Working in the World of Communications

PR & Comms is an interesting business. On the one hand you need to get to grips fast with products, services, industries and sometimes the politics within those industries. You also need to understand the passion many clients have for their jobs, what they sell and their beliefs and values. However, you also need to understand that what is an interesting read/watch for their customer so often you have two clients in mind - the client paying and the end user of their product or service. Each piece of content has to be pitched or engaged by someone else – normally someone who isn’t invested in the particular product or service or brand your client is hoping to sell, hence the reason they need your support.

Your role in communications is to make that piece of information interesting, relevant to the reader or watcher and bridge the gap between client and audience – it’s what we call “sprinkling the gold dust”. Although that sounds very fairytale it is actually a lot more complex than it sounds. To understand how to get the gold dust right you need to firstly understand your target audience. Or even audiences. Getting to grips with exactly who they are, rather than who you think they are, including their likes/dislikes, demographics, what they watch and read, where they go, where they shop – and backing those profiles with evidence rather than speculation. Secondly you need to understand how your brand relates to those audiences. Does it help them solve a problem, or does it make them feel better about themselves?

You need to make sure your point of engagement is different than your competitors – so the product you are promoting might clean dishes but why is it better than all the other dish washers in the market? You need to convey these point of differences to your target audiences, in a language they understand. So, if you are working in healthcare, for example, you will call the target audience patients for doctors, service users for social workers and tenants for those working in housing. You might talk about convenience if it is a local store, but value for money if it is aimed at students. Then you need to wrap all this up – the key messages, the target audiences, the customer journey, the gold dust - and ensure you are finding the right platform to promote it on.

Yet it doesn’t stop there. Once you have undertaken a communications campaign, you then need to think of a creative concept to be able to start all over again, saying the same messages, to the same audience, but in a different story, over and over again. Until it weaves into their consciousness.

Unlike other careers, communications isn’t an exact science. Sometimes you can be lucky – you hit a theme that resonates with the audience due to macro issues out of your control – so for example, talking about an online retail innovation as a major department store closes down, can help your story. Sometimes you can be championed by a celebrity or influencer – there are a few fairy godmothers in the world of fashion and beauty – look at the fates of Philip Treacy and Alexander McQueen once Isabella Blow took them under her wing.

Start Early – be bold, be brave

My advice to those wanting to get into the world of comms though is to start early and learn your craft. Start writing a blog, have a YouTube channel and get to understand how to engage your own audience first before you offer your services to others. Be bold. Be brave. Don’t worry what others think. Look at local opportunities that you can build into bigger ones. I wrote a travel column for my local newspapers while on a gap year, I took work experience at the news desks of my two local radio stations and slept on friends of friends’ sofas to work at now defunct Look Now and 19 magazines.

I stepped into the unknown by knocking on the door of my student newspaper office and asking Jay Rayner, yes the Jay Rayner, whether I could be commissioned for an article. Two months later I got the job as Joint Music and Arts Editor on Leeds Student. They were heady days and ones which I loved as I felt privileged to be writing something that someone might want to read. And persevere. I didn’t get onto the London School of Journalism (I think I scored about 1/10 on my general knowledge) and I didn’t end up editor of Cosmopolitan (although I did work for them in their marketing department).

Finally, find something you really enjoy and believe in. So if you are passionate about animals out of the office, look to work in comms for an animal charity or a pet store. Being genuine about what you are promoting and putting yourself in the shoes of the consumer is always easier when you feel the product or service is great.

Communications is a great career choice and one that can be massively satisfying but also very underplayed. Be prepared to work hard and find your niche and it can be a flexible, lifetime choice of career.

All I Want for Christmas...

So December is edging closer and closer. The John Lewis advert is live. There is a nip in the air. My children have already written their lists to Santa. Christmas is definitely around the corner.  As young innocent faces look with excitement and anticipation at the presents stacked under the tree, their eyes glinting with the fairy lights and advent candles, the question is 'Will they get what they really want this Christmas?"  And if they do get their heart's desire, will it really live up to expectations? Change their life?  Make them better, funnier, prettier, and more popular?

Marketing and communications campaigns can be a bit like Christmas morning. (Bear with me here, it’s not as tenacious as you think).  The client briefs an agency, or a consultant, or an in-house team looking for them to transform the hearts and minds of their customers with a succinct, stylish, engaging and impactful campaign that raises awareness, gets 10,000s of inches of media coverage, is a viral phenomenon and of course, drives their product or service into the number one slot in their market.

However, sometimes, just like Christmas presents, what the client thinks they want as opposed to what they really want or need, is quite different. And often the challenge is getting clients to realise this, understand the gap between customers’ perception and their own and put their trust in a good communications consultant, either internal or external.

A great example of this is clients who tender out for a new website - new branding, new copy, new approach. Often well needed as company websites are like mattresses, well used and often out of date, although essential, often forgotten.  So the client brief explains the history of the company, what they do, who they are, and why they are wonderful. Yet, do they think about their customers’ needs? Do they address these needs? Do they tailor different areas for different audience sectors? Or do they stand on top of the mountain and shout loudly about how great they are? The agency that doesn’t massage the client’s ego, but thinks about the best way to engage with their audiences, is the agency that in the long term will bring the best return on investment.

It is like the guest at the dinner party who sits all night talking about themselves, without asking questions to their neighbouring guest, or even tempering the conversation to mutual interests.  What will be the lasting impression of the guest? A bore. A massive ego. Tiresome. The guest who listens, who carves their conversation according to the interest piqued by certain subjects and who enquires as well as engages will be the one that everyone wants to be friends with when the dinner plates are cleared away.

So back to my Christmas analogy.  If you don’t get what you really want for Christmas, don’t despair, it could be the exact thing you need this Christmas, but just don’t realise it.  Don’t be swayed by the glossy wrapping paper or the branded box, take a real look inside what is on offer.  And if you still can’t see the value, there is always next Christmas.