Media Coverage and Exposure

This blog post was done on October 4.

Finally after two months plus of my internship here, we have received media coverage on a project which we were involved in. The project ‘Travel Smart’ is an initiative which promotes a more even distribution of travel demand during the busiest times of the day (http://app.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=add9c932-28f7-42e7-a3be-1e9d0b6e2847).

At the media launch, the associate director for transportation of my company was invited to present on the scheme and provide the media with details on the scheme; how it works and the benefits that participants will gain by taking part in the scheme. The media launch was organized by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore; although I was not present at the event, it was one of the rare times where our company received media attention and exposure. In the press release done by the LTA, my company was mentioned and several media called later on to clarify some details with regards to our company background.

After the media launch, the associate director received invitations to “Talk Back”, a show on 93.8FM which discusses current affairs. We provided her with a very rushed and brief message rundown the day before the radio show. It being a “live” show gave her more pressure to perform well and to put across the messages that we had drafted for her. However, we had to be given the green light to proceed with participating in the show by LTA; given that they were our clients we were rather tied down by what they had to say, should the messages contain any information that were considered confidential or sensitive, we would have been liable for the mistake.

The media coverage that was given to the project had helped to introduce the company to the media, many of them had queried if we were from the UK or US and not based in Singapore; and what is the description of services that we provide for our clients. Given our extensive range of services rendered to our clients, it became apparent that it was hard for us to categorize the service that was rendered to the LTA; a study and implementation along with recommendations for a strategy to ease peak hour commuting for the public.

This is an exceptional case whereby the communications team had not really done anything for media exposure but it was given to us in terms of approximately eight newspaper headlines, short air time on both radio and television; and provided us with a chance to introduce the company to the media and build up media relations thereon. Most of the clients however, are unlike LTA and would not have included our company’s name in the press release. Architectural feats would have only mentioned the property developer and not the architectural or engineering firm behind it. Public Relations have always been done independently by the clients; instead of joint ones along with our company. Hence the LTA project has been one of the rare cases which have helped us obtained media coverage.

Of course there are plenty of upcoming projects such as a small part of the Resorts Worlds Sentosa (RWS) which cannot be named due to the confidentiality of the project that can garner media interest. More plans would definitely need to be drawn up with the clients to co-release press releases.

Media Workshop

This blog post was done on 20 September

The highlight of my internship happened the day before when an external PR agency was engaged to conduct a media workshop for the business leaders of the company. Having mentioned in the previous posts that the company has been building on the foundation to increase media relations and exposure, the media workshop was to provide the various business heads an idea of who the media are, how they should sell their stories to them, and what can be done to further enhance their personal skills of crafting and delivering the story and connect with the media at the same time.

Even though the workshop was only conducted for the business leaders, I had the luxury of sitting in and picking up skills as my supervisor had felt that it was appropriate and beneficial for me to do so. Hence there I was, for the whole day, in a meeting room with six business leaders, all males, two trainers and one videographer for the workshop.

The workshop was started off by a doorstop interview, where the participants were given a taste of a reporter stalking them and asking them questions which were meant to be aggressive and shocking. Following the recent news of the Downtown Line construction causing cracks in the homes of nearby residents, the trainers had prepared a series of critical questions meant for the participants. These interviews were recorded live and played back for review later on. Many of the participants found that they were unable to speak in front of the camera; and without preparation were unable to answer the questions fielded to them.

Participants were given tips on their interview skills and a debrief of the best practice to answer the questions and then given another exercise, that is to sell the company’s offerings to a key political figure in under one minute, to which many of them fumbled and were unable to communicate the core message. The messaging house concept was highlighted to the participants as well.

Following the exercise, the participants were introduced to a quadrant review system where they needed to evaluate the headline they saw, the delivery of the story, what was said and the outcome. After their self-review, they were given 3 more stimulated on-camera interviews, one of which was at a press conference, one at a talk show on Channel News Asia and the last on CNBC Squawk Box.

At the end of the workshop, the Marketing and Communications team sat down with the trainers to provide an evaluation of each participant and their potential to become a spokesperson for the company. Since it was mentioned in the earlier blog post that the company is taking small steps to build up on Public Relations on all aspects, it is crucial that there are multiple spokespeople to be groomed and utilized for media relations in the long run in order to promote ideas such as thought leadership. This will help boost the image and reputation of the company due to its heavy use of niche technology and knowledge.

Difficulties PR face in a MNC

This blog post was done on 30 August.

After having worked for approximately three weeks, I’ve noticed many differences between an agency and MNC, mainly in the way of operation and value of PR deemed by the stakeholders.

Given that in an agency context, clients pay to hire PR-related services, the value placed on PR is higher as compared to that of a MNC. Also, top down budget constrains restricts the resources provided for the department, resulting in the lessened ability to churn out good media or PR results.

Also due to the complexity of the business lines available in the company, the Marcomms department needs to cater to the needs of these various business lines individually, which can be very taxing as most of the engineering trained colleagues are unable to fully comprehend what PR is about and the value that it provides.

The company is at a stage whereby baby steps are taken to build up on everything and anything that is PR based. Having interned at companies with more established communications departments, I noticed that the system used for media monitoring in my internship was not as ideal as it should be. The media clippings done were not archived properly and even though media monitoring were done for the major business lines, much of the information was not shared out of the department; unless there has been a mention of the company in the article itself. Trends and growth of the various markets are tracked as well, but not shared.

I find that media research and monitoring is an important foundation in educating non-communications trained people about the value of PR. Therefore I suggested a system of media monitoring to be done, and also including more relevant topics into the daily media monitoring. This helped the media monitoring database to become much neater; I also helped to clean up the previous newspaper clippings to increase accessibility and readability.

Another problem was the fact that the company lacked spokes people for each business line, making media contact very hard for the company even though there are plenty of new and exciting projects for media pitches to be done.

Producing communication materials such as brochures are tough as well given that space is limited, but most business lines want to squeeze in as many projects as possible; and being able to cater to the needs of the organization is a daunting task. Handling the requests requires much patience and tact for the business lines to not end up feeling neglected or unhappy.

Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives are also inching forward for the company, with tie-ups with other external agencies to help out the less unfortunate, employee initiatives for the environment also develops into CSR, such as a beach cleanup done by volunteers. The CSR done is mostly by small groups due to the nature of the company being very fragmented, and that most of the engineers are required to visit the sites or clients.

Difficulties in the company are foundation in knowledge of the value of PR is weak, too many business lines are required to be “serviced” by the department, each having differing needs. Lack of spokesperson has hindered the growth and management of media relations in the company. The things learnt in during the course of my internship is very different from what I’ve experienced previously, this is more about changing the mindsets of internal stakeholders rather than communication with external stakeholders such as the media.

PR in the Engineering Industr

This blog post was done on 10 August.

My internship at AECOM commenced on 1 August 2012. A short introduction on the company; AECOM is a global provider of professional technical and management support services to markets such as transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water and government, and has approximately 45,000 employees around the world. AECOM is also a Fortune 500 company, and serves clients in approximately 130 countries; was named one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2011 and 2012 by the Ethisphere Institute.

AECOM in Singapore does more of infrastructural and building engineering, alongside with master-planning commissions; mostly in transportation and governmental projects. Noteworthy projects include the Benjamin Sheares bridge, MRT lines, Suntec City, Resorts World Sentosa and Singapore Sports Hub. Seeing the interesting nature of the business, I decided to take up the internship offered to me. I was attached to the Marketing & Communications department, under supervision of the Assistant Manager of Marketing & Communications South East Asia.

Having worked in agencies before, I picked a company which provided a more corporate environment in order to help me make my career choice after graduation. Due to the fact that AECOM does not have a Corporate Communications department locally, the Marketing & Communications was the most similar department possible. After checking the job scope, the function of the Marketing & Communications department was more slighted towards the public relations end, with many public relations functions.

On the first day, I was provided materials with regards to the branding and communications elements guidelines. However, due to the extensive amount of materials, including differing guidelines for differing materials, the understanding of the company became rather taxing. Also the company has many business lines, which range from building engineering to water and urban development; this variety of services calls for varying levels of communications. Technical jargons used in engineering and related fields also make it difficult for communication materials to be written or spoken. This is one of the reasons why communication towards external stakeholders has not been efficiently done.

However, communications amongst internal stakeholders have been done regularly and effectively, with many internal publications and events done to facilitate it. Such publications include a bi-weekly Asia Overview, weekly World Weekly and frequent Project/Award Wins and New Appointment announcements. Events are also done at each office by the Employee Engagement committee, which I was tasked to help out with.

Apart from the reading materials provided, I was tasked to research on the competitors’ media coverage to have a brief understanding of PR in the local engineering firms. The competitors include Arup and Meinhardt; it was noted that both competitors lacked media exposure and coverage as well.

A run-down of the pending Marketing & Communications projects included an information sheet for clients, a new website branch for AECOM in Singapore and the D&D function happening in December 2012. I’m definitely looking forward to working on more projects for the coming three months.

On a side note, we had an enjoyable National Day Celebration in office by the sharing of cupcakes as well as a short quiz on the National Flag! J