Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group Event Report: How to Get the Best from PR Venue: Drivers Jonas Deloitte, Manchester Date: Tuesday 22 March 2011 CIMCIG’s latest development event in the north was held in Manchester recently with PR the topic for this workshop-style event. An audience of around 30 marketing and PR professionals from across industry heard two experienced PR professionals, Ricky Ambury, Senior Account Manager from Citypress and Kat Johnson, Marketing and PR Co-ordinator from Aedas Architects, were the speakers. They gave a fascinating insight into PR from very different perspectives – the benefits of using a PR agency versus the in-house approach. CIMCIG’s David Mycock opened the event and welcomed delegates, as well as thanking Drivers Jonas Deloitte for the use of their excellent New York Street office Ricky Ambury from Citypress first up and his presentation focused on how to make use of an external PR agency. The main benefits of the agency approach are the ability to look at a business objectively, to help define PR campaign objectives and to have the right contacts which can the organisation’s story across. Kat Johnson from Aedas then gave an interesting talk on the use of in-house PR. She emphasized the point of finding the right angle and making sure that each story had a ‘hook’ which would interest the relevant media outlet. This was illustrated by a case study which highlighted a project in Huddersfield, Aedas’ historic link with Huddersfield and the particular project. This led to a double page spread in the local press and was picked across the trade press. As a former journalist, Kat discussed how to see a story from the journalist’s point of view and stressed the importance of having proper management procedures in place. This would allow the firm to react quickly when a potential story arose. A Q&A session followed, led by CIMCIG’s Lesley Gleave, and covered questions ranging from the social media, assessing PR results and when to move from in-house to an agency. The debate around social media was particularly enlightening with Ricky Ambury suggesting that in an age of where anyone can post their thoughts to the world, organisations need to carefully control the messages which their employees send out to mitigate the risk of reputational damage. CIMCIG was fortunate to have a professional photographer, Ian Bruce providing photographic support to the event, and some of his pictures are shown at the end of this report. The event feedback has been very positive with comments such as, “The speakers really knew their subject matter”, “The points raised were of relevance and lot of help to me” and “It was a good insight into an area which I wasn’t very familiar with.” For further information on CIMCIG events in the north of England, please contact David Mycock, Chair of CIMCIG’s Northwest Steering Group (e: [email protected]), or see our website www.cimcig.org. Full list of speakers (by order of appearance): David Mycock, CIMCIG regional chair – opening and introduction Ricky Ambury, Senior Account Manager, Citypress Kat Johnson, Marketing & PR Co-ordinator, Aedas Architects Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group Event Images Ricky Ambury, Citypress An informative Q&A Session, led by Lesley Gleave Kat Johnson, Aedas