It’s the week we’ve all been anticipating

 

This first week as a PR intern was all and nothing I had expected at the same time.

I scored an internship at Mills Wilson, a Public Relations Consultancy with offices based in Nedlands. Mills Wilson is a specialized consultancy, with many clients in the oil and gas, construction, government and not-for-profit sectors.

I was immediately briefed on a project as I walked in, I’ll brief you as I was that morning.

Client: The Gascoyne Food Council

What: Chefs for the Gascoyne

When: 19^th April 2015

Where: Perth Cultural Centre – Urban Orchard

Why: A fundraising event to support the devastated Gascoyne region in the wake of Cyclone Olwyn

How: Perth’s top chefs would get together to cook up a storm; all proceeds from the ticket sales would go to support the Gascoyne region

I was also briefed about the message the consultancy wanted to send out to the public, and that message varied for different stakeholders.

Message to the Gascoyne: Perth cares, we’re helping you

Message to Perth: Buy a ticket, come to the event

Message to WA: Donate your produce, help the Gascoyne

The first thing I did was some intensive research in what happened to the Gascoyne. I scoured the internet for articles and websites explaining the significance of the Gascoyne as a farming region. I made myself an expert.

I feel like that research was possibly the most important task I could have undertaken that day. Talking with my supervisor, it became clear that research is an essential part of working in a PR consultancy. When faced with multiple clients, it’s important to know as much as you can about them. At the end of the day, you’re going to be the communicator, and you must reflect their true image at all times.

After a heavy dose of research, I was handed my first assignment, which was to compile a list of all relevant media that we would contact to communicate the event. The key word here is relevant. When writing a PR submission for assignment purposes, it’s easy to get away with a long list of media outlets that might or might not be interested.  It became apparent that it would not be the case in the real PR world. I was told to treat each media contact as if I was personally going to communicate to them. I was told that in the real PR world, there’s no time to mess around with irrelevant contacts. It makes sense doesn’t it? But was I completely aware of that after going through all those PR units at Curtin? Not really.