Gurdeep Kaur steers forward High Viz PR with a unique blend of traditional and quirky approach

1) Tell us something about High Viz PR and the legs the company operates into?

Formed in 2014, HighViz PR is one of the fastest propelling PR agencies in India that believes in delivering best results which primarily makes a tangible difference to our client.

A quirky approach is all what is needed to break the clutter and impress the highly discerning end-consumer. In lieu of this, our team having smart and stalwart public relations experts work in close association with media houses. They make sure that all the brand communication is not just captured but presented well benefitting all relevant stakeholders of the brand in multi-fold ways.

Our unswerving work culture includes detailed information collection, analysis and formulation and implementation of foolproof public relation management strategy as per the pre-determined business goals of our client.

• Our unique blend of traditional and quirky approach for building the brand image makes us stand apart from the rest.
• We promise innovative and original solutions to our clients and compelling communication methods to help them reach the helm. This has helped us in successfully catering to prominent names in various business verticals.

2) How did HighViz PR happen? Tell us about the story behind.

Well, I believe that if one is truly passionate about his/ her career, nothing can stop one from succeeding. I always had a keen interest in marketing communications. And since PR is a core function of marketing communications, I undertook my post-graduation in public relations, and soon after completing it, I started my career with one of the leading PR agencies across the globe.

It was that time when e-commerce and online businesses had just taken off and there were only a few players in the market. At that time, I was fortunate enough to spearhead PR for some of the online brands like OLX, Naaptol and a plethora of start-up businesses such as Cocoberry, Vdopia, which over the period of time gained enormous publicity and soon became great success stories of my career. While I was working as an employee, I was constantly practicing ownership, which made me deeply committed towards my work. Believing and practicing ownership and reaping success at every step with these success stories, gave me enough confidence to start HighViz PR.

At the same time, I also got a chance to work for some of the well-known corporates like PVR Pictures, Walt Disney, BMW etc, which gave me tremendous exposure across verticals.

3) How do you see the landscape of PR agencies in India and does India has the potential to compete with global players in the same space?

PR as an industry has witnessed stellar growth over the last few years in India, with more and more firms realizing its importance for the purpose of brand building. Not only large multinational firms, but also small boutique firms have been increasingly moving the PR way. Moreover, with the start-up scenario in the country getting stronger with time, PR industry too automatically changed gears. As a result of all this, we see lot of existing PR agencies in India adopting newer tools and methods to serve their clients and expand their portfolio, while many new agencies have also mushroomed in the recent past to take care of the increased demand. Besides this, the growing usage of tools like digital and social media, smartphones, mobile internet, etc has caused some sort of a disruption in the PR space.

The PR industry in India is definitely thriving and is ready to give tough competition to the global leaders.

4) How big is the team and what kind of people you prefer to hire?

We are a strong team of around 100 odd people pan India. At HighViz PR, we are always on the look-out for the right talent. Typically, we prefer candidates who possess a strong knowledge and understanding of the entire PR ecosystem. Besides this, these candidates must of course be open minded and display a right attitude. When I say open minded, I mean that applicants must be willing to explore newer areas, be open for new ideas, approaches, discussions, strategies, etc. This is because PR is all about being new and unique all the time; it is about selling information uniquely each time so that it is received well by the audiences. Also, we prefer applicants who are easy-going, quick to adapt with their creative thoughts and have a strong zeal to work.

5)  Tell us about some of your successful campaigns in brief. 

Amongst the list of our successful campaigns that we designed and implemented for our clients, I would like to highlight the two most important ones, which created a lot of noise in the media and ultimately, drove huge sales for the clients.

Detel Sales Entrepreneur Program with Dabbawalas

One is the Dabbawala campaign that we launched for one of our prestigious clients, Detel, world’s most economical feature phone company. As a part of this campaign, all the Mumbai Dabbawalas were officially involved and engaged in selling Detel mobile handsets across the city. Our team at the agency took the creative stage and created a lot of hype around it in the media, which dramatically increased the sales of the mobile brand.

“Isme Sab Kuch Hai” by iVoomi

The other successful campaign that we implemented was for another esteemed client of ours, iVoomi, the chinese manufacturer of technology-rich phones at pocket-friendly prices. The company was introducing its first flagship budget smartphone in the market, bundled with rich features. The campaign was therefore named “Isme Sab Kuch Hai”, and was strategically launched across different media verticals. A month long campaign, conceptulaized with a series of teaser videos with the compelling content strategy aligned with the idea “Isme Sab Kuch Hai”. It was a 360 degree Marketing Communication Campaign integrated all print, electronic and Radio.

The unique approach of creating pre-launch hype, gained tremendous response from everywhere. As a result, the iVoomi happily announced that it sold off its entire stock of smartphones in less than half an hour on the day of launch.

6) What are your future plans ( Expansion, product etc)

Our focus pre-dominantly would be to further strengthen our footholds in Tier – 2,3,4 cities and New Business Acquisitions. The idea is to offer specialized communication services to as many brands as we can. As of now, we have been generating business primarily through references, and our clients have been making us expand. We have recently got into association with a well-known Influencer Marketing company, Buzooka that has helped us reach out to maximum number of influencers across the globe.   

Moving ahead, we feel that sky is the limit, and we are all geared up and quite positive about how things are shaping up. Very soon, we would be making some key strategic announcements that will play a key role in our future growth.

7) Are you boot strapped or backed by an investor? In case of backed, request you to provide details about them?

We are absolutely a bootstrapped company.

8) What is the piece of advice you will give to marketers who are in a hunt of great agencies? What should they keep in mind?

Marketers who are on a look-out for the right PR agency firstly need to be clear about their key communication objectives, and then put in place the definition of an ideal agency. According to me, a good agency is basically a pool of exciting client case studies and a team of expert PR professionals who are out-of-the-box thinking experts with a creative bent of mind. I would say before appointing an agency, it is important that the marketers interact with all the team members personally – the Account Manager, Account Executives, etc who would be directly serving your account. Understand their creativity and adaptivity and find out if you could align them to your vision and goals.

9) What is your mantra of success and who is your real life role model?

The magic mantra of success that I follow is to try and give your best in each sphere of your life. Especially, if you are a woman professional, it is important that you maintain a healthy balance between your work and personal life. This would definitely keep your spirits up, bring out the best in you and ultimately, you would be able to drive success in any given condition.