Hi all,
I have just reached day 10 of my placement - and I am really enjoying it! The people I am working with are amazing, extremely friendly and happy to answer all my random questions which is a bonus!
PR is currently a new department for WesTrac, this week I worked on the company's PR Plan - it's target audience is senior management so it gives an overview of what PR actually is, what it entails, explaining objective and strategies, the approval process, crisis management and the like. This has really helped me see a link between theory (doing all those giant group PR plans) and practice (here I am actually doing a PR plan!)
The most exciting part of my placement so far has been working on the Tamworth branch launch in NSW. There was a cocktail event organised for the launch as special guests Kerry Stokes, Ryan Stokes, NSW Deputy Premier Hon. Andrew Stoner MP and WesTrac CEO were all flying over for the event. As WesTrac and Channel 7 merged to create Seven Group Holdings last year, it was a really big ordeal for the company and they were expecting large media coverage.
My supervisor was organising coverage with 7Prime (our GWN equivalent) which turned out to be an extreme hassle – the film crew were on a deadline but our CEO and Kerry Stokes were not arriving in Tamworth in time! And there was an issue with only having one spokesperson for the company (the CEO). Considering I got my placement through the CEO, it was really interesting to be able to put a face to the name and experience that in practice, things do not always go as planned.
My role was to do a draft media release that was then sent to the NSW marketing department a week prior to the event. On the day of the event I had to phone the NSW print media outlets we had sent the media release to and confirm if they would be attending the event. I can imagine that building a good relationship with these contacts would be beneficial, knowing receptionists names or having direct contact numbers would be a result of good relations with the journalists.
All in all my experiences have been insightful and positive and I am looking forward to my next 10 days at WesTrac.
Until next time!
Brooke
3 comments:
Your placement sounds really exciting. I was surprised to hear that PR is a new department for WesTrac. Learn something new everyday?
Did you end up getting any coverage on your CEO and Kerry Stokes?
I completely agree with your comment about getting to know journalists. When I had to do it and introduce yourself eachtime it would be much easier just to know who you are talking with. Did you manage to get any media from your press release?
Hi Brooke,
Your placement sounds amazing! It would be so great working at such a renowned national company such as WesTrac!
It would have been great experience just to see how easily things can go wrong with just timing especially when the media is invovled. They stick to a strong deadline which affects us as PR practitioners because we of course want to use any media time we can get!
I completely agree with the idea of building a strong relationship with media outlets. It's hard when you know exactly who they are and you just hope they remember you for future reference.
Did you find it a little daunting calling the major media outlets in NSW?
It sounds like you're receiving some great PR experience! Especially with being able to write a PR plan for your business (great PR experience as well as great help for your report :-P)
All the best for your next 10 days,
Georgia
Hi Brooke
What a fantastic placement! How exciting to be working on something the company hasnt previously done in such a structured way. It will give you insight and practical understanding on a deeper level than just writing a report for a hypothetical campaign and company in Uni.
Getting to know journalists is so important it's great you were able to liase with national journalists over east.
I've read about the WesTrac merge and it must be exciting to be a part of it the organisation during that period of transition.
All the best for the next few weeks!
Lydia
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