Everyone has something they are good at or know for. No matter where I go sports and health follow me. It should be no surprise then that I found myself teaching the Event Planning course for the Barbados Olympic Association last Saturday and PRMR Inc. is coordinating the Inaugural Exercise Event at Ilaro Court for the National Task Force on Physical Activity and Exercise.

We look forward to see lots of persons there next Saturday March 13. There are lots of activities planned for all ages ranging from mild in hop scotch and dancing to really upbeat in boot camp and spin bikes. Should be a whole lot of fun!

 I remember my first crisis communications plan. It was for the Nation Newspaper. My boss at the time looked it, said that it was a great document to have and it sat on both his desk and mine.   

The company I worked for was the chaser of the news and hence the paranoia that companies face at being undone by the media did not exist. As a consultant now however my clients are placing high value on crisis communications and am reaping high yields from planning. Crisis planning is a wonderful exercise as it forces organisations to look critically at their operations and in doing so a number of incites are gain not just to deal with crises but to help make the everyday operations run smoother.

The recent H1N1 Virus has become a potential crisis for all the border control agencies. Working with the Barbados Port Inc. has made me become an expert on the Virus and the best ways to prevent yourself from getting it. Having had its own crisis when a ship was reportedly coming into the port with a suspected case, the Port Inc. put an interim plan in place that included posters in strategic areas, brochures on H1N1 for all staff and training for staff by nurses. It also put in place a strategy to deal with similar situations in terms of its communications to staff.

In preparing the materials my first source of course was the local Ministry of Health. The very solid source that provided posters, brochures and lots of daily updates was the Centers for Disease Control. I was just reading my Strategist and saw that the CDC was mentioned in the Forward Thinking Article under the heading What PR Pros Can Learn from the CDC’s Swine Flu Communications. I would say a lot. Some of the tactics they used: Empowering persons like me who wanted information to help others; Made searching simple and accessible and had fresh information 24/7.

Great use and exhibit of PR at its Best.

IABC Members were treated to an engaging chat from one of Barbados’ leading entrepreneurs,  Dereck Foster of Automotive Art. His presentation was a testimony in good corporate citizenry especially in the area of employee empowerment. We look forward to many more of these meetings and to getting the Barbados chapter going.

Derick Foster, Executive Chairman, Art Holdings Inc. & Affiliated Companies

I copied this from Judette’s Facebook. Why? - because only last weekend someone asked me about putting merchandise from my company PRMR Inc. in a bag of give-a-ways for a Jazz show.

Not being prepared I insisted that there was nothing I had suitable to project my brand image at the show, and here it is I stumbled on Judette’s Facebook post and she says it sucincthly for me. Have a read.

By Judette Coward-Puglisi

I swear most marketers have no clue whatsoever what to do. So we do unoriginal things, or stall, or fail to deliver on our brand’s promise.

Take this weekend for instance, master designer Claudia Pegus launched her resort collection,” Breeze” at the picturesque Crews Inn. Pegus’ line was stunning, what was in the goodie bag was not.

I imagine that the designer’s team asked the show’s sponsors and corporate partners for stuff that could be placed into the bag and guess what they all did? Each (with the exception of one) gave the exact same thing: flyers, brochures, newsletter, all good stuff, sure, but nothing bold or remarkable.

The exception here was the Jamaican milliner whose stuffer included a stunning red and black pin that could be worn on a hat or dress. It was something tangible. Something that the fashion savy crowd could use. It was cleverly branded.

Marketers need to give deeper thought to how they position their products in the context of each sitaution instead of rolling out the same things, the same collateral in the same way.

Truly brilliant positioning is hard to quantify or predict. Same is true with marketing.

I have been working for a number of non-profits recently and one thing is true of all of them - they are very budget conscious. Sometimes you find the program you are working on has to be self sufficient.

Great Marketing and PR Strategies on a Non-Profit Budget

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
10:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Mountain, 12:00 PM Central, 1:00 PM Eastern
Duration: Approximately 45 minutes

You don’t need to have deep pockets to execute a successful marketing or PR campaign, but you do need to have a great strategy. Even big businesses with huge marketing budgets will fail if they don’t have effective strategies backing up their campaigns.

Join PR Newswire for a FREE webinar and find out how you can use your resources and creativity to come up with great communications strategies that will help you get results and leave you with money to spare in your marketing and PR budget.

Guest Presenter: Kelley Weir, American Humane Association

IABC Barbados is gathering momentum. Members are trickling in and the organisation will host its first event since its launch this September.

It will be a panel discussion on What Is PR’s real function and Who should it report to. Yours truly is on the panel which also features Sara Odle of Cable and Wireless, Debra King of First Caribbean International Bank and Greg Hoyos of GHA DDB.

My take on the matter is that PR is a strategic function which informs organisations decision making process with regards to its relationships. It therefore must report to the most senior executive if it is to be effective. Of course a lot of organisations devalues or undervalues relationships as they cannot or refuse to see the correlation between the relationships they have with their various stakeholders and their success.

Not having a pr strategy is like having cancer. You go along oblivious thinking that everything is fine and then a serious crisis come along and your dead.

Come to the Panel Discussion and here more on this, or check out my paper on the topic later on this blog.

Since the launch of IABC Barbados I have been too busy to blog. Sacrilege, according to Christal Mc Intosh, President of the Chapter who has recently made a commitment to blog every day.

Wow!

My PR world is wonderful and my client list is growing. I am working on a number of very public projects, including Caribbean Wellness Day which is in Bridgetown on Saturday, September 13. Cannot promise to blog every day by I will try for at least once a week, especially since I have part two of an earlier blog to complete.

Check out the ad below on Caribbean Wellness Day. Hope to see some of you in Bridgetown

The Barbados Chapter of IABC was formally launched last Thursday at Herbert House, the home of the Cricket Legends of Barbados .

The majestic old building, beautifully renovated was an auspicious setting for the occasion. The ceremony was simple. Vice President Development, Richard Thomas was the Master of Ceremonies and he provided the forty plus audience with enough humor mixed with the business at hand to keep this session lively and excited.

President of the Association Christal Mc Intosh gave an address which listed the five main goals of the Association as:
1. To create meaningful opportunities for networking while bringing an end to the isolation in which professionals currently work;

2. To create genuine opportunities for professional development;

3. To create a local community of professionals whose members are committed to a single code of ethics;

4. To create a platform in which business communications speak with a single united, credible voice; and

5. To demonstrate to business leaders how public relations and corporate communications practiced professionally, can enhanced all those desirables such as corporate reputation, stakeholder trust, productivity and profits.

The featured speaker was the Corporate Communications and Marketing Manager of the Barbados Light and Power, Stephen Worme. Stephen took an unusual route towards heading the communications area at Barbados’ monopoly power company. An engineer by profession, he has become respected as a honest voice for all the island’s power crisis. Stephen gave an excellent speech about his experience, his relationship with the media, and his dream for the profession locally.

A delightful wine and cheese cocktail followed the speeches.

Christal Mc Intosh, president of the Barbados Public Relations sent the following note to members this weekend:

Hi everyone,

We’ve done it!

The IABC international board has formally approved our application to set up a Barbados Chapter.

We have achieved this in the unbelievably short time of about four weeks. I believe it’s because of the large number of people who showed up for our initial meeting on May 8 and expressed their interest and support. On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Barbados Chapter, I want to thank you for being there.

For the next two years, IABC Barbados will enjoy “developmental status”. This means the IABC appreciates that we are on a learning curve and will give us some time to find our wings. We have to use that time to prove our commitment to becoming a fully-fledged chapter.

You can help us do that by becoming an IABC member now. Membership in this association will be one of the best investments you will ever make as a communications professional. And that membership is yours to keep no matter where you end up living and working.

At this early stage, I want to stress that being a member of BPRA will not automatically entitle you to membership of IABC Barbados with all of its privileges. The two are not interchangeable, and only a paid up membership will admit you to IABC Barbados (iabc.com/join/).

DOWN IN THE TRENCHES

While we were awaiting formal chapter approval, the board of directors you elected has not been idle. We have been meeting every Thursday evening for several hours to come to grips with our various responsibilities and to scope out what we have to do quickly to get up and running.

We have also put together a tentative schedule for professional development and networking opportunities over 12 months, starting this August. However, we haven’t got every topic and event nailed down, because we want to hear from you rather than making all decisions on our own.

This is why we have also developed a short survey that you will find attached and in the online forum for download. It will provide us with much needed demographic profiles of our target market and how best to cater to their needs.

Please complete it and return it by e-mail to our co-Vice President of Professional Development, Vicki Olton: vicki.olton@gmail.com. It will help us enormously.

We are also working on how best to market the IABC and to whom. We know that there are many more communication professionals out there besides all of you who showed up for our first meeting.

And there are lots of people in allied professions – such as HR, printing, photography and graphic design – who are valid potential members. We are digging to uncover them, in both the corporate and public sectors and we would appreciate any leads you can provide us.

We plan to hold our inaugural meeting as a registered IABC chapter on July 3 at 6:00 p.m. at Herbert House on Fontabelle. By then, I trust that many more of you will have become IABC members. We will keep you posted about the format and content of that meeting, as soon as we have finalized the details.

Again, thank you for your support. And if you haven’t already joined up, do it now!

Membership Fees

Membership in this association, which has been set at US $231 if you include the one-time $40 application fee, will be one of the best investments you will ever make as a communications professional. And that membership is yours to keep no matter where you end up living and working.