The Days Prior to a Large-scale Event
Dear fellow interns
Last week I introduced you to the place I work (HSBC), and breezed through what happened on my first day in the Communications Department dealing with write-ups and more.
Tonight, the communications team and staff from 7 other branches in Brunei will be assisting in a community event that has statistically recorded over 10,000 sign ups within a blink of an eye (4 weeks to be exact). The event will involve the community to Walk, Run, or Cycle, along different designated routes with the purpose to raise awareness and funds for the children with special needs in Brunei towards a better future and education.
- HSBC Walk Run Cycle (WRC)
Days prior to the event:
Aside from the normal work load in the office, our communications team has been busy for the past few months dealing with the media, sponsors, and partners of the event along side with the Corporate Sustainability (CS) team who take cares of the event donations and basically the 'event planner' of WRC.
As the event was nearing, it was important to remind the public about road safety and any anticipated road closures along the routes of WRC. To ensure that the message was reaching our audience, our head of department decided to remind the WRC participants to look out for recent updates of WRC on the newspaper, through sending reminder text messages to the database. The problem arises. How can we guarantee if the media is going to publish our story? The thought of asking people to read the news that wasn't there was daunting.
One of our colleagues even had to call the media individually to check whether our press release has made the cut to be published on the next day before sending out the text messages. Personally, I think this can only be made possible through a good relationship with the journalists or editor.
Through the phone calls, one of the newspapers even took the opportunity to highlight that it was only fair to them to publish our stories if HSBC can buy ad spaces from their paper. Lesson learnt by the communications team: Media appreciation luncheons wasn't the most appealing way of thanking our media friends :)
.jpg)
Communications team at the ground of WRC before the event.
Nevertheless, our event is already taking shape and the event will kick start later at 8.00pm.
Xx Jasmine
heading off to WRC...
- HSBC Walk Run Cycle (WRC)
Days prior to the event:
Aside from the normal work load in the office, our communications team has been busy for the past few months dealing with the media, sponsors, and partners of the event along side with the Corporate Sustainability (CS) team who take cares of the event donations and basically the 'event planner' of WRC.
As the event was nearing, it was important to remind the public about road safety and any anticipated road closures along the routes of WRC. To ensure that the message was reaching our audience, our head of department decided to remind the WRC participants to look out for recent updates of WRC on the newspaper, through sending reminder text messages to the database. The problem arises. How can we guarantee if the media is going to publish our story? The thought of asking people to read the news that wasn't there was daunting.
One of our colleagues even had to call the media individually to check whether our press release has made the cut to be published on the next day before sending out the text messages. Personally, I think this can only be made possible through a good relationship with the journalists or editor.
Through the phone calls, one of the newspapers even took the opportunity to highlight that it was only fair to them to publish our stories if HSBC can buy ad spaces from their paper. Lesson learnt by the communications team: Media appreciation luncheons wasn't the most appealing way of thanking our media friends :)
.jpg)
Nevertheless, our event is already taking shape and the event will kick start later at 8.00pm.
Xx Jasmine
heading off to WRC...
1 comment:
Yes, what you mentioned in your last few paragraph, to get your story published, you have to have a good relationship with the journalist or the editor or buy an advertisement space, be their top advertiser. When I was doing my placement, my manager was are close friends with the media editors. So, relationship is actually crucial in our field of work.
Post a Comment