Our Future in Public Relations by Kerrigan Ken;

Author:Kerrigan, Ken;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Published: 2020-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

7

JUST THE FAX AND NOTHING BUT THE FAX: MY FIRST YEARS IN PR

I promised at the outset that this book was not going to be a personal memoir, but rather a roadmap of the history of the profession of public relations that I hope will provide a path for a successful future. But as we get to the part of the profession’s history where I got my start, the late 1980s, I wanted to share some lessons I learned on the job – lessons that I would later discover had previously been described by luminaries like Ed Bernays, Harold Burson and even the Page Society as best practices for the successful public relations counselor. If I knew more about these best practices earlier, I likely would have done far less “on the job” learning.

My career in public relations started with a number of internships, especially in the world of politics, things began in earnest in 1989. My first client was a fax machine – not necessarily the glamorous type of account I thought awaited me while wrapping up my studies at New York University. The client was Ricoh, a global leader in consumer electronics and office equipment, but the mission for the division I was representing was to “put a fax machine on every desktop in America.” It’s important to note that while the Internet technically already existed, the use of email or public browsers wasn’t available yet, so this was an ambitious but somewhat logical goal, and one we tried to accomplish with innovative and even award-winning communications strategies.

I picked an interesting time to join the public relations profession. Yes, we still mailed out news releases and frequently talked to reporters on a landline phone, but in just five short years almost everything would start to change. But before that happened I learned a few key lessons about how to create effective public relations strategies. The first was the importance of listening.

One of the most game-changing ideas I’ve ever implemented in my career came from listening to someone in the mailroom. Well, not the mailroom specifically, it was from an outside vendor called Media Distribution Services (more commonly referred to then as MDS). MDS existed to help host media lists for agencies and physically send out media material like news releases and press kits.

We were just about to launch a bold campaign in support of a new and highly innovative fax machine – the Ricoh PF-1. Our “breaking news” was that the company, whom many analysts and industry insiders knew had created the engine that supported the first fax machine, had created the “world’s smallest fax machine” – so small it could fit in a briefcase. And it was even equipped with cutting-edge technology that would let you send a fax from a car – something that was a pretty jaw dropping innovation at the time.

MDS was preparing the release for distribution, a nice way of saying they were stuffing envelopes, when our account executive, Eddie Rivera, called me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.