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.