And So The Journey Begins!

On Monday July 2, 2012 I began my PR placement at Linc Integrated. Linc is a marketing and communications consultancy in Perth, that is quite well known for their work and focus on achieving results for their clients. I was very excited for my first day as I knew I would be able to be a part of something really big that week.

After arriving at Linc in the morning (and after having trained it for the first time in about five years - it was an experience, I’ll leave it at that) I met my supervisor and the rest of the PR team. My supervisor Rebecca introduced me to the Linc team (which includes the dog 'Poppy') and took me for a tour around the office. Although Bec would be my supervisor I would be supported by the rest of the Linc PR team, which included a few full-time and part-time members as well as other employees from different disciplines who help to support the work done for their clients.

We started off with a briefing between the team, and I got the low-down on why this week was to be one of the biggest and busiest of their year. I was to spend my first week of work experience assisting them to carry out Bankwest’s Six Days of Happy. Essentially the point of Six Days of Happy is to celebrate the opening of the clients’ new flagship store in the city. The fact it ran for six days was to relate it to the feature of the store being open six days a week, which differentiates the client from their competitors. Each of the days would have a distinct event at the flagship store in the city as part of their celebrations.

The events are listed here in a media release.

In order to familiarise myself for the first day "Main Event Monday" I took a good read of the running sheets, media releases, spokesperson briefs and speech notes. It was then time to set out and manage the event!

 

 

When we headed to the store I got to meet the clients’ team. After helping to set up outside and ensuring appropriate brand coverage, our special guests began to arrive. Main Event Monday was to feature the Western Force going head-to-head in a fitness challenge against the WA Ballet and Nathan Pocock from the Force would also be doing a book signing in the store.

I'll admit I was pretty excited about this, mainly because I have a background in ballet and I frequently have the argument of "dancers are the fittest" with my boyfriend who is a sports fanatic! Main Event Monday was going to finally set the argument straight once and for all!

Overall the event went really well, the WA Ballet smashed the Force boys in the five fitness exercises (as I knew they would) and we managed to get quite a few people down to watch. It turned out to be a crowd-pleaser but Monday was only the beginning!

On Tuesday we headed down for another big event. We were going to have Andrew Embley and Josh Kennedy from the West Coast Eagles (WCE) come down for a handball competition and some merchandise signing for "Tackle Tuesday". When we arrived it was really noticeable that the Eagles’ appearance would be a key driver for public attendance. Die-hard fans were already waiting for them to arrive before we got there. It was also essential that branding was in the appropriate places, particularly for the signing inside the store where photos would be taken of the players. I had the very fun job of coordinating the mascots which included Rick “The Rock” from West Coast and the clients own Gary the Squirrel. It was quite fun being put in charge of making sure they were in the right places at the right time to ensure photo opportunities.

  

In comparison to Monday, Channel 9 came down to the event to film and the footage ended up on their news report that evening, which was a great result. I also ended up appearing in a shot, which gave my mum a good laugh when we watched the news and managed to get my own signed autograph and photo with the boys (I must learn to not blink in photographs!).

When I returned to Linc on Wednesday everyone was buzzing! It was "Wi-Fi Wednesday", which would showcase the first Tweetathon in Australia! Every tweet between 8am and 6pm which included @Bankwest @Telethon7 with the hashtag #tweetforkids would result in the client donating $1 per person to the charity. I was really impressed with this idea when I heard about it as it’s good to see social media being put to use for a great cause. I also knew I was going to be facing a very big day that would be incredible to be a part of. Of course, as the event was on Twitter we all spent most of the day with our eyes literally glued to the computer screen. Every few minutes one of us would announce one of the high profile tweets we saw to the others, and there were a lot! My job was to ensure I screen captured all the high profile tweets. I ensured I got everyone who was well known and had a lot of followers. There were some big, BIG names including, Johnny Ruffo, Mel, Kochie and Mark Barretta (from Sunrise), Jen Hawkins, Megan Gale, Matthew Pavlich, Danny Green, Mick Malthouse, I mean the list just went on and on and on. I must have compiled about 25 pages of tweets just from high profile people.

Check out some of the coverage online by following this link.

We also headed down to the flagship store where the client had arranged staff to wear special shirts whilst tweeting outside the store in the plaza (again, note the branding placements). Channel 7 had come down to film as it was the first event of its kind to happen. The Telethon Director and Fat Cat also came down and tweeted in the shots which helped to display the clients’ partnership.

It was really interested going down to see this because you just don't realise how different something is from how it appears on television and how 10 seconds of footage is drawn from 10 minutes of actual film, not to mention hours and hours of preparation. What was even more interesting on Wednesday is that I got to see an on the spot interview. This really showed the importance of briefing your client and preparing Q + A documents, as well as spokesperson briefs.

  

Overall it was a really exciting day to be a part of and follow so closely. It demonstrated not only the power of social media but also how to properly manage it. At the end of the day we ended up with 10,890 tweets and the event ended up getting great coverage on Sunrise in the morning, who promoted it during their show and on Channel 7 news that night (I also made another appearance in a shot which generated more laughs from my family).

Although I didn't help with a lot of the preparation in the lead up to the event, I learnt a lot about event management in those first three days of my internship ,which included:

·        If something can go wrong, it will go wrong!: As prepared as Linc were you can't control the inevitable, one of the Force boys was late and there really isn't anything that could have been done (you can't magically make someone appear as much as you try).

·        You can't control the media: This was probably the eye opener for me. Linc had managed to get into contact with Channel 10 Monday morning for Main Event Monday, who said they would head down to get coverage. But unfortunately as one of the Force boys was a bit late the event was delayed a few minutes and Channel 10 ended up leaving for something more newsworthy. Also you can't control what they are going to actually publish so you have to be sure to provide as many opportunities as you can whilst also ensuring you are happy with what could possibly be covered.

·        Micro management:  It was really good coming along and seeing how an event is managed. I payed close attention to my supervisor, Bec was great! She knew what shots the photographer should go for, where they should set up to get the best coverage of branding and making sure everything ran smoothly. I think that it is key in events not only to be prepared, but also to be able to improvise on the spot and know really well what it is that the client is after in terms of results.

·    The importance of sponsorships: The WCE really demonstrated the benefits of an effective relationship; they drew large crowds and got lots of media attention for the client. Their profile in Perth was definitely a huge advantage for Tackle Tuesday, without them I highly doubt we would have been able to get coverage on the news.

·       The power of social media: It is still an extremely new tool! At one stage we were worried the Tweetathon would blow out too much as some of the people who were tweeting had 100,000's of followers on Twitter. This in turn led to some negativity surrounding the idea as one blogger commented that no one would donate that much money so it was unfair. Of course on the flipside, such an innovative concept would not have been possible without these platforms and it was able to reach such a large amount of people in a short amount of time. We even ended up capturing international tweets and some people were still tweeting about it the next day!

·        Make sure you open your eyes in photos and avoid distinctive scarfs your family can recognise on TV: I think this one pretty much speaks for itself.

Well this blog turned out a lot longer than I anticipated, but I really wanted to cover each of these events in the same post to help everyone get a better understanding of how the week was to work together. I had a really great time those first three days and although I have never had a particular interest in event management, it was fantastic to be able to get this insight and I thank Linc for allowing me to do so. Event management is extremely important but I don't think I would be able to focus my career solely on this type of work; nevertheless I still had an amazing time helping out to make the Six Days of Happy a great week!

Until next time!

Laura Tirli