Jon demonstrates chipping technique

We seem to throw a lot of press conferences, and from our experience, we know that press attend a lot more, and sometimes they just begin to feel all a bit the same.

MC says welcome. Someone makes a speech. Someone else makes a speech. Now it’s question time. Cha gio outside.  Back to the office.

So it is nice when we get to do something a little different, a little more fun, and hopefully a little more memorable for media, and our event last week for the Indochina Ultimate Golf Membership to the Dalat Palace Golf Club, Ocean Dunes Golf Club and The Montgomerie Links gave us just that chance.

So, a little history to what we did.  When we announced golf packages for Sofitel Dalat Palace, Novotel Dalat and Novotel Phan Thiet, we hosted a putting contest.  That was fun.  So now we had to go one better.

I guess I can reveal some of the behind-the-scenes discussions that went on, now that it is all over.  We actually wanted to play Wii Golf on projected screens for this event.  It would have been fun - and we borrowed three Wiis from Matt’s friends to do it (they are still on the floor in Matt’s office as I write!).  We brought in the sound system, the projectors and so on to test it - but basically - no go.  Power issues, sound issues, image issues.

Too bad.

Some quick thinking followed, along with a rush visit to a pro-shop, as well as golf clubs we borrowed from Matt and Mark-the-photographer and our chipping contest was borne!

Enter Jon, Club Professional and General Director of The Montgomerie Links to show how to swing to media.  A bucket was placed about 8 metres away.  Plastic balls were handed out, and reporters wrote their names on them, and one by one, attempted to chip the ball into the bucket.

It was great fun.

We had arranged two prizes for our best two golfers, with Sofitel Dalat and Novotel Dalat packages, as well as free rounds at Montgomerie Links.  Cool huh?

Congratulations by the way to  Hoang Khai of Cam Nang Mua Sam and Tu Uyen of Travellive, our winners.  Hope you enjoy your trips!

You can watch a couple of reporters here:

An invitation from RMIT school

Patrick, the lecturer who is in charge for  Professional Communications program at  RMIT University invited Matt to come in and speak to his students for their forthcoming assignment where they are required to prepare a press kit based on a ‘real’ company, and had us bring in a kit from one of our clients and walk the students through it.

The meet day

After a brief introduction of attending team and our TQPR’s clients, Matt walked the students through the press kit we used for a client about a month before, indicating what information that a press kit should be included – releases, fact sheets, company profiles, executive biographies, and photos, as well as a hard copy of any presentations delivered to help reporters gather more figures and facts during speaker’s talk in press conference, and have them on hand for question time.

Students also have to prepare a cover letter to go with their kit – which we seldom produce ourselves.  I am not sure that the Vietnam media really needs the extra paperwork, especially if it contains no new news for the relevant event.

What I emphasise here is, the information provided in a press kit must be brief and concise, and should not be multi-page long. I remember once after sending the media a press kit comprised of literally dozens of pages, of which the regional and global information was alone was nearly ten, I later asked the media if they had read it all. Nope. No one. Thus I totally agree with Matt’s point in the session: information should be brief and concise wherever possible.

A fact sheet should comprises of  20 bullet points at maximum, listing the major events. The ideal length of a press release is under two-pages long, with the important data first so that the most important news gets read by the largest number of reporters – there is no point having your main point buried in a late paragraph on the third page, by then you have probably lost the journalists attention. When it comes to bios Matt cited a different client’s standard which required it to be no longer than 100 words.  Very short.  My colleague Chuyen chimed in and said that Vietnamese journalists rarely even read the bio. I agree with her since I have also experienced that situation where journalists have gotten an executive’s title wrong – even though it was right there, in bold print on the bio.    Not to say it should be excluded, but don’t go waffling on in there about everything you have ever done!

Matt spent most of the session walking the students through a client briefing book, explaining how most of our clients are global companies, with visiting spokespersons who need to have only a working knowledge of the market before moving on to the next country under their control.  Part of this is just dealing with the logistics of the session – who goes where and when – but most of it is devoted to questions and answers from media, and ensuring that the client can portray its key messages even in the face of difficult questions.

In fact, the 3 most common questions tend to be pretty uniform in Vietnam irrespective of the client -  investment in Vietnam, activities and contributions  to Vietnam, and percentage of market share in Vietnam.

Matt gave a tip on how to answer most questions, and bridge to key messages, and then state key messages . Basically he says that spokespersons need to acknowledge the question, then link it to a company’s key message and switch to restating the key message in the appropriate context. It sounds simple but not easy to do if you are not calm and quick-minded enough.

One of the questions related to how different PR firms in different countries build relationship with media, asking about Matt’s experience in Australia and Singapore, with a noted emphasis on the way in which in Vietnam we work to develop our relationships with the press here.

Some impressions remain

It was my first time in an international university, and so I walked away with some distinct impressions.  Firstly, I guess a sign of the times, of the approximately 40 students, there were 4 or 5 usin laptops during the class to either search information or using webcam, recorder or mobile phone to record the lecture content. In my time – recording on your phone was not allowed, and using a laptop?  absolutely not.  It was good to see, they were checking facts, reviewing sites and so forth during the speech, and were able to catch up things quickly.

That is a very “Western” style I guess.

Students can freely choose their own seating – again different to my school. They don’t keep away from front tables or lecturer as they may in Vietnamese schools. I am also impressed with their English accents, foreign language fluency and  self confidence when asking and sharing their understandings. These later would surely be solid skills that help them present their ideas to persuade the confronting people, like recruiters and interviewers for instance.

But I found myself wondering if that leads them to forget politeness and respect seen in the traditional educational culture in Vietnam, which tends to surprise visiting westerners.

In Vietnamese universities, students stand up to greet their teacher when they enter for example – which tends to surprise visiting international speakers. They tend to always give gifts to the teachers at the end of the class to show their appreciation, and take photos to remember the occasion.  Matt always jokes that the students at AJC in Hanoi treat him ‘like a rock star’.

If bringing into play good gestures, strong attitudes of each culture, it is clear that this generation of students has a terrific learning environment.

I left a little disappointed in the number of questions and the nature of questions asked.  The students were very focused on asking Matt about their assignment and how he would address it.  They can ask their teacher that later.  They had a great chance to ask Matt, Chuyen or myself about professional life, entering the job market, the future of the industry in Vietnam and so forth, but preferred to ask hypothetical questions about the task they had in front of them.. With such a confidence of these students, we should had been asked many more. If so, we definitely had more interesting issues to discuss. More PR related matters could have been explored, and ultimately the students would have benefited greatly from all of our experience on this.

- Diem Ha

Certainly this mirrors the experience at TQPR Vietnam, where we are continuing to pick up solid, retained clients in the face of global conditions.

I know David Croasdale only very casually, but his opinions on PR and social media echo my own thoughts on the topic.  I was speaking at RMIT last week and this question came up, and gave a very similar answer…but you don’t want to get me started on one of my advertising industry tirades.

Interested in your thoughts on it…the original is here.

–

PR more sought-after during the downturn
By: Adaline Lau, Hong Kong
Published: May 08, 2009

Hong Kong - Client spending might have nosedived in recent months, but the PR industry is perceived by marketers as a more cost effective solution when compared to advertising.

The Council of Public Relations Firms of Hong Kong (CPRFhk) has revealed results from its benchmarking survey which shows that more than 600 local and MNCs in Hong Kong use PR firms on a regular or retained basis.

The findings also found that an additional 400 companies turned to PR firms for individual projects or launches in 2008.

David Croasdale (pictured), chairman for cPRFhk, said the influence of public relations in the overall communications mix is definitely growing.

“This study takes stock of where the industry is and where it is going,” he said.

The study also revealed that the PR business is better positioned in the area of social media such as blogs, discussion groups and online video.

Croasdale said compared to advertising agencies that specialise in paid advertising, PR firms have the advantage to exploit social media as it primarily involves communication and conversations.

The survey showed the most active sectors were in technology, consumer goods, property and finance with consumer marketing and corporate communications most in demand.

The survey, which the organisation intends to run as an annual exercise, polled 25 member firms of the cPRFhk and covered all aspects of the industry such as billings, staff costs, overheads, strength of practice areas and numbers of clients per firm.

cPRFhk contracted Aha! Research to conduct the survey.

Matt in the office

Very nice of our friends over at DigiMart (Sieu Thi So) to think of us when putting together a piece on business-person’s technology use, which appeared today.  Thanks guys!

You can view the article by clicking here, and an English transcription follows..

–

How long have you been working in Vietnam? Why did you choose Vietnam as a destination for working and living?

I have been in Vietnam for over five years.  In my case,. I had been working in Singapore for two years before here, when I received a phone call from the man who is now my boss saying that he heard that I was “smart enough to run an agency and crazy enough to move to Vietnam”

Do you find any difficulties when working with Vietnamese? Would you mind sharing a happy experience of yours that you have been through?

Every day!  It is an interesting place to work, as we are here in a time when everything is changing.  I was looking out a window at the view a month ago and noticing all the construction, all the new buildings and so on and thinking ‘god, I have been here longer than most of the tall buildings!’  Certainly in the five years I have been here a lot has changed in terms of the standards of living, the shopping, the business culture, and of course this involves a rapid retraining of people into the ways of a rebuilt country – and watching the way in which people learn and adapt here remains my favorite thing about living here.

Does your current job require supports from digital devices such as laptop, mobile phone, and camera and so on? What purpose (in work and life) are you using them for?

Yes, I run a company with offices in two cities in Vietnam, which means that I am up and down between HCMC and Hanoi a lot.  Our company also has offices around the region and we are affiliated with firms around the world, so I travel internationally regularly as well.

As such I use a laptop as my primary computer.  I use a Blackberry as my phone, which I keep synched to my laptop and also synched to a contact management website, so that I have everything backed up and also available wherever I am.

I also carry around a portable hard disk for backups and also transporting data.

I work in PR, so I will often have to go out to potential venues for events and so forth, I will always have my camera with me at those times too.

Please share with us your opinion about those devices. (model, brandname, why do you choose that model, what is your favourite brand, why)

My laptop at work is an Acer.  Basically I bought it based on specs, price and durability.  It has a pretty tough case, which is important because I travel a lot, so it gets carried from bikes to taxis to planes to offices to cafes.

My home laptop is a MacBook Pro.  I have been using Macs for over 10 years, I love the operating system.

I use a Blackberry Pearl 8120, which is a great phone.  I had the 8100, which I loved, but had no wifi.  I upgraded it a couple of months ago to the 8120 so I could be online whenever and wherever.

I carry a Seagate FreeAgent portable drive with me.  Durable, reliable, plenty of storage space for me on the run, and slips nicely into the little compartment at the back of my laptop bag.

I use a Canon Powershot camera.  Happy with that as well, again, durable for travel, very good image quality for a camera of its size, and some great manual controls so that I can continue to get better as a photographer.

How do you evaluate roles of those supporting devices in your life and work? How do they effect on you if you don’t have them?

It would be kind of hard to imagine an office that doesn’t fit into my Crumpler bag these days.  Certainly small, converged and portable technologies make my life and work easier.

From a social point of view as well, I moderate and participate in a large online forum – www.styleforum.net – and this helps to keep me connected with other interests that are less prevalent in Vietnam,

I also use the internet to keep me connected to TV shows and sporting events that I would otherwise not be able to watch from Vietnam, so this enhances my life as well.

On the downside, I have never activated the push-mail on my Blackberry.  This scares me a little.  I receive a lot of email every day, and having my phone vibrating away in my pocket all day would be a little disturbing – I would just end up working all day every day – I couldn’t help myself.  So as such, I am glad that, for the time being, I can still escape from it sometimes.

Yahoo is closing it’s 360 service once-and-for-all, so we have gone with the flow and moved our Vietnamese language blog over to their new 360plus service.

Some of the pictures didn’t import properly, so we are fixing those as we go, and not sure if we retained all of our friends from the old site, so if not, add us again.

It is at: http://vn.myblog.yahoo.com/tqprvn

Best

Matt

So while Guy Chaplin was in Hanoi a few weeks ago, we took the chance to once again visit AJC and lead a class. It was, as always, a lot of fun, and thanks, as always, to the team for being so welcoming.

The following are the thoughts and feedback from student Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy.

Thanks em!

–

Matt, Guy and the class

We were informed just a day before the lesson, so we were extremely surprised when hearing the news that we can meet the professional PR Specialists in our first year PR class at university. The teacher told us that they will come to talk about “Media relations”, but until the lesson started we still had no idea what this would mean for our class. We were all a little nervous and a worried about what they would say and about meeting people in the industry.

The lesson of Matthew Underwood - General Manager of TQPR Vietnam - focused on managing the information about the clients that are presenting this information media and touched on areas about press conferences and interviews. The lesson was really succinct and easy to understand, with specific examples from the activities of TQPR. Matt talked to us passionately, from the most basic concepts to the skills and even some tips in working, from the power of the media to some little details that we should take care of when organizing press-conference, etc. Little by little, the notion “Media relations” became clearer, and more fascinating.

After Matt’s lesson, Guy Chaplin - Managing Director of TQPR Asia-Pacific talked to us about his PR career, from army man, to “tea-boy” to the leader of a PR company that has branches in different countries. It was a long road with roses, which are full of thorns. He talked about the image of successful PR specialists with “expensive clothes” and living lives of “cocktail parties”, but that in reality it is a lot of hard work. But all of those challenges make PR even more interesting. PR takes people to unpredictable adventures and stressful battles, like in movies, doesn’t it?

The period passed so fast that we couldn’t believe that we had received so much knowledge in such a short time. We said goodbye in appreciation and enthusiasm. Our PR career will not started in the next 3 years, but it has already started today. In the long and windy road that we walk, we must need help and advice from many PR specialists like 2 people from TQPR.

Hope that we can meet them again in the nearest future.

- Thuy

In a media briefing last month, Hoa Lai, journalist of Saigon Entrepreneurs magazine asked Matt for an interview on crisis management for international enterprises.

Matt introduced Hoa Lai to Guy Chaplin, Managing Director of TQPR Asia-Pacific. On his visit to Vietnam, Guy had shared some experience about PR industry with Saigon Entrepreneurs magazine.

Although I have been working at TQPR Vietnam for nearly four years, but that was the first time I had an opportunity to hear Guy talking about the PR differences between Vietnam and other regional countries, and what does it take to work in this field. In the end the interview and the article were more about the public relations industry in general, rather than a crisis communications piece.

The most interesting thing was Guy’s comment “many people seem to think that journalists will  automatically make good PR consultants but I don’t believe so. The most important thing for anyone who wants to work in this field is to understand what is PR and how does it works.” Guy himself had a military background, he had traveled around the world in his military career then before he switched into the PR industry.

Those who can read Vietnamese can view the article here:

Page 12, Page 13

Thanks Hoa Lai!

-Huyen

Apologies for the blog downtime - some WordPress security issue shut us out…ended up having to get a friend in Australia to reset it all.  Thanks Theo!

Matt

http://s155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/fromhuyen/

Thanks Huyen!

With a new account upon us, it has been a busy time at the TQPR Hanoi office, but I managed to find time to accompany my manager – Matt – to attend the “Crisis Management - What managers should know” held by the Vietnam Marketing Association, UTM University and CTC JSC.

Though it was rainy, windy and unseasonably cold, well over 100 interested attendees came out to the campus for the session.

It started with the speech of Mr. Hoang Tuan Anh, the Chairman of VMA. I totally agree with him on the importance of PR and crisis solutions.

Most of the attendees are managers of enterprises in various areas and journalists. I felt glad that they are interested in and appreciate the increasing importance of the PR industry in Vietnam.

The next person was Mr. Do Thanh Ha, Head of Faculty of Business Administration, with the introduction about UTM which helped me know more about this university.

Matt was the third person speaking in the conference. While he was presenting, I had a chance to look around the hall, almost everyone was interested in and listened to him attentively. Mr. Le Quang Minh, the News editor of VTV, also looked interested in Matt’s topic, before taking to the podium himself.

After a brief introduction, Minh said: “I totally agree with Matt’s opinions. He is so wise in media interviews. But frankly, journalists like me won’t like him at all, we are “hungry” for information, if everybody answered like him, no one would slip up and that’s no fun!” he said to bursts of laughter.

Minh cited many instances, like the recent dumping case of Vedan, to demonstrate companies whose information announcement was generally late and shady, and the importance of quick and honest communications with the media. He also suggested the enterprises have a hot line to answers their customers’ queries. I was really drawn by him was grateful for his perspectives.

After a short break, Mr. Nguyen Duc Hung, the director of Vietgate, had an address on effective communication and crisis solutions, which took a broader view, but otherwise had a lot of similarities to Matt’s previous presentation.

There was another presentation following this, but unfortunately business intervened, and so I missed much of it.

It was Q&A time next, with some interesting questions asked, as mentioned by Matt in his post.

On the whole, it was a valuable and informative few hours, from which I gained a lot of new knowledge and insights…so thanks VMA!

- Phuong