_________________________________________
Sarah Mathesison, Sydney-based PR ConsultantSarah Mathiesen is a Public Relations Consultant with one of Australia’s leading healthcare PR agencies, VIVA! Communications, based in Sydney, New South Wales. Sarah has worked on various health campaigns involving disease states such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, renal disease, influenza, HIV-associated facial lipoatrophy and osteoporosis with multi-national pharmaceutical companies such as Merck Sharpe & Dohme, Sanofi-Aventis and Allergan.
In February 2009, She played the key role on the launch of world-first research that found laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding surgery is more cost-effective at treating the twin-epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes than conventional weight loss methods. This campaign was nominated for the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s Golden Target Awards, and placed second at the awards show held in September 2009!
Sarah’s Public Relations expertise includes developing and implementing medical and consumer news media launches, writing copy for medical and consumer websites, feature articles and promotional material and shooting and editing Video News Releases (VNRs). She has a Bachelor of Journalism from James Cook University, Townsville. Before joining the VIVA! team, Sarah worked in the Corporate Communications division of Townsville City Council. Sarah has also read news for radio station, Triple T, Townsville and has frequently had work published in local magazines and newspapers in North Queensland, Australia.
_______________________________________________________
What sparked your interest in Public Relations?
My interest in PR stems from a passion for journalism and writing. As part of my journalism degree at university, I thought it would be interesting to venture over the fence and see what was on the other side – I haven’t quite made it back over yet. I enjoy the amount of work that goes into a PR campaign as opposed to writing a single article. PR might not be as fast paced as journalism, but being able to immerse oneself in a single topic for weeks, months or even years can be very rewarding.
How popular is Pubic Relations as a career in Australia?
Public Relations has beeen around in Australia since the war, and we had one of the first PR firms in the world. It’s become difficult to gauge how popular PR is as a career in Australia because there tends to be a bit of overlap between PR, marketing and advertising. I think PR is really just beginning to find its footing in Australia as people realise the return on investment compared with advertising particularly. These are exciting times for PR professionals and I think the industry is only going to grow.
The per-hour consultant fee for PR work in Australia seems extremely high when compared to other countries. What accounts for this?
I think it’s important to note that I work in healthcare PR and am therefore representing products that have had 15-to-20 years and millions of dollars worth of research and development poured into them before they reach the market. There are a lot of restrictions that Pharmaceutical companies and their agencies must comply with, so my clients generally don’t just pay for the strategic direction and counsel that you would normally expect from a PR consultant, but also an understanding of Medicines Australia Pharmaceutical and Medical Device code and a good working knowledge of disease states. Having said that, you wouldn’t pay a lawyer peanuts to represent you in court, so why should a PR professionals charge any less to represent a personality, product or brand in the public arena?
How important is having qualifications to work as a PR professional?
Qualifications are critical to working as a PR professional. PR consultants need to be very savvy across a range of topics including developing strategic campaigns, providing counsel to clients, research, writing and speaking, events management, media handling, branding, new technologies, coordinating clients and suppliers, crises and issues management and generally be able to serve the interests of several parties all at once. A person may be able to pick some of those skills up on the job but there’s not always time to learn as you go and sometimes you need to be able to just run with whatever is thrown at you.
A lot of PR is about technical writing. How important is being a good writer?
Being a good writer is immensely important to a PR consultant. Gone are the days when PR consultants wrote a media release, an alert, maybe a speech or two and the writing bit was over. PR consultants are now expected to develop large media kits that may include background documents and key opinion leader (KOL) profiles as well as multimedia materials such as websites, DVDs, on-hold messages, Community Service Announcements, etc. Journalists are also very busy people and if they don’t have the resources to write your story it’s not going to get a run. But if a PR consultant can develop a media release or other form of copy that may be re-produced in a publication almost ver batim, the story a is far more likely to be picked up by a journalist, therefore maximising the client’s outreach.
There seems to be confusion over the meaning of Public Relations. What do you understand it to be from your experience?
Public relations is a hard thing to nail down because it can be the solution to so many different objectives.In the broadest sense, my experience with PR is that the industry is about the very public coupling of a company’s interests with their stakeholders’ interests and for the client to be seen to be acting in the best interests of the stakeholder. Building and mainataining this stakeholder relationship is a major part of the definition of public relations.
Public Relations gets a lot of flack, and its role seen in a negative way as mere spin-doctoring. How far is this true?
The way we share information has evolved dramatically, particularly in the last five-to-10 years or so. If an individual has a bad experience with a company they are now able to share that experience with hundreds or thousands of people simply by updating their facebook status, tweeting or texting the editor of their local newspaper. This means that spin-doctoring or covering up the truth is no longer a feasible option for PR consultants. Instead, PR consultants are encouraging their clients to operate honestly and transparently within the community and to leave a positive stamp on the minds of their stakeholders.
In the event that a company is seen to be doing something that is not particularly positive, the best approach for them to take now is an honest one. Most PR consultants would encourage their clients to accept responsibility for their actions, whether they are intentional or not, but also to remind the community and the media of the positive steps that the company has taken in the past and/or commits to do so in the future. I think the term ‘spin-doctoring’ is very much out-dated in most areas of PR now and that it’s great to see PR professionals actively striving to gain a positive light of their own.
You work in healthcare PR. Is this your niche? What other areas of PR are you keen in?
Healthcare PR is something that I was very fortunate to stumble into. Before I landed my current role, I hoped to work internally at a not-for-profit organisation and would still like to do so at some point in my career. However, healthcare is a fantastic area to be in that is both very challenging and very rewarding. While the main role of a healthcare PR consultant is to represent pharmaceutical companies and encourage the prescription and uptake of certain medications and medical devices, they also seek to improve disease-state awareness and gain an understanding of the conditions they work with be speaking with patients. Knowing that you are making a difference to one person’s life can be an incredible feeling.
If you were to encourage students wanting a career in PR, what would you say to them?
I would encourage anyone interested in a career in PR to undergo the relevant studies and to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the general news media, the media that applies specifically to their area of work and also news and public debate happening within the PR and media industries. I would also warn people not to expect a glamorous lifestyle filled with launch parties and celebrities or an easy ride. PR is hard work and at times can mean very tight deadlines and long hours in order to get the job done. But nothing beats the thrill of a successful launch day and if a person is willing to put the hard work in to a career in PR, they will reap the benefits.
I taught you Public Relations at University. Did you learn anything? (laughs). What is the most valuable lesson have learned during the process and how far were you able to take this knowledge to the industry?
Studying PR at University has provided me with an excellent foundation to PR and a solid theoretical knowledge particularly in terms of developing strategic communications campaigns. There is so much that I’ve learned on the job that no classroom could possibly provide, but without that theoretical knowledge it would be hard to understand the reasons behind why PR consultants do the things they do.
_________________________________________________
Read much more in this new series "People" at my blogs:
The Communication Workshop - http://thecommunicationexperts.blogspot.com
Talking Politics - http://humejohnson.wordpress.com
