I am writing to tell you how I see your future profession and to emphasise one point: you are in the best place at the best time. PR is a global science and practice. Additionally, PR is growing rapidly. The education, the science, the practice are becoming globalized.

Arriving in England in January

I arrived from Hungary at Leeds Metropolitan University in the middle of January to spend three months here as a visiting scholar to the public relations and communications subject group.

My university – Széchenyi István University (named after a noble Hungarian from the 19th century) is located in Győr (at the meeting point of three rivers). It has three faculties and two institutes and it is attended by about 12,000 students each year.

I work for the Faculty of Business in the Marketing and Management Department as an associate professor and I teach various management and communication modules, among them Public Relations.

From next semester I will teach some modules in English, for our Erasmus students and for our postgraduate Marketing students. This was one of my motivations to apply for a scholarship when invited by my university.

I would like to gather as much information as possible about the latest trends in communication management: by attending lectures, reading books and articles, taking part in several events, joining research programmes, getting in touch with excellent PR practitioners, researchers, academics, and by picking the brains of my English colleagues who are great authorities in their field.

Because PR is global one, we can apply this to Hungary, as well.

Public relations in Hungary

Some data about the history of Hungarian PR: in 1990 the Hungarian Public Relations Association was established with 40 members. As the next step, in 1992 the PR profession was registered as an individual profession in Hungary. The first PR magazine, the PR Herald was launched in 1995. Hungary has been the venue for several international PR conferences.

Public relations education was accredited in 1998 within Communication and Media Sciences. Nowadays this course is offered by 19 Hungarian universities as a BA and by 10 universities at MA level. The curricula and the applied books/tools are similar to English programmes.

There are PR agencies, consultancies and in-house PR departments in Hungary, as well as individual PR experts (publishers, editors, journalists, event organisers). Grayling – the large public relations, public affairs, investor relations and events consultancy – has run its own office in Budapest since 1994.

As I told you: you are in the best place at the best time. Many foreigners arrive in England to learn about communication, marketing, public relations and journalism. Leeds Met is one of the leading universities in these fields.

Communication is one of the essential life skills since it’s clearly related to success with family, friends and success in the workplace. If you look at successful people, you’ll almost always find they have the ability to communicate with others, either one-to-one or in groups, far more effectively than less successful people. And you can be a professional in it.

Don’t worry! Great speakers are not born but they take training. Pick your lecturers’ brains! Make the best of your time! Ride on the wave!

I enjoyed spending this useful time in England, I learned a lot. Thank you. Haye…

Eligibility

• Over 20 years of age on the date of application;
• Currently attending university having completed at least two years of studies at university level or will have completed a qualification/degree within a six month period prior to the application;
• Medically fit to take up an internship at The Global Fund;
• Have not previously participated in a Global Fund internship programme.

Allowances

• Duration of Internship Program: 3 months
• Monthly stipend of 2, 000 Swiss Francs.
• Travel costs and health insurance will be also covered.
• Intern to take care of own visa and accommodation; The Global Fund will provide you with a support letter to attach to your visa application.

How to Apply

Send an essay of 400-words maximum to socialmedia@theglobalfund.org on why you would like to work with the organisation.

Prize winners: Christine Quigley (centre) with Sophie Hall and Natalie Smith

Public Relations has a bad reputation when it comes to ethical practice.

PR practitioners are often thought to be liars, manipulators and spin-doctors.

However PR is an evolving global profession and has had to change and improve in order to meet the growing expectations and needs of stakeholders.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or sustainability is now a specialist area of PR that is important to an organisation in order for it to be perceived as being ethical.

Ethical practice leads to trust, which helps to build and maintain an organisation-stakeholder relationship which is ultimately the purpose of the public relations function.

CSR has now become an aspect of PR that is increasingly being incorporated into corporate identity and is changing stakeholders’ perspectives of particular organisations.

I also believe in order to be ethical when practising global PR a centralised approach is not acceptable. A number of factors should be taken into consideration before, during and after global campaigns.

• Culture (customs and values)
• Language
• Environment
• Communication delivery systems

What may be considered unethical behaviour in a Western European country may be viewed as acceptable practice in parts of the developing world. So if not taken into consideration this could cause a communications crisis, brand confusion, loss of trust and credibility for an organisation or a brand.

Here are some examples of some campaigns/slogans that did not consider language differences when launching a global campaign and their messages got lost in translation:

• Coors slogan, “Turn it loose,” when translated to Spanish read as “Suffer from diarrhoea.”
• In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came out as “eat your fingers off.”

Fortunately these mistakes did not do permanent damage to the brand yet they generated bad publicity and made the brands memorable for the wrong reason.

Case study in ethical global PR

Toms is a shoe company. Whenever a customer buys a pair of their shoes they donate a pair to a child in need. They call this ‘one for one’. The company started up with the mission to help children in developing countries, not just to gain a profit.

This to me is an example of ethical PR on a global scale and CSR at its best. It is not just to a way to generate publicity which is often the perception of CSR initiatives –  it’s also their business model.

‘Toms’ partners with humanitarian and non-profit organisations who are already established all over the world in countries such as Ethiopia, South Africa and Rwanda. They also help poor children in the USA and South America. These partners must match the following criteria:

• Repeat Giving - partners must be able to work with the same communities in multi-year commitments, regularly providing shoes to the same children as they grow.
• High Impact - shoes must aid Giving Partners with their existing goals in the areas of health and education, providing children with opportunities they would not otherwise have.
• Considerate of Local Economy - ensuring the donated shoes do not have negative socio-economic effects on the communities where shoes are given (for example, by harming the work of local cobblers).
• Large Volume Shipments - Giving Partners must be able to accept large shipments of giving pairs.
• Health/Education Focused-  Giving Partners must only give shoes in conjunction with health and education effort

This to me shows they only want to be associated with other ethical organisations and that they are addressing all cultural and language barriers by partnering with NGOs who are already established in these countries who know the customs, values and beliefs of the country.

Not only are ‘Toms’ socially responsible they also demonstrate transparency. They have all the press they have received available on their website. They have updated blog posts, pictures and video casts showing their work. This allows customers to see what was promised when they bought their shoes is actually happening, therefore encouraging a trusting relationship.

When researching ethical PR in general I came across some bloggers debating the following statement: “The only way to practise ethical PR is to work in the NGO or voluntary sector, all the rest is corporate propaganda or spin”.

Toms is a perfect example of a company which is not an NGO or in the voluntary sector yet which practises ethical PR worldwide. They are truthful, transparent and socially responsible.

In order to have ethical PR on a global scale it is important for an organisation to be truthful, transparent, accurate and socially responsible. It is also important to consider other factors  such as culture, religion etc.

However, as public relations is not a recognised profession like medicine or the law, it is not compulsory for practitioners to sign up for or abide by the ethical guidelines put forward by professional bodies such as the CIPR and IPRA.

It is up to the individual practitioner or an organisation to incorporate these ethical guidelines into their communication objectives and tactics. For me personally, I hope to continue to live by these principles when I begin my career.

Will it take PR to be recognised as an actual profession before we will see more examples of ethical global PR?

Abigail Crim

I can only imagine what it’s like to have a large family with multiple siblings who live under one roof but are in varying stages of life, all achieving their own milestones and seeking their own identities while sharing personal and geographic space.

How does this relate to public relations? American public relations is older than European public relations. America started doing it first (in the modern sense, anyway: public relations has been around for thousands of years).

I realize that my sibling metaphor could be misinterpreted, as if I were insinuating that Europe is the younger sibling wishing she could tag along with Big Sis America. That is not my intent and would be both highly arrogant and outrightly false. Yet as German public relations lecturer Rudiger Theilmann acknowledged: “America is still the big brother [to Europe]” in the public relations sphere.

Here is how the US and European styles of public relations can be compared to the relationship that my sister and I have:

• I started experiencing major life events before my sister; the US started to utilize conventional public relations practices before Europe did.
• My sister saw how I handled various milestones and learned from my actions; Europe learned from the US and is adapting its unique public relations techniques.
• My sister realized her own autonomy and was happy to make her own way; Europe realized that it did not need to follow American public relations paradigms and is now attempting to define and defend its own strategies toward public relations, in hopes of gaining its individuality.

Europe could also be seen as the family with multiple siblings. Europe consists of 53 countries, 27 of which are in the EU, and dozens of languages and subsequent dialects are spoken in each nation. They all share one continent, yet are at various stages of economic development and contain a vast array of cultures and ethnicities. Arguably, although the US is technically one nation, there are also many different cultures and regional differences within it. The distinction is that the US is a younger nation comprised of immigrants. The EU includes only just over half of all European countries, and is comprised of distinct, settled ethnic populations that have been there hundreds or even thousands of years.

These different cultures possess various conceptions of what public relations is. Vercic et al point out that Germany’s term for public relations, “Offentlichkeitsarbeit”, literally means “public works” and is explained as “working in public, with the public and for the public.” The authors claim that this conception of public relations is in opposition to the mainstream (US) conception, which is concerned with the “management of relationships between an organization and its publics.”

Essentially, the argument is that the German definition, “public work,” implies that in Germany the goal is to connect with and serve the public. In the US, the goal of public relations is to please the corporation, and does so by disseminating information to the public on the corporation’s behalf, and then connecting with the public with the corporation’s goals in mind.

Germany is certainly not the only European country that has unique public relations perspectives and techniques. Over the years a deep need for autonomy has emerged in European public relations, as is evidenced by the 2002 Bled Manifesto. The Bled Manifesto is a document that every public relations student should read, especially if he or she has an interest in international public relations.

The manifesto was presented in July, 2002, at 9th International Public Relations Research Symposium in Bled, Slovenia, and is written as a call to action for European public relations practitioners to cast off the shackles of American dominance and come into its own. Even the name evokes images of revolution, the word “manifesto” conjuring images of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels’ Communist Manifesto.

It is worth noting that the Manifesto was written in English, and while English is technically one of the languages in the European Union, it can be safely assumed that the Manifesto was meant to be read by an American audience. The document states that “public relations” as a term is rarely used in Europe, but terms such as “communication management,” “corporate communication,” or “integrated communication” are more commonly used (although there is some debate among European practitioners about these as well). So what?

What’s in a name? A lot. If European countries were to settle for using an American term to define the field, doing so would imply that they are prescribing to the American way of conducting public relations.

The manifesto states, in very clear language, that “as long as the U.S. English language, the U.S. practice and the U.S. theory are the sole sources of conceptual work, the field of public relations will be short of global inclusiveness and validity it needs to become a true academic discipline and a profession.” Like my sister, the Bled Manifesto clearly shows how Europe is ready to come into its own.

The US, as an older sibling, has clearly contributed significantly to the way that public relations is conducted in Europe today. But it is also clear that, like my sister, Europe is ready to make its own mark.

Just because the US played a significant role in the way that public relations has developed in Europe does not mean that it will continue to do so. Instead of sibling rivalry, the US should recognize that Europe is its own entity with an array of cultures and nations.

Grayling’s brief is to raise the profile of the EIU, positioning the sector analysts and leveraging report content. The six figure account was won by Grayling following a four way pitch and covers activity in two regions. Asia Pacific will be covered by The Consultancy in Hong Kong and Cape PR in Australia.

The EIU is the world’s foremost provider of country, industry and management analysis, and is now a leading research and advisory firm with more than 40 offices worldwide.  With extensive international reach, and unfettered independence, the EIU is the most trusted and valuable resource for international companies, financial institutions, universities and government agencies.

Michael Brunt, Global Head of Marketing, Economist Intelligence Unit commented:  “We appointed Grayling after a thorough pitch process during which we spoke to all the top international agencies. We felt that Grayling’s offer would provide us with a centrally coordinated and highly effective one-stop shop for all our communications needs. The Grayling team convinced us with their strong expertise within the media space, and we look forward to working with them.”

Michael Murphy, CEO Grayling, said: “The fact that the Economist Intelligence Unit has chosen to work with Grayling is another strong endorsement of our growing reputation for providing counsel, insight and delivery of global PR support. The EIU is such a prestigious brand; we are delighted to be working with them in such an integrated communications remit across territories.”

The campaign will be driven out of Grayling’s offices in London and New York.

Oana Jinga of Birmingham City University

We all agree on PR being an industry that emphasises freedom of speech, democracy and limited censorship. It needs diversity to be born and permanent resources to survive and grow.

It is more than obvious then, that in a communist country, PR in the way we understand it today would be a failure and moreover an actual crime, as the Government is the only one to dictate what is good and what is bad for the population.  But what happens to a country when it finally frees itself from all the restrictions and local shops start to display on their shelves more than one brand of sugar, milk or soap?

It took Romania almost 10 years to understand the value of PR in a modern, democratic society, but in 2010 we can proudly say they have a growing industry of “communication” and also, an education system for public relations.

Mihaela Nita, or Mili as she likes to be known, is a third year student at the University of Bucharest, specialising in Public Relations and Communication.  Being on her final year she decided to share and analyse some of her experience with PR, hoping that in this way, she could understand more of it herself.

I only waited for Mili for five minutes. She doesn’t have a habit of arriving late, but sometimes combining leisure activities with work with full-time education may lead to a certain compromise, placing one of them lower on the daily planner. She seems fresh, colourful, red-haired with green eyes, contrasting with the dirty traces of snow on the pavement and the gloomy atmosphere on this cold December day.  We decide for a coffee on the same street as the University of Bucharest, a friendly and familiar place packed with loud students.  She is still a bit confused about my wish to interview her but as we discuss the topic she smiles and admits she might not be very accurate in answering as she is barely an apprentice in the Romanian PR.

“I was born in the middle of the mountains in an extremely dull town.  Thank God for the library, the playhouse and the Internet. In the universe I created for myself I felt I had a very effervescent life: I befriended Marquez, Cortazar, Ezra Pound, I stared at contemporary versions of Shakespeare… and I started a blog.”

That is how she begins to tell us about her love story with communication: with words and inspiration.  When I ask her why she chose PR she goes straight for the answer:  “To be honest, like almost every teenager I longed to live the “copywriter” dream: ideas popping out of my head whenever, people worshipping me, crazy ads and glam actors.”  However, it was not Sex and the City’s Samantha that made her take a life changing decision as she admits that after doing some research and reading a few books:  “I came down to earth (it didn’t hurt). I fell in love with branding, and Public Relations amongst it – and our relationship is pragmatic and sure-footed.”

It was then time to leave mum and dad and head for the big city, where higher education and strong work field provided the perfect environment for a PR fresher. “As soon as I moved to Bucharest I tried to make up for the lack of dynamism of my home town, so I meddled in everything… I joined a PR student association, I went to every little conference on Marcomm, I wrote for a site on a daily basis and then I got a job as PR assistant in a lovely company.”

Although she became a workaholic and she loves everything about her job, she wants to keep her options open. “If it hadn’t been PR, it would have been journalism or any sort of writing. I can’t imagine myself outside witty words and good causes.”  She is determined to stick to the creative industries, but from time to time she’d like to take some breaks and do “crazy” things. “I have friends who at 30 decided to study philosophy, giving up the bright career in banking and friends who went on a long Balcanic trip to listen to music and dance.”  Street artists like Katie Sokoler inspire her.

I am sure many Media and Communications students in the UK are curious about how PR is taught in other countries, but Romania is completely different, its study methods seem to puzzle some. Mili tries to explain the confusion by telling me something about the course she is on:

“In Romania there is practically no undergraduate course which focuses exclusively on PR, we also have modules in Anthropology, Mass media, Law, Semiotics, Philosophy etc. Although at first it may seem that these lectures have little in common, at the end of the year they all come together into a unifying concept.  This means that my uni helped me broaden my perspectives to the extent that I don’t see PR as solely a technical domain.  In order to be a good PR person, it is not enough to know the meaning of terms such as BTL, pitch, WoM etc; it is important that one has interest and skills as diverse as possible.”

Assignments are not that different, it is their number that counts as in Romania. A student has an average of six exams each winter or summer, adding to a number of diverse projects, from research work to planning and creative pieces. However, the fact that modules are strictly separated in lectures and workshops helps the student become more familiar with the tasks and understand the teacher’s demands.  “While during courses we are overwhelmed by the amount of academic information with a lot of googling to do afterwards, the workshops are more laid back and personal.  Most after-school projects are not only about interaction, but they also need a lot of research and creativity.  For instance, I loved it when we had to think about a branding campaign for our Uni, or the time we went into city or national branding.”

Many students in Romania don’t have the privilege to be part of the world of work at such early stages but Mili has been with her company since her fresher’s year.  It wasn’t easy in the beginning but she never gave up despite the fact that sometimes coursework and office requirements exhausted her. After two years of experiencing the industry she can confidently talk about it, trying to describe it.

“PR received its biggest boost from the growth of CSR activities in Romania. However, we are just starting and there is still room to grow.  Let me mention some good things: the amount of sites on Romanian PR, the awards, the student associations on PR, the numerous conferences.  Of course, many people who are not related to the field still  think of PR as  purely customer service.”

Mili considers that the PR industry in Romania has been till recently the unwanted sibling.  Advertising was all it took to make a product gain the trust of the consumer in this fast developing society that finally had a free market, liberated from all political constraints.

The international experience seems to be top priority for all students, but it is a must for the ones studying such new and dynamic courses as media and PR.

Many choose the Erasmus programs and leave their country for one or two semesters, returning to finish their initial course.  Others consider that the most valuable part is the postgraduate phase and go for an international MA or PhD diploma.  Even though factors like money, love and family are between her and her dream of being an international student, Mili says she would love to get a master’s degree outside the country.

“Berlin sounds good! Oh, but London too!  The Netherlands doesn’t scare me and neither does France.”  However, when it comes to work, things don’t seem that easy anymore:  “I’m sceptical about working in PR in another country, because it would take me some time to know and understand my target audience.  PR sometimes speaks a universal language (the language of doing things well), but that isn’t a general rule.”

Although I wanted to know a lot more about her, I knew Mili had to go to an “Imagology” lecture. However, I couldn’t give up before she told me how she sees the whole PR drama after three years of Uni and two years as PR assistant and what would she tell a prospective student. She paused and then said:

“I would just recommend all students to read everything that comes to hand and not necessarily just on PR.” Before anything else, a very good knowledge of the world is the key to success.

Twenty years after the events of 1989, a revolution that led to the collapse of communism, Romania held a series of presidential elections in November-December 2009.

Winner: Traian Basescu

Former president Traian Băsescu (candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party – PDL), won a new mandate over Mircea Geoană (the candidate of the Social Democratic Party – PSD), in the second round of the elections. The former president won 5,274,063 votes while Mircea Geoana gained 5,204,102 votes (50.33% – 49.66%). The third candidate was Crin Antonescu of the National Liberal Party (PNL) who supported Geoană in the second round.

The 2009 election brought something new to the Romanian political scene: for the first time, a presidential election was not held simultaneously with parliamentary elections in May. This also brought a change in terms of political communication as the presidential campaign extended throughout the year between the two elections.

During this period Romanians witnessed some amazing scandals like Monica Ridzi and Elena Udrea (ministers appointed by PDL for the portfolios of Sports and Tourism). The two ministers were accused of serious irregularities, Ridzi being removed from office. These two issues were used during the campaign to infer guilt by association with the president in office, Traian Băsescu, because the two ministers were perceived by the public as Băsescu’s people.

It’s all about enemies

Let’s get to the strategies employed by the three main candidates in this campaign. To understand the strategy used by Băsescu we must review a brief history of the man and his character.

The president is known as a politician who likes an argument. Because of this, all the time, Băsescu found enemies even where they did not exist and often positioned himself as one of us the people against an imagined them, the anti-democratic forces. In 2004, when he won his first term as president, Băsescu was branded as the anti-corruption candidate and the representative of the people in the struggle against the barons of PSD.

In 2007, Băsescu was suspended from office after 322 parliamentarians accused him of having violated the constitution. The fight between president and parliament was resolved by a referendum in which 74.48% supported the president. In his campaign Băsescu characterised the 322 MPs as a singular enemy who defied the people by suspending the democratically elected president.

In 2009 Băsescu adopted a similar strategy surrounding the topic of state reform. The theme materialised in a national referendum, in which people were asked about a proposed shift to a unicameral (ie single chamber) parliament. 77.78% agreed to this, supporting Băsescu, 88.84% agreed with having fewer than 300 parliamentarians. Alongside his battle against parliament, Băsescu also led a fight against moguls and oligarchs, terms invented by the president himself. The terms have been used to describe owners of a media group and those with financial power, as well as high profile backers of his opponents.

His opponents Mircea Geoană, the Socialist candidate, and Crin Antonescu, the Liberal candidate, responded with an anti-Băsescu strategy. In the fight with the current president, both candidates relied on the decrease of his notoriety and the accumulated discontent of the people in those five years of Basescu’s mandate. This strategy was also clear in the second round of elections, when PNL and Crin Antonescu supported Mircea Geoană in the battle with Traian Băsescu.

Surprisingly the global economic crisis did not feature as an issue and the candidates didn’t offer real solutions to end the crisis. Instead, due to the us versus them agenda the campaign was inwardly focused and personalized rather than focusing on political platforms.

Television as the main media

If we talk about tactics, we must mention that the three candidates made use of some TV stations previously considered as outside the mainstream. To give just a few examples, we can mention TarafTV, a Romanian folk music station, and OTV, a station designed to be in a continuous search of sensational gossip that has a growing audience.

Another novelty in this campaign was the ‘war of the videos’. During the campaign leading up to the second round the staff of the two candidates met with unpleasant surprises. Two videos became public: one of the 2004 campaign that portrayed Băsescu hitting a child and another where Mircea Geoană received a sum of money from a party member to ensure their presence on the list of candidates for parliamentary elections. Although the movie in which the president struck a child led to more discussion and controversy, it is difficult to assess the impact it had on voters in a context where there were many who held that the movie was a fake.

The debates between the candidates remained an important feature. In 2004 many said that the debate before the second round of elections made Băsescu the winner. This time, the debate between Băsescu, Antonescu and Geoană was watched by 4.1 million viewers and the final debate between Geoană and Basescu by 4.9 million. These figures show once more how important a debate is in a candidate’s strategy.

We also have online. Finally

If online communication was almost overlooked in 2004, in 2009 the presidential candidates took the internet much more seriously. Campaign websites, supportive websites, negative websites, campaign blogs, Facebook profiles, Twitter, Flickr or YouTube channels became key communication means and online PR tactics. The most active seemed to be Traian Băsescu who surprised many by giving two exclusive interviews to popular Romanian bloggers. Crin Antonescu’s also attempted to build a campaign through SMS donations, called “Invest in Action Antonescu”.

Also, a black component of PR was developed in this campaign. Almost every candidate appeared on at least three or four negative websites (especially parodies of the campaign site), each of which had specially employed people who posted negative comments about the opponents in the online media or on blogs.

Has political communications played a big part?

In Romania, political communications is just beginning to emerge. This is not surprising if we bear in mind that democracy is also fairly young. It is difficult to assess the importance of campaign communications, but every year sees new innovations. Romanian politics represents a great opportunity for us, the students and the next generation of communications specialists.

Richard Millington

I had the first Bud Fox moment of my career. Life all came down to a few moments. This was going to be one of them.

Take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, make eye contact and begin…

I was giving a presentation about my social media plans to Antonio Gutterres – better known as the man who used to run Portugal.

He now runs the Refugee Agency at the United Nations. The presentation was the culmination of months of schedule co-ordination and persuading of key staff. It was the most terrifying moment of my fledgling career.

I am the Social Media/Online Community Manager at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. It’s a £48k per year job that over 200 people applied for. I was the youngest. You can get really amazing jobs in marketing and PR, very quickly after graduating, if you’re willing to go further than your fellow students are.

Here’s my advice for fellow graduates:

1) Become an expert and build your brand

First find a niche that’s yours, learn everything you can about it then give advice to those that know less than you. I specialize in online communities. I read up on sociology, psychology and anthropology then use those insights to help organizations build online communities. I publish much of my advice on my blog, www.feverbee.com. That’s my thing; you need your own.

Say you’re interested in celebrities (and many PR students seem to be), then bring something to the table. Become the expert on celebrities using new technology to promote themselves. Think about celebrity from a sociological perspective. Become an expert on PR for micro-celebrities in niche fields.

Pick your niche, learn everything about it, then publish yourself. You can start a blog or a mailing list. You can write white papers on what you know or aim for guest spots in relevant media. Become known for being an expert on what you do; that way, jobs will come to you.

2) Network like crazy

Networking is possibly the best use of your spare time. Yet very few students can afford to attend conferences let alone be sober and interesting.

Instead, set aside 20 minutes a day to network. During those 20 minutes, write to someone you admire and ask them if they would be willing to give you some advice. People generally like the flattery of giving advice. If you like a short-cut, ask to interview them for your blog/mailing list/white paper and simply stay in touch.

Next time they hear of a job opening, they will think of you. It won’t pay off in the first month, but if you’re not getting some great job offers as a result of your networking within a year – then you need to try harder.

3) Take a different path

Consider this. When you graduate you’re thousands of pounds in debt (now at super low-interest rates) that you don’t have to pay back until you earn over £15k. This is a long way round of saying you have nothing to lose. You try any of your crazy career ideas without worrying about dependants and mortgages. If it goes wrong, you can move back in with your parents. It’s a great life.

You can’t get an amazing job by following the same career path as everybody else. If you’re planning to apply for entry level/grad jobs after university then I wish you good luck. You’re going to have a job very similar to thousands of other graduates.

I went freelance after graduating. I didn’t earn much (at all) but it freed me up for the big opportunities – like working with marketing genius Seth Godin in New York for three months, launching my online community consulting business, moving to Lithuania and, finally, taking this job in Geneva. I couldn’t have had any of these things if I had accepted a job offer from Amazon last year.

Lake Geneva

Here are two more things to note:

You’re going to make mistakes. I’ve been called the biggest fuck-up in Tech PR. I’ve never worked in Tech PR, but it still hurts. Make sure you never make the same mistake twice.

Think internationally. If you’re born in Britain, you won the geographic lottery. Your passport can get you into 27 European countries.

Consider working in some of them. I live in France and work in Switzerland.

In the UK, the £15m business with 220 staff will be led by Vivien Hepworth, who becomes its chairman; Loretta Tobin becomes chief executive officer.

In western Europe, the business will be led by new managing director Alfred Autischer; in Brussels, the public affairs team will be led by Russell Patten. Chris Dobson leads the business in central and eastern Europe.

In Asia Pacific, Chris Davies continues to run Grayling’s network reporting directly to Nigel Kennedy, who, becomes deputy chairman.

In the US, Michael Murphy, Group CEO, takes overall responsibility. Commenting on the management changes, he said:

“This merger is about capitalising on an opportunity to create a new style of global public relations and public affairs company that is fit for the 21^st Century.”

Bright One Communications, a volunteer-run communications agency for third sector organisations, will be managing the UK publicity for The Pixel Project, an independent volunteer-led campaign to raise awareness and funds to stop violence against women.

The Pixel Project involves Malaysia’s Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) and the USA-based National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) in an innovative and global campaign to raise US$1 million for both organisations to support the victims of violence against women and help address this dramatic problem in their respective countries.

Bright One Communications will be managing the UK publicity for The Pixel Project, which aims to launch in January 2010, and will be helping to drive the global web 2.0 campaign.

The Pixel Project enjoys the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) commendation and intends to reach its fundraising goal by getting a worldwide audience to collectively unveil a world-exclusive million-pixel collage of photographs of group of global celebrity male models online for $1 per pixel.

Award-winning international photographer Jillian Edelstein has been announced as the principal photographer for the campaign, and she will be photographing the male celebrities. South African born Jillian has an enviable portfolio of celebrity portraiture, and has been involved with a number of charitable projects, including recent work with Gwyneth Paltrow for Save The Children Fund.

The Pixel Project Founder, Regina Yau said:

“The Pixel Project team, WAO and NCADV believe that positive male role models will help men realise that as they are part of the problem, so they are part of the solution to ending violence against women. We also hope that this campaign will inspire and mobilise a global audience – especially men – to work together to address the problem while ensuring that WAO and NCADV have enough funds to buffer them against the current recession.”

Ben Matthews, Founder of Bright One Communications said: “We are delighted to be working with The Pixel Project team as part of their worldwide campaign to raise awareness of domestic violence issues. The campaign has the potential to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of women worldwide and we look forward to seeing how the campaign develops over the coming months.”

We can know the history of public relations from documents and narrative accounts. In truth, we tend to get a US perspective featuring familiar names like PT Barnum, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. We also get an optimistic view in which past malpractices tend to be replaced by a more ethical and sophisticated present-day practice.

A decade into the twenty-first century, it’s increasingly fashionable to challenge this US-centric view. But what picture is emerging of the future of public relations?

Alan Freitag is a sympathetic guide, a US academic who in the preface to this book recalls challenging the assumption that global public relations necessarily involves exporting the American way of doing PR. What if PR practitioners from other countries started competing on American soil, in the same way as Japanese or German cars and office technology? His question at a conference in the mid 1990s was greeted with laughter, so ridiculous did it seem at the time.

That was the era of the End of History, the time after the end of the Cold War when the US was the unchallenged global superpower. Now, the rise of China and shocks to capital markets suggest this was a short-lived period.

This book is structured in three parts. First, a review of the common ground (what is public relations and what it’s not; the development of the practice and some major theories and methods). This is followed in part two by a look at cultural dimensions and media systems. Part three is a region by region review of the factors shaping the development of the industry.

This includes a good outsider’s account of Britain (or, as the country is correctly named here, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), though I raised my eyebrows at the assertion that ‘the British respect authority and rank’. I had thought there was much evidence to suggest that the age of deference is very much over. Perhaps this is a minor example of the danger of generalising that the book warns us about.

But there’s a startling omission here. Why no chapter on the United States? If the authors are consistent with the view stated in the preface, then they should have recognised the likelihood that readers from other countries might benefit from a dispassionate academic explanation of the factors shaping the practice of PR in the United States.

Here are two questions I would like to have seen addressed. Why, in a land that prizes free expression and has such a proud tradition of a free press, has it been so long since the press achieved anything like the Washington Post’s Watergate investigation? Have all institutions been beyond criticism and above investigation in the decades since Watergate?

My other question surrounds America’s brand of free market capitalism. The market is so prized, the private over the public sphere, that it seems to me that public relations has played second fiddle to sales and marketing in this promotional culture more than anywhere else in the world. Contrast this with a European country with its larger public sector and stronger emphasis on corporate social responsibility. Could this US promotional culture have hampered the independent development of public relations at the same time that US academics like James Grunig were giving it, in theory, such a distinctive role?

Others will note that not all countries gain much space here, but the authors are academics who are more interested in the principles than the details of the practice.

Theirs is an important review of the literature on global PR at a time when the future is looking uncertain. But it’s likely that the international dimension will be more, not less, important through this century and a sound understanding of history is a good way to confront the paradoxes of the present day.

For public relations practitioners operating across borders the fundamental question is whether to stick to the procedures tested in the home country, adopt formulae that are assumed to represent the international standard or act in a way that is perceived as typical of the target country, so called glocalisation.

Glocalisation

Maynard defines glocalisation as “the process whereby global corporations tailor products and marketing to particular local circumstances to meet variations in consumer demand”. The glocal approach is frequently used in international contexts, yet it has not primarily been conceived as a public relations approach. Our profession has a lot to do with human interactions, positive feelings, and trustworthy collaborations and little with product and service promotion – although sometimes we actually do these activities too.

Other scholars have proposed a different approach to international public relations, an approach based on cultural understanding. In practice, these scholars claim that the important aspects to be considered in communicating with publics internationally are: their country profiles, including their political structure, economic structure, mass media, infrastructure, legal structure and social structure; and their cultural profiles. 

In fact, an organisation working in an international context and applying a cultural approach to its publics needs first to consider: 

• how many countries/cultures are involved directly and indirectly; 
• what types of publics there are in each country;
• the level of involvement of each public in each country; and
• the historical, economic, political and cultural patterns of each country.

This approach surely provides some interesting indications that could actually be put in place, but it suffers from two problems: it takes time and costs money to research and implement a strategy that includes all these parameters and it requires many human resources to continuously monitor changes on public behaviours. Besides, it does not solve the problem of breaking the initial barrier that many of us may experience when working abroad, between local publics and a foreigner PR practitioner. 

I have lived in several different countries and had the opportunity to meet different people and experts. Each time I was surprised how, beside common professional practices, we differentiate each others. Our profession, as my friend and internationally renowned PR expert Toni Muzi Falconi once said to me, is a profession of details. Even a wrongly spelt name on the platform can ruin the organisation of a conference. Yet, how can we be sufficiently detail-oriented when we are working in international contexts? 

The problems are not only how to spell the name of our guests correctly, to translate our messages accurately and to use appropriate business etiquettes.

Our problem is to know how we can create and maintain mutual and beneficial relationships with people from different countries, how we can integrate our corporate values and mission with the cultural norms of our publics and how we can be effective in different countries simultaneously.

I started to think about these questions some years ago, when I first to moved from my native country, Italy, to Canada and then to Belgium, Finland and latterly to Switzerland. 

Cultural differences

I realised that besides my PR competencies and knowledge of the markets something else was necessary. This was a deep understanding of the cultural interpretations that each of us give to oral and written words and personal behaviours. This is even truer with non-Western countries. 

I still remember the disappointment of one of my Finnish friends, who was visiting me in Switzerland and wanted to see the most beautiful mountains in the world, as they were described in one of the tourist brochures. My friend’s disappointment was not caused by the Swiss mountains per se (they are beautiful) but was created by the high expectations that this brochure produced in his mind.

Besides the funny jokes that we made on the brochure’s large use of superlatives and fancy words, it was clear that the connotative meaning of those words for a Finnish person was slightly different from that meant by the Swiss copywriter. 

Cultural differences remain and the sensitivity to the use of language, the use of visuals, and cultural taboos are all a critical aspect of the public relations effort. How special events happen or can happen is often tied closely to the cultures involved.

Professional ethics

Cultures also affect professional ethics. Ethics is a variable which changes from society to society. Being sensitive to what the ethics are in a country may make a critical difference in the success of the public relations effort.

According to a recent survey on global media relations practices by Katerina Tsetsura, a large majority of journalists and public relations practitioners around the world considered it acceptable for their national media to accept payments from news sources in return for coverage.

From these findings we could conclude that in certain countries we could be more successful by being unethical. Without going so far, a great interest in the last few years has been given to informal relationship models. It appears that in certain countries, for example in South-East Asia, informal relations between journalists and PR practitioners that encompass the professional are extremely important in order to be able to forward company’s information through the media. 

So we come back to my initial question. How do we know what is acceptable to say and do in certain international contexts? How can we evaluate our PR outcomes in international settings, especially when the parameters to be compared are as different as the countries in question?  

Cross-cultural communications

The answers are still open to discussion as a global approach to public relations that works in all international contexts has not yet been achieved. However, more and more scholars and practitioners have realised the importance of cultural understanding for public relations. We can conclude that it is not possible to conceive international public relations without integrating elements of intercultural communication and cultural understanding.

So nowadays being a good international PR practitioner also means being a good cross-cultural communicator. 

We do not need to work for a multinational company to realise the importance of intercultural communication, we just need to look outside the window and see who is passing in the street. The free movement of people in different countries has created more and more multi-ethnic cities with citizens, customers and business partners from different cultural backgrounds. 

The challenges for international public relations are many and will also multiply as a consequence of globalisation and the use of new technologies. One thing is clear: if we do not integrate more skills in intercultural communication and we do not start to seek diversity in our practical experiences, then a profession that needs heart and human understanding alongside rational planning will be in trouble.

Group photo: Richard Bailey
Landscape photo: D-32 via Flickr 

Everybody who has ever tried to organise a pan-European PR campaign knows what I am talking about. Often, it is only feasible by the support of local partners who not only translate, but ‘translocate’ the original content.

European public sphere

At first sight, this seems surprising. One initially sees the EU as Europe’s most important economic and political entity. But this very European Union is moving towards realising its vision at different speeds. What is truly shocking is that there has been very little progress since the 1990s. “While the process of economic and political integration has made great strides, the development of a European public is lagging far behind”, wrote the German political observer Jürgen Gerhards as early as 1993.

About a decade later, Gerard Delanty and Chris Rumford from Britain summarised the situation as follows: “The European public sphere differs from conventional public spheres, whether national or transnational, in that it is polyvocal, articulated in different languages and through different cultural models and repertoires of justifications, and occurs in very different institutional contexts.”

This lack of a European public creates new challenges every day for the field of public relations, in both theory and practice.

On a practical level, this mainly involves the arena of political communication, but businesses also need to adjust to a variety of European sub-publics, not only in their public relations, but at the basic level of product-related communications. “Each country of Europe has developed a subtly different kind of media,” was the view of a handbook of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

“In fact, the idea of a ‘European media landscape’ is in itself a misnomer: nothing much links the sensationalism of Albania to a British broadsheet or a long French analytical feature.” The Slovenian writer Dejan Vercic has addressed the issue of “Europe as a communication challenge” from the perspective of PR experts in several publications. For communication directors, it is essential to have some fundamental knowledge of both the differences and the shared features that exist in the media or, more concretely, in the social system of journalism in the various EU member states.

Media perspective

Due to restrictions on the length of this feature, let’s limit our view on the media as one of the main target group of PR. Still, the most comprehensive overview of the differences and commonalities within journalism in European countries is an already ten year old anthology by David Weaver called “The Global Journalist”, which brought together studies from 21 countries and territories. Weaver’s own concluding chapter in particular made it possible to compare and contrast journalism in European countries. It is striking that there is a relatively high level of congruence between the eight countries selected by the author in terms of journalists’ basic demographic characteristics, but only a limited amount of agreement with respect to their role.

The average age of journalists in all of the countries for which data were available is between 30 and 40, and the majority are male, although in one case the gender difference is only slight. The only sizeable demographic differences relate to their academic training. The proportion of journalists who have completed university studies ranges from a surprising low of 26 percent in Austria to 84 percent in Spain. Journalists’ professional self-conception and perceived autonomy are even more interesting.

There is agreement that journalists should report quickly on events. But while half of German and English journalists feel that they should ‘provide entertainment’, only eight per cent of French journalists agreed. Only 40 per cent of British journalists regard it as their professional role to report precisely, as opposed to three-quarters of the French and Germans. These few examples alone make it clear that the Europeanisation of the functional context of media actors is high only for demographic characteristics, but no more than medium for all other features.

Despite all differences it is feasible to group these differences in the form of different models. In their book entitled “Comparing Media Systems”, published four years ago, American Daniel C. Hallin and Italian Paolo Mancini developed three models of media and politics. They examined the influences of the market, the political parties and the state on the media, along with newspaper and television use and the professionalisation of journalism in 18 Western countries.

Within those countries assigned by the researchers to a specific media-system model, the respective national professional culture is also similar. Analogously, these journalistic cultures differ substantially from countries classified as belonging to a different media-system model. Despite the fact that some of these countries have long been associated with one another within the political context of the European Union, the country-specific journalism culture remains evident.

For countries like France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, the authors developed a polarised, pluralistic model. In these controlled political contexts, newspaper circulation figures are low and the media are closely linked to a very polarised political setting; journalism is opinion-oriented, less professionalised and easy to instrumentalise: the state actively intervenes in the media and subsidises the press.

The liberal model is followed in Europe by Great Britain and Ireland and internationally by the United States and Canada. Here the market plays an important role, circulation figures are fairly high, and there has long been a commercial, relatively neutral mass press. Journalism is strongly professionalised, self-regulation is at least institutionalised, if not particularly strong, and the media distance themselves from politics and are strongly involved in investigative journalism.

The researchers classify the media systems in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland as part of the democratic-corporate model. Newspaper circulation is high, the mass press well-developed, the party press has historically been very important, but a neutral, commercial press has come to be predominant. Journalism is very much professionalised and its self-regulation has been institutionalised in these countries.

Managing diversity

Only if the sphere of public relations is aware of specific cultural factors involved in European communication, or even better, in national communication within the European countries, will it be able to analyse appropriately and enter into a helpful dialogue with its various stakeholders with a view to strategy-oriented practice. European communication management implies managing diversity within a framework of diversity.

To work in international PR you will definitely need the same skills required to work in single country PR, no matter what sector you work in. You will need to be able to work fast and accurately, to write to an excellent standard of English, to be happy to pick up the phone and pitch journalists a story at any time of the day or night, to think creatively and analytically about a subject and come up with new approaches to a story or a strategy, to organise complex and challenging events and to stand up in front of strangers and present a subject that you learnt the night before as if you have known it all your life.

International PR though takes you into different ground, and it isn’t always as creative and immediate as doing PR in your own country or region. A few agencies manage international programmes themselves, using people based in the UK who are fluent in the language of the countries in which they are managing PR. This can be a cost-effective solution for client companies, but not having journalists on the ground in each country makes a big difference to what can be achieved. It is more usual for international programmes to be managed from a single agency (the lead agency) and implemented in-country in however many countries the client needs the programme to cover.

Administration

A key part of managing international PR programmes is administration. You have to manage many different aspects of a programme in a number of different countries. You need to brief the agencies involved, keep them informed, brief them for reports, and then you probably need to chase them for the reports because they will never all get them to you on time.

You need to collate the information you get from each agency and put it into a standard format to give to the international client – it is so hard to get 20 agencies to all do something in exactly the same way!

The good part though is that you are dealing with people in all those countries on a daily basis – developing friendships along the way, as well, possibly, as the occasional grudge at someone who just will not get their reports in on time.

Relationship management

You are responsible for negotiating multi-tiered relationships – between the country agencies and their country media, between the country media and the country client, between your international client and each agency and sometimes even between your international client and his/her own country managers. A major part of international PR programme management is keeping those relationships running smoothly and supportively. Sometimes you will have to berate an agency to get its act together or they will lose the account. Sometimes you will have to be tough back at your client if you feel they are being unfair to an agency.

It isn’t always easy, but it isn’t always as difficult as it might sound.

Cultural sensitivity

I don’t mean this in a ritualistic, politically-correct way. You have to appreciate though that the people working on your international PR programme are probably just as clever as you, that they have a lot to offer your programme in terms of creativity and intelligent thinking, and that they know their market much better than you ever can.

Too many people assume that their role in managing an international PR programme is to tell the country agencies what to do and to do and make sure they do it. Wrong!

You should always ask them first – even before you send the proposal to the client. They will almost always have a lot to offer. They can also point out that the day you have proposed for an event in their country is actually a national holiday.

Language skills

To brief non-native English speakers in multiple countries it is a huge help if you understand and think about your own language. The ‘lazy’ English speaker will talk at high speed and use a wide range of English idiom – because that is what we do in our every day lives. But if you use terms like ‘give it a bit of welly’ on a teleconference with other countries, it is likely that many people will not understand what you said, no matter how good their English is.

The usual response from people on the call will be to say that they have understood what you have asked them to do. Even if they have not understood you, they will often say they have, so that they are not embarrassed in front of others about the limitations of their English. So you need to get it right first time. You need to take idiom out of your speech, and speak clearly and relatively slowly.

It really helps if you have learnt another language, and if you have to listen to people speaking in that language occasionally, to remind you just how hard it can be.

Management

Once you have some experience you will also start to get involved in developing international programmes, advising clients on how they can better manage the resources at their disposal, and how to achieve better results.

But if you get all the above right, the consulting and management side will come easily.

Photographs: Richard Bailey

What has this to do with public relations practice?  Quite a lot, and practitioners who understand and plan for these subtle and not-so-subtle differences among nations and cultures will enjoy the greatest success and satisfaction in the decades ahead.  Additionally, they will contribute, as public relations practitioners ought, to making the world a better place.

Refining the curriculum

What’s needed, therefore, is continued refinement of university curricula to ensure public relations students and practitioners acquire and master the skills needed to compete in a global setting.  This article provides guidelines for an approach to education based on the author’s years of international experience in public relations practice as well as more than a decade immersed in developing an international public relations curriculum.

Public relations is practised by means of communication at all its levels: symbolic; non-verbal; verbal; interpersonal; small group; mass; etc.  Communication, in turn, is a fundamental component of culture; indeed, the terms may, some scholars maintain, almost be used interchangeably.  Consequently, a basic understanding of cross-cultural issues will permit an appreciation for the need to consider international public relations as presenting a unique set of challenges to the practitioner.

Several scholars have written on the topic of crafting cohesive and comprehensive courses in international public relations, and public relations programs are increasingly adding such a course to their curricula, offering recommendations for course structure (Culbertson & Chen, 1996; Acosta-Alzuru, 2003; DeSanto, 2003).  This article is based on our experience at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

My experience

I began designing a university course here in international public relations in early 2000, and first taught it on our campus in 2002; we have offered the on-campus course each year since.  In 2003, we added a London-based summer course version and have offered that four-week experience each year since as well.

We treat international public relations as an advanced elective course requiring previous grounding in public relations principles, strategies and tactics.  This permits the instructor to assume students’ reasonable mastery of fundamental public relations knowledge and a degree of application.  Students completing international public relations are likely to have one or two core courses remaining, and their new international awareness will aid in their weaving international concepts into those remaining courses.

We employ the following general sequence for the course:

1. A review of general public relations principles: Roles and models; social forces that have driven and guided the development of the discipline; Components of practice; the traditional 4-step process; etc.  This permits later explanations of how unique social and other forces in various countries spawned equally unique variations of public relations practice.
2. The introduction of cultural taxonomies: high-context/low context; power distance; individualism/collectivism; masculinity/femininity; acceptance of ambiguity; chronemics; proxemics; kinesics; etc.  This provides a baseline for comparing cultures and discussing how those differences affect mass and interpersonal communication processes.
3. Comparative infrastructures such as media systems, legal systems, educational systems (including literacy), theories of the press, and ethical systems.  Again, this provides a metric to aid understanding of how these infrastructures affect public relations practice in other cultural settings.
4. Having established a set of metrics by which to understand and delineate differences in public relations practice around the globe, we examine world regions, describing each in terms of those metrics.  I begin with Asia, then the Middle East, then Africa, then Latin America, then Eastern Europe, then Western Europe, then the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  Of course, an instructor could not possibly cover each nation in each region, so I focus on just two or three illustrative countries in each while making general observations about central tendencies in each region, cautioning students not to paint with too broad a brush.
5. We conclude with discussions about ongoing trends such as globalisation and advances in technology, forecasting how those trends will continue to shape the profession. We also look at public relations education around the globe.

While lectures are necessary in the first few sessions to get the class up to speed and on equal footing, I swiftly make the shift to a more discussion-based, seminar-style approach.  I have students read chapters from course texts along with selected journal articles, then distribute discussion questions based on those readings in advance, typically via a class website.  The questions provide a framework for class discussion, but I don’t cling rigidly to each question if the course of the discussion takes us to interesting and worthwhile places.

As previous scholars have recommended for an international public relations course, guest speakers are a superb addition to the curriculum.  We identify practitioners with deep international experience from Fortune 500 companies, large PR firms, or with government or counselling experience relevant to the course.  I ask speakers to describe two or three “case studies” from their experiences then describe the principles each case reveals.  I have students research the speaker and the topic in advance, preparing two or three open-ended questions each to spur class discussion with the speaker (class participation is part of the grade).

In a 15-week semester, I will typically invite seven or eight guest speakers.  If you don’t have access to speakers of this level, consider inviting faculty colleagues on your campus who come from other countries; they can share cultural insights and will understand and contribute toward your pedagogical goals.  Alternatively, with fairly simple equipment you can arrange a conference call with a distant scholar or practitioner.

Assignments

Assignments should match the advanced level of students in this class.  I engage students in activities that mix research with reflection and individual work with group projects.  For research, I typically have students work individually or in pairs to prepare a country study using the Zaharna (2001) framework as a model.  However, I permit students to choose either a formal written format or a “scrapbook” format; needless to say, most students choose the latter and thoroughly enjoy the experience as they explore a country such as Turkey or Argentina from a public relations viewpoint.  I’ll have slightly larger teams take on a case challenge applying a familiar campaign in an unfamiliar setting.  For example, I’ll have teams research and outline communication campaigns promoting safe driving in India, anti-smoking in Italy, or fighting child obesity in Israel.

There are two principal individual assignments I’ve found to be highly effective.  I have students write a paragraph or two after each class session, reflecting upon new concepts they’ve grasped or are struggling with, surprising things they’ve discovered about themselves, new ways to interpret past experiences, points garnered from assigned readings, etc.  Each week, I have them turn in a one page, bullet summary of their journals and share a point or two from them at the start of each class session.

The second individual assignment is for each student to acquire a conversation partner from a culture other than his/her own (I must approve their choices).  In a full semester course, each student must conduct four one-hour conversations with his/her partner, and I provide guidelines for each discussion.  The first session focuses on social and personal relationships, the second on mutual stereotypes about the other’s culture and country, political structures, formal education structures, community activism, the military, environmental issues, economic structures, faith and religion.  The third session concerns describing, comparing and contrasting media structures and media uses/roles, the role and nature of advertising, popular culture, and perceptions of the public relations profession.   The final session addresses communication patterns the student observed during the conversations, both verbal and nonverbal, and explores how those styles might influence other cultural dimension and syndromes.  Students prepare and share reports of their conversations, always generating active class discussion.  The conversations also frequently lead to ongoing international friendships as well as the razing of individual barriers to cross-cultural exchange.

Four-week course in London

Adapting the full semester course for application in a short-term education abroad setting presents some difficult challenges and some extraordinary opportunities.  We’ve successfully marketed and conducted our four week course in London for a number of years and expect to continue doing so.  The overseas version of our international public relations course differs from the campus course not only in its truncation but also in a major way in its content.  We’ve designed the London course to have the students exposed as much as possible to public relations practice in highly international settings in and around the city.  Each year’s four-week session is unique, but typical activities include visits to corporate headquarters of the world’s most important companies, the US Embassy, the BBC, and major public relations firms.  As with the campus course, we have students research each venue in advance and prepare discussion questions.  We will also bring in three or four guest speakers during the four-week course, speakers who represent a cross section of the London public relations scene.  Of course, a day or two of classroom teaching is necessary between site visits and guest speakers to provide students with the theoretical underpinning and the background that enable them to more fully understand and gain from the experiences.

Assignments for the London course vary slightly in expected ways from the on-campus course.  I still require the conversation partner project, but I reduce the conversations from four to two.  As we conduct the course in an internationally-focused university, students have no difficulty acquiring a partner.  I require the journaling as well, and add recommendations for students to incorporate their observations of their surroundings.  I also assign a group project that provides a meaningful and motivating goal linked to their experience.  Most recently, I had the class of 18 students design, build and publish a simple website depicting their experience in the class.  In just a few weeks, and with other course responsibilities, they were able to prepare a credible site (http://londonpr07.blogspot.com), and the 2008 class added its own site (http://ukpr2008.weebly.com).

The need for “third culture practitioners” is bound to increase, not diminish.  Public relations educators everywhere are needed to expand that cadre.  With a growing body of literature, both texts and articles, even instructors lacking the benefit of overseas experience can comfortably enter this arena.  Equipping entry-level practitioners with the fundamental skills to succeed in our profession increasingly demands that those skills include navigating the complexities of planning and conducting effective communication across borders and cultures.  Designing and incorporating an international course on campus, abroad or both, is essential to rendering graduates competitive in a global setting.

Photography by Victoria Louise Crampton

References
Acosta-Alzuru, C. (2003). Teaching international public relations in the U.S. In L.M. Sallot, & B.J. DeSanto (Eds.), Learning to Teach (pp. 401-421). New York: PRSA.

Culbertson, H.M., and Chen, N. (1996). Public relations education in the United States: Can it broaden international students’ horizons?  In H.M. Culbertson, & N. Chen (Eds.), International Public Relations: A Comparative Analysis (pp. 397-415). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Desanto,  B. (2003).  Teaching international public relations abroad.  In L.M. Sallot, & B.J. DeSanto (Eds.), Learning to Teach (pp. 389-400). New York: PRSA.

Zaharna, R.S. (2001).  ‘In-awareness’ approach to international public relations.  Public Relations Review, 27, 135-148.

To make this choice, they need to assess their own needs and issues. What support should the agency provide – implementation, counsel, training? Do the messages need to be delivered rapidly and consistently throughout the world? Will different geographies and services need to be brought in or taken out at different times and can their agency relationship(s) accommodate such flexibility while maximising cost and operational efficiency?

In an ever-more fast-paced and interconnected world transformed by news on demand, global agencies don’t only have 24/7 crisis contacts (several agencies have these), but more importantly are open all hours and as such are uniquely sensitised to their multinational clients’ needs – ready to respond wherever and whenever a need arises.

This is often taken to mean that in a given crisis implicating two or more points anywhere in the world, a global consultancy can rally its local teams to support that crisis. While this is clearly one option, in reality clients will work with those they know best and trust on the ground. It’s not for a New York or London-based HQ of a company to insist that its local operations or subsidiaries use their global agency of preference whenever a particular issue arises, as they may well have local relationships with people far-better positioned to deal with the issue.

The simple fact is that no global PR agency can lay claim to being the number one in every market worldwide – every agency has its geographical strengths and weaknesses, no matter how much this may be spun or played down. For an agency to have a team of available global experts that can be flown anywhere as and when required is of far greater value, and while this is often an expensive option for the client, time and again it delivers measurable results with real impact.

Consistency in standards and reporting is also important for firms, as this can be a key factor in achieving consistent results. Global agencies are often far better-positioned to provide consistent levels of service than a collection of separate agencies or even a long-established consortium. By nature of their financial and strategic importance, global accounts are often able to command the highest standards across all markets, while the client might otherwise merit less attention from a local agency.

It is also advisable to establish whether a global agency has a variety of client relationship models: centralised with one point of contact, de-centralised with local market contacts or a hybrid system, and to ask the agency for previous client feedback on their models. Adaptability is an important asset for any professional service provider, so adaptability in client relationship management makes for a good start.

Another important consideration for a multinational client is whether a “system of silos” will hinder the sharing of knowledge and best practices internationally. While this is not always deemed essential – indeed some clients may prefer to have each market focus on its own deliverables without being influenced or distracted by other market activities or by standardised practices – it’s worth remembering that global agencies often have the resources to implement sophisticated knowledge-sharing systems which can be of great benefit. Indeed, an agency’s resources should be a key consideration in its own right, particularly in light of the current state of the global economy.

There is much consensus that larger firms will cope with any macroeconomic turbulence far better than smaller firms and this clearly has implications for an agency’s resources (and thus ability to service its clients).

There are some pitfalls to be aware of however.  Some global agencies overuse the “standardised approach” and don’t attach sufficient importance to local market insight, approaches and customs. When looking at the make-up of a global agency, it’s worth establishing how their network has grown.  Organic growth often suggests the agency will have an in-depth understanding of their markets, and while the same level of local market insight and expertise can also be achieved through acquisitions, it’s worth checking to what extent the acquired agencies have access to the parent company’s tools, training and corporate culture.

Ultimately, each organisation needs to evaluate its own business needs when selecting an agency and remember that one approach doesn’t necessarily fit all. That said, global agencies tend to offer a multitude of resources, expertise and solutions – not to mention efficiency and economies of scale.

Photos by Victoria Louise Crampton

What is an international PR campaign anyway and what is it used for? I could look up hundreds of definitions in books and on Google, but I’ll let you do that. I’ll tell you what I think it is.

Defining international PR

When we talk about media relations, I would define an international PR campaign as one single campaign that you roll out across multiple countries in which your organisation has operations. In other words, you write a press release (or a series of them), translate it and send it to your target trade media in the various countries.

I wish it was that simple. In my experience, it’s more like a bowl of spaghetti: an intricate series of items that you roll around your project management fork in order to feed your company’s hunger for media coverage and recognition among its key stakeholders.

Markets are not easy to deal with, and this is something that hit me hard when I left university. Because, during your PR course, the scenarios that you face are often a bit unrealistic – or at least, a few ‘details’ will have been omitted. It’s a bit like when people tell you that one day you’ll meet the man (or woman) of your dreams, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. They don’t actually mention that you’ll have silly arguments about the way you squeeze the toothpaste, or the trouble that you’ll have with your parents in-law.

I think International PR is a bit like that. It has lots of surprises: a few are exciting and I think they are the perks of the job…but a few are annoying and sometimes seem to just be there to make your life difficult.

Planning international campaigns

So imagine yourself, during your communications planning phase, trying to decide what you’re going to do in terms of PR and media relations.  The perfect scenario would be to identify the needs and objectives of the business: are we launching a new product? Do we need to increase the sales of an existing product? Do we need to position the company as an expert in a certain field? Or do we want to encourage a two-way dialogue with the customers?

This is the first obstacle. Because markets, more often than not, are very different from each other – too different for a company to even have the same objectives in two different countries. So you can now imagine what it’s like when you’re dealing with nine of them.

I’ll describe to you what could be a real-life scenario, based on the company that I work for which produces, amongst other things, welding gases. (For those who might not be very familiar with this subject, in very simple terms welding is the art of joining two pieces of metal by melting their adjacent parts together with a flame by using a welding machine and a welding gas.)

The company has a number of offerings – for argument’s sake, let’s call them welding gases A, B and C – and nine countries where it sells them in Europe.  Welding gas A is the market standard: all the competitors offer exactly the same product. Welding gas B is more sophisticated than welding gas A and the competition offers similar products.  Welding gas C, on the other hand, is the star of the range and the competition has no equivalent product.

If I didn’t know anything about the welding gases market, I would say that welding gas C should be the focus of my PR campaign in order to give it the push it needs to increase its market penetration.

But the scenario is not quite as straightforward. Sales in France are going very well and, if the demand of welding gas C increased, we wouldn’t be able to meet it, due to limits on our production capabilities.  In the UK and Germany, welding gas C was launched a few years ago, and the market is aware of the product (although it could do with a further push) so there is nothing new to tell.  In Poland full benefit hasn’t been reaped from welding gas B, so welding gas C can’t be launched just yet. And in the Benelux region the sales for gas Z, which is a niche (but high-return) product, are really not picking up, so the focus should be on that instead.

This fictitious scenario should give you a flavour of what markets are like. More often than not, you simply can’t use the same campaign across all countries. In this particular instance, you could try to find some news (or create it!) about welding gas C for the UK and Germany where market conditions are similar and then focus on other products/issues in other countries, with a completely separate campaign.  But again, it’s not as straightforward as it seems.

What’s the news?

Once you’ve identified the news that you want to sell into your target media in the UK and Germany, you (the English-speaking PR professional) draft the press release in English. You get all the necessary internal approvals: all the technical details of welding gas C need to be checked and verified by your welding expert; all trademarks checked by the legal department; and the press release and relevant photos approved by the safety department; then it all has to be approved by the UK marketing manager. Then you send your approved press release to your German PR agency, which will translate it for you and ensure that it is suitable for distribution to the local press.

But you can’t expect your agency to know that in Germany the welding safety regulations are different from the ones in the UK, so some of the data in your press release needs to be changed. You therefore go through another round of approvals in order to adapt the press release that you wrote for the UK to the German market.

This process can take two weeks at the best of times, but could take up to a month (depending on how quickly you get the necessary internal approvals). And if you have to carry out this process for nine countries at the time…well, I’ll let you imagine the headaches and the frustration.

But time is not the only issue. If you want to produce good-quality campaigns, you need the knowledge and experience of a local PR agency.  And of course their help doesn’t come for free.  So how much can you compromise on the quality of the output in order to meet budgetary constraints?

The option of rolling out the same campaign across a number of countries is often the cheapest and quickest way to achieve your media relations objectives.  But as we saw earlier, this doesn’t always work: differences in the marketplaces, language issues and internal bureaucracy hold-ups are sometimes just not worth the effort.

So in the past two years, my main objective has been to streamline the PR process and make it as straight-forward and cost effective as possible.

The first year was not very good. I tried to run five separate campaigns simultaneously as PR activities were not deemed necessary by the business in the other four countries at that time. I quickly learnt that this was not possible – especially when PR was supposed to be only a fraction of my job (and of the overall marketing communications campaigns I was running) and other projects were taking up most of my time in the office.

Feeling the stress levels rise and with only a couple of cuttings landing on my desk each month (I look back at that time as the cuttings’ famine period), I decided that this approach was not going to work for me and my dear welding gases.

How to manage campaigns

So I learnt to recycle. To build a campaign, reap its benefits and then, if the timing is right for the project, localise it for use in another country and reap the benefits there. Unless you have a massive budget to play with and a team of people who are dedicated to PR, centralisation is the only feasible solution despite its many shortcomings. This is how I now manage my campaigns, whenever possible – and I am seeing the results of my hard work: international PR doesn’t necessarily have to be as difficult as I was making it.

Of course, you can’t always centralise, because of the differences in local markets: in some cases, you just have to roll up your sleeves and start a new campaign from scratch (unless you have a campaign at hand that you used in the past in another country, which you could use as a starting point).

As we’ve seen, the international PR “spaghetti” can be difficult to manage, especially when you have little experience in the field. The first time you try, you simply don’t know how to pick the strands up without smothering yourself with the tomato sauce.  And if challenges are amongst your life’s biggest pleasures, you’ll definitely enjoy this one.  But even if you don’t, as time goes by and you start getting the hang of it, I can assure that you will come to love the flavour of the cuttings that will be pouring through your post box.

Photos by Victoria Louise Crampton

I wanted something more – to work overseas and with a little effort and a placement agency called BRGwork (and thanks to Ovidiu and Alexandra) I spent the summer working as a communications officer for a financial consultancy called Taxback.com in Romania – specifically Transylvania – one of 18 countries in which Taxback.com operates.

My arrival coincided with an expansion of the Romanian division; the core team had recently moved into new offices and staff numbers were being expanded from five members to 60. So my time there was very hectic and there was a lot to do. Amongst my duties were customer relations with foreign clients; market research on the student population of Cluj-Napoca (there are about 100,000); internal communications between our office and the main accounting branch back in the UK and the odd press release (though please don’t get me started on the Romania media).

One unexpected benefit of working in an international company was getting to use English with international clients. It encourages you to be very careful and does wonders for your telephone manner. There was even the occasional oddity – like calling a man who was utterly convinced that I was not only from Singapore but a member of the FBI. This keeps you on your toes.

I also had to learn to speak some Romanian; you cannot simply ‘get by’ in English. Those who have grown up since the 1989 revolution with English language television generally have no problem but the majority of those over 35 don’t understand English. By the end of my stay I could order food in Romanian and some television was making sense – but conducting business there would be a different matter.

Compared to the challenge of living in another country, the office work seemed so mundane. There was so much to do, so much to see. Living in another country, rather than visiting on holiday, you see the lowlights as well as the highlights and I found Romania to be a very different experience.

Even with all the modernisation that joining the EU is bringing you still see communist-era tower blocks and the husks of bombed out factories in old villages. It’s a country in flux: an older generation who lived under a repressive regime and a new one that’s quite happy to see the European Union help the country to adapt and improve.

I met one man during a train trip who claimed to be a cultural activist and admitted to committing tax evasion because he said the government didn’t deserve his money! He was very pleased that Romania was being dragged – kicking and screaming – into the wider world.

Being in another country heightens your cultural sensitivity; you notice how your surroundings are unfamiliar, from the architecture to the salamander I saw. You start to realise what your home country does differently. It gets you thinking about how and why. Take the internet for example: broadband exists in Romania, yet the country doesn’t seem to take advantage of it.
I couldn’t simply bring up the local cinema listings and there were very few hotels I could book into online. On one trip I had to send my room deposit by post.

If you plan an overseas placement you need be aware of the likely stresses: packing for the trip; impressing your employer and your new workmates. I’d lived abroad before (for three years in America) and it still got to me; my roommates were stressed to breaking and early on tempers did flare.

It won’t always be easy, but moving never is and despite it all I recommend going abroad if you get the opportunity. Take the risk, experience the fantastic things another country has to offer and expand your knowledge of how to communicate. It’s a key part of PR after all.

Lastly consider what you might offer your overseas host company. Not only will you bring your enthusiasm and flair but you will also offer a different perspective; a different way of doing things. My limited impression of PR in Romania is that it is all about marketing and below the line promotions broadly in line with the Global Alliance profile of Romania.

But I brought a different understanding of how PR can be used. To give an example: Taxback.com does excellent, and much needed, charity work – it’s classic PR. I provided the company with a brief on how to formulate a PR and marketing campaign centred on strategic partnerships and stakeholder management influenced in part by my work for Barnardo’s. I’m not sure what they made of this, but I am happy that in my time with Taxback.com I put a bit of bite into their PR.

Photos supplied by the author