The PR Agency i ve been working for was working for this Luxurious retail Mall in Kuala Lumpur.
They did have an in house coporate communication but they required our agency for the external PR activities.
I came to realise that the top management of this company and the in house corporate PR did not fully understand the nature and importance of Publci Relations as they felt that PR and PR agencies job was only to get the maximum coverage at any costs.
Also, their in house corporate communication department was overseen by the General Manager of MArketing which made the PR job even tougher as the GM over seeing every step and every decision and even PRESS RELEASES had to go through her for approval.
We felt quite frustrated in the Agency as when events were coming up, ideas were flying everywere and big projects were implemented asn when media advisory were sent to client requests. one day before the event the client made changes and cut down some media activities due to cost which lead to media disatisfaction and they even said that we(the PR agency) lied on the event activities which concluded in not so good media coverage.
My point is, client should realise that the work of Public relations does not stop to only media coverage and the client must understand that PR work which is the communication materials is the sole responsibility of the PR practitioners and not the GM of marketing who asks to review and even edit the press releases adding some information for mere publicity.
Client sometimes makes PR work very difficult to perform and restrict PR movements while in the same time ask for GOLD when they provide only BRONZE to achieve it.
I do feel that PR is also an educational tool to teach the client about what PR really is and what can we do in the long term for your business and not just in terms of media coverage.
Cheers,
Laurent
4 comments:
Hey Laurent,
That's a really good take on the issues between PR and Marketing environments and how sometime they don't seem to fully understand each other. However I feel that with Press Releases it is justified that the General Manager needed to put his/her approval on the release before it was sent out. This is because in the end the GM knows the company the best and is the point of call within the company.
Although you may have not liked his/her changes it is important to note that even working externally you need to have an internal contact in which approvals should be run past. In my work at a government agency the length of approvals was at times ridiculous but necessary to make sure people weren't incorrectly quoted and that any department referred to was aware of the release and that the details within were correct.
I hope relations have improved for both your agency and the mall!
Camilla
Hey Camilla,
It is indeed true that they do not really fully understand each other but i agree on what you said. like it or not when PR agencies work for client there are some levels of administration and procedures which have to be followed.
Relations were tensed for some time but it got better with two way communication from both sides.
Cheers,
Laurent
hey laurent
this is something i have also learnt during my internship. the company i was working for mainly deals with marketing and advertising. so my bosses always wanted to apply the advertising and marketing techniques in the PR projects.so as an intern, when i tried telling them that we were not supposed to do that, well they always told me they have been in the industry for many years, and as far as they are concerned, marketing, advertising and PR are all the same...so i always got confused because even the clients sometimes were not happy....
but i have come to undersatnd that the confusion between advertising, marketing and PR is all in the industry because everybody wants to make money, whatever the cost, not even giving a damn about the procedures....the outcome is what matters....
from what i've learned at my placement at the FPC is that marketing and PR are inter-related. My placement is within the communications departent.
I do think that it is normal for press releases to go through the marketing manager though. Like camilla i'm doing my experience at a governemnt agency and need to get any media releases approved by the communications manager and the GM before they can go out. I was actually talking to my boss about this process and he told me its not just for approval purposes, but also means that these people are in the loop with what has been sent to the media which i think is a great way of looking at it.
Hope all is going well now! Good luck with the rest of your placement!
Rachael
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