First year reflection & some tips for new PR Students

I am typing this on the train back to London having left Leeds for summer. I know everyone says this but this year really has gone in a flash. My first year at Leeds Met is done and I am excited about what’s to come in second year. I am aware that it is going to be a lot more work (especially as I am planning on taking a part time language course to improve my French and getting a part time job on top) but with good organisation I’m sure I will manage, well I won’t have a choice but to figure it out!

I have learnt a lot more about PR than I thought I was going to in first year to be honest. As it is such a broad subject I think the course has given us a well-rounded perspective and in years to come we’ll be able to go into specifics a bit more.

Here are my top five tips for first year students:

1) Be sociable- remember that no matter how lonely or out of your comfort zone you are, most others will be feeling exactly the same. It is so easy to make friends in your first year, you can never have too many!

2) Do try to go to actually go into university if you can, it can be ever so hard to get up in the morning, I know, but it will come in handy when deadlines and exams are looming as you will have some sort of idea what to do. Plus its good practice for second year if you’ve at least got an average attendance, it will be far easier to make the transition as all work counts in year 2!

3) Give yourself a head start and get following PR companies, professionals and other students on twitter, or create a new PR account specifically for this if you are prone to tweeting about how often you go out or anything else you wouldn’t like prospective employers to see.

You’d be surprised how much you learn about the industry via social networks, its becoming more and more important so get started ASAP!

4) Get blogging. At first it is very hard as of course there is only so much about the industry you can write about with a limited knowledge but as the year goes on you’ll get better and better. Practise makes perfect so just think how great your blog could be by the time you graduate! (mikewhite.co.uk, jessicanorth.co.uk and rachelbarkley.co.uk are great examples) Plus writing skills are fundamental in PR so you’ll be perfecting those skills too.

5) Really take an interest in the industry. Read blogs, look at websites, read books, watch films and TV programmes about PR (got a post planned about TV and films about PR coming up soon so check back!) Really do anything that may help without you even realising.

One year down and three more  (including placement year) to go!

I have just secured a full time job in HR for a company working with the London 2012 Olympic venues so I have a very busy summer ahead of me. I know HR and PR aren’t too related (unless you count Internal Comms) but I am hoping to learn something, and being full time in an office environment for longer than 2 weeks is something new to me!

If you’re hopefully starting a PR course in September, best of luck, I really hope you enjoy it, and if you’re starting second, like me, now is when the hard work kicks in, let’s hope we’re ready!

Elle UK magazine ‘makes history’ and embraces social media to keep readership

Reading about and even following the tweets (all will be explained later) about how magazines are being forced to think of new ways to keep interest and readership alive is both saddening and amazing at the same time.

As we are all aware the ‘digital age’ has fully taken over, meaning people just don’t go out and buy magazines or newspapers anymore. This is causing a decline in journalist jobs. Just last week PR Week reported that Johnston press, home to many regional daily papers, are having to cut 50 odd staff and are switching some daily editions to into weekly papers in late May.

There’s not that much journalists or publishing houses can do about it,  rather than fighting against technology, you use it to your advantage.

A great example is the way ELLE magazine managed to double their magazine subscriptions almost over night as they live tweeted from the June cover shoot featuring actress Kristen Stewart. Now this is a stroke of genius as the actress comes with a hoard of dedicated fans, no doubt excited to see the star on the cover. On march 13th Elle began tweeting from the official account @ELLEUK and within hours #kristenELLE was the number one trending topic worldwide. I actually followed their tweets myself as it was happening, every half hour or so pictures of the set, possible outfits, accessories, and even the food for everyone on set, was all documented. (Find all the photos and tweets here)

There was so much buzz about the cover (possibly due to her new film coming out in summer ‘snow white and the huntsman’) that the editor of Elle UK revealed the cover 2 months in early. ‘We’re breaking with tradition and magazine protocol to reveal our cover star in advance because she has such a huge social network following and fan base we want to be the ones to break the news first’ said ELLE Editor-in-Chief Lorraine Candy

Photo via ‘ElleUK.com’

Elle then went one step further, for the July Olympic themed magazine cover they decided to make history. David Beckham was chosen as the first ever male to be on the cover of the magazine. ”David Beckham is a national hero, so we saw an opportunity to shoot a celebratory cover to support an historical and patriotic year.” Lorraine said. They then followed the same Kristen Stewart procedure of live tweeting from the shoot but again never gave too much away, the most they showed of Becks was his ever-so-recogniseable tattoed arm , this keeps every one in total suspense until the cover is finally revealed. If his H&M underwear campaign is anything to go by Elle are set to sell a lot of copies.

Another great use of celebrity to try and boost magazine sales is set by US teen magazine ‘seventeen’. They recently recruited the youngest members of the Kardashian Klan (intended alliteration) to become ‘West Coast Fashion Contribuors’ and have column entitled ‘Kendall & Kylie’s fashion journal’ giving out fashion and beauty tips, as well as appearing in videos on the site twice a month.

Photo via cocoperez.com

Now whether you love or hate the Kardashians as a brand and a family, you cannot get away from them. They have made millions endorsing products, making guest appearances and from their reality TV show (which, by the way, has just been renewed for THREE more seasons for a reported $40 million) add a Kardashian to a brand and it is almost guaranteed success. For every person that is absolutely sick to death of them, there are 5 more that absolutely idolise them. (personally i am in the middle, slightly swaying towards love though, they have a knack for turning absolutely awful publicity into positives and I am jealous of their wardrobes!)

Then of course there is the Ipad. App versions of mags are being sold at an alarmingly fast pace, more and more mags are adding their own Ipad friendly version as it is becoming far more accessible as tablets are more widely used. In february the top 5 best selling newsstand apps were:

1) The Daily

2)NYTimes for Ipad

3)The New Yorker Magazine

4)National Geographic magazine

5)Cosmopolitan Magazine

Just when other magazine sales are declining, it just goes to show that the perfect mixture of celebrity and social media can adequately stir up enough excitement to revert consumers back to their old ways or even subscribe to the magazine for the first time just to get their hands on the special subscription only front covers. Everyone loves exclusivity. It will be interesting to see if any other magazines follow in Elle’s footsteps by taking more risks and using social media to their advantage to help sales.

In the mean time, we had better get used to most magazines looking like this from now on!

photo via fashionindie.com

My Time at M&C Saatchi PR

So, another work experience update, spent the 2 weeks of easter in the PR department at advertising agency ‘M&C Saatchi PR’. They have worked on some amazing adverts, such as the T-mobile royal wedding, Coca Cola’s Olympic campaign with Mark Ronson and Katy B, and even a recruitment ad for MI5. So to say i was excited to see how they applied PR into the mix is an understatement.

First off, upon arrival to their offices located in Piccadilly Circus, I was almost in awe. The building in Golden Square is amazing outside and in. From day one I was thrown in at the deep end and given research tasks for clients, media lists to update and even had to call around for corporate cupcake quotes!

I helped with clients such as Hyundai, Spotify, London 2012 Olympics, Network Rail, Kindle Fire, Curry’s and more! One of the most beneficial things i learnt was just how busy agency life can be! Some days by 11.30am i had a to-do list to tackle of 8 or 9 items, and had to switch priorities depending on which client wanted the item faster. My organisational skills are pretty good already (to do lists are an integral part of getting me through the week!) so i was certainly glad to see my incessant list making was coming in handy!

Another aspect i observed (that i hadn’t really seen on other placements) is how creative and inventive PR can be in terms of gaining media coverage. The M&C team were great at spotting an potential story opportunity, figuring out how to make it relevant to their clients, and coming up with an idea in order to suit most national newspapers. I learnt that you really can relate client’s to media opportunities. They have a huge creative department (for the advertising) as well as an entirely separate Sports and entertainment PR company too, and it was great to see how they could all work together to help each other out in their certain areas of expertise.

All in all i had a great (yet tiring) 2 weeks at M&C, everyone in the PR team were so lovely and had no hesitation in giving me tasks that actually made me feel valued despite my short time there, as a PR student that’s all we ask for during short term placements, an opportunity to put theory into practise and also learn skills that the degree doesn’t teach you. (like finding specific media lists or industry specific journalists using Gorkana, which i can now do, no problem!) So I am very grateful to them for having me!

Here is an example of one of M&C’s most recent adverts:

London Fashion Week

So a few weeks ago I spent a week at fashion PR company Snow, helping them out in the lead up to London Fashion Week, they had two clients showing at Somerset house, and i was lucky enough to work at one of them!

After a week of delivering invitations all over london and sorting out the goodie bags, we arrived at somerset house. Within 30 minutes we’d already spotted Alexandra Burke, Pixie Lott and Jameela Jamil and the celeb spotting only got better from then on!

I was in charge of seating International Press and Buyers at the show. A sort of ‘front of house’ role, so i checked invitations and sat the journalists/bloggers/buyers accordingly. Of course there were many ‘oh but i am sure that I should be on the front row..’ excuses but we were told to be polite yet firm, so I had to decline unless they were one the chosen few.

I definitely learnt to work under pressure as the show was one of the busiest that day, far more people turned up than expected and every time a celeb walked in 10/15 paparazzi would descend and go crazy. I happened to be standing next to where they posed for photos (typical) and I have to say i don’t envy famous people at all, the cameras, flashing and shouting was awful!

I also learnt that (unfortunately) the fashion industry is very similar to its depictions in media (‘devil wears Prada’ springs to mind) I even witnessed the infamous ‘do you not know who I am?’ line being said to another of the interns in a very rude manner, this person happened to be the fashion editor of a newspaper (shall remain unnamed) and frankly I was shocked, celebrities were far kinder to us interns than any of the journalists!

I have a new-found admiration for Fashion PR’s although the job can be glamorous and full of freebies, they certainly have to put up with a lot of diva behaviour, whether it be from designer clients or from journalists & celebrities.

I am still unsure as to whether fashion PR is for me, but being able to work at London Fashion Week was an amazing experience and i would definitely consider going back for spring/summer 2012!

Here is a video of the PPQ show, I was stood hidden away at the other end of the catwalk!

Effective marketing campaigns for new movie releases

So I’ve happened to stumble upon via twitter or blogs some really good ways of how Films are being promoted through social media or PR stunts/collaborations and wanted to share a few of my findings.

My inspiration for this post was Steven Fry’s riddles in order to promote the new ‘Sherlock Holmes: Game of shadows’ sequel, in which he plays Sherlock’s brother.

Here’s the trailer in case you haven’t seen, I highly recommend it, and thought it was fantastically done, Robert Downey Jr. plays the eccentric Holmes perfectly.

So Stephen Fry currently has 3,699,100 followers   in comparison to the actual films twitter account that has a mere 5,335. I think it’s safe to say they chose the right account to promote the film in order to reach a mass audience don’t you?

Fry being a huge fan of the books any way was obviously delighted to be in the film (he even chose it as his mastermind subject of expertise.

Every day Fry would tweet a riddle at precisely 2.21pm (Holmes’ address on Baker street, clever eh?) Followers were asked to tweet the answer to the riddle including the hash tag #GameOfShadowsUK  to be in with a chance of winning prizes.

Photo via Digital Spy

Some other examples:

You know my name and hear my voice, but cannot see my face. Another hides me from your view, held high above the palace #gameofshadowsuk

— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) December6, 2011

 If rich then I am good, if poor then I am ill. Fools say that they can know me, though I bend to no man’s will #GameOfShadowsUK

— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) December9, 2011

I make friends into strangers, turn long streets into short. I take the city in a night, then vanish in a thought #GameOfShadowsUK

— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) December 12, 2011

I think this was a great idea, a good way of using his twitter popularity to their advantage and if I wasn’t already a fan of the films it would’ve made me think about going!

A more recent case is the upcoming Steven Speilberg’s adaptation of Children;s book author Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’

See trailer here 

The books publisher HarperCollins have partnered with none other than Mc Donalds to give out free copies of the book with happy meal purchases. Children’s presenter (Jade Goody’s ex) Jeff Brazier will be an ambassador to the campaign sharing tips to inspire children to read more.

A major TV campaign is launching this week to back the give away as well.

Now personally I think that any campaign to encourage children to read and associate books with having fun or enjoying themselves (like they tend to do at McDonalds) is a worthy cause. I’ve noticed by having younger sisters that they and their friends simply don’t read as much as me and my friends did at their age, simply because the internet is so much more appealing and ‘cooler’.

So I think that this is another good idea, it will also drive sales directly to the film as children will either read the book then want to see the film of vice versa. Parents are forced to fork out for either the food or the cinema tickets. Win-win for Speilberg, Win-win for Morpurgo and HarperCollins. Fantastic.

Photo Via DreamWorks

I did come across this negative article on the Daily Mail, and started to feel differently until I read the negative comments backing up my previous point. The books coming free is in no way meant to promote unhealthy eating its just an easy way of reaching a target market. I don’t agree with the article but then again they have a slight tendency to put a negative spin to anything don’t they?

Lastly ‘Paranormal Activity 2’ used bloggers, word of mouth and curiosity in human nature in order to market the sequel.

A selection of 20 second clips of the film were sent to influential bloggers, each one getting a different clip, with no explanation. Therefore as soon as they were posted online a stir was created from people speculating what they could be from and if it was true that they were confirmations of ‘Paranormal Activity 2’. Discussions and interlinking occurred between the blogs as people realised there were other clips similar cropping up all over the place, again creating a discussion and a curiosity.

See the trailer here

Photo Via E- junkie

So now they had instilled a motivation for people to find out more they created a ‘demand’ campaign in which people had to demand/vote for the movie to be shown in theatres. Once it hit 1,000,000 the film would be released.

Fans were encouraged to share the campaign via facebook, twitter or links in order to get the votes up. It was a trending topic on twitter for a while, everyone was talking about it.

The final stage was to send out video’s of audience reactions to the trailers and clips, just to prove how scary the film is and to, yet again, create a curiosity to see for themselves.

This to me is the most effective of all 3 campaigns I have outlined, they have hit the target audience perfectly and have subtly motivated people to see the film by giving them the control.

Check out this article http://mashable.com/2010/11/29/social-media-movie-marketing/ on mashable about how social media is changing the way films are marketed, some excellent examples!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 22 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

One Semester Down…

As I am about to leave Leeds to travel back home to London thought I’d write a reflective post.

Time goes so quickly! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my first 4 months at Leeds Met and cant wait for semester two! never in my life have i been excited at continuing my education, but i truly am!

A friend of mine recently set up his own Leeds based dance company (aptly named ‘The Dance Company UK”) and kindly asked me to be Marketing Director. As I have danced for as long as i can remember and recently had to stop due to the move up north it couldn’t be more perfect, i get to be around dancers and involved in the scene, whilst putting my PR skills to good use by being in charge of marketing and advertising the company. It has some really exciting things planned for the future, special guest teachers flying in especially to Leeds, tours abroad, all sorts, so I have a lot of faith that it could be a real success! The dancers were only chosen last week and more auditions are in January, (if intersted visit the facebook page here) so it’s just getting started!

Hopefully got a few more work experience opportunities coming up in the future, all to be finalised sooner rather than later hopefully so that’s very exciting too! They’re in different sectors to anything i’ve done before so am excited at the prospect of learning how PR is applied to different areas.

The ‘Snow White’ Debate…

I love films. And am an avid cinema goer and blockbuster customer.

I recently watched the trailers for the two new Snow White film adaptions, and to me it is painfully clear which one will do better. They have both taken completely opposing views on the adaptions, one going down the lighthearted comedy route, whilst the other being a darker, ‘lord of the rings-esque’ battle adventure.

The first one to be released is Relativity Media’s ‘Mirror Mirror’ with a set US date of 16th March 2012. With a promising cast boasting Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer (the social network) and newcomer Lily Collins as Snow White (Phil Collins’ daughter and ‘Abduction’ star) it has all the credentials to be a good film. With the added bonus of director  Tarsem Singh, his previous work includes many music video’s, the famous ‘we will rock you’ pepsi commercial and most recently ‘Immortals‘ I had high hopes.

”A wicked enchantress (Roberts) schemes for control of an orphan’s (Collins) throne and the attention of a prince (Hammer). When Snow White’s beauty wins the heart ofthe prince that she desperately pursues, the Queen banishes her to the forest, where a man-eating beast hungrily awaits. Rescued by a band of highway robbers, Snow White grows into a young woman determined to take back her realm from the treacherous Queen.”

That was until the trailer came out. Then i began to realise that ‘Snow white and the huntsman’ was looking like a far better choice.

See what I mean? It has potential, but it’s simply not very funny. When the sole purpose is to create an upbeat, funny version of a disney classic I would hope that it can back up its claims and many others agree.

Now on to Snow White and the Huntsman.  Universal studios have taken a very different approach and have turned the Disney classic into an action adventure, with a release date only three months after ‘Mirror Mirror’ its UK date is 1st June 2012. This time the cast consists of Twilight star Kristen Stewart as Snow White ( a perfect choice in my opinion, and not because I am one of those twilight fans, from an unbiased view too, she’s perfect for it) whilst the Malicious Queen is played by Charlize Theron and Huntsman is Thor’s Chris Hemsworth are up against Sam Clafin as the prince.

”In the original story, The Evil Queen (Theron)  orders The Hunstman (Hemsworth) to take Snow White into the woods and kill her, but instead lets her go. Here, the two are chained together for part of the movie as they make their escape. The Huntsman is not a love interest (fear not, the prince is still in the story) but acts more as a mentor, teaching the teen girl to fight and survive.”

Considering the movie is still being filmed in England at the moment the trailer looks great!

I have no idea how or why both film distributors decided to release two adaptions so close together, I would have thought one (which ever was bought first) would have the rights and the other would have to wait, but for whatever reason they’re both being released  in the same year. Competition will most definitely be fierce, but with SWATH generating far better reviews and excitement than mirror mirror it will be interesting to see how they both market themselves nearer the time.

I think Relativity have a lot of work to do in order to generate some good PR for the film, or i think it is going to fail miserably up against SWATH. Although they have aptly timed the release for easter time obviously aiming their market to younger audiences, but I think SWATH appeals to a wider audience, pre teens will like it , my age group will like it as we were the ‘disney’ generation and it appeals to adults too.

Some competition is always healthy i think but not necessarily between two of ‘the same’ film, I will most definitely be seeing SWATH and would only see the other if someone paid for my ticket or if my younger sisters wanted to!

Reebok’s new stunt and why I think they can do better…

*First off apologies for being a day late, had a busy weekend and was toying with two ideas for a blog post, took me a while to decide as the other option is very much still going on at the moment so i decided to wait until a bit later on, maybe next fortnight!

After coming across this PR stunt by Reebok, my first thoughts were, clever idea I like it.

The sportswear company commissioned 3D street artists to create the painting in Canary Wharf to promote it’s ‘crossfit’ campaign. They’re providing exercise equipment to the public to use and the 3D painting certainly adds an interesting twist!

They managed to break the world record for largest and widest 3D floor art work, the released video shows the Guinness world record officials assessing the artists’ efforts and handing over the coveted certificate. It all sounds very good so far but I couldn’t help notice a few things that I would have done different or altered.

Firstly the video uploaded to ‘Reebok’s’ YouTube account has a spelling mistake in the title. Little bit worrying, as I am in my first year of my degree, and it has already been hammered into us all to check and double check for spelling errors as they are so easily done.

Secondly, now I am no video/photography expert but I think the video could have been shot more effectively. The close extreme close ups of the measuring tape, and over excited chitter chatter of the artist’s articulating his excitement at the prospect of winning diverts from the message. It wasn’t until I did some further googling that I even realised the actual point of the campaign. There is no mention of the Reebok crossfit equipment being available for public, no mention of why they decided to design the specific lava/rock looking 3D picture, and hardly any decent shots of the entire Art Work, which is kind of the whole point of the stunt.

They could have included more shots of the public utilising the equipment, of all ages, to show its accessible to anyone, takes a few moments of your busy schedule, highlighting the importance of squeezing a bit of exercise into you day to day life.

I reckon with these few tweeks and perhaps some more ‘expert’ changes that the campaign could have gained a lot more coverage, perhaps even have the street artists letting the public have a go at drawing the picture, letting them shade in certain areas etc, so they all feel included in the entire process?

So Reebok it’s a good idea, but when you’re competing with Nike and Adidas I think a little more attention to detail wouldn’t go a miss.

Why I prefer twitter over facebook

I joined twitter on 17^th March 2009, almost three years ago now. For two of these years I had no facebook, so twitter was the only social media network I used. Yes, shock horror, I survived for 2 ENTIRE years without facebook. Primarily so I focused on my exams but as time went by I relied on facebook less and less to keep me ‘up to date’. Why do I need to know whom is ‘getting ready for a night out with her girlies’? most certainly not me. Friends begged, and I honestly mean it, begged me to get facebook back, but this made me less and less willing to. It was and has never been my primary method of communication so it was unnecessary.

Why did I eventually get it back after so long? University. Asides from not wanting to look like a complete social recluse (sad that society conventions put this pressure on me I know but everyone is new at university, I didn’t want this to make me seem ‘odd’) and also to keep in touch with friends at their respective universities.

Anyway I digress, twitter. Why I love it:

• You can’t sit for hours and hours and waste time. Its simply statuses.

• As shallow as this sounds I like the fact celebrities use it, makes them far more personable and gives insights into their lives. There are some very popular ones that everyone likes to follow whether it be because of their humorous tweets (like music artist @example) or constant picture/tumblr/music sharing (like 90210 actress @msGILLIANZINZSER) or because they always reply to their fans (like @rihanna)

• Trending topics, its good to see what people are talking about, what’s making people happy, amused, angry, sad. I tend to keep mine set to ‘worldwide’ so I know that they are the most influential topics of the moment. If you ignore the Justin Bieber fan related ones some are actually useful. Twitter is extremely popular; in PR it is imperative to know what is making people tick.

I frequently wake up in the morning and find out some breaking news from it. I believe I heard of the Haiti earthquake first on twitter and most celebrity deaths as a result. (I am not saying use twitter solely as your source of news as the trouble is there is no credible source, so take what you read with a pinch of salt unless a regarded news account has confirmed)

• Other PR students. I used twitter to speak to a few second years when I was deciding what university to go to. It was a big decider for me. I also follow/interact with many other students on the course at other universities and in other years. If you think about it, (if all goes to plan) we are all the future PR practitioners/ business owners of the world. Wouldn’t it be better that we were all connected? Plus some of them tweet really good content. They inspire me in fact to do better myself.

A good place to look for some of the best students to follow is on the new social student ranking here set up by Richard Bailey. See if you can spot me up there!

• PR companies/journalists/other industry pro’s all tweet regularly. Whether it be journalists  PR’s  or news sources like @prweekuk  @CIPR_UK 

All very handy, and definitely keep me learning about PR.

Those are my top reasons for using twitter. It’s not all about seeing what your friends are up to, in this day and age it’s a very good way to immerse yourself in the industry and interact with professionals. I’ve received tweets from a fair share of celebrities but the ones that counted were ones from practitioners, opportunities have arisen as a result that wouldn’t have been possible without twitter.