The art of triple checking

9 September 2014

I had to learn the hard way that the client can let you down.

Over the course of my internship I have started to take on a lot more client work for one of our biggest clients. However, the relationship is set up such that, the internal marketing team works with us, their consultancy, to come up with and organise stories that might be of interest to the media. The problem with this is that we often rely on them to play the ‘middle man’ and sometimes details are mistranslated or forgotten.

I’m fast learning that direct contact with the parties immediately involved in the media opportunity is necessary, especially when I’m responsible for liaising with the media regarding where and when media opportunities are occurring.

I was responsible for organising a photocall for an ice bucket challenge that our client was doing in memory of a resident who had passed away from ALS. I managed to secure a few local reporters who were interested in covering this story and part of my role was to coordinate the timing of their arrival, so that their photographers could capture pre, during and post event images. One day prior to the event I made email contact with the team leader organising the challenge at the site and confirmed the time and location that the challenge would take place. I then relayed this information to the reporters via email that afternoon, securing a time for them to attend the event the following day. I really thought I’d covered all bases to make sure this photocall ran smoothly.

However, this was not the case. There was a last minute change to the timing of the event – it was brought forward by an hour. Therefore the reporters arrived after the challenge had taken place, resulting in the photographer missing the photo opportunity and the reporter missing an interview opportunity.

Successful Outcome 

Fortunately, the story was still published. I received a call from the journalist who attended, informing me that the event had taken place earlier than advised and that they had missed the photo opportunity. Luckily I had a good relationship with the journalist and when I explained what had happened, they understood. To make it up to them, I managed to track down some images that had been taken at the centre and arranged for a telephone interview, so the story still ran.

What I learnt 

My first mistake was assuming that nothing would change from one day to the next and my second, was not triple checking everything the morning of the event.

Additionally, I learnt that although it’s in the best interest of our client to accommodate the media, the parties involved, for this particular client, are usually based in centres around Western Australia, not in head office, so they don’t understand the protocol when it comes to the changing of event timings, nor the value of not wasting a reporter’s time. I learnt that clients require explicit instructions – the process and consequences of not following this process need to be clearly explained to them, preferably by phone, rather than by email.

Finally, I learnt that relationship development is the most important aspect of public relations – with both the media and with clients. This is also best done in person or via telephone – emails are less personal.