I love a good behind the scenes documentary – prison life, five-star hotels, on board a cruise ship – there’s an endless supply of warts ‘n’ all documentaries on what life’s like if you’re a resident of one of the UK’s toughest prisons or work at one of London’s top hotels.
Although there’s been a few mockumentaries that have showed glimpses of our world, (anyone remember Twenty Twelve or its predecessor, W1A), the realities of life working in PR have to my knowledge never been shown our screens. And to be fair, it probably wouldn’t be that exciting to watch. The champagne swilling, air kissing and party attending image that’s often associated with us PR luvvies is sadly a myth, certainly for those in B2B PR anyway. Our day to day working lives are action packed but far less glamourous! We’re less likely to be found at a fancy launch party and much more likely to be meeting with clients, brain storming ideas in the office or sat at our desks writing pieces of content or speaking to journalists.
Just like any job, there are highs and some frustrations too….
The highs include:
- Coming up with inspired ideas to support our clients marketing objectives
- Winning new business after working hard on a creative pitch
- And, achieving client delight whether that’s a great piece of media coverage or a highly useable piece of content
And the frustrations….
- Securing an opportunity to place an article with one of your client’s top target publications, agreeing to and meeting their extremely tight deadline, only for the article to be pulled at the last minute due to space restrictions.
- Trying to pitch news stories to journalists who rarely pick up their phone or respond to emails. And if they do, few have the time or inclination to pay us much attention.
- Managing client expectations – PR has never been an exact science and unfortunately from time to time good stories just don’t seem to engage with journalists in the way we hoped.
I’m not sure an of the above would make for particularly interesting TV viewing but it’s fair to say there’s rarely a dull day in PR.
