♦ Before - A General Idea

Here's a video I would like to share about my perspective of public relations BEFORE I even started attending PR classes: 

WARNING WARNING: Might have to turn down volume during the party part at 1:50!!!! SORRY about that :(

Yup... it's actually pretty general since I didn't have much insight of PR before my degree. To be honest, I didn't even want to bother finding out what the actual reality of PR was. I really thought it was a simple subject about...hosting events, planning events, and having lots of fun basically. It was going to be easy, right? WRONG. SO SO WRONG.

On the first day of PR tutorial when Mr. Alex started asking the class, "Guys, what is PR?", my mind was BLANK. 

Huh? PR si ha mi? Can eat one ah? 

I didn't know what to answer and began to panic even more when my other classmates were giving professional answers like, "It's a communication process of how an organization maintain its relationship with the public." Most of the answers they gave sounded so foreign to me that I think my brain produced more question marks than it had ever did before. I thought it would be over after 3 students gave their opinions, but Mr. Alex kept looking around the class and dug for more info from the rest of us. Like a caterpillar in its cocoon, I tried to hide myself at the corner of the class and just prayed that Mr.Alex would stop asking soon. But, nope nope nope nope. He suddenly turned to me and asked his golden question, 

"YOU. What about you? What is PR???" 

Haih, I think this bad luck is the result of that day during Chinese New Year when I washed my clothes cause' of the ugly soya sauce stain. Damn it.

Mr.Alex was waiting for my answer. Takkan I don't answer him right? So, I said, "Uh.....", and at that moment, I suddenly thought of my previous Maxis job when all I had to do was pass out flyers and try to con recruit people into signing up for our wifi promotion. It was a fun job since my colleague and I were assigned a deserted place where people rarely came to, and so most of the time we just sat down and rest only lol. Hmm, since we pass out flyers to promote the message of the company to the customers, it's somewhat linked to PR right?

"Passing out flyers......?" 

Yeah, I really gave him that answer. I was unsure about it and watched his response to see if I was right or wrong. Well, some of my classmates laughed at the answer so maybe it's wrong? But, Mr. Alex said it was sort of correct. So, in conclusion, 1/2 correct, 1/2 wrong lah? 

Later, Mr. Alex went on to explain some more about what Public Relations really is. I can't really remember what he said exactly but he did mention that PR practitioners have to maintain and build a good relationship for long term purposes with its constituencies. He also taught us the differences between PR, Advertising, and Corporate Communication. All in all, most of the jobs they carry out are the same; especially for PR and Corporate Communication. 

For PR and Corporate Communication, they are both similar in being audience-centred. The audience-centred approach is just like what it sounds like. The messages of the company are conveyed or altered to match the needs or preferences of the audience. Besides that, he also told us the importance of inverted pyramid writing style for news. We have to write the most important stuff first before slowly filling up the rest of the article with not-so-important info. This old 'trick' will manage to attract readers to continue reading your news article. 

For example, if you have news about... a cat who ate a dog, you have to start off with, "Yesterday, at 1.06 p.m., a stray cat was spotted chewing the carcass of a dog behind an alley." This surely drag attention as compared to, "Yesterday, a cat was seen walking around an alley by a witness. Then, the witness followed the cat because it looked suspicious. After following the ca-" Wah, maybe some of your readers will have stopped reading by that point already because they will think, what's so special about a person following a cat? Lol, I also got follow cats before la and their reaction is always the same. They run away. And why is the writer of the article so chiong hei (long winded)?! 

My time is not FOC.

Well, unless you've got a great headline then yeah, maybe they'll continue reading on. But, no doubt, sure kena hentam for being long winded. 

Back to Mr. Alex's class, it got me thinking more about what PR really is. The first tutorial class opened my mind about how there's more to PR than meets the eye. It is a challenging and stressful profession that you have to start off by cutting newspaper articles in a corner. Yes, I am not lying! Mr. Alex added that beginners of public relations all start off by cutting newspaper and magazine articles that have info about your company or your clients' companies. I could see that most of my classmates were horrified (including myself) after he'd mentioned it. I mean, who wants to sit in a lonely corner all day holding nothing but a pair of scissors and hearing the sound of paper being cut for the whole day?? Can go crazy one you know.

Oh well, who knows one day I'll be able to sit at my executive office with an awesome view overlooking the city and rap out the lyrics, "Started from the newspapers, now I'm here!" LOLOLOL. EH, WAIT. I forgot that someone mentioned before (was it Ms. Catherine or Mr. Alex...?) about how PR is not a job where you get to sit in your office all day and do work. You actually have to run around and go places to conduct events, meet with clients etc. 

SIGH. 

After this, I have learned not to look down on the PR profession and call it 'easy' anymore. It really sounds hectic! Alright, I will be back soon to elaborate more on my perspective of PR in a more formal scale. Wait up for it.

Thanks for reading.