If we want positive PR, we need to first overhaul our society massively in many respects.
KARACHI: The article by M Bilal Lakhani titled “Pakistan’s PR crisis” published in your newspaper on December 4 is insightful in several respects. However, as a PR professional, I feel one fundamental point has been missed. For PR to be really effective in terms of creating awareness, removing misperceptions, building credibility and evoking a positive response from the target audience, it is essential that the ‘product’, to start with, is good.
In the present instance, the ‘product’ is Pakistan and the target audience is the international community. PR cannot or should not try to project or promote a bad ‘product’ as a good one or even an acceptable one. In today’s world of huge information flow, no approach at changing the image of Pakistan can work unless we first sort out the mess we are in. Even publicising several positive human stories like Malala’s is not going to work because at the same time, the world is being bombarded with other, negative stories about Pakistan that it cannot shut out. So really, if we want positive PR, we need to first overhaul our society massively in many respects beyond just ending terrorism, which in itself seems to be a challenge that has got the better of us.
Zohare Ali Shariff
Chief Executive Officer
Asiatic Public Relations Network (Pvt) Ltd
Published in The Express Tribune, December 7th, 2012.
