How journalist turned brand consultant Vivek Satya Mitram is redefining Brand Communication, Storytelling & PR for startups?

• BySheetal Sidhu     |    September 6, 2021

A report by IBM Institute for Business Value and Oxford Economics found that 90% of Indian startups fail within the first five years. Many factors contribute to this harsh reality along with a critical fact that a lot of startups don’t know — how to position themselves as a brand in the public domain & reach out to the right audience through the right communication channels including mainstream media and social media to deliver the right message? This was the key problem that interests Vivek Satya Mitram, a young & dynamic firebrand TV journalist who established half a dozen news channels in leadership roles while working with companies like Sahara, PTI, Star News, India News etc, to explore a new career as Brand Communication, PR & Content Strategist.

After saying goodbye to the TV news Industry in 2013, he has worked with 45+ organisations including startups, MNCs, NGOs, political parties & CXOs as a consultant helping them with Brand building, PR, internal/external communications, personal branding, social media & content design strategies. While talking to Startup Story Media Vivek pointed out “The right narratives & perceptions around business and impactful storytelling about a startup plays a crucial role in its journey as it ensures interests of consumers, potential investors and the relevant media that is important to ensure massive brand awareness, trust and right positioning in the market among the cut-throat competition. But unfortunately, even the startups with deep pockets working with top branding & PR agencies are failed to create an impact because they focus on everything except the communication & PR that silently kills their brand.”

In the last few years, he has worked with startups from diverse domains including cloud telephony, artificial intelligence, IoT, FMCG, EdTech, social-networking & content space and helped them grow by designing effective Branding, PR & Communication strategies. “Interestingly, I am in a very unique and deadly position that adds value for my clients a lot as I am a hardcore journalist who has worked in senior leadership roles as an Editor and Channel Head, which offered me an in-depth understanding of storytelling and also an interesting opportunity to learn how to set up a huge business that usually starts with minimum 300 – 500 Crores Rupees investment. As a channel head, I was not just required to design & implement editorial policies but I also had a mandate to ensure delivery and smooth functioning of different teams including marketing, sales, distribution, operations, finance & talent management etc to ensure business growth. After I left the TV industry, I decided to chase my dreams as an entrepreneur and in the last 8 years I built 4 companies in different spaces — consulting, digital advertising, branding & content which allowed me to get deeper into technology and I also got to realise the challenges of building startups first hand and that helps me develop a great understanding of startup ecosystem, it’s challenges & the possible solutions and this understanding helps me aligning business interests, goals and vision into all kind of communication, branding & PR exercises to ensure right kind of impact” says Vivek Satya Mitram.

With the increased cutthroat competition among startups working in similar domains and founder’s aspirations to raise multiple fundings from investors in a short period, the hunger for media visibility, reputation building, brand awareness and establishing credibility in the relevant target audience has increased massively but despite the media coverage, brand building exercises and exhaustive marketing gimmicks, a lot of startups are not able to achieve what they want as they are not able to ensure ‘right messaging’ by mapping the communication goals, right communication channels designing ‘right narrative & perceptions’. This probably happens because startups invest more into talents from technology, sales & marketing or operations but there is nobody in the system who understands Branding and PR at a deeper level which creates space for a renowned brand consultant like Vivek. That’s how, right now he is on board with a couple of growing startups including an AI-powered keyboard application Bobble AI which is a direct competitor to Google & Microsoft with its 50+ million user base, and Winni — an online gifting solutions company that is also growing at a massive rate with 100+ retail bakery outlets in pan India, delivery network in 650+ cities and reach unto 40 countries in the world.

“In last 5 years, media has become very crucial for serious startups looking at survival and growth as it offers an opportunity to stand out in the crowd and media publicity also adds a lot of trust to the brand but the problem is that most of the startup still don’t understand the value of a hardcore communication expert in their core team. In large corporates branding, communication & PR is considered to be a crucial part of business and they have proper divisions to manage it, but in startups, you will hardly find an in-house person like me who can take ownership of branding, PR & communication and align the business goals with brand communication and PR exercises. That’s why even after huge investments in branding & PR they don’t get real value. Most of the startups who can afford these things engage PR agencies, but that’s not enough because along with a PR agency they need a person who can ensure the delivery from an agency and that person can’t be a technology geek or marketing professional but a communication expert.” says Vivek Satya Mitram.

He adds “With economic slowdown hampering media business revenues badly another major problem has surfaced in this space, and that is the massive increase in paid opportunities in media. There was a time company were able to get space in media by hiring PR agencies and save a lot of advertising money but now, until and unless your agency is not capable enough, well connected with editors and knows — how to transform a PR item into a newsworthy piece, you can’t get free coverage in media especially in Print & TV because that has space crunch. All you get is coverage on portals and most of them are hardly known or have any traction. So, as a PR & Communication strategist, I play a crucial role in designing effective communication and PR strategy that can help the company secure quality coverage in Cat A media and the story is also crafted editorially well by carefully tuning its tone, texture and narratives/ perceptions so that it does not look like ‘just a PR piece’ which increases the chances of being picked by reputed media houses organically in a better way and that’s what we want. Even the audience understands the difference between organic and paid stories and that is an inherent threat for the brand’s trust factor. You just don’t need PR, you need ‘Right PR’ as it’s a two-edge sword. One miss has potential to kill the brand.”

Vivek Satya Mitram also works with bootstrapped young startups as a mentor and he loves to support NGOs too in a similar role on a pro-bono basis. He has recently joined an NGO called ‘Sangati Foundation’ as its PR & Communication Advisor. Sangati Foundation is trying to make India a more accessible place for the disabled.  Vivek is helping Sangati creating massive awareness about its tremendous work and its mission by ensuring the right branding and media publicity. He has previously worked with many such organisations.

“PR, Branding & Communication are no more extra work for any organisation as it helps reduce the pain, struggle and challenges of the entrepreneurial journey provided it is taken seriously and explored in a strategic way that is aligned with business goals. Not having publicity mechanism is no more choice in the age of social media as even if you are not into branding and publicity, an image & perception is already building and that is happening in an uncontrolled environment which is a real threat” says Vivek Satya Mitram.

Vivek Satya Mitram has been awarded the Karamveer medal (Bronze, Silver & Gold in 2015, 2017, 2019) by the International Confederation of NGOs (iCONGO) in association with the United Nations (UN). His work is recognised by 100+ national & International media houses including India Today, Tehelka, Business Standard, Indian Express, HT, Aaj Tak, Zee News,  Big FM, The Pioneer, YourStory, e27 & BBC World Service, London. Apart from his consulting work as a Brand Communication, PR & Communication strategist, he writes for the TV and film industry. Right now, he is writing a political thriller web series for an OTT platform. He is also known as a columnist and poet.

We are happy to share that Vivek Satya Mitram has recently joined Startup Story Media as a mentor & editorial advisor. We are looking forward to learning from his massive experience in media and other diversified domains. In case you are looking for any help you can write him on [email protected] or you might visit his website as well.

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