People: An Interview with Australian Public Relations Consultant Sarah Mathieson

In this new blog series called "People", we feature interviews with interesting personalities and professionals from around the world who are making a mark in various fields and industries. Today, we talk with Sarah Mathieson, a Public Relations Consultant based in Australia.
_________________________________________
Sarah Mathesison, Sydney-based PR Consultant

Sarah 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

Asked to Handle PR in a Crisis?: What Practitioners Should Do

From my experience, especially within government relations and political PR, people only see the value of Public Relations when they have a crisis. At the same time, so many (untrained) Public Relations practitioners see their role as simply 'technical writers' (of press releases, articles, publicity materials etc (This is NOT PR. Those are merely tools of the Public Relations process) that they too are unaware of how to handle public relations in an emergency. Since public relations is about building and maintaing mutually benefocial relationships between and organisation and its publics on whom its sucess or failure depends (Cutlip & Centre, 2007), it is important for this relationship to be repaired when it naturally goes awry and is undermined in a crisis situation. Here are ten tips that a PR professional should so in an emergency.

1. Determine if there is need for a news and information centre. Only you can decide this. The nature of the crisis and the size of will help you to make this determination. The London bombings of July 2007 was a dramatic and extensive event and required a news outlet outfitted with telephones and other technology as well as a a place for reporters to sit and write. This news outfit will be a seperate space from where emergency workers are busy trying to bring the crisis under tecnical control. A news centre is one way of showing the public and the media that the organisation is cooperating and has a desire to be open. If the crisis does not require an information centre, then it is always advisable to have one or two direct lines where calls from the news media can be filtered.

2.Be Open with the media - I know this is hard for some organisations to understand. I give you an example. I had the opportunity of being trained in Crisis Management for the 200 Cricket World Cup (Caribbean). The training was carried out by the Public Affairs team of the Metropolitan Police (London) - same guys who so ably and professionally dealt with the Crisis Communication and Response during the London bombings. Later when I was participating in an open session, including Security Personnel from around the Caribbean, the question of the media came up. Shockingly, the crisis response of the Security Forces had the media as peripheral rather than central to effective crisis management. They did not realise that the management of information during a crisis was as equal as managing the crisis itself. The PR professional must be on hand to provide information to the media in as timely a manner as possible and in a way which secures and maintains the interests of their organisation. In this sense, the information centre requires not one but several able writers who are able to write and filter media releases, statements and update the company website etc as the information comes to hand.

3. Work with management to work out the content to be delivered to the emdia, and formulate responses to questions. Public Relations is, after all, a management function. This means it is management which will take policy decisions in the best interest of the organisation. The PR person is thus obliged to check with management to ensure that the text to be disemminated has the consensus of the management officials, and also work together with management to craft responses to questions from the media. It is here that the PR person effects his/her 'counselling' role, by ensuring that management is kept alert to the politics of media relations and responds in a way which retains the credibility of the organisation.

4. Work only with the approval of top management. This is a delicate issue,and often results in confusion and conflict as to the PR person's role. PR is a mangement function and so the facts to be given to press and the decisions to be made in a crisi belongs with top management. At the same time, top management must seek the advice of the PR counsellor to determine of their policy decisions are in line with the best interests of the organisation, and will retain favourable opinion among its publics.

5. Maintain close and constant contact with the media. They tend to know information you do not yet know. It is also important for your organisation to set the agenda. This means that you ought to be one providing the official information o the crisis and not allow space for rumours and falsehoods to become the story. The death of Pakistan's cricket coach, Bob Wolmer in Jamaica at the height of the World Cup, is one example of a situation where runours and falsehood dominated the agenda. The Jamaican government and the cricketing organisations lost control in the management of information during the crisis.

6. Know what facts you are giving out, and at what times. Each release, statement etc must not only be properly dated, but it is advisable to keep a log of when each was disemminated. In the panicked environment of a crisis, you want to be appear to be in control. This means getting your facts straight, preventing duplication of information and conflicting information. New developments will arise and you must ensure that the public is not confused.

7. Refrain from releasing names of victims before the families are notified. This is standard policing procedure but also relevant in a PR scenario. The media generally understands the nature of these things and are usually understanding and willing to wait. This display of professional courtesy and respect for the victims' families mainatins integrity for the organisation. Can you imagine hearing of a tragic death of a family member on the news first?

8. Confirm only definite information. This is information you know will not change. Accordimng to Newsome, Turk and Kruckeburg (2007, "If firefighters carry a victim from the plant in a bodybag and the reporter sees it, say only that one body has been recovered. DO NOT SAY that you 'dont know how many are dead"! They also advise not speculate about the cause of accidents, delays in shipment, layoffs etc. In short,'say no more than to confirm what is already known.

Finally, I borrow the following from the authors above. These fall under the heading 'Facts Desired but Not Necessarily Desirable to Give'.
1. Speculation about anything
2. Any delivery delays or such (Accentuate the positive as soon as you are sure)
3. How caused (Let city officials release this; chances are the story will die before report is completed).
Specific damage estimate as well as waht was destroyed. (This information might be extremely valuable to competitors).

For More, see This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations. Newsome et, al (2007).

Forthcoming in this Series: How to talk to the Media in a Crisis

9 Ways Public Relations can serve or rescue your organisation

So you own your own business and you are desperate for some publicity. You hear that you can create your own Facebook or MySpace page or you can join the twitter world and twit away about your business. However, the internet confuses and intimidates you so you want to find someone who can do a bit of communication on your behalf. But you remain unsure about what Public Relations can really do for your organisation. Here are 9 functions that public relations serves within an organisation:

1.Awareness and Information – Public Relations provides publicity and use promotional tools to raise awareness about your product; It can aid sales and boost fundraising efforts.

2.Organisational Motivation – Public Relations builds internal relationships. This means through different staff based activities, it helps staff to get along by fostering positive morale, teamwork, productivity, and corporate culture.

3.Issue Anticipation – Public Relations does not only publicise things. PR can also identify any issues which may affect your organisation negaitively and aid you to act on them before they become crisies. For example, through environmental monitoring, research and continuous connections with its publics. PR can provide what you may call 'an early warning system' of potential problems.

4.Opportunity Identification - Inthe same way Public Relations can monitor issues which may affect the organisation negatively, it can also identify potential oppotunities which can benefit the organisation and help the organisation to act on and/or maximise these opportunities. Indeed, through environmental monitoring, research and connections with its various publics/markets, PR can identify new markets, products, methods, allies and positive issues.

5.Crisis Management – Public Relations can manage an appropriate response to crisis situations that will minimise the harm to an organisation’s reputation and allow it to continue functioning.

6.Overcoming Executive Isolation – Public Relations through research and counselling keeps management in touch with what is happening so that appropriate decisions are made. Indeed without the PR person, management can be so out of touch with the happenings within the organisation that may affect it.

7.Change Agentry – Public Relations can assist with organisational changes through communication and other activities to ease resistance to change and promote a smooth transition for those affected by the changes. Ok what I mean here is if you are about to get fired or to fire someone, then the Public Relations effort is designed to smooth this process and minimise the fall out to the organisation.

8.Social Responsibility – Public Relations can take the lead in helping organisations act responsibly in such areas as the environment, workplace issues, and philanthropy. These actions can lead to greater public trust an positive feelings for the organisation, which can increase mutual understanding, and translate into increased sales and use of services.

9.Influencing Public Policy – Public Relations can use its connections to government officials and other influential individuals and groups to gain acceptance for its activities, products or services and also remove political barriers.