Hello
everyone!
I’m Justine
Lai, currently interning at Porter Novelli (PN) Singapore.
This is the
second post about my internship, and I’m going to blog on a brief overview
about the day of my very first PR event – SKF Business Press Day.
Let me start
with a little introduction about SKF – SKF is a global engineering company with
over 46,000 employees in 130 countries. Their core products are
bearings, mechatronics, lubrication systems and services to construction
and manufacturing corporations which include technical support, maintenance,
consulting and training (Yes very engineering, I know). Its past projects include
the Singapore Flyer and the Marina Bay Sands.
The SKF
Business Press Day was held on the 4th of July 2012 at the company
building located in Changi, which was during my 4th week of
internship. On the day before the actual event, my colleague Shirley gave the
team a ‘Minute-by-minute’ schedule on what would be happening and a brief on our
individual roles. She also gave a heads-up on the contingency plan and the list
of things to prepare. Through my colleagues’ comprehensive preparation and
emphasis on minor details, I’ve come to realize that PR practitioners feel the
most pressure during media events, and they would do tons of precautions to
prevent any mishaps from happening.
I stayed in
the office till 11pm that day (my personal latest record) to prepare the press
kits and event materials needed for the event, and I got reimbursed for MacDonald’s’
dinner and cab fare (which totally made my day)!
 |
| Reception Area & Press Materials |
The press event then commenced, with each of the main
executives giving their presentations – Tom Johnstone, President and CEO of
SKF, Rakesh Makhija, President Asia and Member of SKF Group Management and
David Bishop, Asia Pacific Director. There was a short interval in between the
presentations and A Roundtable Q&A session for the media was then carried
out.
The session took about two hours and it wasn’t very relaxing
for me. I was tasked to record the presentations and jot down notes of the
whole event.
A picture of
me writing frantically and recording the whole session with my phone and
colleagues’ tablet.
After the
note-taking (and quite frankly painful) session, a media tour was conducted on
SKF’s applications and solutions around an exhibition area where the team and I
followed the media around, listened to the tour and jotted down notes along the
way.
The event
concluded with a delicious lunch session where we were served with finger food
around the exhibition area and I finally got to satisfy my cravings – sushi,
fried prawns, mini sandwiches, and other delightful pastries! Of course, the
end of the day doesn’t mean the end of it all. The team and I had to compile
post-event tasks, such as media follow-ups calls, media monitoring, and the
compilations of reports to wrap up the whole project. Here's one of the
coverage that we had from the event - SKF
launches green strategy.
It was a
really eventful and interesting day as I got to interact with some of the
journalists present at the event. I learnt a lot about press events and onsite PR
skills that day, and how it felt to have nerve-wrecking moments when we
encounter problems during a media event. A contingency plan is always needed,
and with the right planning and management, the possibility of success of an
event would be much greater.
Best
Regards,
Justine Lai
15215640
Curtin
Singapore
No comments:
Post a Comment