Throwing the bait!!

As a PR student, I did about five PR Plans. For each plan, we had a scenario where an organisation is asking us to come up with a PR plan/ Media strategies or pitch. I took for granted that in real life this is what would happen, companies would come to the PR consultancy and ask for help. I never actually asked myself what would happen if there was no demand from companies. 
In the course of my internship, I am understanding how the consultancy is implementing different strategies to get new clients ; how they are throwing the bait!!

Everything started when the 12 Monkeys’ team got the idea to create a charity sport event to raise fund for two NGOs; Link to Life and Breast Cancer Care. They came up with ‘Les Foulee de l’espoir’ which means ‘the strides of hope’ in French.  Once they found the idea, 12 Monkeys needed the funds and decided to call different companies. They finally had three positive responses from SICOM, Medine and Chantecler.

Before the event:

As SICOM was the main sponsor, it became kind of the client. Every single piece of work done had to be approved by them; we did a radio advert, banners, posters, leaflets and a Facebook page.

I never thought about how people did the ribbons you sometimes have in event, or the personalised bottles of water. We spent Thursday and Friday making 800 ribbons and putting stickers on 1008 bottles!

As to ensure the media coverage, I had to write a Media Kit about the event, the sponsors, the NGOs and the event planner for a press conference. I however had some issues as it was not in the same format I learned. Four days before the event I had to write an invitation to the press and then call every journalist to ensure that they received it.

The phone was constantly ringing as everyone wanted to be a part of the event. We started to be scared as we were expecting about 200 people and it seemed that more were coming, we thus decided to order more bottles of water as well as more bibs.

During the event:

The event was on Sunday 24^th, and it was a great success! We actually had 600 participants, it was kind of crazy! But an intense experience! There were so many people that we had to buy more bottles of water on the spot.

Once the race started, I had some time to think and observe. I was really impressed to see all the branding around me. It was quite incredible to see all the money the sponsors put into branding the event. I then realised that 12 Monkeys had no branding! And I asked my supervisor about it, she told me that ‘yes we created the event, but at the end of the day what we want is to have a client.’ At first I did not understand, but at the end of the event, while doing his speech, the main sponsor seemed very glad of 12 Monkeys. Then I understood that my company just threw the bait!

Indeed, I always thought that we as PR would be asked to ‘create awareness, help for the CSR...etc...’ But I never thought of creating an idea to propose to a client who did not ask for it! I think this is genius! However this also means that we have to be aware of what every company is doing and to always think about a new idea to propose.

After the event:

After the event, comes the most annoying part, the clean-up. Once the price giving ended, we started to pack-up. Part of the team went around the track to ensure that no bottle of water or any kind of waste was left there. Actually leaving bottles in the fields could have been a disaster as the bottles were branded!

On Monday, I had to put all pictures together and select 4 of them to send to the press along with a media release about the event. Indeed, as PR we all know that the more time we take to send the news, the less medias will agree to talk about it!

So basically, it has been quite hectic but I must say that I really enjoyed it! I was really impressed by the power of branding. I was also surprised to understand the strategy used behind the event.

To conclude, I really love my job! I am impressed of how much I can learn in a 15 days internship compared to a 3 years of study. Now I understand why my lecturer was always saying ‘you have to do internship during your holidays, this will help you!!’ I now totally agree and will definitely repeat it to everyone else.

Isabelle

Implementing a Strategy in Real Life

Hello everyone,

It's now my second blog post and I am on my fourth day of internship at Immedia agency. I know that most of you have done more days till now but every single day of internship provides us with exceptional learning and experiences.

At my workplace today, 'happened' something that remembered me some of our assignments such as the famous Public Relations plans we've struggle to make during our past semesters. As being an event agency too, Immedia is actually busy planning one of their biggest event of this year: 'The Phantom of the Opera' with the Conservatoire de Musique Francois Mitterand. (CMFM)

Poster published in newspapers

If you click on the link above you will discover that this massive production was written for a while now by Gaston Leroux in 1909 which is now performed internationally (London, New York, Asia Pacific, Moscow, and many more). Obtaining a licence for such a production can be difficult but with the help of the contacts that Immedia agency has worldwide they have achieved it.

Since the announcement of the event, every week my employer tries to implement innovative strategies so that the event gains a maximum of public and media coverage. In addition of several radio spots and posters published in newspapers, my supervisor had a very creative idea to obtain more coverage and create a 'buzz' around the event.

He called it a "happening" before the event. The happening consisted of having the troupe of CMFM parade around the streets of the capital, attracting people with military drums and costumes from the show (see pictures below). It was decided to make this happening during lunch time where people would come out from their offices. As usual we had the duty to contact journalists to cover this minor event.

Pictures of the 'Happening'

This brought me back to when we had to find tactics to implement strategies we had in our PR plans. This time it was in real life! The happening was successful in my opinion as it attracted many people wondering the purpose of the parade who then would know more about the event which is schedule on the 29 and 31 August. It was successful also as 30 mins after this event photos were already posted on the Facebook page of l'Express 

Another similar type of 'Happening' will be held in a famous shopping mall (Bagatelle Mall of Mauritius) during the weekend which I strongly invite you to come and see them performing a preview of the show. Well, despite from the positive coverage we both had on the public and the press I found that their was a lack of structuring in the making of this mini event. For example, there was only a short brief by my supervisor about it and nothing on paper about the itinerary, the location of the interview with press (kind of being messy with all the people around) and also the police force was not contacted to inform them about the happening.

During the debrief I asked and pointed out these issues and my employer replied that these cannot be expected and that they had experience in this kind of happening and that it was "controlled". Being in that field since years, my supervisor built so many contacts that hereby we can see the difference between our well structured PR plan strategies on paper and the decisions taken on-the-job. It's their way of working and it is not a simple intern like me who is going to change this despite knowing that having a well structured tactic could eventually be of advantage to avoid or minimize issues mentioned. It was a nice experience though! I personally thought that this idea was unnecessary and wouldn't attract many people and instead would disturb them with the noise of the drums and undoubtedly I was wrong in thinking so. The mass - effect worked and people were attracted and many asked us questions about the purpose of the happening. A last word, as you all know Public Relations is all about having free publicity as compared to marketing and this promoting event was free, all posters, T-shirts, and further equipment were offered by our sponsors.

Thank you for reading and feel free to comment below about your personal views and opinions.

Mehdi