One incident told by a very famous Indian cine artiste that once while he was going with his mother in the marketplace of his home town, he met few of his mother’s friends. When they saw him with his mother, one woman approached him and slapped him, saying how he could be so shameless towards women. That lady often saw the artiste in the role of a villain in the movies, where he is a murderer, a rapist and a smuggler. In actuality, the actor lives a very simple and ordinary life and is a God-fearing person. The perception that people carry of that actor plays a very pivotal role, of a negative person in cinema and not in reality. He lives with that negative persona because people really hate him as a villain. Cinema is a powerful communication tool which rules the subconscious mind of the people.
In the world of cinema or in realm of glamour, the audience has a very short memory. If any cine star has slapped a journalist or a fan, or he or she has committed any crime, small or big, it really doesn’t matter to the audience. They might be the most admirable people in the real life but cinema is ubiquitous, overpowering reality. They are judged by the people from their roles in the films and not from their real lives.
When such incidences come to the judiciary’s knowledge, it comes under influence of a seeping environment, to exonerate the erring actor. There are trials after trials in the lower and higher courts and the actor appears whenever he is summoned. Finally, he gets acquitted. This can happen only through a systematic and strategic PR plan and execution done by his PR agency to create that creeping environment. Turnaround from a bad PR into a good PR or in other words the complete transformation of a bad man into a good man has public perception as the theme.
Similarly, in the same fashion, PR is the most commonly used technique by political leaders for themselves and their parties. There are many examples of politicians in India as well in other countries, who were and are alleged for various scams and which led to a great damage to their public image. But with the help of their public relations advisors, they not only changed the perception of people for them but they were also re-elected and remained seated on the high political positions.
The PR strategy goes like this: before projecting themselves as politicians, they presented their human face to the public. They were being well trained from their PR advisors about their interactions with the media and also while addressing a ‘Jan Sabha’.
Donations to NGO’s, development of basic infrastructure in their constituencies, arranging ‘Jan Sabha’s’, where they answered queries of people and noted the important expectations of people and then working towards fulfilling their promises to their people, helps them establish a positive image for themselves. But the story of their success still remained incomplete, without a positive face in the media. The PR advisors strategically make their PR plan and start writing a plethora of stories on the politician and his contribution to the society, resulting in positive coverage by the media. This echoes so very well that people tend to forget the scams in which they were alleged.
An excellent Public Relations advisor to a politician or a cine personality or for that sake any organisation or to a person specific, has to be a social scientist, where he knows the thought process of the people and the media. He should have done a complete SWOT analysis of his client much before formulating a PR strategy. Second, after doing the complete study of his client and his target audiences, he should be able to guide his client about his interactions with the media and the people in general. He is to educate his client what to speak, where to speak and when to speak. In other words, he should be smart enough to train the spokesperson about the finer nuances of communication. Third, he should be always ready with critique coming from the media or the public about his client. He is an alarm bell to his client, to safeguard his reputation. A small time rumour can damage the reputation of a person or any organisation.
Public Relations and politics have a lot in common. On a serious note, Public Relations play a very important role in politics and help the governments to make new policies by influencing public opinion.
(The writer is a national media consultant and his views are personal. He can be contacted at: sudhanshu.patni@gmail.com)