Challenges of competition

In every business, there are always going to be strong competitors unless you provide a highly specialised service. There is no exception for Nightclubs in Perth.

At Metro City, they had made the decision to relaunch a couple of rooms within the 
I've been compiling my report as I've been doing my placement and it has been really useful in terms of making valid contributions to the business. As you all probably know, Metro City has a predominantly Asian crowd. There are nightclubs which hold monthly events which directly affect the amount of patrons we would get on our Saturday nights.

Perhaps the biggest competition for Metro City Saturday nights is Dragonfly:

Dragonfly:
Held on the first weekend of every month (Friday and Saturday night alternatively, Dragonfly boasts “the most decadent night complete with champagne showers” (Facebook, 2012)It has been running for little over a year now and already has a dedicated following. Their online presence is limited, with a small amount of information available, they rely purely on word of mouth promotion and each month, but do a short lead up campaign to increase the amount of hype surrounding the event. 



Our Saturday night just gone was exceptionally quiet, it didn't help that the night before had been Asian Students In Australia's cocktail party - already bringing regular clientèle to Metros on a different night. The PR for the R&B lounge had mainly been controlled by Ken who is head of promotions. He posted using most of the social media that Metros is involved in but that was about it. I took the initiative to write a media release but our General Manager wasn't around to approve it and no-one else felt that they were in the right position to OK anything to do with media.
There's been a recent increase in the amount of Asian targeted events as well - more recently K-Holic which was a highly successful Korean Pop themed night. I think it is a good PR move to play on the perceived weakness and to embrace the asian presence. It is what it is, why try to fight it when it is working. It's probably the biggest image "problem" that Metro City suffers from, just like Metropolis Fremantle is where all the white kids go (no offence meant). If Metros embraced this a little bit more and maybe ran with a theme, who knows what could happen!

But it just goes to show that sometimes no matter how hard you work on your public relations plans, things just aren't always going to work out and you need to be prepared to accept that. The R&B lounge is a perfect example. The best thing to do is to acknowledge what went wrong and why and try to find a worthy solution to that.

And sometimes you really just can't battle the weather, Saturday night was bitterly cold!

Hope you are all keeping well. Not long now!

Nicole

The livALIVE Media Launch – My Experience in the Up’s and Down’s of Event Planning

While the picture above is perhaps more relevant to wedding planners it rings true in a sense for a media launch because when you’re planning an event you have to think of EVERYTHING. The pressure to do this is tenfold when it is a media launch – your job is to secure coverage and that is determined entirely by the success of the event you hold.

My second week at Linc centred on the launch of the livALIVE campaign. The process was undoubtedly an interesting one. It began with documents – a lot of them – that needed to be written, proofed and then proofed again. I was responsible in large part for the action plan along with proofing and fact checking - an undervalued part of the process I feel. If the media were to come across an untrue statistic or statement, the brand might have been in the paper for all the wrong reasons and as we savvy PR folk know, it is an absolute fallacy that ‘all publicity is good publicity’.

Just ask any of the cast members of Jersey Shore. They may be very public.. But their reputations aren’t exactly favourable!

As with every event, what could go wrong did go wrong – the most notable instance of this being when the key speaker pulled out the day before. It was a mad rush to find a replacement and update everything according to the last minute change, but we got there.

The event itself was hectic but enjoyable and produced a reasonable result. Unfortunately, a breaking news story involving an 80km police chase dominated the news that night. As a direct result, the camera crews that the PR girls had spent several hours talking to that morning, who had promised coverage, did not show up. This is the dilemma of every PR launch – the news for the day can turn at any moment from ‘slow’ to ‘breaking’. However, coverage was received in The West (online and print) and on Perthnow along with several Community News stories.

Another important lesson learnt that day for me was the difficulty of dealing with clients. Despite the immense effort the team put into the event, the client felt it was not enough and that the event had been an expensive failure. To combat this, I was asked to prepare a document detailing the outcomes of the launch (part of which can be seen below).

PR Valuing is a point of contention for many PR pro’s. Most resent the practise as it reduces the value of PR to a monetary figure which can’t ever be accurately recorded. A reputation is a collection of societal impressions; not a number. Yet sometimes we resort to a table with dollars in it to show a client who might not be able to grasp it any other way. It is another one of the unfortunate quandaries that each PR person will encounter at some point. It is worth remembering that the true value is far greater than what any bean counter might think. Having a good reputation means much more – I read recently that 51 percent of people punish or reward a company based on their perception of that company’s corporate personality. Ask an accountant to put a dollar figure to that..

Well that’s me for the week – hope everyone is having fun at their placements still!

Beth Caniglia

The Fun and Excitement of Safari

The 2011 Australasian Safari has come and gone, and I got to witness the crazy excitement from Safari HQ. It was so exciting to meet people I had only emailed or talked to on the phone, and see such a large-scale event come together.

Safari HQ was based out at Hillarys, so I was out there in our little media centre helping out as much as I could. I was part media liaison, part writer, part phone operator. We had accredited media arriving, and I assisted to help them fill out forms, set up their wi-fi and collect media kits. I updated an event alert I had written previously and sent that out to the relevant media, and I made numerous phone calls for the media call we had. This was my biggest task, and unfortunately wasn't as rewarding as I'd hoped. It’s amazing how many journalists or newsrooms you talk to – once you actually get through to them – that say they will send someone, and then don’t. Unfortunately it’s the nature of the beast, as you never know if something bigger and better is going to happen and steal the medias attention. Even so, our media call went great! We had some of our competitors, such as Craig Lowndes, Cyril Despres and Annie Seel, lined up with their vehicles for the media to take photos and have a chat too.

Me, in front of our media call at Whitfords Nodes.

Event Director Justin Hunt addressing the media with our competitors.

Later in the day we had our ceremonial start, which I had been sending out event listings and media alerts for in the weeks leading up to it.. We had a great turnout, which felt really rewarding. Knowing that the event was only promoted through PR practices such as media releases, event alerts and partnerships is a great thing to be aware of. 

Crowd shot at the Ceremonial Start at Hillarys Boat Harbour.

The final car takes off amidst the crowd.

There were no major incidents throughout the two days except for a small problem with our run sheet (we were missing a page). It just enforced the idea that you need to double check everything, as in the rush and confusion of events things can be overlooked or lost. But we adapted and the show went on without a worry.

Over the two days it was great to be involved and see how much effort went into the entire event. After the start at Hillarys the competitors and crew took off on the 8-day adventure and finished up just last Friday. It’s a shame I couldn’t tag along (I blame uni work), so hopefully in the years to come I get to be more involved with the events I work on.

Hope the report writing is coming along well, we're so close to the end now!

Lauren.

Fashion Icon High Tea

Hi again PR students!

I have been at my placement for almost three months now, I get along with the other women well and have lots of fun when I’m working there, so it was very exciting to hear that the company wants me to work for them when my placement finishes!

At the moment we are still working on the Fashion Icon High Tea that Networking WA and Perth Fashion Festival are partnering together for, which is happening this September, I have been given the job to find companies that are interested in placing products in the gift bags that will be given to all attendees of the event and also finding prizes for the raffles and door prizes, in which all proceeds go the the Starlight Children's Foundation. So far I have contacted a number of companies that were more than happy to offer some sort of product, voucher or gift.

For our gift bags we have products from companies such as Nudie drinks, Muzz Buzz, Lorna Jane, Elmstock tea, Simply Fabulous to name a few and more to be confirmed soon! And for raffle prizes we have vouchers for Seashells Resort and Marie Claire Shoes and a huge gift basket from Jurlique.

We have also been working on sponsor opportunities for the High Tea, which gives only five organisations some great sponsorship benefits, in regards to promotional activities on the day and prior the event.

Networking WA is very happy how the event is going so far, though still so much to do it’s lucky we still have a month till the event so we have plenty of time to get organised. I am really looking forward to the event, as fashion Icons such as Liz Davenport, Maurice Meade, Liz Carberry will be attending the event, and Lisa Fernandez will be hosting the afternoon.

The event is being held at Pan Pacific on Friday the 23^rd September from 3.30-5.30 its sure to be lots of fun, with entertainment from Sara MacLiver, take a look at www.networkingwa.com.au and if any one is interested in coming to the event get a group of friends together and get your tickets before they go!

Take care

Tess Edwards

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Ironman is coming! But you probably already knew that..

Hi everyone,

As I mentioned in my last post I attended an event launch last week for what was supposed to be a surprise announcement of a new event. But I guess in the PR world not everything goes to plan, as we lost the 'surprise' element of our announcement.

Last Wednesday was the announcement that in 2012 the Kellogg’s Nutri-grain IronMan Series is coming back to Perth and will be accompanied by a new, public participation event called the Indian Ocean Classic (IOC).

We had a stakeholder breakfast bright and early for members of the local surf life saving clubs and surrounding suburbs. I had never heard of anything like this before, and thought it was a great idea to get influential people from each of the affected communities on board with the project. Guy Leech, former IronMan and one of the forces behind the IOC, was one of the speakers who talked to everyone about both the events.

The breakfast was followed by a press conference with the Minister for Tourism Kim Hames.

The announcement of both events was planned to be exclusive on the Wednesday. But it turned out, somehow, The West Australian found out the day before, and ran the story on the Wednesday we were announcing it! Kind of took away the surprise element of our day. Even so, the event was a success. The breakfast ran smoothly, and the press conference, albeit considerably smaller then anticipated, also went well.

I think the main thing I took away from this, which a lot of people in the events areas have been talking about, is that you have to be prepared for the fact that not everything is going to go to plan. Whether it’s in the running of the day, or in the lead up, you need to be aware of everything and learn to be accepting and flexible.

Now that the launch is over, I’m back to working on my two main projects, the Australasian Safari and the Yallingup Surfilm Festival. With the Safari I’m helping to set up newspaper articles in some of the competitors local papers. Once again, a lot of office work, but it’s so nice to receive an email back and be able to set up an interview or an article and know that you’re successful.

That’s all for now, hope everyone’s settled in and working hard!

Lauren.