PR People Must Show How Items benefit Consumers, Reporters Tell G&S Business Communications Guests

PR people pitching media should do this in terms of what will benefit consumers and should “eliminate jargon,” reporters told a “Meet the Media” event on Oct. 12 at G&S Business Communications.

Yuyu Chen, brands reporter for Digiday, online media covering advertising and marketing, said PR people have to relate to the audiences that are following Digiday and avoid jargon.

(L to R) Audra Hession, Managing Director, New York, G&S Business Communications; Yuyu Chen, Brands Reporter, Digiday; Minda Smiley, Reporter, The Drum. Photo by Jane Landers

Minda Smiley, who covers media and marketing for the New York office of The Drum, said the company operates on the principal that “marketing can change the world.”

It strives to show how marketing affects the “everyday lives” of consumers. The job of PR people, she said, is to find out what is on the minds of consumers. “Watch what consumers are engaging in and are commenting on,” she told the audience of 25.

On the subject of branded content, she said, “Maybe you have to pay to play.”

Study Audiences, PR People Told

Chen said that PR people have to know what’s on the minds of the audiences they are trying to reach. Instead of a B2B model, there is a “B2H” model, meaning “business to humans,” she said.

G&S managing director Audra Hession was moderator.

Chen, a graduate of New York University with an M.A. in Business and Economics Reporting, previously was a digital marketing reporter for ClickZ.com.

Smiley, who has a B.A. in Political Science and Government from Penn State and an M.A. in Journalism from CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, had editorial internships at Advertising Age and Investment News.