We’ve had Darren Newman with us for the past few weeks on a work experience placement… here’s what he had to say about the experience.
It has been a great two weeks working for Liz Lean PR. Being a final year PR student with experience in the PR world before in-house, I was keen to see what agency life was like. Not only has it exceeded my expectations, but I have found a new love for agency life, as it is much more different and rewarding than working in-house. I loved the variety of clients and type of PR involved for each client.
The first week started off well as I met the Liz Lean PR team, all who have made me feel very welcome and made the two weeks go very quick. As well as all being very pleasant, they all have different and great personalities which mould the office environment into being very enjoyable.
I was extremely pleased to be able to give ideas for certain clients. One of the first tasks was to think of ideas for Meridien Modena’s new technical centre launch. As I’ve had experience within the automotive industry, this was really interesting and felt familiar and I was pleased that the team agreed that I produced some good ideas. It was also a good insight into what clients want and expect from their PR agency.
Other highlights included researching brands such as Weird Fish and ensuring media databases were up to date and new publications and journalist moves were accounted for. It was really rewarding to practice press release writing for Weird Fish, Shape Real Estate as well as draft blog posts for clients and Liz Lean PR’s own blog.
Researching local bloggers, councillors and members of boards was also very interesting as it showed the wider local landscape and the types of influencers that the PR agency needs to talk to. It has also been good to search in certain databases that have been useful to be able to find the right journalists. I was able to research Awards that LLPR could be entered into which showed me the types of recognition PR agencies can get.
I also enjoyed meeting clients off site such as the Dolphin Shopping Centre management team, which then showed me what the client expected from LLPR and the type of service we were able to provide.
It has been very rewarding and insightful to be able to see how the agency works and how in one hour you could be working on something for a client, and the next hour it is a totally different client so makes every day diverse and exciting. The clients at LLPR are very varied and it is very fascinating to be able to see how each client has very different needs and therefore needs a unique approach to satisfy their needs.
Overall it has been a wonderful experience and I am grateful for the opportunity. It was so interesting and valuable to speak to Liz and the team and will be sure to keep in touch, and would like to say a big thank you, and appreciate the opportunity.
By Darren Newman