Читать книгу The PR Campaigns Worktext - Maria Elles Scott - Страница 7

Preface

Why Public Relations?

After more than a decade of teaching Public Relations (PR) and more than 20 years working in communications either as a journalist or a PR practitioner, I always fall back to “Why Public Relations?”

My answer is usually simple. I loved the storytelling aspect of journalism. I found the challenge of selecting just the right word to bring someone to tears or move someone to be a gift. I felt that it was an honor to be the voice of a group and to share their story with the masses. You must do so within the ethical confines of your job and do so with the truth as your basis, which I took seriously.

But why not Advertising or Marketing? Well, to be honest, I am not a natural salesperson, and if you know anything about Marketing and Advertising, both are tied directly to the bottom line. It was not a good fit for me to have to create a tagline to sell or design something to motivate a purchase. At the end of the day, I wanted to build relationships, write with a purpose, and help people share their stories through the various media channels.

Public Relations offers the widest array of opportunities. A skilled PR practitioner can work in any field from government to entertainment, politics to activism, nonprofits to corporations or agencies with specialties or those with clients in a wide range of industries. I tell my students that if you have the ability to write well and build genuine relationships, tap into what makes a company special in its industry, and be persuasive through the use of research, then you have a solid basis for success.

Converting Skills to Practical Application

Not all students who major in PR expect to be practitioners. But every skill a student acquires can stay with them throughout whatever career they chose to pursue. Even if you think you know what you want to do with the rest of your life, never turn down the opportunity to gain a new skill or sharpen one you have.

Students studying PR should approach each new skill as a new tool to add to their tool box. It’s not something you drop in and never touch again, but something you practice with so that your skills stay sharp and you stay adept, because you never know when you will need to use it. Creating a PR Campaign is a college class that should allow students to take their toolbox and challenge them to utilize every single tool and skill they have acquired throughout their college career in the application of one project that has so many moving parts and levels to it that it takes teams to create a quality PR Campaign.

Any student who comes into a PR Campaigns class of mine and says, “I think I could do this on my own, I don’t work well in teams” is someone whose success in the business world I worry about. I say to that student that perhaps they have mastered the writing, design, research, and even business writing components of the campaign, but the challenge for them is to master the teamwork aspect. Every person on a team has their own set of amazing skills that are fine-tuned and polished, and every person has something they can work on before they begin their professional career. For most students taking this course as a senior in a capstone, this is your final chance to work out the kinks and get yourself to where you are your BEST SELF.

My mentor was Cal Sutliff, whose book The Power of YOUR People Skills is something I use in conjunction with all the worksheets and handouts you are about to have at your fingertips. I use his book not because he was my mentor or I wanted to sell his book but because I wanted my students to understand that to be the best teammate and to create something that is as big and as momentous as what you are about to create, it takes you contributing YOUR best work and being the best teammate YOU can be.

Appendix

The Appendix (page 143) is a sample PR Campaign for the DJ Irie Foundation, which was completed by my students in fall 2017 as an assignment for the Public Relations campaigns class. The purpose of including a real PR Campaign is to provide an example of one continuous campaign to use as a reference. Again, final PR Campaigns are tailored to the specific client, so each one is unique. Although the full PR Campaign for the DJ Irie Foundation was more than 400 pages, the author and publishers opted to select the most relevant sections to provide the user with a basic understanding of the concepts and steps that are explained in the text.

Final Notes

Use what is in this book as a guideline and a basis for what is necessary and build from there. For every class I’ve ever had, I challenged to add their own special flavor to create something for the client that wasn’t prescribed. When you aim for the bare minimum, that is what you achieve, but when you reach for the stars, I promise you all will achieve more than you knew you could.

As you move your way through the creation of the campaign, here are the questions I ask my students, which I remind them of often:

 Have you dug deep and really looked at this from every angle?

 Are you carefully phrasing what you are writing to be clear and to be honest, but also to be kind to the client?

 Are you playing the what if game when you write?

 Are you staying true to AP Style, the organization’s brand, and the class’s style?

 Is your idea plausible within the timeline and budget the client has given to us?

 Is this predictable and tired or something that is innovative and different?

 Are you looking backward and forward to gain perspective? You need to look both ways before you cross a street, right?