Public relations is often misunderstood as a function that simply gets companies featured in newspapers or business magazines. In reality, PR is about shaping perception, building credibility, and earning the trust of customers, investors, employees, and other stakeholders. Unlike advertising, where companies pay to promote themselves, PR relies on third-party validation, making it one of the most credible forms of communication. Leading public relations agencies help organisations shape these narratives strategically, ensuring that credibility and visibility translate into long-term business value.
For Indian businesses, especially startups and founder-led companies, PR has played a significant role in building market confidence, attracting investors, and accelerating growth. While no successful company grows solely because of PR, several Indian businesses have demonstrated how consistent media visibility, executive thought leadership, and authentic storytelling can complement great products and strong execution.
Zerodha is perhaps India’s strongest example of reputation-led growth.
Despite becoming India’s largest stockbroker, Zerodha has spent remarkably little on traditional advertising. Instead, founders Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath focused on educating investors through blogs, interviews, podcasts, social media, and industry commentary. Their transparent communication around investing, regulations, entrepreneurship, and company decisions helped establish Zerodha as one of India’s most trusted financial services brands.
This credibility translated into measurable business outcomes. According to the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Zerodha today has over 8.5 million active clients, accounting for nearly 16% of all active retail investors in India, making it the country’s largest stockbroker.
Rather than constantly promoting products, Zerodha positioned itself as a trusted educator, allowing its founders to become respected voices in India’s investment ecosystem.
Consumer electronics company boAt entered an intensely competitive market dominated by global brands. While influencer marketing and celebrity endorsements contributed to its popularity, the company also invested heavily in public relations.
Its founders, Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta, became regular fixtures in business publications, startup events, podcasts, and television interviews. Funding announcements, product launches, strategic partnerships, and entrepreneurial journeys consistently generated earned media coverage.
Aman Gupta’s appearance as an investor on Shark Tank India significantly amplified the company’s visibility. His personal brand became closely associated with boAt’s identity, demonstrating how executive visibility can strengthen corporate reputation.
According to publicly available financial results, boAt reported revenue exceeding ₹3,100 crore in FY25, making it one of India’s largest wearable and audio brands.
Unlike many enterprise software companies, Zoho has built its global reputation with minimal dependence on mass advertising.
Founder Sridhar Vembu regularly shares insights on entrepreneurship, rural development, software engineering, education, artificial intelligence, and India’s economic future through blogs, keynote addresses, interviews, and social media. His consistent thought leadership has elevated both his personal credibility and Zoho’s corporate reputation.
Rather than issuing promotional messages, Zoho focuses on sharing ideas, innovation, and customer success stories. This communication strategy has helped position the company as one of India’s most respected software firms.
Today, Zoho serves more than 120 million users globally across over 150 countries, proving that sustained executive visibility can reinforce trust in international markets.
When Mamaearth entered India’s highly competitive personal care market, consumer trust was its biggest challenge. The company addressed this by combining product innovation with strategic communications.
Founders Ghazal and Varun Alagh regularly participated in interviews discussing parenting, entrepreneurship, sustainability, product safety, and the challenges of building a consumer brand. Funding announcements, startup milestones, product innovations, and purpose-driven campaigns consistently received extensive business media coverage.
This approach helped educate consumers about toxin-free personal care while positioning the founders as credible entrepreneurs.
The strategy supported rapid business expansion, eventually leading to Honasa Consumer’s successful stock market listing in 2023. According to the company’s annual reports, Honasa Consumer reported revenue of around ₹2,000 crore in FY24.
Freshworks offers another compelling example of how PR supports business growth.
Before becoming one of India’s most successful SaaS companies listed on NASDAQ, Freshworks consistently invested in global media relations, customer success stories, analyst engagement, product announcements, and executive visibility.
Founder Girish Mathrubootham became one of India’s most recognised technology entrepreneurs through interviews, keynote speeches, podcasts, and thought leadership articles discussing SaaS, entrepreneurship, customer experience, and startup culture.
This steady communication helped establish Freshworks as a credible global software company long before its initial public offering.
When Freshworks debuted on NASDAQ in 2021, it achieved a market capitalisation of over US$10 billion, demonstrating the value of combining product excellence with sustained reputation building.
These examples illustrate an important lesson. None of these companies relied solely on advertising to build their brands. Instead, they consistently invested in executive visibility, authentic storytelling, customer education, and media engagement.
Strategic PR creates value by reducing uncertainty. Customers are more likely to buy from companies they recognise. Investors are more comfortable backing founders they understand. Job seekers prefer organisations led by visible, credible leaders. Business partners are more willing to collaborate with companies that enjoy strong public reputations.
This is supported by the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, which found that business remains the most trusted institution globally and that trust significantly influences purchasing decisions, investment confidence, and employee loyalty.
Modern PR is also measured differently. According to the Barcelona Principles 4.0, the global framework for communication measurement developed by AMEC, organisations should evaluate PR based on business outcomes, stakeholder trust, behavioural change, and organisational impact, rather than simply counting media mentions or calculating advertising value equivalency (AVE).
Public relations is no longer just about appearing in newspapers or celebrating product launches. It is about building long-term trust that influences customers, investors, employees, regulators, and partners.
The stories of Zerodha, boAt, Zoho, Mamaearth, and Freshworks demonstrate that consistent communication, executive thought leadership, and credible media visibility can significantly strengthen a company’s reputation. While great products and execution remain essential, PR amplifies these strengths by ensuring the right audiences hear, understand, and trust the story behind the business.
In today’s competitive marketplace, products can be replicated and pricing can be matched. Reputation, however, is far more difficult to copy. That is why businesses that invest in strategic public relations, often with the support of experienced public relations agencies, are often better positioned to attract customers, secure investment, recruit top talent, and sustain long-term growth.
Blog Comment (01)
Great content! Keep up the good work!