Dwynwen Williams - Agency PR

ATOM PR’s Dwynwen Williams says her first attempts at communicating involved calling her grandmother a “stupid old woman” at the grand old age of two.

Luckily her skills improved with age, and at school she found a passion for languages and communication as well as a flair for setting up small charitable enterprises and get-rich-quick schemes (“one evening of flapjack-making could make you £7.50 the next day” she tells us “result!”).

Despite choosing to do a Law Degree, she soon decided that a career in law was not for her and got back on track by way of an Information Studies masters which, she says, set her up with “great analytical skills and an appreciation of the media and the availability of information”. Coupling these skills with her passion for writing (and her obsession with crossing t’s and dotting i’s) Dwynwen found herself moving on to PR roles. She now runs ATOM PR with her sister Elliw.

Dwynwen calls ATOM “a small but perfectly formed bilingual communications agency”. They have worked with over 50 clients from the UK and beyond, and Dwynwen says that she and Elliw, as well as providing a boutique, bespoke service for their clients, are aiming to prove that you can work in a job you love wherever you choose.

We spoke to Dwynwen about her career to date.

By Unicorn Jobs

What was your first job after you left university?

The day after I finished my masters degree I started a job at the Welsh Books Council. It was mainly an information management role, maintaining and updating data on 15,000 books for use in their marketing and communications activity. This was 1998 and it soon transpired that, with such a comprehensive internal database, we could set up a website to sell and market the books online. My role therefore developed to include the project management elements of setting up what has been called the ‘Welsh Amazon’: www.gwales.com. Being only 21 at the time, I’m incredibly grateful that I was given so much responsibility so early on.

What was your first PR role?

Having worked on setting up a website, I was very aware that there was a lot of work to be done promoting the use of IT in Wales. I moved to a role at my local authority’s Economic Development Department urging businesses, in particular, to embrace information technology – so that potential suppliers would consider the region a viable investment opportunity. Even though there was no mention of PR or communication in the job description, I realised very early on that it was a public relations role. Subsequently I strengthened my PR skills, went on appropriate training courses (including the gruelling but rewarding CIPR postgraduate diploma) and moved on to pure PR work.

What have you done since then?

It just so happened that as I was finding my feet in PR, and thoroughly enjoying the work, my sister Elliw had set up a translation and PR agency. Elliw had been working from the spare room for two years and wanted to expand, and I was looking for a business opportunity of my own. Over a glass of wine one Christmas we decided to join forces, become partners in ATOM PR and see how it would go. We have not looked back since! I am now a Senior Account Director on a diverse range of projects, as well as a co-director of ATOM.

Tell us a bit about ATOM PR.

We are based in Caernarfon, North Wales, and provide strategic communications services for a wide range of clients within and outside the region. Elliw and I are the only full-time Atoms – we carry out projects not by employing staff but by tapping into the skills of some fantastic freelance contractors. We are intentionally not sector-specific – we enjoy variety, we thrive on getting to grips with new fields and on making new contacts in different sectors of the media. We also believe this approach keeps our ideas fresh. At present we are working on projects as diverse as a glitzy awards event for local young entrepreneurs under 18, planning consultations for Aldi Stores Ltd and an international music festival in Kenya.

Give us an idea of your typical day at work.

The actual working day depends largely on the projects I currently have on – I could be putting together a strategic report or manning an event or having overseas meetings. I can say, though, that I am one for batching tasks. If I’m office-based I work best when I put time aside in the morning for planning, then work in two-hour stints at individual projects. It rarely works out that regimented and organised though, unfortunately!

What’s the best thing about your job?

The variety, definitely. I also love pitching for new work then, at the planning phase, coming up with creative ideas and solutions. On the business side, my sister and I are great believers in networking and we love making new contacts, so I’d have to say that the ‘extracurricular’ elements of the job are a big plus too.

What’s the worst thing about your job?

Hands up, I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the monitoring and evaluation phase of a project. I find it a bit like clearing up after a party when all the fun has ended and everybody’s gone home.

London is generally considered the geographical heart of UK PR. What advantages are there of using a regional PR agency instead?

Localisation localisation localisation! You could pay the best agency in London the highest possible fee, but sometimes nobody can talk to stakeholders at a grass-roots level better than an agency that knows them inside-out. Even global organisations acknowledge this fact: we have carried out a project for Microsoft, advising on some local Welsh sensitivities for some of their software packages. We have also worked for national and international PR firms who have seen the benefit in sub-contracting localised elements of projects to regional agencies such as ours.

What’s your best piece of advice for an aspiring PR person?

Please, please pay attention to detail. Even the best creative ideas can be let down by shabby execution. I receive piles of CVs from aspiring PRs with typing errors or formatting issues within them. They are met with an instant bugger off. So check, check and check again, whether it’s regarding a journalist’s interests or the dimensions for a banner. Be thorough!

Do you think social media has a place in PR?

Yes, definitely. So much so that I hope the profession will cease making the divide between ‘traditional’ media and ‘new’ media. But the usual principles of story targeting should apply – I hate seeing agencies jumping on the social media bandwagon where a good old spread in the local newspaper would have been more beneficial for the client.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that we couldn’t find on the internet.

I absolutely love playing practical jokes on my friends. Unfortunately they are rarely amused!

Dwynwen on the web

gwales website
ATOM PR’s website