Energetica India nº91 July August 2020

Changing behaviours on display. The question is, will they stay this way? Involving employees and communities in the outreach is another important way to work through the current situ- ation. As we cross the 100 day milestone since lockdown was announced, for the first time in many weeks the conversation in this edition of the ‘Creative Sandbox’ did not have the Covid word uttered in every second sentence. While the context remains, there was a clear sense of looking to the future with optimism veiled in pragmatism. What will it take to keep the dream of a clean and green world alive? What are the ways in which employees and communities are getting involved in finding solutions for a better tomorrow? We drill down into the kind of communi- cation and brand building work energy companies are spending their time and energies on. Here is what we learned from 3 leaders: 1. Paresh Chaudhry, Group President, Corporate Communications, Adani, 2. Arijit Banerjee, AVP Corporate Com- munications ReNew Power and 3. Shankar Chelluri, VP Corporate Com- munications, Suzlon Energy in our online playground. Valerie Pinto, CEO, Weber Shandwick India kicked the session off by asking the participants what had changed for them and if there were any new chal- lenges they had encountered. A power surge in expanding reach and engagement : Paresh explained how it was actually a phase that had increased his effectiveness as a communications leader “At the Adani group we see this as a big opportunity. We have realised that the productivity, efficiency, quality of output and outcomes has been so solid. For example in the last 3 months we have reached 249 million people through earned media. Six months pri- or to that we would have reached 185 million.” In terms of what they were communicat- ing, there was off course a focus on safety, new measures of travel advisories and some thought leadership also. What he felt most encouraged about was the connect with the community. He shared how there was on one hand an increase in the numbers from a quantitative point of view but also a real meaningful con- nection established “the quality of that engagement has been great as we have genuine outreach” Arijit built on this thought, on one hand agreeing there was increased produc- tivity but he did also call out what was missing from the equation “Definitely there has been an improvement in terms of productivity. Everybody has adapted to this way of working very fast. A lot of us know that when you engage with the media, face to face, in the room together, that is where you can judge how people are reacting. In the room engagement is something that we are missing. Teams are unable to get together. The unwind time is also not there as we move from one meeting to the next. So while on the productivity and work front we are doing very well, the bonding and person to person connect we miss.” We all agreed that at some level the bonhomie is gone, which is a bit of an energy dampener. Changing behaviours on display. The question is, will they stay this way? Valerie then brought the topic of brand reputation drivers to the table, to under- stand what was working well. Paresh gave the example of how ‘Growth with Goodness’ which is the core brand po- sition has been strengthen with the help of an online campaign #GoodnessNev- erStops. The four pillars of the program were employee communication, com- munity welfare, nation building (capex investment) and pure business commu- nication. Through this effort he shared that they had reached 70 million new users reached on social media. He also said that “Tonality, acceptance and en- gagement have all improved as per our social media dashboards by about 20 percent” He gave some insight into the messages that the sounds of goodness campaign focussed on “we were basically shar- ing how the water is cleaner now and the birds are chirping again with the 48 energetica INDIA- July-Aug_2020 Nikhil Dey Vice-Chair, Weber Shandwick Valerie Pinto, CEO Weber Shandwick