Press releases, press advisories and WAY too much work!

I am glad that so much of the PR skills I have been equipped with at Curtin had come in handy for me during my internship, especially the writing skills.

My company, Citigate, had given me numerous opportunities to draft up press releases for our clients, one of them being Hasbro for Monopoly. Our company had launched a Monopoly writing competition in late July, where fans of the popular board game were asked to describe what they would do with Monopoly money if it were real. All S$20,580 of it! The winner of the competition would ultimately win the prize money of S$20,580 in celebration of Monopoly's 75th Anniversary, and I had the opportunity to draft the release for the details of voting for the entries.

It might not seem like much to anyone else, but the thought of even having a chance at writing a press release which would be distributed to various media platforms islandwide thrilled me! About a week later, I saw the release which I had drafted and it was all over print, radio and online media. Of course the actual version was edited by my more experienced colleagues but then again, I was just so proud to say, "I wrote those four paragraphs in the press release!"

Opportunities to write at my company, made me realize how important it is to have good English writing skills and a solid foundation in writing press releases. I would go as far as to say that if I had no knowledge on how to write a press release, I most probably would have taken three hours to draft up a single release, instead of the one hour I had taken. I would also emphasize that structure is crucial. The basic rule we learn in theory of writing the Who, What, When, Where, Why, How in the first two paragraphs of a press release, applies very much to the real thing.

I had encountered difficulties writing my first media advisory as I was not as familiar with it as I was with a press release. I had asked my supervisor for help and my colleagues were more than willing to teach me how to write one, and I am very appreciative for that. I was not expecting my colleagues to be this helpful towards me, but I was definitely proven wrong. I guess there are still nice people left out there. All hope is not lost!

Another thing that was emphasized often at my PR agency, was staying ethical, and keeping client information confidential. Everybody knows not to divulge client information and details, but I was surprised at the amount of importance placed on confidentiality at Citigate. The head of the Human Resource team at Citigate had told to me that no information could be revealed about any client to anybody I knew, unless the campaigns or publicity efforts had already been launched or if I was given the green light by the company to do so.

In conclusion, the first thing I would like to emphasize in this blog entry is that, everyone should pay attention during PR class! We never know when we might need to put our PR skills to good use, and we wouldn't want to look silly in front of the boss. Secondly, working ethically is key in the industry of PR. Divulging confidential information is a NO-NO and, I certainly am not keen to find out the consequences that await a person for such wrongdoing.

Till the next time! Good evening everyone!