Perceptive and discerning towards her clients’ needs, including Sabyasachi, Rahul Mishra, Cartier and Forest Essentials, each choose Pareina Thapar to express their story. As managing partner at Very Truly Yours, a Delhi-based boutique PR firm, she directs years of journalistic experience into building brand identities that are authentic, distinct and indelible.

The Beginning > Advertising, marketing and journalism is a fascinating interconnected universe that shapes how we perceive things, where we see value and what we dismiss as frivolous. My career has been shaped by all three fields and I now enjoy their confluence in public relations.

Although I was born in Pune, I grew up in Lucknow when my father moved our family for a Government job. Our liberal views at home were quite opposed to the restrictive views of Lucknow society (especially toward women) and it left me in a constant state of confusion. I majored in Philosophy and English at Lucknow University and through college I worked at a local magazine and at the marketing department of the Indian Express. My university days were volatile times and Uttar Pradesh’s unrest came to a boil with the Babri Masjid Demolition in 1992. I had shifted to Delhi by then but remember being in Lucknow at the time and how publications like The Times of India, located less than a kilometer away from home, were printing a special edition every few hours.

The city was under curfew and yet I remember zipping across on my moped to a friend’s house in the old city  to ponder and reflect on the times we lived in. We gathered at coffee houses to debate all that was happening around us.

To escape Lucknow’s stifling political climate I moved to Delhi in 1992 for my first job as a journalist with A&M Magazine – the definitive magazine then on advertising and marketing. Two years later I joined Business Today where I worked for five years. Under the guidance of my editor, Anand P. Raman, I learned so much: to accept people with all their idiosyncrasies, to focus on the core of a story and how it’s told. I had the opportunity to observe what drives people: big CEOs, brand managers, the carefully scripted answers of HR heads and corporate communications teams. 

We worked crazy hours, attempted ambitious stories and laid a huge emphasis on research. It taught me to step back and see the bigger picture – and product – as a whole. 

Above: VTY Client Editorial image | Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee in Architectural Digest India September-October 2014

Along the way I met my husband, an architect, whose passion for design sparked mine. I switched from business to lifestyle journalism when I began working for India Today Plus magazine. Here, my role expanded beyond writing to interacting with the marketing teams within India Today as we were always looking to collaborate with other brands. I began to understand the value of using a certain kind of imagery, colour, layout or approach to a feature – and how these help build brand identities. I also did a short but intense stint with ICICI bank at one point to facilitate their foray into digital.

My initiation into public relations took place as I was taking a break from full-time work after the birth of my first son. It turned out to be a mix of all that I’d done before and yet it felt new. My friends in journalism connected me to a Mumbai-based communications advisory firm, Coffee Communications, and I instantly felt drawn both to their interesting client portfolio and the flexibility they gave me to work from home. My initial clients were a diverse lot; they included the financial advisory firms Rothschilds India and Arthur Andersen, retail brand Wills Lifestyle and hospitality group Olive Bar & Kitchen.

Above: VTY Client Editorial  image | Designer Gaurav Gupta in Grazia India July 2015

The work was extremely exciting. It intrigued me to watch a brand get off the ground. But, at the same time, I realised that running a one woman army from home was not something I enjoyed. The transition to being self-employed brought freedom and choice but I missed the daily human engagement of an office environment.

Above: VTY Client Editorial | Designer Rahul Mishra in Grazia India July 2015

Very Truly Yours (VTY) > Neeta Raheja came to my rescue. Founder of VTY, a Delhi-based boutique PR firm, I first met her in 1997 when I profiled her husband (then fiancée) for the entrepreneur section of Business Today. She offered me the position of partner in her agency and gave me complete freedom to develop its vision. We decided to focus on the business of lifestyle brands. Style, food and hospitality, art and culture became our three distinct areas of specialization; a unique brand story became the criteria for selecting our clients.

VTY believes in creating the good life with experiences that have a palpable intelligent quality and many of our brands across food, fashion, beauty, design and art and culture stand for the same. We do not work in the luxury market but instead, in the “good living” space. People tend to confuse the two.

For luxury, price is a strong differentiator but in the genre of good living, it is all about how a brand makes you feel, whether it is conventionally a luxury brand or not. If it does not make its consumers feel special and loved, their relationship with it will change over time.

In 2016, companies are trying to identify and engage with communities that resonate with their brand and striving to balance multiple touch points across digital and offline worlds. As brand image managers, it’s important for PR firms to recognize that it’s not so much what they do but how they do it that adds value for their clients. The ability to understand a brand’s signature and position it as unique should be the bigger focus.

Above: VTY Client Editorial | Nicobar in Harper’s Bazaar Style, July 2016

Brand building > Although paid media has become the order of the day, real success for brands is when people want to hear their story and journalists want to write it. Helping them find that story requires learning to see things from multiple angles. One of the most interesting and satisfying campaigns we worked on was for the auction of rare Glenfiddich and Balvenie single malt scotch whiskies by William Grant & Sons. The global charity initiative drew many obvious and big charity organizations but the country head of William Grant India welcomed a different way of thinking. We zeroed in on Ayesha Grewal, founder of The Altitude Store, a supplier of organic and natural products across Delhi and its suburbs. The focus on mindful food consumption was not yet a movement then but we were convinced that the store has its heart in the right place. A whisky brand and a local initiative in a small Himalayan hamlet was a story that created genuine appeal and an authentic message, apart from creating tremendous value for the farmers who benefited from the project.

While for a PR professional it’s important to look at the brand story from various angles, for brands themselves, the most important aspect is to define their signature. Often, brands do not spend enough time asking and answering that question. You can be 25 years into the business or 10 or two – finding a signature, sustaining and building on it is something which must be constantly addressed.

When we took on the launch of Ekaya four years ago, it was exciting to build the brand and its story since they had a clearly defined signature – to be an authentic voice for Benaresi textiles. The sari retail experience in the country has remained unchanged for decades but the sari wearer in the cities has evolved over time. Bharat Shah, Ekaya’s founder, recognized this change and created a retail experience in their Delhi store that contemporarizes the traditional set-up of floor seating, cushions to lean back on and saris spread open for buyers to admire and engage in a dialogue with the sales staff.

Above: VTY Client Editorial  image | Ekaya in Vogue India March 2013

The advantage Ekaya had when we met was the thought and investment they had put into designing their retail experience. That became the stepping stone to many strategies for the brand. The textiles could be showcased in all their glory, elevating the visual presentation of handloom saris in a way that hadn’t been done before. It encouraged us to direct them to further invest in textiles which led to them introducing Benarasi lehengas in their collections as well as launching a new vertical, Ekaya Thaan, their yardage brand.

New players constantly enter the market and sometimes clients get nervous with changing consumer profiles and begin to question their own USP.

Often, the specific challenge for us lies in helping our clients understand the importance of investing in the brand when the going is good. It’s what protects them against fluctuations in the market and consumer behaviour. In order to build longevity and transcend trends, as their PR managers we need to be nimble, adaptive and observant of market trends.

Iconic brands > Sabyasachi, the brand and the designer, has helped me look closely at what defines Indian luxury in its many facets. Craftsmanship and the touch of the hand are two primary factors. What lends Indian luxury gravitas is artisanal and handcrafted design. The scale of anything Sabyasachi does is always grand yet it doesn’t make people feel insecure. Instead, consumers feel nurtured and nourished when associated with the brand. This comes from the humbleness in his work which translates to his garments and store experiences. It’s what makes the label special to buyers and they consciously choose it over and over again. 

Above: VTY Client Editorial | Jhumpa Lahiri in designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee in Vogue India February 2016

I cherish my relationships with the brands we represent: I admire Sabyasachi for his vision, eccentricities and finely nuanced observations on India and Abraham & Thakore for being early champions in articulating modern Indian clothing and craftsmanship. Simran Lal and Raul Rai of Nicobar, Mrs Mira Kulkarni of Forest Essentials and AD Singh of the Olive group – each have carved a niche for themselves as Indian brands to be proud of and as successful entrepreneurs.

Digital references > Quartz  Scroll.in  livemint  BOF  NOWNESS  dezeen  WIRED  The Economist  Medium

Balancing act > Multi-tasking when the kids were young was tough despite all the support on the home front. It is never just about the support system – I was blessed with it but it mattered to me to be able to have time with my children as well. Everything requires balance and I needed to decide how I wished the scales to tilt. Scaling the business also led to tough questions and there was a time when I grappled seriously with those issues. A client gave me insight when he said, “Do you want a slice of the pizza or the whole pizza to yourself?” I’ve decided that I want the whole pizza and set myself up in a way where I can chalk out my path, finding moments of serenity in between.

Work history > 

VTY – Managing partner, New Delhi. 2003 – present

Freelancer, New Delhi. 2001 – 2003

India Today Group Online – Features editor, New Delhi. 2000 – 2001

India Today Plus – Features and deputy editor, New Delhi. 1999 – 2000

Business Today – Special correspondent, New Delhi. 1994 – 1999

A&M Magazine – Correspondent, New Delhi. 1992 – 1993