With new agencies coming up, international and regional powerhouses taking more interest in Oman and brand marketers giving more weight to PR in their marketing mix, the public relations industry in Oman is on the verge of an exciting phase. Akshay Bhatnagar looks at the PR environment in the Sultanate

The last year has been the most significant period in the short history of the public relations industry in Oman. Cyclone Gonu created havoc and institutions, both for profit and non-profit, realised the need for favourable public relations to present the true picture or to hide any ugly scars and show a brave face. No amount of advertising or any other communication discipline could have done what public relations did to maintain, in fact to reassert, the trust among external and internal communities for the institution and the country at large.

A closer look at the developments in the communications’ industry in the last year indicate that public relations has definitely emerged as a stand-alone discipline, with the entry of new, local and international specialist players. Thus, ASDA’A, the Middle East’s public relations’ consultancy powerhouse, has opened an office in Muscat; as did Action Global Communications, the independent PR network heavyweight present in Central, East and South East Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia; and so did BPG, earlier known as Bates PanGulf.

Thus, Action Global runs a joint venture outfit Buzzword/Action, which represents MCS/Action in Oman and is an integral part of Action’s global network. And BPG has set up shop in the form of BPG Adinc. BPG is part of the WPP Group, one of the largest communication services groups in the world.

Earlier, with the exception of MomentumPR, most of the so-called PR agencies were in practice an extension of ad agencies. Many such entities still exist. Many of them have international affiliations but an equity ownership, partly or fully, can definitely improve the image of their PR interests in Oman.

The new heavyweights may not have the luxury of large set-ups seen in markets such as Dubai but they promise to bring a qualitative difference to the Omani market with best industry practices and a rich international experience.

Shortcomings of PR in Oman
One of the most ardent believers in the powers of PR is Amer Mustafa Al Fadhil, Vice President – External Affairs, The Wave, Muscat. According to him, “The PR scene in Oman is under-served and under-valued. It is fairly premature. Public relations discipline is often misconstrued to the function of PROs – dealing with the ministries for liaison work.”

Supporting him, Lutz Meyer, MCS/Action's CEO for the GCC, says, “There is lack of knowledge about what PR really is and what PR can do. There is also lack of competence in integrating corporate messages into all written and verbal communications. We need to explain to our customers that public relations is a matter which involves the management and needs its input and its engagement.”

In Oman, a significant percentage of the companies, specially, those with little or no involvement with multinational partners, generally take it for granted that ad agencies will offer PR services either free or for a nominal fee as a value add when signing up the ad account. Says Sarah Livingston, Managing Director of Momentum Public Relations and one of the early movers in the PR business in Oman, “This happens many times as clients like to have one point of contact for ease of business.”

This also happens due to the fact that many companies don’t recognise public relations as a separate discipline and refuses to de-link it from advertising services. For a majority of such companies, PR means two things – arranging press conferences and ensuring placement of press releases in various publications. They also believe that there is a co-relation between their media investment via ad releases and editorial coverage in a publication.

“Though this is definitely not the ideal way to manage communications to achieve strategic brand objectives, many companies in Dubai and the region, believe in such practices. Fortunately, the scenario is changing,” says Nitin Puri, the CEO of BPG Adinc.

But how will this co-relation equation change? And who can engineer this change? Al Fadhil suggests, “The readers of the publications are going to play a major role in this change. They should be more demanding and ask for more credible news. They should voice their opinion. Unfortunately, this is not happening. Otherwise, the co-relation would have been lower than what it is now. At the same time, there are publications that demand ad support from companies in return for editorial coverage. Such publications are not doing justice to their readers.” If the media is compromised in terms of its trustworthiness, then the Ries and Ries’ argument falls apart: no credibility = no brand.

Taking the debate in a different direction, Nitin Puri says, “Generally, PR in Oman is evaluated on the basis of editorial space. It can’t be and should not be the primary way of evaluating PR. It should be about the effectiveness of the message rather than the space. When space alone becomes the criteria, the important elements of the PR exercise get missed.” Crisis management is another area where companies need to share more information with their PR agencies. Many companies tend to manage such issues on their own which is not the right approach and doesn’t inspire confidence in the PR agency. They have to believe that their PR agencies will maintain confidentiality even as they help achieve specific PR objectives.

The brighter side of the picture
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Definitely. It is good to know that there is a committed lot of PR professionals and organisations that believe in the power of public relations and they are taking active steps to make it more credible and trustworthy. Al Fadhil says, “Advertising is incredible, but PR is credible. PR has a lot of potential but it requires a few champions to take it forward. Recently, a group of PR professionals in Oman came together to create a Society of PR Professionals. It will work towards increasing the level of awareness about PR and infuse more professionalism into the industry. It can be more productive if agencies, marketers and professionals can work together.”

He adds, “The leaderships in relatively new companies are very well educated and exposed to best international business practices. They understand the need and importance of PR professionals, especially Omanis within the team. They are driving the PR industry and bringing a much required change in the mindset.” Says Livingston, “The PR industry is changing as new publications are entering more frequently than ever before. The companies are finding it difficult as they really don’t have enough knowledge about the new entrants and don’t trust their readership quality and figures. They place information in bits and pieces everywhere to either keep certain people happy or hope to reach out to their desired target group. Many of them don’t know whether what they are doing is right or wrong. It is a very interesting scenario from the PR agencies’ perspective, as there is an increased and genuine need of professional PR consultants to help companies in managing their public relations with the proliferation of media.”

In fact, it is the MNC companies that are making a major difference in the way PR is perceived in Oman. Take, for example, when Shangri La Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa was about to open towards 2005-end, it hired a Hong Kong-based communications agency to train key managers of the property in handling public relations in different scenarios, with the help of leading international and Muscat-based journalists. Reveals Desmond Hatton, General Manager, Shangri La Barr Al Jissah, “We hosted 5,000 room nights in 2006 for fam groups (travel agents etc.), so that they could see the destination and experience its uniqueness. Hundreds of journalists have been flown in by us in the last two years to promote the destination and property. We are again going to bring in a group of international journalists so that they can witness that Oman is back to normal after Cyclone Gonu and it will help to boost room occupancy that has come down post-Gonu on the whole for the hospitality industry.”

Many Omani companies are also placing great emphasis on public relations. BankMuscat is a prime example. The bank has one of the most professional, if not the most professional, public relations team in Oman that has contributed immensely in developing and maintaining the bank’s strong brand equity. The entry of MNC PR agencies is also expected to bring a major change in the market. Says Puri,

“We must create PR initiatives that needs to be strategically relevant to what the brand is trying to achieve. For example, BPG managed the PR of Coca Cola’s sponsorship of Dubai Summer Surprises. Our task was to leverage sponsorship and generate salience and a surprise factor around the brand. To achieve our goal, we created many events. For example, we brought Coke memorabilia from all over the world and held an exhibition in Dubai. On the weekends we also arranged for celebrity chefs to prepare special dishes with Coke as the main ingredient. These events were written about, as they were interesting and unexpected.”

Summarises Sunil John, Partner & Managing Director – Middle East, ASDA’A Public Relations, “The challenge of the modern world is that we are time poor but resource rich. We lead incredibly busy lives, inundated with meetings, memos, phone calls, e-mails, television, newspapers, the internet – and that’s not counting the demands on our personal time. For a company to get its message across clearly and effectively in the middle of this clutter, it has to not only be seen and heard but believed, and only public relations can achieve that.

“At its heart, PR is about trust: about building a relationship between consumers and companies at every step of the way. PR breaks through the clutter because it can personalise a message in ways advertising and other forms of marketing cannot, no matter how creative they are. PR is also much more versatile: it can respond in different ways to specific needs, can reach specific audiences and has effectively no limits on its channels of delivery. This is why, worldwide, advertising is continually losing its market share to PR, and we are confident this will gradually be true of the MENA region (including Oman) as well,” John concludes.

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