Good relations with media key to PR success

Brad Smolar went from targeting CEOs as sponsors to acting as
their consultant on communications

Brad Smolar was on his way home to the US from a three-year stint in the United Arab Emirates. Encouraged by his father to take up a position back home with the family business, he made what was supposed to be a brief stopover in Hong Kong- and has called the place home ever since.

“I was working as a sports coach at the InterContinental Hotel in Dubai,” Mr Smolar said, who is now one of Hong Kong’s leading communications consultants.

“I was planning to go to Boston to work in the family business. I stopped in Hong Kong in June 1898 and never left.”

After only a few months in the city, Mr. Smolar found himself speaking with senior management at the regional offices of R.J.Reynolds, the second largest US-based tobacco company.

“Somehow, at the 11th hour, I managed to convince them to sponsor Hong Kong’s first Association of Tennis Professionals Tour event,” he said.

“That’s how the Salem Open was formed in 1990. it was my big break. It carried a lot of clout and a lot of prestige. Once the tournament was established, I could walk into the office of virtually any CEO in Asia and be taken seriously.”

My Smolar continued working in sports marketing until soon after the Asian economic crisis struck in 1997. With shrinking budgets, firms were no longer willing to invest the funds to support world class entertainment.

“Up until the crisis, the economy was booming and I was promoting some of Asia’s biggest international sporting events, featuring stars such as Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, Tom Watson and Bernhard Langer,” he said.

“Because of the Asian crisis. I had to reinvent myself. So I hopped over to the other side of the fence.”

Instead of asking CEOs for funding to sponsor sporting events, Mr. Smolar started acting as their consultant on communications issues.

“I had built up a lot of trust over the years,” he said. “I was able to act as a consultant, outsourcing some of their back-office functions.”

“Developing good relations with the media is key to the success of any organization, whether it is a major player such as Cathay Pacific, ExxonMobil or HSBC, or a start-up looking to make its mark.

“You do this the same way you develop any other kind of relationship,” Mr Smolar said.

“You take time to build it. You make the effort to try to get to know the right people, their interests and their publication. And you basically help them to understand you and your business.”

The first step for organizations wanting to develop a healthy relationship with the media is to identify their potential customers. Then they should determine which publications they are reading and also what parts, or sections, of the publication they are reading.
“It takes a little bit of research,” Mr. Smolar said. “Once you understand this clearly, you can make a list, finding out who is responsible for the parts of the publication that your potential customers are reading. Then you can start building up a relationship with those people.”

Mr. Smolar believes in establishing rapport before asking for someone’s help. “You can start by sending them an e-mail, inviting them for a drink or visiting their office,” he said. “There should be some type of communication before you present your ideas in detail.”

Michael Sider, assistant professor of management communications at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, agrees that building a healthy relationship with the media is a key element of public relations, which he defines as “stakeholder management”, or the attempt to listen to the people that your business has an impact on and then develop dialogue with them on issues that they care about.
Successful marketing depends on a combination of factors, and neither public relations nor advertising can be overlooked.

“Public relations is essentially two-way communication,” Dr Sider said.

“Advertising is one-way communication, the business of selling a product or image through repetitive and one-way messaging. The two can and should work together to create a strong public awareness of a business’ products and image, but they involve different competencies and, sometimes, competing priorities.”

Effective public relations demands responsiveness, understanding and empathy. It is very much focused on the other party. Advertising focuses more on oneself and the message that you want to convey.

“With advertising, you understand consumers’ needs only in order to sell to them and reap profit for the business,” Dr Sider said.

“However, if your advertising and public relations are not in sync, the public can quickly sense the gap.”

Building a strong relationship with the media is one of the most important elements of successful public relations, and this requires more than sending out well-written press releases.

Dr. Sider recommends keeping good relations with reporters and calling them with news you think would be relevant to them, answering their questions and providing quotes when they need them.

“Knowing individual reporters allows you to call or e-mail them personally with your news,” Dr Sider said. “This way you have a greater chance of getting that news picked up, especially if your relationship with the reporter is a good one.”

South China Morning Post
August 19,2006