The Panasonic PR team being the tiny size that it is, we often need external companies and agencies to carry out the work we simply don't have either the time or the resources for. Catalysis, based in the gorgeous Clerkenwell area of London, is the agency which looks after our corporate PR. This includes building up the profile of our M.D., Keith Evans, and our image as a top-tier sponsor for the Olympics, as well as any business-to-business dealings within the technology industry.
Maintaining Keith's profile is certainly a mammoth job - as the 'face' of Panasonic, it is crucial that he comes across positively in the public eye. We began to work with Catalysis on this last year, before I joined Panasonic, and whilst I was at the agency, I was shown how Catalysis's role in this process has changed. Jen, who helps to look after a few of the accounts at Catalysis, as well as the account for Panasonic, explained to me that the first year of working with Keith was mostly about getting his name out there and raising his profile. This year, it has been more about working on Keith's image and letting the public find out more about him, to make him appear a more relatable public figure. This, in turn, alters the public image of Panasonic as a more 'people-friendly' brand, which can sometimes be hard to do for a global electronics company!
Jen works with a few others to set up 'briefings' for Keith - these are the interviews with publications which Keith attends. This year, there have been a lot of '10 minutes with Panasonic's M.D.'-style interviews - these are quick and easy to read and a lot of facts about the company and also Keith's perspective on the direction in which Panasonic is heading can be put across to a reader without the worry of information overload.
Jen also showed me a few of the other projects she was working on, such as a campaign for a mobile phone company, which looked at the etiquette of how people use their mobile phones and social networking sites, which was really interesting! She told me that, whilst some of the briefs Catalysis gets can be pretty heavy-going, most of them are really fun and light-hearted - she clearly loved working on each of the briefs!
Catalysis mainly works for technology companies and the team had a big pitch for a cable company in the few days after I came into their offices, so I helped to research a few things for them! I first helped to create a massive spreadsheet of all the coverage the cable company and its competitors had received in the last three months. It was interesting to see all of the programmes and software Catalysis use to help them when searching for information like this.
After lunch (I was very kindly taken out for pizza, which was amazing!), I helped to search for potential companies Catalysis could use which offered net-meeting or 'webcasting' facilities, as they needed to run a net-meeting for over 250 people in the next few days.
Other than my work at Panasonic, I had never experienced working in a PR team, and it was refreshing and a bit different to see how things are run in an external agency, as opposed to 'in-house'. As you can probably imagine, the dynamics are quite different, as you have a few people working in teams for different briefs. It's very fast-paced, but a lot more varied, as the projects the agency are working on are constantly changing. I honestly couldn't say which kind of working environment I prefer though, as the PR team at Panasonic are very tight-knit and I guess, in some ways, it can be easier to think along the same lines when you're working more closely with your team members. Having said that though, I absolutely loved the creative vibe of Catalysis and would certainly not rule out working for an agency in the future! For those of you who are interested in PR, definitely get yourselves some work experience at an agency - it's a great, fun way to dip your toes in the PR waters!
No comments:
Post a Comment