The introduction of practitioners from the traditionally more 'developed' communications markets such as the US and Europe, to their Indian counterparts led to fascinating information exchanges. No attendee could fail to appreciate the challenges of conducting a comms campaign in the vast and complex market that is India; mindful of the socio-economic and cultural contradictions that co-exist in business, as in life, there.
If you think that communicating with regional media is complex, try communicating with over 200 national daily newspapers in both English and the vernacular of any given state. Multiply that by 32 states; add on the cultural sensitivities necessary for genuine penetration and campaign credibility; and you might just begin to fathom the scale of a national comms campaign. Of course, not all campaigns are this broad-reaching, but overall, issues can easily translate into hurdles in the blink of an eye.
For a 12-year old industry, PR in India is relatively nascent - though again, resist the temptation to confuse youth with naivete.
Arcane practices such as bribing the media for column inches are still prevalent, and continue to dog the industry's reputation among its key stakeholders.
The practice was even discussed at the PRCAI Summit - and vilified. But while a few bad eggs should not be allowed to taint the rest of the clutch, the interdependent relationship between the media and PROs here is a fraught one; and the inherent mistrust of PROs 'framing' the news still lingers.
For an industry that has come so far in a relatively short space of time, the odds of its considerable intellectual capital being put to consistent positive use are high.
The flipside of this coin is a highly ethical, well-trained portion of the industry which is practising public relations on par with the best in the business globally. High-end homegrown firms can offer tremendous value, insight and proprietary technologies to their local and multi-national corporate clients and the tedious, defensive platitudes about 'PR being about more than media relations' definitely do not apply.
While India may be difficult to categorise - or to place within a consultancy's traditional regional definition of 'Asia-Pacific' - the likes of the PRCAI are unifying standards and driving best practice.
It also helps if you leave your preconceptions at the door.