Experiencing the other side of the RAC office.

Even though the RAC office is no stranger in terms of atmosphere as I work there on a casual basis, my first day still gave me the nerves; I was really excited.

Danielle and Chloe who both work for the Roadside Assistance division greeted me at 8:30am at the Joondalup office. Danielle is a Product and Marketing manager, and Chloe is a Marketing assistant. I sat on John’s desk, the Executive Motoring and Marketing Manager who accepted my internship, logged on and received files from Danielle. These files were to familiarize and prepare myself for my first meeting. Danielle had me read two marketing plans; One was the 2013 marketing plan, and the second was the final draft for 2014. These were in the form of PowerPoint slides, and each consisted of approximately 140 pages. The meeting only had myself, Danielle and Chloe. It went on for two hours, and it gave me the insight on how Roadside Assistance was going in terms of performance, and what plans the team had for the next financial year.

After the meeting, I was given my first project by Chloe. The RAC 10 years ago had installed patrolman meeting point signs at shopping centre, universities and hospitals to assist the process of finding where the member is at these places. However, as the RAC had undergone a rebrand, and because they no longer utilize the signs as they found it much more sufficient to meet members at their cars. My job was to find both the email and telephone details of these places. The folder consisted just over 100 shopping centres, hospitals and universities with the signs locations. By the end of the day I had all the information needed typed up on the excel spread sheet ready for me to get in contact with. Chloe and I typed up an email explaining what we wished for them to do and why. The places I was not able to get an email for were going to be contacted via telephone at a later date.  Funny enough, my first reply was from a gentleman who was quite direct in terms of if they were going to remove the signs it would be at our (RAC) expense. At this point, I knew this task was going to be interesting. -Watch this space.

Upon my second day, I was still as nervous as the first day as I was still getting my head around everything, however, the difference being I was slightly more prepared as I had an insight of how the department functions. My second project handed to me was by Anna, Marketing assistant for Driving and Auto service centres. This project is called the ‘Competitors analysis’ as it consisted of finding information about seven close competitors to the RAC Auto service centre: Number of locations, services, complimentary services and website notes to say the least. The second part of the project was to get in contact with these competitors, three suburbs from each company, and ask for quotes in regards to three vehicles - I found his quite fun. The quotes are then put into an excel spread sheet, similar to ones used for previous competitor analysis’s. The third step is to get an average price for each company. This is the step I am currently on and I could already note that the results are quite interesting. The final step for the competitor analysis is to write out a report, this will highlight key attractions that maybe used by the RAC.

In between these two ongoing projects, I was given small tasks to do in case I wanted a break from them for a tad. These included: Organising the storage room where flyers are kept, looking through pictures on getty.com for the use of a free2go campaign and organising envelopes containing Auto service Vouchers.

I then was invited to the Marketing teams monthly team meeting, this was a tad daunting as I had only met a select number of the team prior to it. The meeting was quite interesting, lasted two hours as it covered several topics such as health and safety, issues they had, progress in projects and a guest speaker from the branding team joined to introduce and explain the new campaign they have implemented. We did a small activity where we were handed a blank sheet of paper, had to close our eyes and get instructions. At the end of the instructions what we should have had was a paper aeroplane, what I had was anything but that. We then had a competition on who was able to throw theirs the furthest. This was really enjoyable as there were laughs and I got a feel of everybody’s personality. At that point, I knew I was going to enjoy my internship with them. 

In a nut shell, these two days were full on, but surely something I was looking forward to experiencing.

Nuha.

Internal and external are equally important

The more I work in a professional PR and marketing environment, the more I am realising the importance of internal public relations and communications. Through out my degree I have only really considered the external uses of PR for a company and the strategies used for stakeholders existing outside of the company. But in this position I am coming to see how imperative it is that staff are given just as much attention in the communication of internal messages as the external stakeholders.

This week I am tasked with the monthly "Highlights" news letter for all of our in-house guests. I am expected to produce content, select images, make the appropriate calls to action, design the letter according to brand standard in the program InDesign and then outsource it to a printing company, to be delivered to both our Hotel (Rendezvous Grand Hotel Perth Scarborough) and Rendezvous Studio  Hotel. Whilst going through all of the different content to be used in the newsletter, food and beverage promotions, Awards from the Australian Hotel Association Awards among them, I realised that if the staff didn't know about these promotions and stories then when our guests asked about them for more information they would not be able to respond to them. My manager emphasised how important it is that promotional briefs re sent out to ALL staff whenever there is something new in the pipeline. These promotions should also be communicated in the staff newsletter so that the entire staff body is clear on the messages being put out to the public and what direction the organisation is heading in.

Putting together the newsletter is incredibly fun for me. The content and images I get to place in the design program really make it look like a professional document, and considering that it is placed in 336 rooms for all of our guests to see, it makes me feel quite important :) As though I am really contributing.

Using the brand standard manual for the newsletter also emphasises to me the importance of streamlining your brand. Whilst creativity and originality is important in producing a PR image that stimulates interest and attention, a brand that communicates a clean, clear message that does not differentiate in different channels is even more important. Using a brand manual allows for a cleancut image of the brand to be perceived by the consumer audience so that there is never any confusion about what is associated with the brand and what is not. I believe that this stifles creativity slightly but is mart and parcel of working in a massive organisation like Rendezvous Hospitality Group.

The Power of Social Media & More!

I started my official placement with TPAL Clothing, a local WA fashion label that aims to bring fashion forward pieces online to girls around the world.

One of my main responsibilities at TPAL will be social media managing. This involves uploading data and monitoring TPAL’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and blog. Personally, I am very interested in fashion and therefore “follow” and “like” a number of clothing labels and retailers. However, I have never completely understood the power of social media in this industry until I watched the following interview with Sophia Amoruso, Founder and CEO of the incredibly popular online store, Nasty Gal.

It is in this interview and basic research thereafter that I learnt that Nasty Gal was once an eBay account that sold vintage clothing. Since its inception as a retail outlet in 2006, it has grown by over 500% every year, with no marketing team, instead relying purely on the power of social media. Today, they have hundreds of thousands of followers across all social media platforms, using their #NastyGal hashtag to leverage and promote their brand to their current and potential customer base.

I now have a greater understanding of the huge potential of social media if it is accessed correctly and consequently am looking forward to the challenge in assisting TPAL to grow its customer base through creative yet relative material. Yet, I find it difficult to understand how social media can have such a huge consequence to the growth of a business, so much so that a company of that size does not need a marketing team!?!

This pushed me toward investigating more into TPAL as a business. During my initial introduction, it became increasingly apparent to me that the role of PR within an organisation is vast, consequently impacting many other departments of a business. For example, this week upon focusing on the development of TPAL’s brand and company image, I have had to work closely with other areas of the business.

Operating diligently with management to understand thoroughly the mission, vision, goals and company values of the organisation, has assisted me in understanding the image and direction of TPAL to be portrayed to the public. TPAL’s CEO and Founder, Jessica Owen, believes greatly in communicating with the public in a synced way that portrays the same company image through every communication. She wants each message to clearly communicate her business values and operations but with a twist of TPAL’s business creativity.

To ensure this, I’ve had to work closely with TPAL’s design and IT team working on product offering and website content. With the design team I undertook a basic competitor analysis, looking at what competitors were offering their customers, helping to decipher TPAL’s point of difference when compared to other online fashion competitors.

Conversely, with the IT team, I was encouraged to explore the current website and suggest points of improvement. One of the major downfalls I found with their website was their “About Us” page that appeared dated and basic upon comparison to competitors. I have now been given the responsibility of updating this page next week.

Through gaining a greater insight into the foundations of an online retailer, I now understand the even greater importance of a digital  footprint to push more and more customers toward your website. This is logically achieved through successful social media strategies such as competitions, insightful content and capturing graphics, all to which will be included in my upcoming social media posts!

That's all for now,
Kirsten