Media Releases and Image Banks

This week we were set our media releases assignment after a seminar of identifying key techniques ensuring that media releases are effective and attract the intended audience. Media releases can be used to inform the public of a new campaign, product or launch that an organisation is involved with, it is almost like a fake news article that is designed to inform an audience of something. However, media releases don't just target an organisations publics such as consumers, they also target   journalists who are interested in what the organisation is up to. These media releases provide the journalists with initial information and then often after the end of the release in the editors notes there's further details such as contact details that the journalist can read and use when writing their article or when investigating the subject of the media release further. Media releases aren't about being clever, they're about informing an organisations publics about something and therefore, clear and simple titles that get straight to the point and include relevant information about the story, are very important. Also, a tip in order to achieve a well structured press release is to aim to include Who, What, When, Where, Why and How within the title and the first paragraph. So the reader is instantly informed and has a clear understanding about what you're writing about and is therefore more likely to continue reading if it is something they are interested in. It is a good guideline to stick to usually one page, 2 pages maximum so nobody is bored by your release and therefore writing concisely is vital. I enjoyed learning about the most successful techniques used by PR practitioners when tasked with creating media releases for organisations and clients. After learning about these simple tips and going and researching different pre-existing media releases, it was clear to identify which ones had followed the general structure and were successful in informing their publics effectively of all the key information, and which had not followed the structure and were unclear and therefore less effective.

Our assignment involves creating our own media release for a local cafe, the cafe is relaunching and has a new interior and new menu but the same chef. The cafe also has a new special of cream teas. I've named the local cafe "Cream T Cafe" and have started to write a simple media release explaining about the brands relaunch and informing the local publics of this, whilst also bearing in mind that journalists could potentially read the release and use information from it in their own writing, and therefore the information has to be 100% clear and accurate, whilst conveying key brand messages and clearly portraying the brand in the way they wish to be portrayed (considering the audience they want to target). So far my title includes 3 of the key W's (who, what etc) and my first paragraph goes on to include more information and cover more W's. I have chosen to include basic information in the title and then use the first paragraph to explain it in more detail. The second paragraph goes on to explain the relaunch further and the third paragraph includes a quote from the head chef. This quote makes the release even more identifiable to the brand. I have specifically chosen a quote from the chef because they have worked at the cafe for 5 years and therefore will understand exactly what the brand is about and exactly the type of audience the organisation seeks to target, also for the pre-existing customers, the chef will be identifiable and trustworthy. So far this is all I have completed for my media release and I know I will need to analyse media releases further and edit a lot of what I have done. My next step is to finish the paragraphs and make sure I write the word "ENDS" so that the end of the release is clearly obvious and people will stop reading. Below this I will include information about when the cafe opened and the cafe's contact details. This extra information will be aimed at any journalists reading the release, the contact details are for if they require any further information about the relaunch or the company itself, these aren't included in the main text as this information isn't relevant to the majority of readers and doesn't directly link to the purpose of the media release which is to inform of the cafe relaunch and generate interest/hype about this.

In the second half of the week we learned about Image Banks. Image Banks are a reserve of photographs stored by a company. These are generally stored online under the "Media Centre" section of a website and can be used by the public or by journalists when they are wanting to use company images. Image Banks are useful as the company can control them and therefore chose the way they want to represent themselves. For example, they can display their products and services through photographs that they think are appealing or display their key messages in an effective way. Journalists for example are far more likely to use an image provided by the organisations image bank, than go and take primary photographs for themselves, therefore this allows the organisation slight control over the images they provide their publics with. Effective image banks offer a variety of well postioned photos all with key brand messages being shown and are easy to navigate around/locate. Often the most effective images show human flesh as many people identify with these images more e.g. a picture of the CEO of a company.

Report Assignment: Initial Ideas

This week we were given our brief for our report assignment that is due in January. The task is to write a 1, 000 word report on the PR campaign launched surrounding the release of the new Apple Watch. After initial research using sources such as social media and online articles to try and identify how Apple went about introducing the Apple Watch to its audience, I collected a range of weblinks and have recorded all of these in an excel table so that I can reference them and refer back to them. Also the columns included in this table allow me to easily identify the author and the date the text was published. So far the research is going fairly well however I'm finding it quite difficult to locate certain information from reliable sources as the product/PR campaign was launched in April and therefore I have to search quite far back in order to find the relevant information for me to be able to record and analyse how effective the overall PR campaign was. Also, I must remember to only focus on the PR element of the product release as already I have come into contact with a lot of advertising centred around the product through online resources. From my initial research it seems that the product is targeting a wide audience, but mainly young adults due to the stylish, chic design. These young adults may have just started to earn quite a bit of their own money and therefore will be the ones in the appropriate financial situation to buy this product. Also many will live in urban areas such as large/capital cities where the latest and most advanced technology emerges, even from the campaigns you can see the clear focus on an urban audience, due to the locations filmed in and the hobbies displayed in a number of the campaigns.

Case Studies and Interviews

This week we began to consider our initial case study ideas and started to research current launches, campaigns and crises to see if any of these interested us enough or were detailed enough for us to write about and analyse. To begin my research I looked at a number of social media sites to identify the recent trends and what people are/have been hyping over for the past few days. I looked on the 'Discover' page on twitter and on the 'popular' page on Instagram to see if anything caught my eye. However, most of the trends that day were more to do with celebrities and gossip and less to do with something I could actually report on and analyse. Therefore I moved onto looking at key news websites and identified a few ideas such as new technology product launches or the VW and Fifa (Sepp Blatter) crises. The issue with both the Fifa and the VW scandals is that they happened at a time before I even started my research and therefore the PR campaign set in place to control the crisis and criticism would be difficult to measure from the beginning. Therefore, I kept on researching current news stories and found numerous stories on the new Halloween Burger that Burger King were releasing as an October exclusive up until the end of the month. I then continued to search for news articles on the release of this burger and also looked on social media and websites such as YouTube to see how Burger King were using PR to promote their exclusive product. I decided that this was a campaign that interested me and consequently I began to gather a range of web links and videos and also begin to create a timeline of the campaign so I can see how it progresses and therefore analyse how effective it is for them in the end. I'm going to continue to research the PR surrounding this Black Whopper Burger and record the various articles, campaigns and feedback on this in a timeline to enable me to make a final judgement about how effective the entire campaign was and how this affected sales. 

In our last seminar of the week we discussed the most effective ways of interviewing people and the best type of questions to ask a subject that we are interviewing. The key is to remember that the interview isn't about you. Also it's important to remember to endure silence during an interview or whist interviewing as it usually provokes the interviewee into talking in more detail and giving more information, which will make the interview more interesting. Varying question types from light-hearted to more intense questions is important and the best types of questions to ask are usually open ended questions that encourage the subject to express themselves more and allow variety in the answers they provide. Finally, always ensure that you tell the subject you are interviewing what you need from them e.g. "I need an emotional quote" therefore you will both be on the same page and will have a mutual understanding about the purpose of the interview and the interview question style.

Key Messages (Continued) and Case Studies

This week we worked on how best to focus key messages on specific stakeholders and which channels to use to target them the most effectively. An organisation will have a range of stakeholders that all influence the company differently and are all very diverse in the way they receive information and how they communicate. As a result of this it is important to decide on the appropriate channels and language when giving different audiences different/the same message.

The task involved us writing our own key messages focusing on 3 different stakeholders that are personal to us and having to decide on the appropriate language and channels to communicate with each.

STAKEHOLDER:                                         CHANNEL: 
Friends                                                             Text
Extended Family                                              Phone
Employer                                                         Email

Friends:
Guys, a water pipe burst in the flat below and our water is off so I get to spend 2 free nights in a hotel with the free food and alcohol!

Extended Family:
I'm staying in the Ramada Encore Hotel for tonight and tomorrow night because a water pipe burst in the flat below us and they had to turn the water off in order to fix it. We have a £25 food voucher to spend and the food is delicious. 

Employer: 
Unfortunately a waterpipe burst in the flat below mine in student halls and the water had to be turned off for days in order to fix it. However, the Unite Student Accommodation team handled the situation quickly and effectively and booked us all rooms in the Ramada Encore Hotel whilst the pipe was fixed. The rooms in the hotel were comfortable and spacious and the food was delicious so everything worked out well in the end and our water was running smoothly again by Friday evening. 

Key Messages

I learned that all companies have clear key messages that they want to convey to their targeted audience and these messages can be split into 3 simple stages:

• CLAIM: this is what the company claims they provide or stand for, it can be about a specific product or their brand in general. 
• DEFINE: expanding on their claim and describing it in more detail so their key message is clearer and properly understood by the audience. 
• PROVE: evidence backing up the claim and the companies key message. 

Some companies give off clearer key messages than others in their campaigns and products where as others are more difficult to divide into the 3 part structure. Key messages allow consistency across a brand so that everyone involved is in agreement over the companies purpose and ambitions. 

The key messages task involved creating our own key messages relating to the previous PR work experience we've been involved in. I used the claim, define, prove structure and related it to my experience of working in an actual PR agency. 

I found the task very useful as it enabled me to expand my understanding of key messages because I was encouraged to relate them to myself and not just pre-existing companies/campaigns. I found the 'define' element of the key message structure very important as it forced me to actually explain how my work experience related to public relations and expand in more detail on the specific jobs I had to complete. 

The key messages task can be used in the future to enable me to plan for interviews as I will be able to directly link my previous experience to PR and and highlight how the skills I used and gained such as editing websites to improve company consistency and profile online and attending briefings and mind mappings to gain insight into how industry professionals handle tasks or concerns raised by clients.

An example of one of my key messages relating to my previous PR work experience was: 

CLAIM: I have work experience in a global PR agency.

DEFINE: I worked for a few days in Weber Shandwick's London office and was involved in the marketing department where I had to market the company themselves by improving the consistency between the different countries branches of the company website. I did this by ensuring that the theme, colour, images, font and content matched.

PROVE: I achieved consistency across all webpages to improve the companies online presence and to improve the companies online marketing in general.