PRoelio 2022 – National PR Based Case Study Competition

Our world is a web of stories. 

They are a means of connecting the many entities around us with one another.

This abundance of stories and narratives points towards the importance of Public Relations because it is important for organizations to tell their story before the media does, especially in times of crisis.

Keeping this in mind, iSMaRT, the PR Team of SIBM Pune, organizes PRoelio, a PR based Case Study Competition that sees the best of minds from B-Schools across the whole of India propose inventive solutions to a Public Relations Crisis.

This year PRoelio saw participation from more than 180 teams from colleges across the nation. After a fun quiz that acted as filtering round the case study was released. The case study stayed true to the theme of PRoelio 2022 – Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. It presented the qualifying teams with a canvas where they could display their craftiness and unconventional ideas.

The Grand Finale was organized on the 23rd January 2022 witnessed the National Finalists present their solutions to a panel of eminent judges which included Ms. Gasha Aeri, PR and Corporate Communications Head, HT Media Group., Mr. Avinash Gawai, Founder of Media 4 U and National Vice Chairman of Public Relations Council of India YCC, Ms. Priyanka Seth, Group Head, Adfactors PR, and Ms. Mrinil Mathur Rajwani, Founder and Editor of Social Ketchup, Managing Partner of Social Samosa Network. The presentation of the solution was only one element of the finale as it was followed by a invigorating mock press conference that saw volunteers acting as investigative journalists bombard the finalists with questions, basically finding any loopholes in their strategy. Once the curiosity of the journalists was quelled, the judges too prodded the participants to substantiate their proposed strategies.

The event was a brainchild of the PR team of SIBM Pune and this year’s PRoelio had PM School and MyCaptain as Associate Partners and Youth Incorporated as the Youth Media Partner. This year the diverse set of the finalist teams comprised the best of managerial minds from premier B-schools including – IIM Shillong, SPJIMR Mumbai, KJ SIMSR Mumbai, NMIMS Mumbai, and SIBM Pune. It brought us immense joy to have been an audience to the impressive PR strategies of our National Finalists and especially the National Winners – Team The Last Dance comprising of Saarthak Saxena, Saksham Garg and Shrikrishna Shedbal of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management – SIBM, Pune and the National Runners-Up, Team Aces consisting of Arko Datta and Aritro Datta of IIM Shillong. Additionally, Duke Pande was adjudged the Best Journalist.Inspired by Murphy’s Law – the event brought with it a unique possibility to deftly transform chaos into an opportunity and we were transfixed in stupefaction to see the bright minds contriving path-breaking solutions for the crisis. PRoelio 2022 was a cornucopia of PR learnings drizzled with entertainment and we hope to see the same level of enthusiasm and vibrancy in the next edition of PRoelio as well.