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Drinkard, J, January 26, 2005, USAToday.com, Report: PR spending doubled under Bush. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-26-williams-usat_x.htm
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2005, Reading Images: The grammar of visual design. 2nd edn, Routledge, London & New York.
Mero, J, 2007, Public Relations Handbook – Guidelines & Tools ForEffective Public Relations, Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts. Available at: http://healthprv2.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/prhandbook.pdf
Nowlan, M, November 15, 2006, Enterpreneur.com, PR Trends: A Press Release for Social Media. Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/publicrelations/prcolumnist/article170552.html
PRWeb Press Release, 2005, Survey Shows Pay-For-Placement PR Model is Expanding Number of Companies Outsourcing PR Services. Available at: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/4/emw226382.htm
Thangaraj, J, 2004, Fascinating Fonts; Is the power of typography a marketing myth? PRism 2. Available at: http://praxis.massey.ac.nz
As PR practitioners, we are well trained to think on our feet and respond with our wits. But very often, we see in one dimension and in monotone.
Just like a good television advertisement, viewer’s recoginition comes from the bold use of colours and graphics. PR should not be left out. I have seen too many newspaper clippings pale in comparison without a good picture.
Apart from providing quality picture sources, we know that colours are a vital part of meaning-making (Kress & van Leeuwan 2006, p215) and that colours can be effectively used as a semiotic source (Kress & van Leeuwan 2006, p225-228). Kress described the communicative functions of colour to fulfil three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual.
Colours evoke emotions and provoke ideas. Many successful campaigns are built on the use of colurs, such as the Motorola Red Campaign and Pink Ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign.
Typography, on the other hand goes hand in hand with the graphics and colours, which is often overlooked. I have come across a piece of work done by Thangaraj which discusses the Fascinating Fonts.
More work needs to be done…but first of all mindsets need to be changed.
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Back in Singapore, serving as a regional communicator, answering heaps of emails from internal customers makes up most of my day. I began to wonder, how much do I really know about PR?
Yes, I do give strategic counsel and advise for countries to roll out new campaigns and scientific data. But I am not in the frontline of handling external media. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise as I am spared from the irony of pleasing difficult journalists on a day to day basis.
But PR cannot be remote. One needs to know his/her country well – demographics, government policies, people, language, culture, beliefs, trends and lifestyle. And every country is unique. In Asia, especially, it is non-homogeneous. For example, what may work in Hong Kong may not work in China, although they are under the same rule and consist of a majority of Chinese.
I may not have served PR locally but I do know the tricks by observing my colleagues in the region.
For more information on how to be the local angle to national stories, log on to: 101 Public Relations.
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The remote control to a vast new world is now in your mouse! With the increasing popularity and accessibility of the new media, Public Relations has officially gone public. The internet has become public domain, and what better way to reach the masses than online?
PR in cyberspace can be direct and intimate, appealling to the niche, as well as the masses. It fills up the vaccum that newspaper and TV forums cannot fill. It creates human interest that crosses boundaries. It transcends social issues that people are more willing to listen to. Click here to learn How to write a social media release?
On the flip side, the new media may be a provocative threat to businesses. The online community wants nothing but the truth and companies with large online presence may not necessarily provide that. Yes, products and services can be sold online, corporate branding can be promoted online. But companies cannot control nor restrict what customers say about their products and services. Oftentimes, bad publicity spread like nobody’s business on the net. And the result is irreversible damage.
So take heed. the new media is wild and dangerous. But with caution and sincerity, most people and organizations can overcome it to their advantage.
Embrace it now!
Tonight is my last night in Korea after being here for seven days. Having been in the beautiful Jeju island for the most of my stay, I finally had a chance today to see Seoul – the main pulse of the country. The city is bursting with energy and I could feel the rush – everyone seems to know where they are going and gets on with it swiftly. Dinner is eaten on time and by 9pm, most folks would either go for karaoke, beer or Soju-drinking or shopping at the shopping district that never sleeps – Dongdaemum.
The whole purpose of the reason I’m here was to run a regional press conference and attend a series of symposiums and brand meetings in conjunction with the 11th Biennial Meeting of the Asia Pacific Society for Sexual medicine (APSSM). The experience dealing with regional media was not new and everything went rather smoothly.
But what really impressed me was the way Koreans do PR. I had the privilege to work with my local Korean colleagues for this event. They were not only organized, efficient, co-orperative, but was also handling their non-English media very well. This was indeed valuable as it relieved us a lot of the onsite implementation work.
I also learned that PR is about relationship building and not just about sending out press releases or pitching to the media only when the occasion arises.
Will be on the early morning flight back to Singapore…so have to go now.
Kam sa ha mi dah!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Material production, PR toolkit, semiotic
“We will be present at the Asian COGI in Shanghai!”, proudly proclaimed our Regional BU Head. This leads us to a very important regional event this year and the one with the most challenge. We will invite prestigious media from across Asia to attend not one, but two press conferences!
Work is underway to piece up the speakers’ topics, press materials, logistics arrangements etc. I am glad that with my design background, I am able to visualise the “look” and “feel” of these two events, starting with the backdrop production.
As Kress & van Leeuwan (2006, p225) puts it, material production is a semiotic resource made up of surface, substance and tools of production. When combines, the semiotic effects interact to produce meanings. This is what I hope to achieve with the press events – to educate the media and the general public on the meaning of healthcare for Asian women.
Kress & van Leeuwan (2006, p43) also describes that the image serves as the point of departure that anchors the message. Images are powerful, adding value to the mainly text based PR toolkit.
Imagine a journalist receiving a 3D press pack?
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Looking back at the past three quarters of this year, it has been an exhilarating ride when I took over the role of PR with effect from January. With an average of one regional press conference in every two months and various product trainings and annual meetings, I have been jet-setting between home, the rest of Asia and my headquarters in Germany.
Through the travelling, meeting up with counterparts and handling PR on the job, I had never had such a fruitful year than this.
I am currently undertaking a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Media Management with the University of South Australia. With this merit by the middle of next year and sufficient regional experience under my belt, I hope to move on to a role that entails more strategic planning next year.
Wish me luck!
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More and more companies are spending varying amounts of money on Public Relations by engaging the help of an agency, be it for a product launch, a crisis situation or for smaller ad-hoc projects.
The initiation of PR often starts with a press release, which can be released through news wires, one such industry-specific one is PR Newswire.
After the release, it involves money, and often costly. Money is spent on launching a press event to rolling out public outreach activities and promotionl materials. One such huge PR spending in recent history is in the political arena – Bush’s administration in the U.S.
This leads one to ponder if PR money is well spent, or should it be charged only when used?According to a PRWeb survey, 4 in 5 respondents (82%) prefer the pay-for-placement option such as PayPerClip over pay-for-placement agency, in-house PR, or combined.
PR should be valued as part of the marketing mix to effectively communicate and deliver marketing strategies and objectives.
Without any investment on PR, the organization, big or small, will be at stake.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: agency PR, in-house PR, return on investment
I’ve always been led into the debate of whether doing agency PR or doing in-house PR is better. I’ve seen broadcast and print journalists turn to work in agencies, capitalizing on their “famed” experience for credentials. For the past two years, I’ve been on the client side of PR and have no intention to cross to the other side of the fence.
The reasons are simple. Agencies are about pleasing the clients from the start of a pitch presentation to managing the bulk of work (usually through the nights) developing strategies and press kits. Then on the day of the press event, it’s all about being eloquent, making the journalists feel like VIPs and sticking to key messages.
It gets worst when the return on investment does not measure up. Either the news coverage is less than the client’s expectations or are not positive enough. This is when the whole equation of PR efforts does not measure up, making it a daunting task.
At least for me, I have the agency to shift the blame to. 
For more Guidelines and Tools For Effective Public Relations in a hospital setting, please upload the Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts handbook.
Two months ago on August 1, the Institute of Public Relations Singapore (IPRS) successfully organised the “PR 2.0: Engaging Stakeholders in the New Media Landscape”, a full-day conference at the Suntec Convention Centre.
I was one of the eighty participants who had learnt a great deal from the prominent international media experts on how to turn the new media to our advantage.
The conference brought me to another dimension I never knew existed. It was a kaleidoscope of user-generated content at large. Unrestrained, unconventional, undeterred.
The potential of this new platform simply blew my mind!
Put it in PR terms, user-generated content such as blogs, online sharing, podcast etc have now surpassed traditional online forums or banner advertising. Word of mouth has now gone virtual. Media monitoring of blogs can even be done through a portal such as Technorati.
I shall now proclaim: PR folks, engage in new media! (But do not let your guards down…)
