5th anniversary of A+P in India: Reflection
When I think of 2017, I reminisce a bit on a pandemic-free world we used to inhabit. So, I am grateful we are in a much better place now! That aside, 2017 was an exciting year for us, launching Allison+Partners in India and seeing the opportunity and the phenomenal prospect of the India market. As Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots forward but only backwards.” 2017 was only the precursor to PR’s increasing prominence on the centerstage. And as the pandemic showed later, companies placed even more importance on the need to over-communicate. I am glad that we had the opportunity to quickly build valuable relationships with our clients, demonstrating our value from the get-go to all the way through the worst of the pandemic to present day.
I would go as far to say the last decade has seen a coming of age for PR in India driven by increasing marketing sophistication and an appreciation of what earned media and strategic messaging can do to positively influence business and brand reputation. The breaking of marketing silos triggered by mainstream and social media disruption meant PR practitioners were adeptly placed given intrinsic skills in content, engagement and ideas (areas we excel in). The future is bright for PR, though challenges are emerging with global headwinds at play. We need to double-down and focus on value addition and driving meaningful outcomes for our clients.
There were many memorable moments! The joy of starting a business from scratch takes an incredible amount of gusto, focus and discipline. There was nothing more satisfying than seeing the team grow, one team member at a time, and being able to win some exciting clients. The founding team and I are ever so grateful to our fellow A+P’ers and the incredible support we have from our clients, building long-term partnerships as a result. Winning a few industry awards along the way was exciting and just another validation that we were doing things right.
Everything comes in just the right doses with challenges aplenty, though I can’t recall any that stand out other than what most other agencies face.
It's been nothing but fun starting out and building the Allison+Partners business in India - a tremendously enriching experience growing from scratch to a team of 30 colleagues (and growing) across three offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
Our longstanding credo at Allison+Partners is to think differently, be bold and tell our clients (and people) the most reckless thing you can do is to do more of the same! We seek to encourage and inspire our clients to think anew. And in doing this, we are firmly guided by the vision that it’s about the work and whatever it takes to get it done.
Our raison d'être could not be truer today. In an age of content clutter and noise, clients seek creative ideas and compelling and insights-based campaigns. This is precisely what we endeavour to provide our clients as creative and strategic PR practitioners.
Fortunately, we had a decent runway since we launched in 2017 until the pandemic struck, giving us the opportunity to build up a solid base of industry-leading clients and an equally strong team. Going into the pandemic, we were agile to move things around, as did our other Allison+Partners offices around the world. In many ways, we already had remote and flexible workplace practices in place, so it was an easy transition for us. The pandemic was the PR’s industry ultimate reckoning. And while we did see some cutbacks in client budgets in the early stages, most clients were swift in recognizing the need for thoughtful communications in a dynamic world. The opportunities we saw were in advising clients to communicate with greater purpose, authenticity and transparency. Clearly, organizations had to balance business compulsions while being altruistic at the same time. We helped clients find that delicate balance.
In a short span of five years amid the pandemic, the team and I are proud of what we have accomplished. We are now at an inflexion point, given the age of our business and what we have built so far, to grow faster than we have. The four things I hope to see:
- Building out our practice areas (i.e., corporate, healthcare, consumer and technology) in India with capable leadership and clients horizontally across in those domains
- The introduction of additional services that position us at the leading-edge of modern era communications, whether that is more analytics or services around marketing innovation
- Potentially build out a content hub of India
- And last but not least, to see the team grow further!
