Don't Panic

I’m five days into my placement at Media Panic and I can comfortably say there has been no panic of any sort going on.

Media Panic is a small Perth based marketing, graphic design and copywriting company based in Northbridge. There are only a few employees, which makes for a nice change of pace to other work experience I’ve done in the past at large businesses. They are a very edgy, quirky and intelligent company and had a wide range of interests, which was something that appealed to me.

I met the Director of Media Panic whilst doing Public Affairs work experience at Horizon Power over the Winter break. I sat in on the Media Panic pitch at the divisional meeting and after talking with the Director, I added Media Panic to my PR contact list. When it was time to organise my placement, I made a number of enquiries at a range of companies and eventually, after weeks of organising, began at Media Panic. (Okay it was a bit more taxing than first expected but that’s another story).

My expectation was that I would be helping out with tasks for their clients. Instead, I am responsible for creating a marketing strategy for Media Panic itself … well actually it’s more of a promotions strategy. I was quite surprised they gave me such a ‘meaty’ task but they wanted to challenge me. Challenge accepted!

I have been quite shocked at the lack of marketing and public relations the company has undertaken since it’s beginning in 2006. Whilst they are excellent at creating cutting edge strategies for their clients, until now there has virtually been no attention given to the company itself, other than a good website! There are lots of problems to address, but don’t start panicking just yet…

I spent this week researching and analysing the company, creating objectives, identifying stakeholders and a target market, devising some key messages and a new positioning strategy for the company. I’ve also had some fun creating initial tactic ideas (mainly PR surprise, surprise) to raise the company’s profile and to gain new clients. Hopefully by Monday I will have feedback on my report thus far and can start budgeting and timetabling. I’m expecting that by the end of day ten I will be ready to start implementing the short-term tactics.

I’ve been VERY surprised at the lack of direction of the company and lack of targeted communications. Therefore, one of the first things to do after day ten is to write a vision and mission statement for the company (looks like I’ll be practically working through the syllabus of PR Consultancy from week one to twelve!) Another thing I struggle with is their tagline “we panic so you don’t have to”. I can’t see the appeal of a company that actively promotes the idea that they panic - seems rather unprofessional to me. Understandably their employees are very busy working for clients, but for a marketing company to have such a poor promotions record and lack of direction it’s a bit unusual, don’t you think?

Until next time, enjoy your placements and DON’T PANIC!