Placement Report
My work placement took place in Nottingham for a PR company called Cartwright Communications, situated in the city Centre. Cartwright Communications offers complete PR and marketing solutions, strategizing in advising and consulting to the highest standard. The team is built up around Liz Cartwright, the founder and owner of Cartwright Communications, which she set up in 2006 after working as a journalist for more than 20 years on titles including the Nottingham Post and Daily Mail (Cartwright Communications, 2016); Mark Stretton and Rachel Dorsett, the team’s strongest PR members, below them are 16 other PR members that make up the team. I obtained this placement through emailing the company for possible work experience and was contacted by a woman called Jennie and after a few emails, she was able to offer me 3 weeks’ worth of work experience. On my arrival, I was given my own desk alongside three other members of the team and was provided with a task more or less straight away. I was looked after by a member of the Cartwright team called Rachel who would often check how I was getting on and if I understood the task at hand, she made a lot of time for me over the weeks and made sure I had plenty of work to do. She also sat down with me and went through some press releases and website articles to explain to me the structure and layout that PR’s tend to use when writing these types of documents. During this work placement my main role was admin, which consisted of collected and recording data i.e. finding contact details of businesses in and around Nottingham in order to send out a wide spread survey. As the week went on, my work load increased and I was given different tasks, which were, writing press releases, collecting newspaper clippings, writing tweets and posts for different social media accounts for businesses and writing articles for the Cartwright website. I also attended one of Cartwright’s PR meetings, which was really insightful, as I got to experience first-hand, the type of discussions that happen in PR meetings and how Cartwright conducts such meetings, etc. The meeting was definitely a positive experience for me, as what Cartwright do as a business became clearer to me and I learnt about the relationships Cartwright have made and how they maintain these relationships. As I began to complete these tasks relatively quick, my work load increased as many members of the team asked me if I could do some extra work for them to help them out as this month was a very busy month for the company. I worked hard to ensure the work that was given to me was completed each day before I left as I wanted to give off a good impression if I potentially want to be offered an internship in the future. From this placement I felt the Cartwright team was one that worked hard together and all supported each other in completing the heavy work load, I could see that Liz was a very strong manager and had a lot of team spirit. Rachel, who was looking after me, found the time to sit down with me and help me learn which was very helpful and useful for me. And I am very grateful for all that she taught me as I can take these skills with me in the future and develop them and hopefully attain a career in the media.
Throughout my time at my PR placement, I learnt some valuable skills that will help me in my future career, such as, writing skills, creativity, research skills, communication skills in a PR environment and how to work well in an industry setting. I feel these skills are important to possess in the media industry and I plan to take and develop these skills throughout the rest of my studies and when I apply for a media career. I learnt the different types of documents that are essential in PR and how to create these documents, for example, ‘Tweet sheets’ which is a monthly spreadsheet of tweets for an organization or company, that will be tweeted throughout the month to increase followers and to tell current followers what to expect from the company and additional information. I learnt that when posting on social media, it’s important to hashtag and to add tags to ensure it reaches everyone it possibly can, also not everyone uses all forms of social media therefore posting on more than one site, reaches out to a wider audience. I also had to contact local newspapers around Nottingham to see if they wanted to attend an event and cover the event, and relay this information back to the manager, it’s important for a PR company to contact the media so they know which papers will be covering the story as this information has to be collected and presented to the client. The manager also personally asked me to create an excel spreadsheet of contacts around Birmingham, in order to invite them to an event, which was quite stressful and nerve-wracking. Working with Cartwright taught me that in the industry it’s important to be heard and that working within a small community is about team work in order to be a successful company. From this placement I learnt what PR really means and how the industry works, this placement taught me the basic PR terminology, how to write professionally and at an industry standard. I feel overall this placement helped me with my professional development as it helped me to decide the next steps of my career after university and where I possibly want to end up. At the end of my placement, the team asked me if I could possibly extend my placement as I had helped them out so much, to show how grateful they were, on my last day the team had all pitched in together to get me some gifts, which really meant a lot from me. Overall I really enjoyed my work placement, I was made to feel very welcome and learnt a lot over the weeks, I took away the skills I learnt and developed them throughout my studies, I feel if there was an available vacancy, I would apply for an internship with Cartwright Communications.
Cartwright works with many large companies, in a variety of sectors, one successful company being ‘Bistrot Pierre’ a French franchise that operates 19 restaurants initially in the Midlands and the North, with the most recent openings in the South West. Bistrot Pierre recently opened in Birmingham this summer and Cartwright managed a launch night that received plenty of media coverage. On the Cartwright website, there is a number of case studies that illustrates the companies that Cartwright work with and the success they have had due to Cartwright’s hard work and determination. Below is the case study for Bistrot Pierre.
This case study reflects the type of work that Cartwright had to produce in order to give Bistrot Pierre the best PR service. The case study tells you how Cartwright managed to capture the restaurant’s message, strategically by creating two teaser videos and posting them through social media and online presences’ to ensure all platforms were targeted in order to reach out to a wider audience. This shows the versatility that Cartwright has, as not only have they organized the launch and media coverage, but they have also taken the time to create teaser videos, to capture the restaurants message and get it across to viewers through a number of different platforms. Another important factor in terms of social media, is to create hashtags and have them trending, Cartwright created the hashtag #BonjourBirmingham, which they managed to get trending on twitter in the west midlands during the event. Hashtags are important for social media because it allows people to be linked together and find certain pages, etc. through a single key word. This is an example of how Cartwright used strategy to achieve success for the restaurant and the launch. They also contacted media around Birmingham and influential bloggers to increase the coverage and communication of the new opening, thus achieving more than 50 pieces of coverage. Looking at this, it is clear to see that Cartwright put a lot of planning, time and effort in, to ensure that Bistrot Pierre had a successful launch night, by organizing the event and sending out invitations to important parties around Birmingham. Another important factor is that Cartwright had to ensure that this would get a lot of media coverage and that the main media headlines in Birmingham would pick up on this and write an article/report on Bistrot Pierre, boosting its success and making sure the story is out there, as Gas Street runs along the canal which may not be a location people pass everyday therefore ensuring the opening of this new restaurant is out there for everyone to see is important. Having a case study such as this, showcases Cartwright’s success as a PR company and could increase business for them as other companies want to work with them, across the region.
