Be Picture Ready For Your Next Photo Op

As public relations professionals, you come to dread the cliché “grip and grin” photo opportunity which clients love it. And why shouldn’t they?

After all, you may be submitting about 10 different releases about corporate giving a week to the media but it might be the client’s/company’s only opportunity for the entire year to demonstrate publicly that they contribute to the community and are, in fact, a good corporate citizen.

Usually, when these photo opportunities occur in the office setting the company representative is appropriately dressed because they are already in their business attire. However, when the setting is outside the office, the dress may be less than appropriate. Here are a few tips to ensure picture readiness. READ MORE

As public relations professionals, you come to dread the cliché “grip and grin” photo opportunity which clients love. And why shouldn’t they?
After all, you may be submitting about 10 different releases about corporate giving a week to the media but it might be the client’s/company’s only opportunity for the entire year to demonstrate publicly that they contribute to the community and are, in fact, a good corporate citizen.
Usually, when these photo opportunities occur in the office setting the company representative is appropriately dressed because they are already in their business attire. However, when the setting is outside the office, the dress may be less than appropriate. Here are a few tips to ensure picture readiness.
- See more at: http://www.prmrinc.net/be-picture-ready-for-your-next-photo-op/#sthash.Cr4JlDR3.dpuf

As public relations professionals, you come to dread the cliché “grip and grin” photo opportunity which clients love. And why shouldn’t they?
After all, you may be submitting about 10 different releases about corporate giving a week to the media but it might be the client’s/company’s only opportunity for the entire year to demonstrate publicly that they contribute to the community and are, in fact, a good corporate citizen.
Usually, when these photo opportunities occur in the office setting the company representative is appropriately dressed because they are already in their business attire. However, when the setting is outside the office, the dress may be less than appropriate. Here are a few tips to ensure picture readiness.
- See more at: http://www.prmrinc.net/be-picture-ready-for-your-next-photo-op/#sthash.Cr4JlDR3.dpuf

Reflections – Southern Region Mini Conference in Barbados

IABC Barbados created another piece of history on Friday Sept. 27 when it hosted one of the mini conferences in the Southern Region Conference series.  Due to conflicting commitments at PRMR Inc.  I was only able to take in just a half of this historic event, but by the time I arrived the tone of the event had already been set.

From my enquiries I discovered that Andre Bello, one of the morning presenters had swept away the audience of predominately females, he could have done this on appearance alone but having seen the gentlemen present a while back at another IABC Barbados event, I knew it was not just his charm that had everyone in awe.  Only today I was reading a blog by Drake Baer on Fast Company which explored Sir Richard Branson’s view on hiring, it quoted him as saying that the most crucial part of a hire is the personality. “Most skills can be learned,” he says, “but it is difficult to train people on their personality.”  Bello is living proof that Branson practices what he preaches. Click to Read More

Business Ethics: Where Do You Draw the Line?

As an independent contractor, my company, PRMR Inc., has the opportunity to work in a variety of industries with diverse groups of clients, including for-profit, not-for-profit, entrepreneurial, regional and international businesses.

In carrying out our business, we are often faced with ethical decisions that may clash with the demands of clients or affect the services that we are expected to deliver. For example, we may be building a website for a client who expects us to use images that have been taken from another site without that site’s permission. After telling the client that we are not willing to do so and explaining why, we are told that other companies that they have worked with had no problem with it. The client implies that in acting ethically, we are inept and unresourceful.  Read More

Green Public Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility The Way to Go

Over the past decade, businesses around the world have been focusing on creating products and services, which have very little impact on the environment.

Several international companies such as S. C. Johnson, TESCO and Honda have implemented environmental management systems, which go beyond what the law requires to operate in an environmentally responsible way.

Many businesses recognise that being environmentally responsible can translate into sales.  Consumers understand more than ever the importance of environmental conservation.  Even more important is that with this increased knowledge; consumers are choosing to boycott businesses that have not made the decision to go ‘green.’

This has caused several businesses to utilise greening as simply a PR tool to attract consumers and increase sales. However, several international certifications exist which can assist customers in deciphering between these ‘green washed’ businesses and those businesses which have invested in ensuring they reduce their impact on the environment.

Environmental certification programs are useful for identifying environmentally preferred goods and services. They are typically run by third party organizations that establish environmental standards for goods and services and then certify supplier offerings against them. These certifications include (among others) GreenSeal, EcoLogo, ISO standards of certification and Green Globe.
Read More 

PR In the Headlines

Not quite a sitting duck, but well, these are larger fish

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rupert-murdoch-calls-pr-guru-212334  The Rupert Murdock saga continues and PR gets the headline.  Perception is reality and from this Hollywood Reporter headline the appearance to me is that Steven Rubenstein will be doing some dirty work. Do you get that?  The PR professional sharing the same prominence as the lawyer.  At least we are getting some attention and prominence if for the wrong reason.  A school of thought says all publicity is good.  Maybe Rubenstein will have the Johnnie Cochran effect and come up with his own cool slogan. "if the glove don't fit..."

The Press Release and The Press Conference- Tools and Tactics

You know the saying the more things change, the more they remain the same. Well I was at a gathering of pr professionals recently and a number of issues came up. None of them were new, which was no surprise. But what did surprise me was that the topics that received the most attention were not new media and social networks on the web, what received the most dialog were the century old press release and press conference.

I was blessed to be a pr professional working at a media house for a very long time so I understand intimately the stance and motivation of the journalist versus that of the pr professional. And all the professionals that thought that I had it easy… well, yes the journalist and I did have the same organisation at heart which was our bread and butter, but each editor had different motivations, tolerance levels, deadlines and egos that had to be pandered to, to get releases in the papers. In other words I had to do some pitching like any other pr professional working on the outside.

Early in the game I studied the newspaper’s style of writing and matched it as best as I could, because I came to understand and appreciate the long hard hours that journalists work and how taxing it is to produce an informative, educational, entertaining, error free publication everyday. Editors are usually working on tight deadlines and a well written story already in their style is more likely to be placed immediately than one that they had to try to interpret and doctor to suit the paper’s style. I have seen a number of press releases that came to the paper and wondered where exactly is this person going with this – no news value and poorly written.

From my experience as long as the news value is high editors may look pass the quality of the writing because at the end of the day, what they want to put out is an interesting product. Press releases are looked on firstly as companies’ propaganda. In more recent times they are being viewed as ads. This has created a new set of tension between the media and pr professionals, especially in those organizations where the measure of the success of the pr is judged only on column inches in the newspaper. Is it then correct to say that if your releases don’t get publish that you are not doing good work? (This sets me off on a totally different road of what is the role of the pr professional and how should success be measured? To be explored in another article.)

Editors try to be fair and impartial in placing releases. Of course with tons of releases hitting their desk everyday and the space in the paper for stories rapidly diminishing due to ever increasing aggressive ad ratios, the onus is on pr professionals to do what I consider to be job 101 of the profession – build relationships.

Relationships should be established with all the persons on whom your success and the success of your company or client depend. It is not enough to write a great press release because it may be shelved because a bus load of people crashed in St. Joseph and seven people died and suddenly all the vacant slots in the newspaper are taken up with all the human interest, eye witness stories for weeks. And hey, this will sell a couple thousand more papers, your release won’t. You need to have a relationship with the editor so that you can pick up the telephone and remind him or her of your great release.

I have spent a mighty long time on the press release because I think that it is a useful tool and should be used in a lot of instances instead of a grand press conference. (To be continued).

Barbados' Business Communicators Board 2008

VP Administration, Petal Barclay Smith; VP Professional Development, Richard Thomas; Executive Vice President, Pamala Proverbs; President, Christal P. McIntosh; VP Membership/ Marketing, Cliona Donohue; VP Finance, Fay Best; and VP Communications, Lynette G. Taylor. (Photo compliments PBS Communications)