Public Relations
Today I attended a guest speaker lecture on professional experience. The lecture was given by Natalie Cheary who works in the public relation industry and has over 20 years of experience.
Natalie’s career started when she was the first ever journalist to publically slate the Spice Girls for ripping off kids with their merchandise. After this the Spice Girls asked her to move over to their side and she started doing public relations for the band, helping with promotion advertisements. Since then Natalie has worked a variety of public relation jobs: she worked in the world renowned Freud Communications on accounts as diverse as Pepsi, Mars and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Natalie has also worked with, ITV Studios, Warner Bros, the British Film Institute, Sky Atlantic, BBC Worldwide, Save The Children and many others. Later she achieved a diploma in filming and video editing, which allowed her to work freelance, interviewing celebrities such as Donald Trump, the real wolf of wall street and various people from formula 1. During this time Natalie worked in London and also travelled the world, jumping between film and TV sets.
Now she has moved back to Leicester, working with local bands, theatre, musicians and films, as well as being on the board of HIVE media, and the sister company HIVE films; she is also involved with creative Leicester, www.creative-calling.co.uk.
Yet what I found hard to understand was why Natalie decided to move from high-brow celebrity public relations to doing local work in Leicester. Natalie explained that in one’s 20’s, public relations is a lot of fun, especially working with the big companies, however, after a while the novelty wears off (in her case this took around 20 years) and in the end she found that interviewing lots of celebrities was boring. What brought her back to her original love of public relations was moving back to Leicester and doing local work.
Natalie explained that working in the TV and entertainment industry takes up one’s whole life, due to time differences around the world and people messing you around. Once she reached her early 30s she felt that she had burnt herself out, because she could never just clock off and it was a constantly high stress job as celebrities are used to getting what they want. In the UK publicists are not respected, whereas in LA where they run the city and the media, therefore to be a publicist in the UK you need a tough skin and a lot of confidence.
When asked about the most challenging aspect of being a publicist she explained how hard it was to be the middle man. During the News of the World phone hacking scandal she was working on the ITV show Cold Feet, the press were relentless to the cast, even to the extent of sending prostitutes to the hotels of the actors to harass them. During this time Natalie had to go to court a lot, due to stories about the actors and their poor moral behaviour, and also because her own phone was hacked by the News of the World. She had to throw prostitutes out of rooms and received constant calls from the press about what had happened, which resulted in her having to call actors to explain and sometimes even their wives. Every time this happened the actor would want the story stopped but the editor would want a counter deal, leaving Natalie to make a speedy decision about how best to fix the situation, which could make or break someone’s life, marriage or career.
Natalie gave a lot of advice about working in public relations and the creative industry as a whole. People can either work in entertainment in London, which will consume their whole life as is never just a 9-5 job. Or people can work in the Midlands and North where they can have more of a life and be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. In the end it is up to each individual what will suit them best, and for some that will be working in the big cities however she warned that if you do that, you cannot expect to have good relationships, good skin, or a healthy diet. You either have to go for it 100% or stay safe and move to a smaller city.
There will always be more opportunities in big cities, such as London, and you can then move very quickly up the ranks especially if you are good at networking. However, increased opportunities mean increased competition and too often, getting the good jobs is based on who you know. For internships there are masses of public relation opportunities in London, Manchester and Birmingham, but you need to be careful to make sure it is a genuine Public Relations company with a good client list. However, people often overlook companies with huge internal public relations, such as Sainsbury’s, airlines and festivals, but these are often less competitive than working in entertainment and may be a good middle ground. There are also more local placements in public relations as both HIVE media and HIVE films, and Creative Leicester all offer placements to students.
Natalie explained the vital importance of adding onto your skills, as her additional diploma in film and editing made her indispensable. Another good thing is to have a wider understanding of the media industry, therefore she encouraged people to help out friends with their portfolios, for example if you can film, make a video for their company. Working in the media industry these connections are vital for success.
Lastly the most important piece of advice about public relations was the fact it is: 50% relationships and 50% creativity. People have to like you and you have to be easy to work with, but also you have to find creative ways to do everything. If you can do these things, working in public relations might be the right fit.
Before the lecture began I knew a little about public relations from work experience I had done in a publishing company, helping to write press releases. However, this lecture showed me how little I really knew. I do feel working in entertainment public relations would be exciting, but it would be a lot of hard work. Therefore, I think if I was to work in public relations I may prefer to work in a company with a large internal public relations department, as this gives experience of a large company but is less stressful than the entertainment industry. I feel that the lecture gave me a lot to consider when thinking about future careers and this insight was outstanding. I am going to act on Natalie’s advice and work towards gaining other qualifications alongside my degree, and I would be interested in becoming certified in web design and maybe specific Adobe software, as this would help when I begin looking for jobs. I feel that lectures like this are vital, as I am unsure about what type of future career I want and by gaining inside information about possible industries greatly aids my decision.