Katie Bawler - Consumer PR

Katie studied PR at Bournemouth University, graduating from there last June. During the course she did a one year placement at Cow PR, working with a range of consumer clients, including Bandai, fish4jobs, Aunt Bessie’s and Whole Earth. Since graduating she has stayed in the consumer PR domain, now based at Eulogy! and working with clients like Santander, moneysupermarket.com, Royal Mail Special Stamps and the Post Office.

Pictured: Katie (inset) and the rest of the Eulogy team (Main)

How did you first get into PR?

I studied PR at University, so was introduced to the industry through various lecturers and projects undertaken on my course, one of which was a year long placement. I undertook my placement at Cow PR and got a real hands on experience of working in communications, which really set me up for a future career in the industry.

So, what has happened since you graduated?

I have now taken my first proper step onto the career ladder by becoming an Account Executive at Eulogy! PR. I’ve been in the position for five months now and am obviously hoping to progress through the agency as I grow and continue to learn.

Has your degree been useful? Would you recommend other young people considering a communications career consider a PR degree?

There are many PR courses out there but through my experience. and from speaking to others, the course at Bournemouth really is second to none. The programme leaders have got a blend of theory, practical knowledge and industry insight that is spot on. For me the course, and the placement in particular, proved invaluable in setting me up for life in the PR industry.

However, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to have a PR degree. A passion for the industry, a desire to learn about the way PR works and a dedication to achieving great results are equally as important

How did you get into your current job?

It was actually through someone I worked with when on placement at Cow. Whilst I was finishing my final year at Uni, after my placement, they moved to Eulogy! and recommended me to come in when an extra pair of hands was needed on a particularly busy account. I went to Eulogy! and worked my socks off, undertaking everything from sell-ins to media mail-outs, and even filling jam jars! Luckily my hard work and enthusiasm paid off and I was invited for an interview for a full time position. The rest, as they say, is history…

What does your current role involve?

I work on a range on consumer accounts including Royal Mail Stamps, Moneysupermarket.com, Santandrer and the Post Office. There’s such a wide range of responsibilities that come with each account that it’s impossible to give a concrete list of the specific jobs that come with my role.

Definitely one of the primary tasks of an Account Executive is media relations. I ‘sell-in’ to journalists pretty much on a daily basis, whether it’s talking to the national newspapers, placing features in consumer magazines or pitching spokespeople to broadcast media. You’ve got to be able to pick up the phone and persuade a journalist that your client and their story is something that they should be writing about and is a topic that will interest their audience. This isn’t about being loud or extrovert. You just need to be able to empathise with each journalist and understand which particular bit of your story would appeal to them.

Other jobs carried out by an AE include copywriting, whether it be press releases, comment pieces or promotional material, supplier management, monitoring for coverage and brainstorming.

Give us an idea of your typical day at work?

I normally rock up to work at about ten to nine (others usually get there earlier, but I’m not much of a morning person!) and am at my seat with a bowl of cereal at 9.

All the AEs and SAEs then spend the next half an hour reading their designated newspaper in order to pick out the big news and PR stories from the day. This is important as it brings us up to speed on the day’s news, and shows us what other brands are doing as part of their PR activity.

I then spend the day doing account work, such as clipping coverage, selling-in stories and writing press releases.

I normally leave at about six in the evening. Something Eulogy! are very good at is making sure you aren’t working too late, and keeping tabs so that you don’t get bogged down by too much work.

Tell us a bit about Eulogy!

Eulogy! are a 30 strong crew that provide both strategic and creative campaigns. We have a great range of consumer and B2B clients such as Royal Mail, Comedy Central, JWT and Mortascreen. And we recently won the PRCA Agency Of The Year!

Can you tell us about some recent projects?

Two campaigns that I have worked on recently stand out.

Firstly the campaign we ran for moneysupermarket.com to coincide with the launch of their new advertising push. The campaign was entitled ‘Haggle Britain’ and was based on the premise that our British reserve stops us from haggling. We wanted to encourage consumers to give haggling a go next time they’re on the high street. We conducted consumer research showing that the recession had made retailers more amenable to haggling and carried out a live high street experiment testing just how much real shoppers could save in well known shops across the UK. We achieved loads of coverage and made the client very happy. This campaign was something I was particularly proud of as the team went beyond the call of duty, such as working between Christmas and New Year, in order to make the launch, on the 4th January, a big success.

The other project I should mention absolutely amazed me, because it showed how PR could cause real hype and awareness about a product. We recently launched Royal Mail’s Classic Album Cover stamps which feature ten iconic album covers from the last four decades. The sheer amount of coverage we gained was phenomenal, and we’re well into the 200 mark for number of pieces. This was the first campaign I have worked on where we were being chased by journalists rather than the other way round. The phone was ringing off the hook and we were getting requests from the mainstream (‘BBC Breakfast’), the cool (Q Magazine) and even as far flung as Rolling Stone Magazine in America. The best thing though was that my friends started talking about the stamps down the pub, completely unaware that I had worked on the campaign. Job done!

Do you think social media is having a big impact on PR as a profession?

I think candidates looking for a job in PR really need to have a good understanding or enthusiasm to learn about social media. More and more clients are wanting an integrated campaign and are expecting to see PR activity that involves social media. So if a candidate can display a knack for all things ‘social’ then they will already have a tick against their name. For me, I’m enjoying learning on the job and exploring the way in which social media is used in PR. It definitely opens up new channels of communication between PRs and the public.

What advice would you have for anyone considering a career in PR?

Make yourself known. If there’s a particular agency that you want to work for make sure they notice you. You could try commenting on blog posts they’ve written or posting interesting articles that are relevant to their clients. Twitter is becoming an increasingly important tool in PR recruitment. Companies no longer need to look at a person’s CV to gauge their skills or interests, now they can check out their tweets and blogs.

Also, where possible, try and take up as many work experience opportunities as possible. Contacts are crucial in the PR game and someone you worked with whilst on work experience may remember you for the great work you did further down the line.

What is the best thing about your job?

Something I love about working in PR, and in an agency in particular, is that no two days are ever the same. One minute you can be liaising with a journalist, the next minute playing word association games as part of a brainstorm, and then the next minute you’re setting up for a cocktail reception at a swanky hotel. Also, I’m genuinely obsessed with all things PR, and love being the one creating campaigns that people are talking about

What’s the worst thing about your job?

The disappointment of not getting coverage. As an AE I live for getting coverage, but unfortunately there are never, ever, any guarantees that coverage will appear. Frequently you’ll bend over backwards for a journalist to make sure they have everything they need in order to run your story, but then if it’s dropped at the last minute by the Editor because some breaking news has come in, then there’s not much you can do about it.

What’s been the highlight of your career so far?

It was whilst working on a campaign for Aunt Bessie’s to raise awareness of their frozen mashed potato. It sounds pretty boring but we had a brilliant creative that involved turning an ice cream van into a ‘mash van’ and a 99 ice cream into a ‘mash cone’ (so the mash was the ice cream, the sausage was the flake, the peas the sprinkles and the gravy the chocolate sauce).

The night before we launched the story Metro had a written an article on their website slating the mash cone. This caused a lot of nerves within the team about how the story would go down. The next day we were doing a media house tour with the mash van that included the top-security building where Metro were based. Wanting to avenge the bad write up of the story, I opportunistically approached a man standing outside the building having a cigarette. Luckily he worked in the accounts department for the Associated Press and agreed to sneak me in to their offices. So in I went with two mash cones hidden under my coat and made the journalist eat his proverbial words and actually taste the mash.

To everyone’s delight he pulled down the bad article and replaced it with a glowing write up of the mash cone. It was this coup that made me think that I was going to be alright at this PR lark.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that we cant find on the internet?

I applied to be on cult quiz show ‘Eggheads’ The amount of spare time you have at uni to pursue these hair-brained schemes is ridiculous!