PR for Corporate Credibility & Positioning
Anjali Malhotra, Chief Customer, Marketing, Digital & IT Officer at Aviva, discusses PR strategies in the context of digitization and lockdown:
Ravi Lalwani: How has PR agency role changed in the last 12 months at Aviva?
Anjali Malhotra: PR communication has always been our top priority, and our agency partner, Avian WE, plays a key role to drive awareness, brand resonance and build trust among the customers. Over the last few months, we worked together to weave the story of our purpose in our PR strategy and adopted multiple channels to engage with our ecosystem. We closely monitor trends in the external environment and ensure insight-driven reporting, and during the recent constantly evolving situation the team has been collaborating with the product, HR and finance teams regularly to understand how the business is evolving and we have accordingly finetuned the PR strategy. This has helped us deliver our customer centric narrative and new developments to our customers at the right time.
We have been working continually to build strong corporate credibility for our brand along with positioning Aviva as a good corporate citizen. The consolidated efforts have strengthened our thought leadership and our position as India’s most trusted private life insurance company in the last 2 years.
Can you share recent PR initiatives that Aviva has taken up?
We had launched our new brand campaign #HelloLife. Hello Aviva and the new brand purpose ‘With you today, for a better tomorrow’ in January 2020. The earlier brand purpose was ‘Defy uncertainty’. The campaign encourages people to welcome life with all its surprises, det o ur s , c hal l e nges, a nd r e a s s ur e s customers that the company stands with them. Our PR strategy was to keep the conversation positive and forward thinking, and yet retain some seriousness associated with financial goal planning. Leveraging this route with the right media mix helped us create better brand awareness.
During this time of uncertainty, every organization is facing unique challenges and our PR team took up the challenge to convert this crisis into an opportunity. The team showcased the might and the impact of our digital-first initiatives, with a special emphasis on how we used these assets to enable business continuity during this time, resulting in an extremely positive impact on our customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
Creating customized storylines for each spokesperson based on their expertise and audience has always been our primary focus. We adopted various new formats like videos, social media posts, etc, to bring the leader’s voice centre stage in key publications, with a greater focus on online publications. We brought focus on the leaders’ first-hand experience and responses during the rapidly evolving situation and the innovative processes being put into motion to tackle the challenges brought up by the covid crisis.
How are PR activities helping Aviva during lockdown? Please share some examples.
The sudden l ockdown presented unprecedented challenges across sectors and there is still a strong sense of scepticism in the environment. The PR industry is aiding many brands to sail over the tide, and we strategized with our PR team to remould our business narrative to align with a covid impacted world. Our campaign addressed various challenges, conveyed to our stakeholders that our business continuity plans and strategies are in place, resulting in no negative impact to them. During the lockdown we also highlighted the commitment to our purpose to cut through the clutter of uncertainty and to showcase how the company continues to engage with the stakeholders.
The PR team proactively secured opportunities for us to highlight Aviva’s
digital and customer first approach. We have been able to strengthen our thought leadership for our spokespeople in their expert domains. PR activities helped us in creating good quality conversations for brand recall and brand positioning throughout this tough phase to keep the business running digitally. We consistently and empathetically communicated our larger narrative of enabling our customers in their business continuity at multiple levels. We are also participating in the industry articles and contributing authored articles in the various esteemed publications of India.
Please share some of your activities on evolving technology and digitization in the PR activities.
Integration of data, technology and the force of digital to create virtual experiences is going to be the norm. Going ahead, conducting important events such as product launches, introducing key communication strategies and interacting with consumers is all going to be in realtime. That is why communicating through the right channels and utilizing digital platforms has become important.
We are already using these tools and technologies to make ourselves heard in this new environment. We are focused on owned and earned strategies and we are engaging with our stakeholders on our social media platforms. Be it our official LinkedIn page or the Instagram story to even signatures where our social handles can be leveraged, detailing is the new discovery. Our agency has given us a unique edge to think multi-media, multiplatform to build a strong narrative.
What changes do you expect in the PR agencies’ role in the coming times?
We all know that the PR and media industry go hand in hand. Keeping a connection with the masses is productive and essential for any business. In the coming days, relevant, original, and responsible content that drives appropriate action will be critical. A good and planned strategy always creates an image of positivity and trust around the brand. Agencies will continue to deliver stories uniquely, and consumer centric and purpose led stories will take the centre stage. Consumers will seek more accountability from influencers and regional language social media platforms will be an important tool for mass outreach.
Integrated channels of communication using marketing mix will create a longerlasting brand recall among the public and influence the buying decision-making. Media-brand relationships will be redefined with multi-channel engagement such as earned, paid, barter or collaborated campaigns. Further, brands need to focus on deeper collaboration between marketing, PR, digital, policy, media buying, creative, and data analytics teams to reach new heights. The importance of curating the right content and communication strategy in the pandemic cannot be overstated.