Bad Human Resources Management or PR Stunt

**NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED**

A very interesting thing happened this week. While doing some follow up on some street press magazines i noticed what appeared to be a serious error in printing.

 The story i gathered was that Beat Magazine, a music based street press magazine was loosing their graphic designer as he was moving to America for another job. Like most papers they go to print on Tuesday night and like most weeks the editors all headed home in the evening. The art department stayed behind to set up the pages to go to print over night, including the member of the team that was leaving.
The cover that week was meant to be of the UK band, The Kaiser Chiefs, however that is not what happened.
The designer replaced it with something he had drawn and that night hundreds of thousands of copies were printed, bundled and that morning the delivery drivers picked the bundles and dropped them off as usual at their assigned spots.
The editors of Beat magazine woke up to countless frantic phone calls.

Our office had a good laugh at the cover and thought it was a seriously brave over on the designers behalf, but then i noticed Beat magazine changed their display picture on their Facebook page to the same image, that is where, i believe, the magazine has slipt up.
It occurred to me, this probably wasn't an act of rebellion but perhaps a carefully thought out PR stunt. How many people picked up the magazine to have a look after hearing that story? How many times did I personally send their link to coworkers and friends? How many times I, myself go onto their Facebook page.
Whether the story I heard was even correct or not, it certainly helped the magazine. It was definitely interesting and food for thought.

Hope you all have fantastic weekend!

Social Media vs Print Media

There comes a time in ever PR interns (and managers for that matter) life when we must way up the pros and cons of both Social and Print media.
No one can say for certain which is the most effective. Im sure if you ask experienced Marketing and PR managers from an "older generation" they will stand by print advertising and media and if you asked any intern or "younger" generation PR manager they will adamantly argue for social media.

Does it come down to your target audience? If so, how would you gauge something as complicated and important as that? How many people interested in music still pick up Xpress, Drum and the Wire and flip through the gig guides to see whats coming up? Or does everyone just hop onto Facebook and look through bands and venues pages. Often before a graphic designer even has time to design the advert that is going in a street press magazine, the event has already come up on hundreds of peoples news feeds and the information has spread like wildfire. So is that a pro of social media? What about those people then that still have not and refuse to get a Facebook, Twitter etc account? Dare anyone take the risk and rely on one form of promotion so that we can all benefit from finding out which one, once and for all, is the most effective

All arguments aside is there really ONE answer. In my experience a perfect balance and happy medium of both can be the compliment to one another and the foundation of a truly strategic PR plan.

Expect the unexpected, be proactive !

Hello,

I think we all know about Murphy’s law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. Therefore, in Public Relations, it is important to have a secondary plan in case something goes wrong. From my tutorial sessions, I learnt that it is vital to look for an alternative in case a problem crops up...

During my internship, I got some problems in terms of printing. The company I am working for was participating in a Job Fair and brochures had to be printed and distributed to potential employees and for explanation purposes. However, on the eve, the brochures were not yet delivered. Hence, I had a back-up plan to remedy the situation. I managed to print some copies of the brochures at C.T.I in the morning on the day of the Job Fair and distribute them to the relevant publics some hours later.

The day after, the other brochures were delivered and ironically, there were so many people present that there was nothing remaining in the end. As a result, I think that preparation is very important in Public Relations; a PR officer should expect the unexpected. Be proactive instead of reactive, this is the principle which I have applied during my internship.

I end up saying this was a bit of my experience, hope that helps :)

Cheers,

Danitza