In May 2007 Total Audio Solutions completed work on a compact yet complete broadcast solution for PR Company Porter Novelli.
Below is what Porter Novellis Ben.McCarthy had to say.
Having spent 15 years working in broadcast journalism, when I moved to Public Relations, there were elements of such a transfer that were, to put it mildly, a culture shock. However, there was one glaring similarity; despite many journalist’s desire to see their trade as having absolutely nothing in common with what they like to characterise as the sleazy world of spin, both disciplines are involved in the business of telling stories. Arguably PR is at an even earlier and I would argue, more exciting stage in the process. Both professions are engaged in trying to come up with the best way of telling their particular story.
So as a former broadcast journalist it was striking that often those working in PR lacked the facilities to engage with the broadcast world. As far as the written word is concerned PR is more than catered for. You would never expect people working either for an agency or in-house to go without a lap top and PC, even though it might be quite nice to do without email for a while. But broadcasting is completely different - very few agencies have any kind of studio facilities and even if they do they are under used and the preserve of just a few ‘experts’.
Consequently engaging with broadcast media is viewed as a speciality and an enormous amount of broadcast work is farmed out to a few specialist agencies. They have real knowledge of what the broadcasters want but they don’t necessarily have an understanding of the product and or a relationship with the client. This reliance on outside agencies to deal with broadcasters reinforces the illusion that dealing with broadcast journalism is a somewhat mysterious practice which should only be engaged in by those who really understand the ’dark art’. In reality it is as straightforward as print, as long as you have the right tools.
So at Porter Novelli we have invested what we need to do the whole job. Our state of the art Studio 31 has both radio and TV facilities. This enables us to give our talented people ability to engage with the broadcast media in the same way they have traditionally done with print. So for example organising, setting up and producing a series of radio interviews is now as straightforward as sending out an email containing a news release to a print journalist.
Broadcasting
And the reality is that Studio 31 offers the chance to broadcast in studio quality anywhere in the world. It is extraordinary, given the fact that it has been around for so long, but radio is still an under used medium for public relations. If you think that there are forty BBC Local Radio stations in England alone, not to mention all the independent local radio stations and national networks. Imagine the amount of speech content that has to be generated every day and you get an idea of how much appetite there is for a good story. Using ISDN, a guest in our studio can simply be ‘dialled’ up and can contribute to any radio show, as if they are sitting there themselves. For Porter Novelli, Studio 31 means our client teams retain a much greater ownership of a story. They are able to look after our clients or guests in one place and so Porter Novelli becomes the base for almost all media interviews whether print or radio live or recorded. We recently used Angela Rippon to front a campaign to highlight COPD, a debilitating lung condition. She was in such demand across the UK that our team’s greatest challenge was to meet all the demands on her time. Studio 31 means that so much more can be accomplished in a single day satisfying the demands of both print and radio journalists at once.
Media training
Having broadcast facilities on hand will also give our clients and our people a better understanding of the way broadcasting works. That also means our media training will be even more realistic. The difference even just a short session can make to an individual’s self confidence and subsequent performance is incredible. The most important part of any session is practice and making that situation as real as possible. We want to make sure that our clients are prepared for any eventuality and they will not be put off their stride just because they are in an unfamiliar and possibly intimidating environment. With a studio in our own basement, we can re create the real life broadcasting experience. Our facilities mean others in the group can watch or listen to the performance ‘live’ and we have instant playback so individuals can assess their own performance and learn for the next interview. There is a great deal of media training on the market, however, unlike most of our competitors we feel that through our people we have the best mix of communications expertise coupled with journalistic experience, so we have a thorough understanding of both our client’s needs and the changing demands of the media. Now, through Studio 31 we also have the perfect environment to deliver the most realistic experience which will provide great value for money for our clients.
Production
And once they have the training our clients may decide they want to put themselves in the frame and make use of our production facilities. As well as our TV and radio studio we will also be able to offer production facilities to service our client’s needs. Whether it is producing a podcast or a b-roll a video address from a Chief Executive to accompany an annual report or a video message to all staff to help reinforce internal communications, we will be able to deliver it. And we know with the rise of new media that the provision of audio and visual content on line has moved from being a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘must have’. Studio 31, which has been built by one of the countries leading broadcast engineering companies, will provide the highest quality audio and visual content which clients now need. So while new media is changing the way we think about sharing information, Studio 31 is changing the way we and our clients think about the role of the PR agency because we understand that communication is about so much more than the written word.
