Media Pitch - Scored!

This should most probably be my last post on this blog.

To end it off, I'm gonna post my best (by far) working experience at Ogilvy PR.

I was kind of rambling on about my love-hate relationship with media calls in my previous post. This time round, I got to do a little more than media call downs.

This week, half of my team were on leave. With that, my supervisor and I had to take on some of their job scope, one of which includes media pitching for a client. Although they may sound the same, the difference between media call downs and media pitching was quite big for me. When I did media call downs, all I had to do was to confirm if the media had received the email sent to them earlier.

My supervisor gave me the task to draft the email pitch for the media. Just when I thought the pitch was over, she told me to do the pitch calls for media. You could say I turned blue in the face almost immediately. I think at that point of time, only thing that was running through my head was, "What if I screwed this up?" It was a really important pitch.

So, practice makes perfect. My supervisor got me to draft out what I would say to the media on the phone and had me practice the pitch with her quite a number of times. With much encouragement and practice, I dare say I delivered the media pitching quite well.

Then came the email from a television broadcast station saying they were interesting in interviewing our client for their news program. Boy was I elated!

Okay, to cut the long story short, I became the media liaison between the client and the broadcast station, which was quite an experience for me.

Where does school comes into place in this situation? Media relations 250 definitely!

Apart from learning the importance of maintaining a relationship with the media, what else came in handy was the lessons from the interview assignment where we had to prepare an interview brief for the client as well as the "Do's and Don'ts" during an interview.

The client was invited to do a live television interview and my supervisor had to prepare the briefing documents for him and was asking around for some "Do's and Don'ts". Luckily for her,  I still had some notes from the lesson and could share it with her.

The 4 key things to note during an interview are:




1. Make the Point you want to make
2. Back that point up with a Reason
3. Provide an Example to illustrate your point
4. Restate your main Point again to make it really clear

A very great reminder!

And with that, this post marks the last entry of my PR393 Reflective Blog for internship at Ogilvy PR. The past two months has been eventful, and I hope the blog posts has been insightful and helpful to all of you!

Have an awesome internship everyone!

Overcoming a fear of telephones

Growing up in the digital age has seen a reliance on emails for communication. Rather than picking up the phone and talking to a stranger, I would much prefer to send them an email and just cross my finger that they reply. However when I started in the PR industry I realised this had to change. Don’t get me wrong, emails are still important and can be a good communication tool, but when it comes to establishing relationships, face-to-face or over the phone conversations are much more effective.

This idea is particularly important when pitching to the media. Journalists are flooded with press releases and event reminders from public relations teams every day. If you can make the effort to make a quick phone call and really sell your story, the chances of success are much greater. In saying that I have found times where using email is actually superior to phoning. Some journalists prefer you to contact them via email and rarely answer their phones. When dealing with journalists in the Eastern States or overseas, time differences may mean email is the only option. I also find that sometimes an email works best because I have time to compose my thoughts and write the most enticing pitch possible, rather than getting nervous and bumbling my way through a phone pitch. Working out whether to phone or email pitch is quite an art that develops over time as you get to know the journalists and their individual styles.

Overcoming my fear of the telephone pitch has been very important. I used to get stressed over the fear of rejection and worry that journalists would be rude to me. But then I realised that if they say no it’s really nothing personal. Also, if a journalist doesn’t like your email pitch they just won’t reply. This leaves you wondering if they got the email or if maybe they opened it and liked it but then forgot to reply. I used to spend time worrying and waiting for their reply, then I realised it would be quicker and a lot less painful if I just rang them and found out yes or no. So my words of wisdom for today would be, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and chat to someone. If you’re pitching an idea, the worst they can say is no.

Verity

Brainstorming and moving forward.

Hello friends,

Week 3: 

In my first blog/week I got to pitch some ideas to our senior management team for our potential sporting/leisure client. In my third week our COO was collating the official pitch for our presentation to the client and asked myself and a few others to expand on the initial ideas. 

I was paired with one of the Brand Executives I hadn't yet worked with, to explain the original concepts Eva and I created, as well as discuss some of his ideas. It was a really great brainstorming session and no matter how big or small the idea, it could be bounced off of one another and potentially expanded.

It reminded me of a PR Consultancy class last year where we learnt and trialled creative brainstorming tactics; one of the tactics was to think of the craziest ideas we could to solve a global problem or issue; if ethics, money and environment were not a factor.

The tactic was designed to teach us that the craziest ideas are often the start of innovative and creative approaches. I found this worked really well for me personally, as there were less restrictions and boundaries in the creative process. I tried to apply this to my thought process when working on the pitch.

We eventually narrowed our brainstorm into a few major ideas and presented these to our COO in a power point presentation accompanied by the relevant target media for every idea.

Our COO collated our team’s ideas to present to the client. I was lucky enough to attend the official presentation, which was extremely beneficial. I had never been on the consultancy side of a professional presentation before, other than in an academic setting so it was interesting to see the delivery and communication style between my senior management team and the client.

During the meeting our client was also given the chance to express more of their wants and expectations. This was a great opportunity to see how we could adapt our thought process and original pitch to create a successful PR plan (if hired).

Well, until next time. 

Hannah