The Evolution Of PR FEAT Bec Brown - Industry Change Episode 4

Welcome back to Industry Change. It's Richard Toutounji, and today we're talking all about PR, social media, and where that is going in the future. And I've got on the show today a really, really important guest, special guest, Bec Brown. Bec Brown runs the comms department. Now, the comms department's going for approximately 5 years, and in that time, Bec has re-innovated that entire industry to work with top major players such as The Wiggles, the Australian Radio Network, and Universal Music, just to name a few. And I want to find out how she was being able to innovate that industry and work with these players in such a short, short time. Welcome, Bec.

Thank you.

You've gone from, from, from different stages and really innovated to where you are today. So Maybe you can share with us a little bit of context around who Bec Brown is.

Okay, some context.

Because you're always behind the scenes, aren't you?

Most of the time.

You're always putting people in the right places.

That's very funny. And it wasn't always the case. So I actually, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be on the stage. And so I studied music and I went to the conservatorium and I worked with opera companies and with music theatre companies. And I had my own band. And I got to about 24, 25, and I had what I now refer to as my quarter-life crisis.

Right.

And I just realized at that time that that lifestyle and that career wasn't fulfilling me, and it wasn't making me very happy. So I had to have a big think about what I wanted to do next. I thought I really liked to problem solve. I liked to read, I liked to write, and I still liked the entertainment industry.

Yep.

So the media was kind of calling me. So I thought about perhaps I should be a journalist. But then I wasn't, I couldn't see myself sitting in a newsroom or sitting, working sort of on TV or radio. So I thought PR might be a great mix between them both. So I actually went back to uni, I studied media and communications, and slowly but surely started working. So I've been doing that for 15 years now. And I had a 5-year stint working as a PR director at Universal Music Australia.

Yep.

which was a huge, great learning curve and great experience to, again, start working with really big names, learning how to deal with very big name talent and making sure that they have what they needed, what they need, but also learning exactly what the media needs in order to turn around a great story.

Yep.

So 5 years ago, I went out on my own and set up what was at the time called Bec Brown Communications. And I honestly thought it would just be a little consulting business It was just me and I was originally gonna be working from home and I was gonna work out what I was gonna do from there.

Right.

Now, very quickly, I'll bring up the—

Like most people get into business, they get their name and they—

Yeah.

See how we go.

That was it, that was it. And I will be the first to say that I was probably, you know, I was a business without a business plan. There was no business plan when I started.

Sure.

Which I wouldn't necessarily recommend. So, but what I did do, I read so many books, I researched, I didn't just go into it blindly thinking, what am I gonna do here? gave me an ultimatum. He said, babe, you've got 6 months for this to work, and if it doesn't work, you've got to go find a job.

Right.

So—

And the pressure.

Exactly. Somebody gave me some great advice. It was a manager of a quite big-name international artist who I probably shouldn't name, but he said to me at the start, when you do go into PR, it's very easy sometimes to just take a job for the money. But he said, be very selective about what you take on. You have to absolutely believe in it and be passionate about it and love everything about it so that you can sell it. And if you don't have those things, you probably aren't the right person for that particular brand. 2 things happened. One, I was so passionate about the things I did choose, I did a really great job on them. And the other one was, because I was very careful about what I selected, I was then very careful about what I would take to the media. So that I got a reputation with the media For not taking the rubbish.

And I think when you're talking about, like, you rejected clients in that first year, and I know you've rejected some big brands over your time, and I go, wow, like, that takes such, such, such, like, authority to say, yep, I'm not working for that brand, like conviction to know where you really are going. And obviously that's one of the keys to your success right there.

I think you do, and you do get a name for, a reputation for, For delivering good work. And the more good work that you deliver, the more people talk. So word of mouth in that very first year can be very, very, very powerful. And I had in the back of my mind as well, you're only as good as your last job.

When we talk about PR or, you know, getting our brand or our message out there, most people now will just go, okay, I'll just go to my phone, I'll go to social media. And wouldn't that be the easiest way to go? Or why wouldn't I use an influencer? So So tell me how that's kind of, is that a plus or a minus now for, let's say, traditional PR firms or even yours? And how have you been able then to use that? Because we can't ignore that now.

Not at all.

How are you able to use that to continue your work?

Personally, I love it because—

I know you love social media. I know you love Instagram, yep.

But I love it for our brands and our clients because it is so powerful. It is so powerful. But for us, we also just see it as another platform. So traditionally, it's another platform for us to play with. So, before, we just had TV, we had radio, we had newspapers, and we had magazines.

Okay.

And that was kind of it. Then we have online, so we had all the online websites that came through, and then suddenly we have social media as well. So, I think when you talk about innovation and companies that do well, you need to be agile and you need to be able to adapt. So, we've adapted our services. So, in our first year of business, we were probably focusing a lot more on just traditional publicity, servicing those 4, plus online as well, of course. But now, 5 years down the track, we do, we look after social media. So, we do a lot of content creation for our clients as well. Because at the end of the day, one of the things which traditional media are very good at as well, they're fantastic at creating content. And you need to, they say, there's a fantastic company called Tribe, and they're a fantastic service. for connecting with brands with influencers.

Yep.

And I was having a chat with their— with Jules Lund, he's the CEO of that company, having a chat with him, and one of the things he says is, it's called a social media feed for a reason, because you have to feed it. Right. And you constantly have to be feeding this thing that has this voracious appetite all the time. And you can't be feeding it with crap, because that's going to affect your brand. People are gonna see that and start to think that's who you are. And if you're a company, you can't afford to be be doing that. So you need sort of expert or just very highly skilled professionals to be able to help you create that content. And that's something that we do, but it's also something that traditional media outlets are starting to do as well.

We had a chat before about your working environment, and I think that's something I'd like to hear a bit more about because you've really taken something that has probably hasn't been used in that world, definitely, and you've, you've spun that around as well.

Definitely.

Talk about the working process that your team does.

So we're a team of 6. And we have 3 people in Sydney, 2 people in Melbourne, and 1 person in Brisbane. And we all work remotely. So when people say, where's your office? I say, it's at my house.

And did you say that in the early days?

No, of course. Isn't that interesting? So at the start, I kind of thought, oh, it's a bit embarrassing. Like people are gonna think I'm not very professional and it's not very, you know, yeah, I just, it wasn't the standard.

Not back then, no.

No, exactly. And I didn't shy away from it, but I didn't, I would tell people, I didn't try and pretend that I had an office.

Sure.

But I, it wasn't as, it's certainly at the forefront now. Now we use it as one of our key selling points.

Interesting.

So, the fact that we all work remotely mean that we are available sort of anytime, anywhere. We can literally work from anywhere, but it means several things. One, it means that we spend more time in our clients' offices, immersing ourselves in their brands, immersing themselves in their day-to-day actions. So, we know them very, very thoroughly. So, they get all of that love and attention. What is great though is if we were in there full-time, you can get caught up with all the office politics. Yes, yes. You start to become part of the furniture. We're in and out enough to know exactly what's going on to the point where we really know what's going on. HR will come and talk to us to find out what's going on. And as opposed to, but then we're out again and back and not distracted and we can easily do the work. So, we look at things with a big picture view and we don't get, we can see the wood for the trees. So that's one really great part of it, but the other great part about it is in terms of, it's just productivity. So the amount of hours that we get out of our day is unbelievable. So if you look at the commute, so the average person, particularly on the eastern states, I would say would spend, let's say, 45 minutes morning and evening on a commute. Sure. So between our team of 6, if you added up all of those hours over a year, that's over 2,000 hours. That's 270 days.

That's huge.

That's like having an extra person in our team. So we use that time to benefit our clients because we're working longer and on their projects. We can also be a bit more flexible about their time because we look after Australian Radio Network. We look after their 11 stations around the country, which have breakfast shifts and drive shifts. And if I had to be driving into an office, I would be missing all of that breakfast show action. And I need to be on call sometimes at 5:30 in the morning. So that, we filled a need for Australian Radio Network, for example, and helped them out on that one. But the other thing is, yes, we have all those extra hours to be productive for our clients and to grow the business, but it also allows us all to have a bit of a personal life.

Yeah.

We can go to the gym, we can go to yoga, we can hang out with our families, we can sit down and cook a good healthy breakfast, and it makes us healthier and happier, and that in turn makes us a lot more productive.

How do you make it easier for someone to say yes? And that's won us a lot of contracts, a lot of work, a lot of fun stuff that we've done. And I'd like to hear your opinion on that fact. How do you actually get chosen out of the vast majority of stories and articles out there? And how does someone say, yes, I want your story? What's that secret recipe?

Do you know, because a good PR has 2 things. They have, yes, they have contacts that they've built up over the years in the industry, absolutely. But the other thing they have is they know how to service the media to, like, exactly what you said.

Service the media, okay, I like that.

But to make it, but you said, to make it easy for somebody to say yes. That's our job. So your job is to learn what a journalist wants and what they need, and then you make it happen for them. So that's basically what we're doing. So, okay, if you don't have the funds to hire a PR professional, which I completely understand, although sometimes you can get packages that are much better and tailored to your fit. So do reach, do have a chat around. Don't, maybe don't, particularly now it's a very competitive environment.

Yes.

There are certainly PR companies who will work with small budgets.

I think there's a lot more now that are doing that. Absolutely.

So a journalist is looking for 2 things. They want a good story. And a good story is something that entertains, or is— it's either got to be entertaining or it's got to be informative.

Great.

It has to be those 2 things, preferably both, that'd be great. Or the other thing, sorry, it has to be emotive. That might be another one. So something that might tug at the heartstrings and make you feel.

And if you could put the 3 in one, that'd be great.

Amazing, perfect, great. The trifecta would be excellent. So have a look at your— the other thing is sort of if anybody, if you're doing a world first or an industry first, or if you're trying to do something for the first time, that's also very— that becomes quite newsworthy.

Great.

So have a look within your business, see if there's something that fits any of those things, and then start deciding what to do about it. We— you do have to kind of have a very clear head with it. Maybe try it with people who aren't in the business, because there's never going to be anybody as passionate about your business and the thing that you're talking about as you are. So give it to somebody and just say, what do you think about this as a great news angle? And what you need them to look at is they might just go, so? So? And every time they say so, you need to have an answer for them.

Right, and that's where I think maybe people go wrong. They get it out and then they can't get over that so, like, what next kind of thing.

Exactly, exactly. You just have to make sure that you answer the question of why is this important? Why is this relevant to that person, that reader, that viewer, that listener?

Yep.

In that demographic.

Great.

Those media want stories.

They need stories. They need stories. Right, and I think that really sums things up because if you go in with the mindset, so listen, if you've got a great article, a great story, great angle, they need to run stuff. That's their job. They need content, right?

Yeah. So if you keep that in mind, we are literally here to help you. But on the flip side, you do need to know they're not there to do you a favor at all. At all. They are doing you a favor running your story.

And is that the perception because they've got the paper, they've got the radio? Do they still feel in control?

Yeah, I think that there will probably always be a little element of, well, this is our publication and we need to— but they sit there, they don't sit there and do it on purpose. They just sit there going, we need to service our readers.

Yeah, sure. And it's the same with blogs. And if you're a big influencer on social media, you're always gonna choose who you're gonna push and promote. Or do a shout-out for.

Exactly, exactly. So everybody wants to sort of look after somebody. They're trying to service their audience, and you're trying to service the journalist, but make sure that you hopefully get your business deal.

It's like anything. It's like any business relationship, any business dealing. Both parties are gonna have to win.

Yes.

And you have to make sure that you can get those both parties winning.

Absolutely. If you get a win-win, that's, that's just the best scenario ever.

Let's talk about, just quickly, let's talk about some, maybe some random fun things. Like, I, I see social media going crazy, and then some people like have millions and millions of fans, and I go, wow, do they ever need a social media kind of company or person? And I was looking at, was this The Rock the other day? And he did a movie, and he was just kind of promoting like when he was filming, and it was almost like, well, he's got, I think, some ridiculous amount of followers, right? Millions and millions. I think it's 79. I don't know how many millions he's got. And I thought, well, heck, that is so like already organically promoting. Is that, do you reckon, where the ways the future is gonna go with movies and kind of like major celebrities? Is it just like a shout out? Is that what we need?

When you've got followers, you then have currency. So you can then trade that for various things. So that's the other thing to keep in mind. When media are running stories, they, let's say they run a story on Comm, And com then goes, fantastic, thanks so much, and you share that with all of your social media followers. Yep. The media outlet's gonna get more clicks on their thing because you've shared it with all of your database as well. Yep. So the media are happy because they're getting lots of clicks on their story, their editor's going, you're amazing, that's great, and then the journalist goes, great, what else have you got? Let's work together more.

Alright, Bec, I just wanna ask you one more question. I would love to know, as a trendsetter I see in your industry, you've set trends after trends and you've re— and you can see the, You can see what's happening, and and you're being agile enough and fast enough to get to that and to work it and to move to the next process before even people got out of bed. So I would love to know where do you see this industry PR social media social branding? Let's say in the next ten years.

Oh, let's put it out there. I can't even look.

Can you even predict it?

No. Give me five years

then.

I'll predict five years, and it's still going to be very hazy, I'm afraid, because. What we have seen is there's this huge fragmentation of audiences. So they're everywhere. They're across all of the different platforms. They're online, they're on TV, they're on social media, they're on radio. So there's a few things that will happen. Let's just look at social media, for example. Okay. Which platform's gonna be around? Is it gonna be Facebook? Sure. Is it gonna be Twitter? Is it gonna be Instagram? Is it gonna be Snapchat? Is it gonna be something completely different? Okay. We actually don't know that yet. So that's one thing that we don't know where they're gonna be. If we look at what other tech is coming up, so we've got artificial intelligence, which are bots doing a lot of the chatting and stuff. And I mean, that's extraordinary.

Bots are very cool.

Oh, they're so cool. They're so cool. And I, you know, I wonder, it depends on the development of how good they become and how reliable they become.

Otherwise they're gonna be like spammy.

Yeah, exactly. So we've got that as well. Then there's virtual reality and augmented reality. started to use those already, but at the moment nobody's quite knowing what to do with them.

Sure.

And they have trialled them in lots of, you know, I've seen great press kits for, particularly movies are great, but for holiday destinations where they'll put it on, put your VR kit on and they can see it and they can be there. And apparently I've heard it's quite good for, in the travel industry, they're getting a lot of salespeople, they'll go around and put the kit on and go, well, this is the destination. They take it off and they're like, I can sell that, that's amazing.

So,

at the moment, that's where it is, but it's a bit clumsy, 'cause the kits, and they make people feel a bit sick, and it's still kind of working. So, we're at the mercy of the tech there to figure out where that's gonna land. But I am predicting that that's gonna move somewhere really cool. Okay. Then in terms of, you know, print and radio and TV, I think radio and TV are in a great place in that we've talked about, there's big personalities, and they can, they're adapting across to online and social media as well. But, you know, with streaming, with Netflix and Stan and all the other programs coming through, you know, free-to-air TV, you know, really has to start thinking about what they're doing. Well, I know that they're thinking about what they're doing, but they've got to really act on it. And it is hard, you know, they're big ships, and to steer and change course on a big ship is very, very difficult. Print, again, there, I mean, there will not be newspapers in 5 years' time, I highly, highly doubt.

Okay.

That is my bold prediction.

That's the bold prediction, great. We've got something locked down.

I do think it will be online only, but I think that the work itself, you know, there are very skilled journalists and there are very skilled content creators who will be doing all that work as well. Again, I don't know where those newsrooms are gonna be. The newsrooms are shrinking a lot at the moment. So that will certainly remain to be seen. From a PR industry, I think gone are the days where you have these big, big PR agencies, you know, with 600 people working there and they just look after big clients. I think that a lot of them are already doing it. They're almost like an umbrella company for a whole bunch of smaller companies that are all about niche and looking after particular industries. Industries.

Yeah.

And I think that's the way of the future is to figure out how you can service a niche really, really well. I just thought of one last tip as well that you were mentioning about when you have a business, and it's actually really crucial for PR. And that is, in everything that you're doing, you need to, as much as you possibly can, remove your own ego from the situation. The reason why I'm saying that is there are so many egos in the room when you're dealing with talent. If you're dealing with CEOs, Yeah. if you're dealing with, you know, big business, it's to have one more in the room That's another agenda. When you actually remove that, but you remain, you keep all of, you retain all of the professionalism and all of the advice, it's just so much easier to work amongst—

I love that advice. At that level. Just work the whole process, you can—

Absolutely.

So much more control.

And you don't, that doesn't mean that you're a doormat. It doesn't, it does not mean letting people walk all over you or anything like that. But it does mean just sitting back and going, I'm not the important one here, the work is important. So let's make the work important.

Love it. With that, I think we've gotta wrap it up. Thank you so much, Bec. Thank you, Richard. Really appreciate your time and your valuable insights and your prediction as well.

Oh gosh. Oh, well, I don't, personally, I don't really want it to come true. I quite love reading the newspaper.

Great, thanks so much. I'll see you next time on Industry Change.