Enabling Media and Communications Environment (in TEPK, the lead pair not only makes use of an insider at a major Hindi daily but also media at large)

As per the United Nations Development Group (UNDG),

“the greatest challenge the communicator faces is the preparation and distribution of development messages to millions of people in such a way that they are received and understood, accepted and applied. If they accept this challenge they will be able to get the people to identify themselves as part of a society and a nation. This identity will help in harnessing these human resources for the total welfare of the individual and community at large“.

This is where TEPK scores. It has made sure that the message is indeed received, understood and accepted by millions. It manages to do so by using an enchanting mix of humour, romance and the quintessentially Indian high pitch drama at places.

There is absolutely no doubt about the acceptance of the film by rural folks. But will they ‘apply’ the C4D message?

Well, “Mera Desh Badal Raha Hai“. And I am optimistic that the film would have a ripple effect – of whatever magnitude – in some geographies of the so-called Hindi belt. That is why I believe the film might end up becoming a case study on development communication in the decades to come.

All theories aside, however, TEPK is an enjoyable family watch. The author took his 67-year-old mother along and she loved it. “More such films should be made,” she said.

Not without its flaws, go watch the film for absolutely smashing performances by Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar and Divyendu Sharma. The direction is very good at most places. The editing, adroit at most places, could have been tighter in the second half.

Warning: You might end up humming ‘Hans Mat Pagli’ for the remainder of the day after watching the film.

3 stars for the cinema; 5 for being an agent of change.

Categories
Communication Crisis Communication LinkedIn

An Elementary Primer for Your Crisis Communication Efforts

The article was first published on LinkedIn here.

If you accept on the day prior to embarking on your entrepreneurial journey that you will be facing  a range of crisis along the journey, tiding over which would lead you to success, you would be creating a healthy foundation for an effective response to any future crisis.

The acceptance happens at the subconscious level. But it still is a communication – with your own self. Believe it or not, that is the first crisis communication exercise that you undertake.

That, luckily, is also the first lesson in crisis communication: ANTICIPATION of crisis and being proactive about it is the absolute key towards executing a successful – read ‘easy to understand and effective’ – crisis communication.

The real advantage lies not only in the fact that you would be better prepared to address the crisis situation but also in the possibility that you – by means of pre-empting it – might even be able to prevent the crisis from raising its head in the first place. That would be a magnificent example of crisis management by means of having an early crisis communication within the core team of any organisation.

That core team may or may not have communication experts. If not, then it is imperative to make sure that the designated communication team members – or at least the communication leadership – is made a part of all the (anticipatory) crisis management team meetings.

A complete involvement in and UNDERSTANDING of the issue and the approach towards managing the crisis – whether anticipated or existing  – would allow the communication team to be better equipped while DEVISING the crisis communication message, while also TRAINING better the eventual external or public/partners facing spokespersons.

From there on, it is a matter of ESTABLISHING systems for notifying the message (‘communication’) to the desired stakeholders – and for MONITORING the effectiveness of the notifications. The monitoring would involve gauging responses to the communication and, after interpreting the responses, making adjustments to both the message and the delivery methods and modes for greater efficacy of crisis communication.

Sometimes, the crisis does not blow up into something massive. It is always beneficial to, therefore, study the nature of the crisis carefully, as it unfolds. That period, when things are in a flux, is generally called ‘The Critical Hour’. The ‘hour’ demands that the crisis communication team does not go overboard with their messages – but develop and release, what is called, ‘holding statements’.

The beautiful thing about holding statements is that they can be devised right at the first (‘anticipation’) stage itself. Further, they are also common sense statements. Here are a couple of examples:

“The situation is evolving, and we will keep everyone updated via our website and social media networks as we receive more information.”

“We are both investigating the incident and cooperating with the authorities.”

Not too difficult, eh? And yet, so many – just so many – organizations don’t do even this bit.

Talking of simple things, well, it goes without saying that holding statements have a life. A minute longer than the ideal (decided, unfortunately, entirely by the recipients) can open up another battlefront for the team – that of public ire about the team’s ‘professionalism’ etc.

Unlike the holding statements, actual crisis communication cannot be developed in advance. No one can ever predict completely what turn a crisis might take the next hour. Therefore it is mandatory for the entire crisis management team to be at the top of the awareness about the developing crisis situation and keep monitoring, enhancing crisis communication efforts.

Unless absolutely impossible (undesirable), transparency and continuous notifications is the key. There haven’t been too many instances in the history of the human race of people complaining of too much communication about a developing crisis.

Finally, all of the above would be futile if the team doesn’t learn from the crisis – and its management. POST-CRISIS ANALYSIS would reveal that there is no such thing as ‘it won’t happen to me’ or ‘I’ve got everything covered’. No, you can’t have everything covered at all times, and yes, it could happen to you.

The key takeaways of the analysis should be the performance of the crisis communication strategy both from the concept and execution aspect, and the performance of the crisis management team. A good appraisal should be good for an immediate reward for the personnel. A bad one should work as a good lesson in crisis communication management.

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Change Communication Communication LinkedIn

How Good are You at Communicating Change?

The article was first published here.

In another reflection of changing times in India, a lawmaker of the current Indian government has put emphasis on something that is generally discussed at progressive corporate organisations – change communication.

Speaking at the valedictory function of Mid Career Training Programme for Senior Indian Information Service officers (IIS) at Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, India’s Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M Venkaiah Naidu said that the Narendra Modi government places ‘communication as a critical cog in the wheel of change‘.

He said three very interesting things at the function:

“To bring about a change always creates a dissonance in the governance process.”

“The (current federal) government in the past two years has embarked on a program of communication innovation-adopting methods, seeking spaces to ensure last mile connectivity to the people.”

“The objective is to plug the gaps in the government’s communication approach in areas of content design, social marketing, branding, impact assessment and weaving technologies in the digital age.”

This is a refreshingly different approach from a government in India, after decades of top-down monologue-oriented official communiqués. Those, of course, work(ed) brilliantly in a bureaucracy led system that cherishes status quo. But rarely, if ever, in heralding a change.

How well the current administration is able to walk the talk of a comprehensive communication roadmap remains to be seen. But going by – probably the best in the world – responses on Twitter by, for example, India’s Minister for External Affairs, Smt. Sushma Swaraj, and Minister for Railways, Shri Suresh Prabhu, the start has been good.

It would take another couple of terms of successive governments for the system to finally institutionalize good communication – especially that related to change – in Indian polity.

But it should take a much smaller period for you to implement the ‘Change Communication Good Practises‘, so to speak, in your corporate organisation.

Here, we are talking about ‘change’ in general – from the perspective of general communication requirements of internal, corporate, and marketing communication, among all other.

The principal facilitator of good change communication is the ability of the team behind it to understand how people (employees, partners, clients, consumers) perceive and respond to change. Our collective experiences over the years tell us that most people are reluctant for change because they see change as a force that disrupts their cosy corner of the world.

Hence, it is imperative for the change communication team to have the intellectual and emotional proficiency to appreciate and segregate the resistance to change, its sources, and silos – and devise communication answers (read ‘strategy’) for the response and/or resistance to change or the anticipation of change.

The first step towards achieving that is understanding the roles and responsibilities of the leaders, communicators, and people-facing personnel during the execution of change – whether in an intra-organisation sphere or those related to the markets.

Though it sounds elementary, it takes some effort and practice to ensure that the entire team consistently remains on the same page with regards tactics, channels, and techniques that are to be used for communicating change.

At the same time, and this is extremely crucial, the team has to realise that no can have a complete handle over the entire curve of the impending change.

This realisation has to be compassionately passed on to the recipients – while making sure that the team itself realises that it is communicating amid an open-ended, unpredictable change, which would require them to be ever flexible about the nature and frequency of their communication.

Some changes, for many, unfortunately, are not open-ended and unpredictable – and are precisely the kind of changes that makes people fear change in general. In other words, sometimes, change indeed stands for a bad news that has to be communicated.

Like most things in life, there is no one correct way of communicating bad news. But personally, I believe that we could learn from the fraternity that lives with the prospect of delivering bad news on any given day – the doctors.

As someone who belongs to a ‘cancer family’ and has interacted with doctors exhaustively in the context of my late father’s cancer diagnosis and treatment (in vain, the second time), I believe there is no communication as nerve-wracking as that between a terminally ill patient – or his/her caregiver – and the doctor in charge.

Identifying the significance of the subject, the American Medical Association (AMA) first included principles related to the delivery of bad news in its code of conduct almost 150 years ago.

American doctors Michael W. Rabow and Stephen J. McPhee developed a model in 1999 about ‘Techniques for Delivery Bad News Well’ that is represented by a simple mnemonic ABCDE.

ABCDE stands for  ‘Advance Preparation‘, ‘Building a Therapeutic Relationship‘, ‘Communicating Well‘, ‘Dealing with Patient and Family Reactions‘, and ‘Encouraging/Validating Emotions‘.

It is obvious what ‘bad news’ the medical fraternity refers to.

In our case, we can define bad news as any news that either proposes to bring about or is perceived as bringing about far-reaching and/or negative change in the current circumstances of the recipient of the news. In other words, the universe might be different, but the underlining principles of ABCDE work just as well in public policy and corporate governance communications.

Eventually, what really matters is your attitude and approach towards the recipients of your communication (if not actually being that, you should at least come across as being compassionate towards the people who stand to be affected by an impending change), the clarity of your communication, the safeguarding of privacy (related to issues like internal appraisal reports, if not the non-disclosure in public of the ‘pink slip’ itself), and the freedom for the recipient of change communication to question you, and get answers to his/her questions.

It’s not hard really but really needs heart.

How good are you at communicating change?

Categories
Communication Health Communication

Public Health Communication has to be ‘Mainstream’

ayurvedic-accumass-weight-gainer-in-india
Advertisement of an Ayurvedic Weight Gaining Product

A cursory study of health communication would reveal that when it comes to catching eyeballs, the catchy promotions of, for example, private label herbal supplements beat hollow the rather ritualistic promotions of healthcare initiatives by our government. While the difference in the target audience indeed contributes to the difference, the key, I’m afraid, remains the incentive for the campaigns.

It is very easy in our current world to get very passionate about a project that offers instant riches as a ready incentive. Given the demands of the modern life, there’s absolutely nothing acutely immoral in that, I guess.

fssai
A Food Safety in India Advertisement by FSSAI

Given the background, however, how does one attract the best talent for the production of public health communication campaigns – irrespective of the media platform?

Isn’t that an urgent issue in a country like India, where healthcare continues to be one of the biggest ‘enemies of the state’?

It wouldn’t be anyone’s argument that the mighty government bodies do not have funds to be able to afford an accomplished ‘mainstream’ talent. The operative word being ‘mainstream’, denoting not someone who caters to the lowest common denominator but a maker of communication campaigns that work with the widest possible range of the target audience.

For example, many might dislike a popular Hindi film actor but would still not only be exposed to his ‘messages’ – mostly commercial advertisements but also public policy or program endorsement – across mass media platforms.

And we do have a stirring example of that: Endorsement of the Government of India’s Pulse Polio program by Amitabh Bachchan, who, I believe, is the biggest star-actor in the history of Hindi cinema. During the run of the campaign, India reported an exhilarating decrease in the number of polio cases – from 741 cases in 2008, to 42 in 2010 and just one case of polio in 2011. The program was such a superlative success that it was acknowledged by UNICEF.

Another good current example of ‘mainstreaming’ of public health message is the ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’ – a Government of India program about national sanitation. The campaign makes great use of a widely recognisable Hindi film actress Vidya Balan to stress home the urgent need to have toilets at home. In fact, it manages to be provocative enough to pass on the message – aimed largely at semi-urban and rural households – of sanitation being more important than socio-cultural rituals like women covering their face in front of elderly male in-laws of the family.

This is a great example of public health communication that pushes the envelope while, ostensibly, talking only of a single issue in an easy to understand language.

If you were to do a popular pole of public health communication campaigns that most people are aware of the Vidya Balan ‘build toilets’ campaign would feature well in a list that is still bound to be headed by Bachchan’s pulse polio program.

Simply because both the communications bring the campaign right to the dining table – via people who most would love to invite home for dinner.

But these are just two of the handful of successful public health communication by government agencies. The rest are either not produced well or not delivered well. In most cases, it is the combination of the two. Money, of course, is spent on them anyway.

As with any war, the idea of the government of the day should be to ‘choose the battles wisely’ and go all out with making the message as much part of the daily life of society as much possible, using as much recognisable messengers (not just film actors, of course) as possible, in as much understandable and repeatable manner as possible.

Neither being too clever (by being too ‘cutting edge’) nor being too arrogant (by ‘obliging’ the masses with stale messages) is going to work.

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Corporate Communication Entrepreneurship Featured LinkedIn

Dummies Guide to Internal Communications

internal_communication

At the absolute basic level, the solitary purpose of ‘internal communication’ is to make sure that everyone in the team remains ‘on the same’ page at all times.

From the organizational perspective, it helps unity of purpose and action – leading to a unified goal of success for everyone. The employees, on the other hand, consider themselves a worthy part of the narrative when they hear company news much before the world hears it – just as, and more importantly, when they feel that their communication with the organisation is a dialogue and not a directive.

Fortunately, the prerequisites for that overall agreement are just as uncomplicated:

  • Clarity of (purpose of the) message in either or every (vertical + lateral) direction;
  • Catalytic medium for a clear message (some mediums are more suited for some purposes);
  • Correct consumption of message (precise understanding of and action upon the message by the staff);
    and most importantly,
  • Command structure walking the message (if the CEO is messy, no amount of communication can extract discipline from the subordinates)

In other words, Internal communications ought to facilitate decision making at the top via quality ‘floor feedback’ and encourage employee participation and output via clear and compassionate responsibility delegation – leading to overall benefit of the organization, the management and the employees.

It goes without saying, however, that though elementary, the aforementioned, quite like preparation of a project report, takes planning, practice and passion. The only favourable difference is that preparation of ‘internal communication’ blueprint is principally a process of adapting a singular message to its finite modes of delivery – within the finite realm of an organisation:

| A | Formal Face-to-Face Meetings | – |

Unless we are talking of a really small organization (< 50 personnel), face-to-face meetings don’t actually mean one-on-one between the management and individual staffers. The exercise can be split into the usual brackets as follows:

  • Management Meeting (@ CEOs, group heads, division heads et al)
  • Select-Group Cross-Divisional Meeting (@ lateral and vertical core representatives of divisions)
  • Workgroup or Divisional Meeting (@ intra division / group meetings of stake holders)
    and finally, the
  • Entire Organisation ‘Mission & Vision’ Meeting (@ entire strength of the organization)

| B | Informal Face-to-Face Meetings | – |

Anything informal is – or at least ought to be – much lighter. It holds true for informal face-to-face office meetings too. It is difficult to pin down ‘informality’, but here are some of the more obvious ones:

  • Drop-ins (mostly top brass visiting ‘the floor’ but can also be about select few invited for a (non classified) management brainstorming)
  • The Water Cooler Meeting (rarely between the absolute top and the ground level, but fairly effective for levels just about similar or thereabouts)
  • Lunch / Breakfast / Coffee Meetings (between a convener and a small group of stake holders)

| C | Electronic | – |

  • Voice (Phone-in and phone-out @ both the leadership and the staff)
  • Social Media (an internal social network site or a closed group on platforms like Facebook etc)
  • E-mail, including mass group mailers
  • Intranet, including sharing domains like Google Drive, Wikis etc
  • E-newsletters
  • Podcasts (as in an organization wide radio talk, Q&A etc by a designated person every week)
  • Videos (either for the above purpose or to share motivational, educational films @ company objective and targets)

| D | Print and Display | – |

  • Continuous Vision and Mission Docs (explaining new targets and changes @ original vision)
  • Newsletter (preferably with ample – if not majority – space for employee voices)
  • Bulletin Board (especially about forthcoming events, targets and, most importantly, changes)
  • Anonymous Suggestion Box

These are just the broad boxes that you need to tick for effective internal communications. You don’t have to subscribe the exact forms. The form would eventually be decided by the nature of your organisation and the purpose of the activity. Remember, the idea is to facilitate precise, coherent and well-timed flow of information across the hierarchy.

Finally, let’s end this concise guide with one last basic bit of truth:

None of the aforementioned internal communications activities sit in a box; they are all eternal processes – like an invigorating fresh water stream.

This tutorial was published on LinkedIn here

Categories
Communication Social Media

Is communicating success the first step of success on social media?

Ever wondered how – if not why – some individuals on social media boast of a followers/friends pool that even most celebrities would give their right hand for?

If you have, the answer to it can provide much solace to your despairing soul. 🙂 Yes, ‘being successful’ on your favourite platforms is well within your reach too.

The recent political brouhaha surrounding an overwhelming number of Turkish followers of the previous chief minister of the western Indian state of Rajasthan on Facebook did a great service to budding young entrepreneurs of India. The issue told first-time businesspersons that quite like everything else in the marketplace, ‘success’ on Facebook and Twitter is also a commodity that can be bought – lock, stock and four secret barrels (Apologies to Guy Ritchie J) – over the counter (OTC). Whether that ‘success’ lasts or not, however, depends enormously on the follow-up actions that you take.

It is quite like the simple principal of product management that prescribes, first building a good product (perception of success on social media, in our case), and then following up with effective distribution and marketing, ‘good actions’ (keeping the flock together, engaging them and adding more to it, in our case).

So, if you are, say, an architect and not only have your sample work ready but also have uploaded them to Facebook, the first real challenge would be to ‘seen to be’ a successful architect. One of the surest ways of achieving that is to have many good updates about your work AND a robust number of likes and followers at the top right of your page.

Assuming that you do your work well, 🙂 you can begin your social media marketing by ‘buying Facebook likes or Twitter followers’ from a company like Boost Likes, which calls itself a social media promotion service that helps you “exponentially grow your social media following to improve your reputation”. An elementary search on the internet would tell you that there are many other companies too that do this. You can take your pick as per your requirement and budget.

During the first weeks, it just does not matter whether your updates have any bearing upon the many thousands of followers/likes that you have. All that matters at this early stage is that a relevant reader feels and believes that you have so many followers because of the updates that he is reading – and liking.

People tend to hit ‘like’ on Facebook pages that have many likes already – partially because it allows them to be associated with ‘successful communities’ and partially because they believe that it gives them too an avenue for mass outreach with fellow ‘likers’.

If you are just as savvy a seller as you are an architect, you could gradually start building one relevant ‘like’ over another upon the OTC followers/likes.

Mind you, it is almost mandatory for you to build upon the OTC followers/likes – for they come with only limited time guarantee! Yeah, it’s a tough world out there. 🙂

Doesn’t sound too improbable – or immoral, does it? 🙂