PR is more than just media release after media release

During the semester break I was spending three days a week interning at University Marketing and it was very busy! 

(Written on July 29, 2013)

Open Day is starting to come together but everyone is busy meeting deadlines for various elements of Open Day, the most stressful deadline for University Marketing staff has been the Open Day program.

The program is integral to Open Day as it is the document that visitors receive to find out what’s going on and where it’s happening. This year it caused a huge headache for the staff members involved, as there were so many venue clashes and staff from faculties/ departments at Curtin who were unwilling to change their plans. Asha and I later discovered that several venues would be closed on Open Day due to construction works around campus – yet another issue to consider! All of the problems with the program made me realise how important effective team work and communication are in a place like Curtin, the University Marketing staff worked extremely well together to edit the program and ensure they made it to print. Asha and I realised that there definitely needed to be an easier way of putting together the program in the initial stages, something which I'm sure will come up in the evaluation phase of the project. 

Halfway through my internship, the Fun Zone is final coming together! Asha and I have decided on a ‘Carnival’ theme for the Fun Zone. The aim is to have a Carnival Marquee with activities such as a laughing clown sideshow game, face painters, balloon twisters, a storyteller, petting zoo, free popcorn and much more! There will also be a separate craft marquee complete with a REmida carnival mask making workshop which uses materials made from recycled bits and pieces.

For an event like Open Day you have to consider so many things, including the risks involved with running such a large-scale event. Whilst I was confirming activities for the Fun Zone, I was tasked with writing up a risk assessment for each activity in the Fun Zone.  This was a time consuming task but part of my role was to ensure that we were aware of potential risks and had appropriate measures in place if any of the potential risks/ hazards were to occur. Completing the risk assessments definitely affirmed the importance of practicing ethically, something that is reiterated heavily in all public relations units. There are so many important stakeholders on campus - employees, students, potential students and their families, so ensuring that Curtin maintained a safe environment and had considered all the risks was highly important, not only for safety but to ensure we had a strategy if anything did go wrong. 

I have also learnt about paid and unpaid media strategies Curtin is using to promote Open Day. University Marketing is in charge of the paid media strategy which has focused on broadcast advertising on radio stations such as Nova and print advertisements on buses, bus stops and billboards outside the university and advertisements in newspapers. Curtin has rebranded Open Day as 'Open Day Catalyst' (i.e. a catalyst for change) so all the merchandise and print advertisements have changed from previous years. The idea of the print ads is for them to look like a festival poster, like a Big Day Out or Groovin' The Moo ad, in order to attract the attention of a younger demographic. 

A Open Day Catalyst advertisement in The Weekend West

The public relations department at Curtin works on the unpaid media side, mostly targeting local newspapers due to the 'community' feel of the event, and they achieved coverage in the Canning Times in the lead up to Open Day. We also worked with Future Students to inform high schools and students about Open Day through their newsletters and I also wrote a short piece for Curtin Wire, which is Curtin’s e-newsletter for high school students. This taught me that public relations is so much more than writing media releases – although this is an integral part to media relations there are many other ways to communicate with your key stakeholders. Coming into my internship I had (wrongly) assumed that PR mostly involved writing media releases, although I have been writing a lot my job has involved many other public relations tasks. 

During the last few weeks of my internship it was my 21^st birthday – Asha very kindly agreed to let me have the day off and also went to the effort of buying me a birthday cake and a small gift! It was a lovely pre-birthday and during my time at University Marketing Asha has made me realise that although we are working on a high pressure project, it doesn't need to be fast paced and stressful all the time. The office environment is still really warm and fun even though everyone is working hard to achieve their deadlines.