What comes after when you find a job in PR...

All this time I was blogging during my study at PR course and this I guess will be my first post when I finally found a job in PR. This going to be a good opportunity to actually see how is it all in real business life.
Firstly, it took me some time to find a job as we actually graduated during the so called ‘credit crunch’. It was a tough time as companies mostly made redundancies and didn’t want to hire anyone. I guess I was lucky enough when I got a call from the largest retail bank in Kazakhstan - Halyk Bank to work at their PR and Marketing Department.
This is actually what I wanted as this is Corporate Communication area (that was my chosen module) and in the centre of Financial PR. Unfortunately, Financial PR was exactly the subject that we didn’t really looked in depth. What I can tell from my experience is that you better should understand at least basic things how financial institutions work and you should have basic education in Finance. This is quite necessary knowledge as you should know what are writing about.
Additionally, every bank and financial institution is different as Investor relations is not necessarily should be PR Department’s responsibility. In my case IR sits in the International Department.
Our PR Department is more focused on internal market and mainly it’s Media Relations.
Secondly, New Media is a big thing! I didn’t take this module and I feel like I should have. However, if you assiduous enough you can study all New Media techniques and nuances by yourself, and what I have a little learned during my study helped me a lot at my work. Thanks to my teachers at the university.
Thirdly, what I have noticed is that the role of PR manager is on the level of writing press releases and speeches. It’s not like PR specialists is the ‘right hand’ of the Chairperson. What I want to say is that graduates should understand that every company sees the role of PR person differently. Therefore, you shouldn’t surprise that even in big companies PR could be very small and its responsibilities could be limited.
The next point is about feminization of PR. It’s true. Although, our press secretary is a man, but the rest in our Department are women.

Student Life of PR

Enjoy the video below of my student life at University of Westminster!

The relevance and value of PR qualifications

On the last day of our classes we had a Debate on the relevance of PR qualifications, whether the success in PR is more driven by personal qualities and contacts or not. I believe that PR qualification is very important and necessary. There are several arguments to support this motion.
Firstly, PR qualifications are important to professionalise the PR status. We often hear how PR practitioners are complaining that PR is not taken too seriously as a profession, and in some countries the reputation of PR tends to be negative. This is why professional status is important to Public Relations because such recognition could achieve professional status of PR as an occupation and education is one of the most important tools to achieve that.

Grunig and Hunt claimed that “we could say that an occupation becomes a profession when a majority of its practitioners qualify as profession”. This means the more practitioners get a qualification, the more PR as an occupation becomes professionalized.

Secondly, even a couple of centuries back, Edward Bernays said that “Nowadays everyone calls themselves a PR person, even a plumber who communicates with his clients or any sales person”. Still not everyone understands what PR means and what its role in the society is. Hence this is an opportunity to place boundaries between PR and other similar disciplines such as Marketing or Journalism, which tend to be confused with PR.

Thirdly, PR qualification would help to distinguish boundaries between PR and Propaganda. Many people who do not have a PR qualification tend to equalize PR with Propaganda. Therefore they will confuse themselves and other people who are not familiar with the PR field at all. Perhaps this is why the reputation of PR is seems to be perceived as ‘spin’ and manipulation. If PR practitioners would get an education and achieve professional status, then maybe ethical issues of the PR industry would not be questionable any more.

At the end of the Debate we all decided that it is better to have a relevant education and good experience as in order to succeed in PR both of the mentioned points could play a vital role when it comes to the job search competition. Furthermore, the relevance of the PR qualification might also depend on the country. For example, many PR practitioners in the UK have different educational background and it is absolutely acceptable in practice. However, in Kazakhstan and many other countries, a relevant qualification is very important to find a good job.

Enjoy the video below on How To Become a Public Relations Specialist.

Social Marketing: It’s time for a change!

Today we began our class talking about changes: how do changes come to society, what triggers them, what could be the outcome of changes, who influences to the decisions about changes etc. For me, changes do not occur without reasons. Everything happens for a reason. Changes may take a long time or sometimes they might occur very quickly. However, people may not be ready for change, either because they are too sudden or they have come due to natural and unforeseen circumstances. Time passes by and some changes do occur in our society, then people try to accept them and adapt for a new environment.

Sean Kidney, who has 20 years of experience in social change marketing and strategy, today shared with us some tips of organising social marketing campaigns. I thought it was very interesting as when he was trying to explain to us the process of Social Marketing Campaigns, I remembered how the Government in Kazakhstan organised such kind of campaigns.

For example, the Kazakh Government sometimes announces the Community Work Day or Cleaning Day in Almaty and in many other cities. It tends to be Saturday of the last week of one of the spring months. That day all students from schools and universities, government workers and even some private company representatives voluntarily go out and clean streets, plant trees or refurbish a facade of their buildings to support the campaign for a clean & green city. There is also a campaign against drugs and smoking among young people to promote a healthy lifestyle. Thus could usually be done through social adverting or some sport events to support the campaign. The client for an event would be the Government.

An interesting point that was made by Sean Kidney is that sometimes campaigners do not consider physical environment changes which also might play quite an important role in Social Marketing. The example that was mentioned by Sean was construction of streets or buildings which might affect on people’s walking habits or social behaviour. However, most importantly PR practitioners should not forget their responsibilities as Communicators and do not forget the main objectives of the campaign.

Crisis Management

Crisis Public Relations Management is one of the important and necessary part of the PR field. There are lots of books and online information is written about Crisis Management: how to handle crisis, checklist of what should be done before, during and after the crisis.

Perhaps the good side about Crisis is that it would require PR help to fix the problem in terms of communications and media relations. This might be an opportunity for PR to flourish and show how necessary it is for a company. Communication in a Crisis is one of the vital aspects of the planning part of Crisis Management, because every organisation should be prepared for any crisis in advance. However, there are different types of crisis, the ones that grow slowly and you can sort of predict, and also the unpredictable ones which are depend on natural disasters or political, economic or social changes in a country etc.

Seitel F. in his book “The practice of Public Relations” gives 10 principles to approach communication in a crisis:
1. Speak first and often.
2. Don’t speculate.
3. Go off the record at your own peril.
4. Stay with the facts.
5. Be open, concerned, not defensive.
6. Make your point and repeat it.
7. Don’t war with media.
8. Establish yourself as the most authoritative source.
9. Stay calm, be truthful and cooperative.
10. Never lie.

In the class we had an interesting game. We were given a hypothetical crisis situation and were divided into groups by representing media, defensive side, aggressive side and some pressure groups. Each side came up with the statement and we had to think details of the crisis management plan.

I thought it was a very challenging and useful game, as theoretically you could have been prepared for a crisis. You could feel that you know how you are going to handle the communication with different groups during the crisis. However, in practice it could be much difficult and stressful. This is why a weak crisis management plan could play against you. Please see the enclosed video of a little lecture on crisis communications and management.

Global PR: myth or reality?

According to Coombs W.T. et.al. (It’s not just PR, 2007) the beginning of XX century was characterised by the globalisation of the PR industry. Multinational companies start expanding their business outside their origin countries and therefore many issues concerning cultural and national aspects of the international PR start becoming as a priority.

Firstly, when we talk about Global PR we cannot avoid Public Diplomacy. It was defined in Coombs’ book “It’s not just PR” that Public Diplomacy is “an attempts, either public or private, to influence public opinion abroad”. Due to the fact that we are talking about communication and relationship building between two or more countries it has a natural connection with Public Relations. Building international relations is quite a sensitive issue as any decisions made by giant corporations in one country might affect many lives in many countries. There is also tendency to think where we could put boundaries between Public Diplomacy and Public Relations.

Secondly, when we talk about Global PR, it is impossible not to mention about Reputation Management. Many foreign companies which are doing business abroad represent certain countries and therefore their mistakes could affect on countries’ reputations. One example could be Americanisation. Predominance of the US companies in the foreign market tends to create difficulties for local firms to flourish, as it becomes difficult for local firms to compete with them. Thus might affect negatively on the country’s reputation. Coombs et.al. describe that “In Public Relations, reputations are important to organisations because they affect how public come to interact with the organisation”.

Thirdly, the mantra that we mentioned in the class “Think global, act local” applies to the planning programmes or international campaigns. There was an issue raised in the class - whether a company’s programme should be Standardised or Adapted. Most of the class came to the conclusion that Objectives tend to be Standardised, whereas Tactics might be Adapted. Messages and Channels of the campaign could depend on many aspects, so we did not define them as being in particular sides.

Companies by crossing boundaries try to tailor their programmes and understand the local market of the particular country. Here rises a question how important the role of Global PR is in this process. Or perhaps it was a fantasy dreamed up by international PR agencies to generate more business. What do you think?

Enjoy the video below and you will see how different countries are even under European Union. See if you can find any similarities with your country. ;)

Is CSR another “window dressing” for companies?

Today in the class we touched upon the issue of so called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We had a guest speaker, Mr. Adam Garfunkel, who had experience working in CSR for 13 years. He brought to light some quite interesting points in regards to this matter by making a definition for CSR and defining its core elements as well as the reason why CSR is considered to be one of the necessary aspects of the business.

According to the CSR network, CSR is all about a company knowing, managing and improving its impact on the economy, the environment, and society. It is all about a company going beyond “what is required” and being transparent in its business performance, ethical governance, and to fulfil stakeholder groups’ expectations.

You may ask, why bother with CSR, which is a fair question to ask. According to Adam and the CSR network, there are several reasons for companies to take into consideration the CSR programme. For example, to enhance a company’s reputation and brand image, increase profit, reduce operating costs, increase sales and customer loyalty, increase productivity, attract and retain employees as well as “keeping up” with competitors etc.

However, what Adam did not mention in the class is the ethical aspect of CSR. There is a tendency to think that even if CSR and Ethics are quite linked to one and other, it does not always guarantee CSR’s ethical behaviour. Some companies may be engaged in CSR, but at the same time do their business in an unethical way. The American energy Company, Enron, was quite well known within community engagement. However, it was later revealed that they were also “quite good” at being involved in financial fraud and corruption, which led to the bankruptcy of the whole corporation. The case was known as “Enron Scandal”.

Another example is Nike Inc. It is said in their Responsibility programme – “Nike was founded on a handshake. Implicit in that act was the determination that we would build our business based on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect”. However, after revealing its Child Labour issue, Nike’s Responsibility programme became questionable.

After this, you might think whether companies are using CSR as another “window dressing” and do companies really mean what they have written in their CSR programmes. At the end of it, why are companies really involved in CSR? Perhaps most of the time they are driven by business and making money, so companies sort of “bribe” the community and other stakeholders to do their business. Whether it is true or not, you may decide for yourself.