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My name is Lindelani, I am 21 years old, and I have moved up to Birmingham for university, from a town called Watford (which is just outside of London). Although, I have a lot of immediate family living in Birmingham, so I have kind of grown-up here too.
How is university life treating you?
Personally, I feel that university life is treating me well. I don’t really go out, like to clubs, like the typical university students, so between the university and my jobs, I get a lot of time to work on my hobbies and work on my creativity. I love how the university is set up, there are so many places to work and relax when you need a break or nap. I’ve met some super kind and fun people who have passed me on loads of advice to survive university and I genuinely look forward when I’m going to class as I have a great group of supportive friends, who luckily are on my course.
Tell us about your studies to date
My previous studies have worked in favour of my degree choice. I knew English, whether language or literature was always going to play a part in my future work and I took my GCSE English early, which my school argued would be great to put down on our university applications? Which, although that was quite early to think about at the time, I ended up mentioning it on my personal statement and I think it did help me in securing a place at BCU. I chose Media as an a-level which at first I never even thought to consider until I saw my friends creating videos for one of their assignments and I knew from then that I had previously made the wrong choice in A-level selection.
PR was something I discovered when I was searching for university courses. After having a detailed search on other sites I went through the PR specialism module on the BCU site and knew that it was for me, especially with it being 100% coursework.
What areas of the media interest you most and why?
Social media will always interest me, but recently I feel that print media has gained my interest. I think this is because I feel with the amount of time I spend on social media I could be classed as an ‘expert’, but I guess some of the population feel like that too? And with print media it is not neglected but kind of overseen because of that? A lot of print media like the Clinique advertisement poster at the tube station that went viral because of public engagement. I don’t feel that a lot of my generation appreciate the campaigns or even brand creativity because we are so glued to our phones and miss these things, which are meant to catch our eye.
What have you enjoyed most about your studies?
I think the most I have enjoyed about my studies is when we have the create industry-focused documents. The PR workshops encourage us to be innovative when coming up with ideas and producing PR campaigns. I also enjoy when guest speakers come in, mainly the BCU PR graduates. As they discuss what would be expected of us students by employers when we graduate and what the transition is like once we get our degree.
Before selecting my course I was advised by a recent graduate “to take on a degree that I love because three years is a long time to spend doing something that you don’t like”. I can only speak on my experience of the course for up to my second year, but I am extremely grateful to have received and applied that advice as so far I have really enjoyed my degree course.
What does PR and media relations mean to you?
OK so, PR, means to me, specific tactics to communicate with the (targeted) public to create a mutual understanding between them and a business or company, the business or company is the PR client. I feel that the ‘mutual understanding’ is meant in terms of influencing or impacting. So e.g. the business could be opening a new restaurant that impacts a specific public as the location of this new restaurant is within their area. So the restaurant might use PR tactics to communicate to the public of their new presence, like connecting with the local media and to influence them to come in and eat there. This is just my understanding of PR.
Media Relations to me means connecting and communicating with those in the media. Such as journalists. Informing them of the client you are managing and selling into them where you feel the two link. This link will produce the exposure needed by the client and the story for the journalist. Again, this is just my understanding of PR and it would necessarily be in this situation.
How do you plan on progressing with your studies / experience?
Whenever a break comes I always try to have work experiences lined up. This summer I aim to complete a day or two at a PR agency every week because I know it is important to continue building on my professional experience, even when the university is closed for breaks. I use LinkedIn a lot and I would love to start attending events within my profession just to network and understand other practitioners experiences within PR. As a student from an ethnic minority, this is a great way to find other people that are from your community as we don’t all have time to consistently stay present online. I’m sure most professionals in the working world like to get away from their desks too.
Which brands do you admire for their approach to press, promotion, social media etc.?
That is a really good question. I guess the first brand I would say would be, Boohoo. Although I am a student brand ambassador for them, I genuinely think they killing their social media and for sure, their promotion game. Every other week my email is filled with a brief from their PR and influencer team about a new launch or sale that they want us to create some visual content to promote. They have consistent deals on their site for students, I’m pretty sure their student discount runs for the whole year. They endorse well-known brand ambassadors (for our generation at least) such as Maura Higgins and use their social media channels to connect with their customers. They repost a lot of customer-made styling videos which their following live as they feel they are receiving realistic outfit that they can recreate and afford to purchase. They have also taken over the London Underground for advertising/promotion like I see Boohoo images everywhere.
What’s your Favourite campaign to date?
There are a number of really thought-provoking campaigns that have been released at the moment. One I found on Linkedin last week was Heineken’s (the global beer brand) international campaign, “Cheers to All”. It’s a minute film that plays on stereotypes and the presumption that only men drink beer, and that women prefer the more-so, let’s call them, ‘pretty’ drinks such as cocktails and mojitos. Now, I’m not one for ‘social drinks’ or even really an alcoholic drinker myself, but I think because it is such a big part of British culture, like Football and Rugby. Even as ‘after-work drinks’ which I witnessed as I used to walk through Old Street on the way home from my summer internship I feel like this campaign resonated with a lot of people.
It was great to see that the male actors even portrayed that they were annoyed by receiving the wrong drink, just as much as the women, instead of it being a one-way thing. As most films would just show the men brushing it off, throwing the straw out and chugging it down!
Thank you to Lindelani for sharing your journey as a BCU PR student so far. You can follow Lindelani on Twitter - @PR_Lindelani.
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