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PR wars in India - Naukri Vs. TimesJobs

April 16, 2007 · Posted in India portals, Tech tidbit

The PR battle scene in India was a bit dormant for some time. And the silence has been broken. Again.
Naukri is on a head to head battle with TimesJobs who claims to be No. 1 jobs portal and has kicked off a ‘Everyone is quitting Naukri’ media campaign. They claim to have 3.075 million resumes which are 0-6 months old while the next closest rival to have 2.73 million active resumes. You can read the rest of the gory details here and here.

When it comes to PR wars, Naukri is no rookie. In October, they entered into a head-to-head battle with Monster India by making claims of being twice as big as Monster India. Monster India responded and the entire drama and bloodshed unfolded in public domain.

And such PR wars are not constrained to the jobs portals only.

A couple of weeks back, Shaadi took BharatMatrimony to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) board to stop advertising that they’ve had eight times more success stories than their nearest rivals (read Shaadi.com)

Even the travel portals seemed to have entered into the PR battlefront. In February, MakeyMyTrip claimed to have touched the $100 million mark in terms of revenues. Yatra soon followed suit and said they were targeting $120 million in revenues by year end. ClearTrip did not want to be left behind. So, they followed with their press release - aiming for $100 million in revenues in their first year of operation.

I fail to see why the Indian portals are so obsessed with such PR wars. Why not just focus on execution and continue doing what you are doing ? Will it cause a huge dent in the public perception of Naukri if TimesJobs claims to be number 1 ? If BharatMatrimony claims to have 8 times the success stories, will people stop listing / searching profiles on Shaadi ?
What do you think ? Are such PR wars really needed ? Will it change your perception about a company if a rival claims to have overtaken them ?