|  "India is apt to make communication professionals and companies complacent and smug unless one cares to check, monitor delivery and seek feedback," remarks 54-year-old Thomas T Abraham, deputy general manager, Corporate Communications, Ashok Leyland Limited and a past chairman of the Chennai chapter of Public Relations Society of India (PRSI).
Explaining the challenge he adds, "India is highly fragmented in demographic segmentation. The multiplicity of media itself fragments this audience equally." According to him, even if 10 newspapers carry a communication from the company, the message actually reaches only a fraction of the target audience. Therefore, he says, "Communication professionals should not be satisfied with the number of publications that carried the message." A communication professional with three decades of experience, Abraham says the effective way of conveying a message is to make the target audience participate in the event. "In one of the companies I worked, I conducted a three-year-long, all-India advertising-cum-action campaign on vehicular pollution. At the free emission clinics, the enthusiasm of the public taught me two things, one, that people enjoyed doing good things and they are grateful if you provide them with the platform. Second, if there is an audience action component, then the communication consummates effortlessly." The same principle holds well in internal communications, too. "Making the audience, who are otherwise spectators in the stands, into active participants, helps in effective internalisation of the message."  Abraham is a university rank-holder with masters in English literature, followed up with a postgraduate in business management and a specialisation in marketing management.
A winner of several prizes for writing and photography, Abraham has also directed award-winning advertising campaigns. He is also an honorary consultant to social service organisations. Excerpts from an interview: How do you see PR having evolved in India?
Thankfully, in much of the corporate sector, PR has ceased to be what it used to be - a clothesline for hanging unmentionables. The profession has been attracting people trained in allied fields of communication. The seminal change has been the understanding that communications has become pivotal in PR. Earlier, corporate India's PR practice lacked purpose and direction. It used to mean a set of actions, some of them ritualistic, out of corporate habit. How do you view communication differentiation strategies for different stakeholders?
Always identify the key target groups and the routes to reach them with relevant messages. To succeed in communication, there should be a satisfactory answer for each target audience's main question, "what is in it for me?" Communications, especially captive communication in organisations, raises this issue of clash of loyalties. Take for instance a house magazine. The question, does the reader need it, should be answered positively before writing anything. Thus one can put the company's money to effective use. What is the best way to handle communications during a crisis?
The cardinal rule is, 'be accessible and open'. I consider the recession of the mid-'90s as what tested me professionally. We kept our communication lines with the media open and did not shy away from uncomfortable questions. We explained the factors in the external environment that cumulatively caused the mother of all recessions and its impact on us. Why do communication professionals regard media relationship as a major challenge?
Undeniably, the journalistic profession is under greater pressure than ever, to break stories and obtain exclusives. This competitiveness is partly an individual thing - of counting success by the number of by-lines. A communication professional tries to be fair and equitable to as many journalists, but often fails. Therefore, one has to accept complaints - genuine from journalist's viewpoint - as an occupational hazard. Information is the currency in the interaction between the corporate and the media. Mutual value addition that is sought can be achieved by simply dealing with the information within a professional framework. To what extent do corporate web sites help in image building?
A company web site is the sole embodiment of a company on the world-wide web (www). Depending on the product category and profile of target groups, the extent of information sharing is determined by content design. But what is even more significant yet lost sight of is the subliminal, involuntary impact of a web site, based on its look and feel, design, colours and what one may call 'personality' or 'attitude'. How do image audits help improve communications?
Image audits are like pathology tests, insisted upon by a good physician before he starts treatment. Hunches and gut feel are poor substitutes that can direct good money the wrong way. Based on image audits of the IIM project type to full-fledged execution by professional agencies, it is safe to say that the results often dent our faith in hunches. The world outside only has perceptions that are based on the little that they know of the reality. The frequency required depends on various dynamics- changes in the operating climate, competition, and even more importantly, the speed at which the company is changing.
How do you go about conducting image audits?
At the core of this search is a grid - on one axis are a set of vital parameters that matter for a company such as what is the target group's perception about the company's quality of products and services, quality of management, financial soundness, growth impetus, its standing as an employer, a good corporate citizen, etc. On the other axis are (to put it simplistically) the scores awarded to the company and a few other benchmark companies. This score grid has to be separately obtained for each stakeholder group. It should be noted that corrective actions demand a lot of organisational commitment and energy. Without that, the entire exercise amounts to an accurate pathological diagnosis without the curative follow up. How should companies handle reputation management?
Image management and reputation management are the same, in spirit, scope and practice, for the semantics. PR (which has a significant | 
