When theory turns to practice ...

My first week at IBL house have been amazing as I was given the opportunity to participate in the organisation of one of their press conferences.

For you to have an idea of how this experience went for me, let’s first set up the stage. I am actually doing my internship in the communication department of IBL Group. This department is in charge of both the external and internal communication of the organisation, not only for the head office situated in Port-Louis, Mauritius, but also for other subsidiaries located all across the island. In this spirit, they treat each subsidiary as one of their legitimate client and help them in carrying necessary PR tasks.

Our client today was Winner’s, a supermarket chain which had expanded over the years on the island and was celebrating its 20^th Anniversary. The press conference had for objective to reveal the new logo of the supermarket to the public so the secret had to be well-kept till the end of the conference. This was quite exciting as it required a lot of professionalism and involved questions of ethics when it came to preserving the client’s confidential information to establish a trustful and long-lasting relationship. Timing was also an important aspect, as my boss explained to me, the date for setting the conference had been carefully chosen and was ideal considering that this February was a period where no political activities would monopolise the media attention.Therefore, journalists would be willing to come and this would ensure coverage for the event. But the most interesting to me, was that the event was making my whole media relations course come to life.

First of all, I was required to set up the press-packs which would contain the speeches, CD containing the press release and a copy of the power point presentation.  For the journalists, we worked together with a consultancy which was in charge of contacting the media and sending them invitations. However, of course, we needed to constantly keep in touch to check for the number of journalists which had confirmed our invitation. Working with journalists can be a time-consuming task and I suppose having the work outsourced to a consultancy enabled the communication department to concentrate on other tasks, which can be crucial especially at times when you have limited human resource or when you are working on last minute events.

The next step was visiting the venue to cater for any difficulties which could occur during the conference. On our Arrival, we checked with the catering service if everything was ready, we then tested the microphones, the audio for the music, set up the projector, the back-drop, put the name tags in place and went through the power point with the client. Dealing with clients is not always easy, especially when they are demanding. As a professional you must be able to listen to all their requests and satisfy them. But most importantly, you must not be afraid to speak out when what he asks will not be in his interests. In other words, diplomacy is a key aspect of the job. A basic example, at the start of the conference, the client had for idea to do his presentation while staying at his sit. Immediately, my boss advised him to stand up to make it livelier for the audience. In the beginning, he was not convinced but seeing that we were all confident about what we were saying, and that we were making good suggestions supported by coherent arguments instead of giving him orders, he finally accepted and this tiny detail greatly improved the quality of his speech.

When time came for the conference to start; we carefully hide any signs of the new logo and welcomed the journalists. Talking about journalists, in class, we had always put into emphasis the angles of stories which they choose for their articles. As far as I could observe, our team and the client had put everything in place for all the elements of a good story to be written. Even an inexperienced eye like me, could easily notice the numerous angles which journalists could have taken for writing their articles; the financial aspect as Winner’s had succeeded in increasing its revenues through their expansion across the island, the economic aspect as the COO of IBL retail revealed the project of opening six new supermarkets in the coming years which would boost the economy by creating new jobs and also the human aspect that could be captured in the speeches of some of the 20 employees that had worked 20 years for the organisation, and which had been invited as honour guest to the event.

We had made it all easy for the journalists to communicate Winner’s achievements and gratitude to their customers and to show the organisation’s engagement to their employees. To me, this is what made this conference an unforgettable success and I could not be more thankful to my Communication Supervisor and the Communication Assistant for this daydream.

  

Michaella Auguste

15842404

CTI Campus