PR Plan= Marketing Plan or PR Plan ≠ Marketing Plan? That’s the question!

Hola everyone,

My forth post is about my favourite task done during my internship. During my 20 days of internship, the best was kept for the end. I was asked to do a PR plan for Black Energy drink which is in fact a new energy drink in the world. Our client asked my supervisor to prepare a marketing plan as he wanted to launch this product in Mauritius and she gave this task to me. I was very happy as it was something that I have done in class. The only thing was that it had to be a marketing plan. And I was like; ok is it 100% similar to a PR plan? “Do not worry,” my supervisor said. “Just do it like you learnt in class.” I felt very proud of myself. My supervisor was really impressed. She realised that a PR plan is better and more elaborated than a marketing plan. Of course, I needed to add some marketing things in it although I have not done many marketing modules as major. It was a real pleasure to make this plan. While we were talking, I felt very proud while discussing about the plan as this was something I did in class. During my internship I sometimes had some issues with some technical words as I was working in an advertising agency and technical design words were difficult to learn quickly. But when talking about the PR plan I was in my world. I have put what I learnt in class in practice and felt like yes, I admit that I learnt a lot of things during my Public Relations modules. The fact that I was asked to elaborate more on some marketing issues helped me to improve myself. Nowadays many Public Relations officers and marketing offices have to work hand in hand and when learning more about the marketing plan, I realised that we have still something to learn. In addition, this was the first time I have worked on PR plan for a product. We have always worked on clients in class. I just needed to elaborate more on the competitors and on the tactics especially when working with designers. I was asked to precise what kind of billboard advertising I wanted, what type of posters would be suitable for this energy drink product.  Moreover, I had to visit many supermarkets and hypermarkets to analyse the way the product was placed and to comment to it. I was really shocked to see how Black Energy drink which is new to Mauritius, was placed. The first bad image was that dead flies were seen near the product and as everyone would think, it is not the kind of thing we want to see near drinks as if Black Energy drink killed the flies. The second thing is that being new, the product should have been placed in a special way to attract attention and not being placed with the other energy drink. As I have stated in my tactics, Black energy drinks can be displayed in spiral shaped shelves, which turns in circular motion slowly. The shelves can be put in different places in supermarkets, not necessarily in the beverages aisles.  It was a very good experience to work in real life for a real product noting that my PR plan will be viewed by the Black Energy drink committee of Mauritius. Moreover it was a fantastic thing to work on a PR plan along with my designers colleagues who did not hesitate to give ideas in terms of creativity. They did also learnt many things about PR and enjoyed giving ideas especially when their job consists of designing something already thought about. Having their word to say when dealing with the promotion of Black Energy Drink was a really good experience. My internship was beyond shadow of doubt a very good practice where I put what I have learnt in practice and learnt also new things.

Graziella Hippolyte

15806785

Charles Telfair Institute