International Guest Speaker

Today in our PR lecture we had a visiting lecturer from Poland talk to us about the polish practice of PR and Marketing. Dr Anna Sobczyk-Kolbuch, from the School of Economics in Katowice, talked us through a general overview of Poland and mainly gave us a case study and asked us to analyse it. She also had a quiz prepared to see if we recognised Polish brands that were actually sold here in the UK and specifically in High Wycombe supermarkets and pubs, which was fun. I also learnt of a cosmetics company that doesn't use TV advertisements... The Body Shop... I've never considered this before but it's actually quite interesting- least to say when Anna asked us who, I thought she was proving a point that you needed advertising but clearly not.

The main case study was focused around the salt mine in Wieliczka.

The aim of the project was to:

- Increase tourists the attraction and to the Grand Sal Hotel, which is often commonly looked up alongside the mine online
- Change the perception that the attraction is 'boring' and 'not modern'
- Create desire to visit outside of holiday periods also.

The campaign consisted of finding casting for a legendary treasurer's wife and children and also a game was created for Facebook and was so successful that it is now on the actual salt mine page and is an app also for mobiles and tablets.

A task Anna set us was were the media relations used enough and how could you target other age groups.

Firstly, clearly the media relations were sufficient because the end result seemed positive on the case study paper, however measurement of financial figures would prove this better. However, there would probably have been no harm in using additional social media resources such as Twitter to drive traffic to the Facebook page for the game and to the actual salt mine page for further information. The Twitter feed would also act as an ongoing tool to help remind customers of the attraction and to run regular competitions and events. They have a regularly updated YouTube channel which is positive as many companies don't utilise or update this properly as a communications tool to their publics.

Another form of media relations could be a potential sponsorship deal. I'm unsure whether they do currently sponsor anyone- from the website there is no mention however, but sponsorship is never really considered often I find. The use of sponsorship for the salt mine could be good as it will act as an endorsement, helping to create a more entertaining brand if the brand in partnership has an uplifting, active and entertaining reputation. If the sponsorship is selected carefully they could see an influx of new customers of all age groups and backgrounds. Having never been to Poland and not knowing much of other brands there, I wouldn't like to suggest who a sponsorship deal could be negotiated with, however, I feel this could be an option waiting to be taken for the brand upon first impressions.

Secondly, another form of campaign to engage older people? Again being that it is in Poland my ideas may not necessarily translate but we can generally assume (although this will need to be proved) that older people will be:

- Looking for more of an adventure/ experience to gain
- They don't shy away from educational value like many younger people
- They potentially have more disposable income than families or younger people
- They have more time on their hands to visit outside of holiday periods
- They are likely to come for themselves or bring the family along for a day out
- They like some peace and quiet in their day but also some excitement- relaxed and at their own pace
- Although numbers are increasing, a form of communication to avoid is social media/ online although some advertisement can be strategically positioned on sites that tend to have visitors of the target group.

Therefore some potential ideas could be to run special packages in the salt mine such as special tours that incorporate different elements such as having a calm specially prepared lunch on site- incorporated in the price and offer group tours to give them a chance to meet other people their own age.

As older people may not be able to climb the stairs or stand on their feet for a long time a special shorter route, incorporating a short educational presentation, could be formulated as part of a weekend package- which includes an overnight stay at the hotel and meals and so on. Much like the Thorpe Park + Hotel deals except they can choose exclusive age group specific features to include in their package and pay for it all up front. The ability to tailor a package would not only appeal to the older target group also but to a wide variety of target groups too.

A competition could also be run but gets imaginations going and into the mood for an adventure. People could send in a photo of themselves (following the previous competition) and on the back write no more than 50 words on what would be their greatest adventure of all time with their name and telephone number also. The address could be free-post and could be advertised at specifically targeted groups for older people, places older people would typically go, even a television advertisement or radio? The prize would obviously be an overnight's stay at the health resort and a day at the mine.

The winner can also be the face of the newly created packages on promotional materials. A special feature in a relevant magazine could also be done detailing the winner's entry and their experience at the salt mine as their prize- acting like an endorsement to other people of similar ages and so on.

Seriously, I think I could go on forever with potential ideas but I'll stop there! Please let me know what you think- I'm always keen to learn, whether you have suggestions to build on my ideas or know of why these may not work in Poland?

Guest Speaker of the week

This week in my PR practice and skillset lecture we had Paul Stallard of Berkeley PR come to talk to us about his experiences, what life is like at his agency and to also gives us a couple of briefs that were previously live for practice.

Firstly we were told that everyday is different- a lot of speakers say this- but that's good because that's what we like to hear and the more people say it the more believable it's becoming. None of us want to be committed to desk tapping away five days a week! We want to be out there and really involved with brands and campaigns and just learning how to become a great PR person!

We also discussed what makes a good story and in Paul's opinion it's bad news, human interest, topical and a great story has all three!I'm going to mentally bookmark that bit of useful information for when I start working! He also told us that to create a great press release and also include the above tips (obviously you don't want to be spending bad news about clients) is that you have to position your client as the solution to a bad situation where possible. So do some research, find out market statistics that aren't so great or are a cause for concern and then bring in your client's company as the hero to the problem- it sounds so simple and actually really straight forward, but I've never of it like that before or heard it in those exact words- it suddenly made a lot of sense to be honest!

The brand that our group got was a shopping centre (not sure if I'm allowed to name names so I won't) and they wanted to get more traffic into the shopping centre and make it attractive to children and families over the summer holidays. Our team came up with the idea of having weekly themes for the shopping centre such as an underwater theme (Finding Nemo), the zoo (Madagascar), a beach theme (Little Mermaid), and so on. Each week there would be an array of activities that matched the week's theme such as face painting, story telling, small rides, a mini beach. Shops would help out too such as Waterstones conducting the story telling and the Disney store have staff dress up as themed characters, and so on. It sounded like a pretty exciting campaign to be honest, we got so carried away with it it was hard to remember that it was all theoretical!

Every time a speaker comes in it really inspires me to go out there and start working already! I've got an internship interview next Monday, keeping my fingers crossed!

A look into the future

Yesterday I was looking on various sites for Buckinghamshire agencies for a part time PR internship either for summer 2013 or to run alongside my course currently. As I started looking obviously a lot of the jobs that came up were also graduate jobs, so just out of curiosity I looked through the descriptions and was amazed to see how many internships wanted someone who had a place on a Master's degree or further qualification course place confirmed... I remember a speaker that came to see us, Roger Hayes, who mentioned to us that looking into Master's degree or something similar would benefit us greatly. However, a lot of other speakers have said it doesn't make much difference if you have a Master's degree. So which is it?

Now I've heard a lot of different things about Master's degrees. That it's free if you get a first in your undergraduate course, you don't get student finance funding for it otherwise and it can cost you ridiculous amounts of money and that your fees have to be paid in full before the course... surely this can't be right? So, I went to investigate...

I do know for a fact that some companies will send their executives on Master's degrees as a day release set up, but this tends to be only the bigger companies or those that can afford it. According to the Direct Gov website you can get funding for a Masters degree but it's not widely available to anyone. I couldn't find much information about whether if you get a first in your undergraduate degree you get to do a Master's for free, but I did find out that funding is generally only available if you're doing a subject such as Law or Medicine though there are some exceptions but nothing about Marketing or Business. I think this information should be more readily available to students- life choices don't stop when you get to university. There is so much information about which university and which course to apply for or other options after school but it generally stops there. I think a lot of people are misinformed about post graduate study, myself for one and even looking online didn't help too much, in fact I think it confused me even more!

I've always considered post graduate study but I'm not too sure due to circumstances such as funding. It would be great if I got into a job that was willing to send me on a post graduate course but sadly due to the current economy that option also isn't too widely available. Nonetheless, I'm at university now and the wise thing to do would be to make the most of what I have!

If anyone has info on post-grad study, please comment! I'd love to have my facts straight on this topic!

A Guest Speaker and a World of Opportunities

This week we had another guest speaker, Roger Hayes, who is a senior counsellor for APCO, a global communications and business strategy firm that specialises in emerging markets, and this was the basis of the talk to us. During his career, Dr Hayes has lived in New York, South Africa, India, to name but a few places, mostly because that is where his work has taken him.

Dr Hayes shared with us what he values in a junior executive that he may hire and also told us that working on a global account or for a global company isn't as scary as we may think. Roger stated that in interns and potential employees he values higher education and encouraged us to take our degrees further to masters and PHDs in the future because he admits there are some skills you just can learn on the job. Now this something I have considered but have always felt that especially now it is too expensive to d a masters straight after university as I believe there is no or little funding provided to you as it is postgraduate study unlike under-grad. For me finding a job that would be willing to put me through a masters or some kind of higher education equivalent is near essential and this is something I would really like to do in my lifetime. As much as I would like to get through university and find a job and start earning some money, I have a feeling that I'm the sort of person education will never leave my life. Aside from being stressed out from it, it also gives me a sense of satisfaction that I have managed to complete something to the end and get something great out of it!

Dr Hayes also shared with us a tip that I think many of us hadn't really considered before- being able to speak another language aside from English. I really envy people who had the opportunity at school to pick a language to learn. My secondary school only ever gave the option of French as compulsory for every year 7-9 student. Fortunately I was in the top set that were able to sit a foundation GCSE in year 9 and so I do have a French GCSE (C grade). However, I'm not keen on French and although I know enough to get me by if I ever went there, it' never my first choice of holiday or destination so I never get to use it. On the other hand I would love to speak Spanish! I always go to Spain or Spanish island for holiday every summer and I know a few basic phrases from being out there regularly. I talked this over with my boyfriend and we've both decided that we would love to learn Spanish if not for anything more than a hobby, though I certainly wouldn't mind working out there.

But then, I got thinking... if that is what I really want to do I need to consider a lot more than just learning a language right? When I chose my modules next year taking the Global Marketing module may be in my interest and this could open up doors for possible dissertation topics, couldn't it? I would also need to do some background research to see if there is even a public relations and marketing market in Spain and what is it like, will it differ greatly from the UK?

So I did some background research... I joined a couple of LinkedIn groups to keep updated about the market there and I also looked up some Spanish PR and Marketing agencies and reviewed the case studies of their work and their types of clients. It was comforting that the majority of these websites' content were in English but still to live out there speaking Spanish is essential.

Everything I looked at was encouraging and really feel like I have even more options open to me now than I thought I had before.

Latest Experience, a Guest Lecturer and a Hint of Nostalgia

Okay, so first post of the blog, logging my latest experience at university- note I said latest. I have had many experiences at university, a whole year of them in fact and as I write these posts I will try to refer back to past experiences in my first year to get you up to speed. I'd rather do that than bombard you with loads of information all at once- no one wants to read all, that let's be honest.

So today during my public relations practice and skillset lecture, we had a guest lecturer, Ken Deeks. For those that don't know him or of him, his background started off in journalism and he then made the transition into PR and now currently runs a communications company that helps companies to enhance their communication skills and improve overall appearance- something that I've noted a lot of our PR speakers have done in their careers.

He was interesting to say the least- I don't think I've met anyone so down to earth and yet so animated about his job. He obviously has a lot of experience and of course working as journalist certainly helps tick a lot of boxes when it comes to being on the flip side that is PR- he knows from experience exactly what journalists are looking for when he pitches a story to them. His lecture mostly consisted of this and handling the client and media relationships as this ties in with our modules we're currently studying- content creation and content management.

The most important thing I've taken from today? Put yourself in someone else's shoes...

- If you were a time constrained journalist what would you want to hear from a PR spokesperson trying to sell you a story, what would win it for you?
- If you were a client, what would your own expectations of your PR team be, whether that would be an external agency or in house?
- And arguably but in my opinion, most importantly, if you were a reader what would you want to hear? What would make you want to invest in that new product or make you think positively of that brand?

It was definitely food for thought and also made me nostalgic (yes being able to say that now makes me feel old!) of a time when I was 14 and wanted to either be a journalist or novelist. I loved English (still do) and everything about it; the way you can craft words for effect and I especially love the fact when writing a story, be it fictional or for a newspaper, you can put your own spin and signature on things, so people know that it's you who has written it. It's still one thing I would like to do when I'm older- write a fictional book. It would just be one of those things that would give me some personal satisfaction in my life... watch this space!