It's the festival season and also the season for combative founder CEOs.
You don't have to be a PR expert to know that, in today's world, a spat (e) of bad PR can affect your share price. Seems like Ola Electric's Bhavish Aggarwal missed the memo.
Channel your inner Elon Musk? Perhaps Not!
Once again, making the case for listening to your reputation manager and not letting CEOs channel their inner Elon Musk on X, Bhavish's latest rumble in the dirt with a comedian was cringe-worthy.
By now the name-calling filled exchange between stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra and Ola's
Bhavish Aggarwal is now the stuff of legends with the 'p' word thrown in for good measure. Amid the spat, the Ola Electric stock fell by 10%, the day after the Sunday night before. The Ken assesses the loss at Over Rs 3,600 crore. (Since recouped some of the losses on Tuesday).
Not to mention the 10,000 pending customer complaints, fiery electric scooters and a show-cause notice from the Central Consumer Protection Authority.
Speaketh less when your actions leave a lot to be desired. It's like the Streisand Effect, and the Strawman Argument had an inbred love child. Which begs the question— where is the sound PR advisory when you need it?
An empathetic advice for the harangued Ola 'PR' team: keep changing the Wi-Fi password and save yourself the trouble.
Note to journos, do look for story angles apart from the cliches of armchair critics attacking the nation's wealth creators. Been there, etc.
Zomato's Deepinder Goel is very demure, very mindful
In theory, the two businesses under question today should specialize in moving objects—food or people — from Location A to Location B. Yet, Zomato's approach differed drastically from the one taken by its human mobility counterparts at Ola. Here's a quick PR recipe if anyone is taking notes.
Add 1 part - leadership investing a Sunday <shock, horror> towards communications ROI
Add 1 part - milking the real-world story of the most disadvantaged part of your business model, the delivery agents.
Add 1 part - melodrama when the playacting CEO is made to take the stairs <shock, horror> as the elevator is still a royal privilege in this country
Add 1 part - stringing the missus along for a photo-op/headline bait that gives all the right Insta vibes.
Indeed, a tale of two Sunday CEO leadership exercises. Which begs the question - where is the sound PR advisory when you need it? An empathetic word of advice for the relieved Zomato 'PR' team: don't count on Bhavish to steal the Bad PR limelight every time.
Shoeb is the chief innovation officer at Ideosphere Consulting. He loves helping brands and business leaders articulate their value better. If you want to point out examples of good and bad PR message him on LinkedIn
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