Vijay Chattha’s PR Firms Make Big Wins at 2008 Hermes Awards
By A.MATTHEWS
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A new approach to public relations, publicity and digital marketing is getting a lot of attention from Silicon Valley to Hollywood and Wall Street.  VSC Consulting and EthnikPR, two branches of the San Francisco and London-based public relations enterprise led by 31-year-old, Vijay Singh Chattha, recently bagged Platinum and Gold Hermes Creative Awards for breakthrough campaigns in public relations excellence.  
Speaking with India Journal,  Founder of both VSC and EthnikPR Chattha  said, “We are honored to be recognized with these prominent awards. These acknowledgements are evidence of the power and influence of a different kind of PR, a unique brand of communication that forgoes the generic approaches and wins consumers and media through creativity and honesty.”
The companies’ awards included four Platinum wins and three Gold honors for work in video games, advertising technology, wireless, and web 2.0 services.
The Association of Marketing & Communication Professionals (AMCP) awards the Hermes Awards on an annual basis based on submission from around the world. The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production and free-lance professionals.
Describing the companies, Chattha reveals that VSC Consulting and Ethnik PR make up the two units of the marketing group focused on two major growth areas, ethnic marketing and digital media startups. VSC Consulting focuses on startups and major technology brands in digital media, wireless, gaming and web 2.0 industries, while EthnikPR focuses on clients in the South Asian American (SAA) market. This market consists of the diaspora of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and is 2.5 million strong in America with the highest disposable income of any other U.S. demographic.
Adds Chattha, “Our two companies were selected for the awards from a pool of over 4,000 applicants.  These awards stand as recognition of the companies’ high standard of excellence, with work that serves as a benchmark for the industry, and add to the companies’ previous 23 awards won since their inception in 2002.”
He points out that EthnikPR, in particular, has rapidly grown to become a major agency for brands looking to reach Indian and Pakistani Americans. The agencies’ vision contends that the most effective way to reach consumers is through breakthrough experiences that mix new media, creativity and media relations that are engaging, culturally sensitive and relevant. EthnikPR won the Hermes Gold Award for its work with BPO comic strip doubtsourcing.  
Telling the story, Chattha says that when entrepreneur, Sandeep Sood, approached EthnikPR to build awareness around his Web-comic, doubtsourcing, the EthnikPR developed a strategy to target technology influencers worldwide, resulting in a feature in one of the hottest blogs, TechCrunch.  The subsequent TechCrunch article received over 100 comments, which EthnikPR then leveraged to get the attention of mainstream media, such as Sunday Business Profile in The Los Angeles Times.  The feature helped Sood score a professional animation deal and thousands of new doubtsourcing e-mail subscribers.
Chattha founded VSC in 2002. Over the years it has developed into an award-winning strategic public relations and digital marketing boutique. Says Chattha, “I  wanted to evolve the antiquated industry of public relations into a more aggressive and entrepreneurial approach to marketing based on results and creativity. The company’s mission is to provide and execute innovative ways in which organizations can become vertical market leaders through Visibility + Strategy + Creativity and create brand awareness in an increasingly noisy landscape. ‘’
When asked what has made his companies tick, Chattha says, “Like many other entrepreneurs, it comes down to a great team, finding a niche, becoming an expert in it, and learning from mistakes. ”
Future plans include partnering with U.S. companies looking to connect with the South Asian consumer and companies from South Asia looking to expand into the mainstream U.S. market.