With our latest round of holiday creative executions for Hazard Center, our Avoid-a-Hazard campaign comes to a close for 2011.

First launched at the start of last year, the Avoid-a-Hazard campaign was born out of the notion that life is filled with everyday hassles. Some of them small, like personal grooming. Others, a little complicated, like the pitfalls of gift giving. But whatever these “hazards” might be, we positioned Hazard Center as being the place that could help you avoid them. We playfully played off of Hazard Center’s name, while conveying the many different things you could do/buy/eat there.

Over the last two years, we extolled the virtues of waxing, directed men to better anniversary gifts and helped college students stay awake in class. We even offered Chargers fans a reason to drink on opposite sides of a vending machine. Along the way, we also won an ADDY for our efforts.

With our latest round of work, we show how Hazard Center can make for an easier holiday season. Sample ad below, another one here.

Are there any hazards that we missed? Let us know.

If you work in fashion you’ve heard of Tumblr, and have had a discussion about whether you should incorporate the platform into your marketing plans for your brand or client. In short, Tumblr is a micro-blogging community filled with visually rich content, and a network of users who love to share their experiences and interests, and obsessively reblog other content from those they follow. The fashion industry quickly jumped on the Tumblr bandwagon because their fans were there, searching for trends, fabrics and awesome fashion bloggers to follow and spread their findings to their own networks.

Now more general consumer facing brands,and multiple news publications, have incorporated Tumblr into the mix for its ability to quickly and effectively disperse content and information across the web. What’s more, Tumblr really gives a brand or entity an opportunity to personify itself as if the brand was a person, and/or provides legs and nimble content in support of integrated marketing campaigns. The people behind a brand can share with fans exactly what the brand’s interest would be outside of the standard product offering, and what inspires the brand, which gives marketers both more to create and relate to the various interests and emotions of their fans.

Some of my favorite tumblogs include Kate Spade, Maybelline, Topshop, GQ, and of course Vogue, so check out what they’re up to.

Tumblr for an Integrated Campaign

Recently we launched a campaign to encourage young bucks to release their “Inner Jockey” at the Thoroughbred racetracks of California, and wanted to create a microsite for our fans to learn more about the brand and interact with the fun content we created such as videos and a quiz to help you listen to your Inner Jockey. Here are a few reasons why we choose Tumblr to serve as a microsite for our Inner Jockey campaign:

• Because of the playful nature of the campaign and our targeted younger demographic, we decided Tumblr would be a great platform to really bring Cal Racing’s Inner Jockey to life, in addition to bringing Cal Racing’s digital community to fruition on Facebook and Twitter.
• Allows fans to playfully interact with the brand and discover all that Cal Racing has to offer within and outside of horse racing.
• Encourages more user generated content at the racetracks themselves.
• We want to highlight the joy and fun that takes place at the racetracks, and found that much of this content was already being created by fans on Tumblr.
• Fans do not have to sign up with Tumblr in order to view our content, take a quiz, or find out about the latest food truck festival. To the naked eye, it just appears as a normal website or blog. Win!
• Tumblr gives our brand an authentic personality that relates to our demographic, and if we can create that relationship with potential and existing fans online, we know it will only strengthen our relationship with them trackside!

Release your Inner Jockey!

Although we’ve only been live for a couple of weeks our viewership and interactions thus far have been fantastic. We’ve been able to introduce a brand to users who have yet to have a way of interacting with Cal Racing as a whole, or who simply have not been to a racetrack in California. Thus far, Tumblr is helping us release Inner Jockeys on the left coast, and we are excited to see what form it takes moving forward.

What do you think about Tumblr as a social platform for brands and organizations?

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending BlogHer 2011 while working with our client, BillMyParents and our creative partner, FishTank. BillMyParents offers parents a way to track the spending habits of their teens through real time text messages to help teach smart spending habits. BlogHer hosts the largest conference in the world for women who blog (this year’s attendees totaled 3,600+).

Only three weeks out from the August 4 conference date we had a relatively short time to ramp up with Fishtank working on creative execution, while we focused on press materials and pitching efforts – and those ranged from traditional media outlets (Parents magazine, San Diego Union Tribune, Fox 5 News, NBC news), to bloggers spanning the gamut in topics and subscribers, and social influencers.

Objectives behind attending BlogHer:

• Connect and engage with mom bloggers, online influencers and attending traditional media
• Build database/interest list with qualified influencers
• Increase social media engagements and interactions
• Secure blogger and media coverage
• Convert interest list to BillMyParents users

In the weeks leading up to BlogHer, we held many meetings, Fishtank designed an awesome new look around an attention-spurring movement dubbed “the ‘Plastic Is Good’ movement.” They designed and created the BlogHer booth (complete with swag), all while us BGers were working to research and compile lists of influential bloggers that would be attending BlogHer (while drilling in to find those that are parents of teens). We pored over the attending media list, wrote numerous press materials, pitched and tweeted our little hearts out, and made quite a splash singing Fishtank’s “Plastic Is Good” ditty about going anti-green. The conference was a huge success as we built brand awareness for BillMyParents among the mom blogger community.

Before I share the fruits of our fast and furious labor, I’ll let you in on some secrets on how we pulled it off. 3,600 bloggers is absolutely as daunting as it seems. We had three weeks to identify who our target bloggers were going to be at BlogHer, engage in conversation with them and then convert those engagements into relationships resulting in product mentions and impressions.

Identifying our target blogger

BillMyParents is geared toward parents of teens, so it was clear we were looking for influential parents of teens (or bloggers/editors that write about the topic). A tier below this, we identified finance bloggers and tech bloggers if their content fit our product. Because there isn’t a tool that successfully IDs the most influential blogs within our categories, we had our work cut out for us. Luckily, social media played the biggest part in identifying who was attending the conference, so we took to Twitter following the #BlogHer hashtag. It seemed as if all 3,600 attendees were tweeting, so we created a tiered system to expedite the process and outlined qualifications we were looking for. We looked at a number of things to qualify our top bloggers:

1. Number of followers
2. Members/subscribers to the blog (which was not easy to find)
3. Average number of comments
4. Frequency of blog posts and tweets

Though it’s not an exact science, we essentially were looking at a blogger’s influence in the social space overall. By scanning profiles, we were able to narrow our target pitch list to about 30 bloggers. We continued interacting with all relevant BlogHer attendees as they’re all influential to their own circles, but as far as pitching went, we needed a smaller number to work with.

Because of the short period of time we had to build a community and become a trusted name in the space, we partnered with some of the most influential mommy bloggers in the space by hosting a sponsored luncheon and book signing event at our booth. Kristin Chase and Liz Gumbinner from CoolMomPicks helped moderate a not-s0-serious discussion about Parenting in the Digital Age with special guests, Eden Kennedy and Alice Bradley, authors of the hilarious book, Let’s Panic about Babies. Their tweets and blog posts about our product helped solidify us a trustworthy brand in other bloggers’ eyes.

Pitching our target blogger

Once we had our target list down to a digestible size we sent personalized emails sharing information about our product as something useful to them (vs. simply asking for coverage). We began building a relationship introducing ourselves as the PR people working with BillMyParents. Pitching in general should be transparent and this works exactly the same, if not more, when reaching out to bloggers. These women and men tend to share the ins and outs of their personal lives, so it’s always important that we respect them by being aware of what they do share in their blogs and don’t overstep our boundaries. In addition to emailing our top identified bloggers, we continued responding and retweeting their articles on Twitter, joining in on relevant chats about #BlogHer and tweeting live from the conference with images of bloggers that stopped by our booth, as well as tweeting our target bloggers during the conference asking them to come by.

And all of that hard work paid off. We saw tremendous results across the board:

• 337% increase in website traffic from the day before the conference (August 3) to the first business day following the conference  (August
• 62 YouTube video views of BillMyParents’ “plastic is good” demonstration between August 4-8
• 138 Twitter @mentions throughout the three-day conference (August 4-6)
• 401 Facebook page views throughout the three-day conference
• 20 blog posts about BillMyParents within two weeks of the conference from influential blogs including Mammarazzi Knows Best, Mom-entum, Mom Bloggers Club, After the Bubbly, The Succulent Wife and San Diego Momfia’s Stefanie Mullen posted to her blog, Ooph
• Coverage on Fox 5 News
• BillMyParents social influence increased from a Klout score of 26 to 47 in a matter of three weeks

The team had such an amazing time meeting some of the most interesting and engaged women bloggers (and a few men, too!). BillMyParents was well received by the crowd and we now look forward to building a community of ambassadors and friends in the community.

Let’s face it – strategizing and planning can be time consuming, but it just so happens to be one of my favorite parts of the job. You may ask, “why?” Well, to start, it provides an opportunity to assess performance from the previous year, meet with your client to revisit goals and expectations for the upcoming year and have internal agency meetings with creative, media, public relations and social teams – bringing everyone together to come up with fresh ideas. Some of the best concepts are derived when everyone collaborates as an integrated group.

There are a few things to remember in order to keep your planning on point and effective and I’ve outlined three key tips to get you started:

1. Goals

Establishing goals with the client in advance is the single most important step to complete prior to planning. My recommendation is to have a high-level “wishful thinking” goal and a few smaller, concrete goals. A few examples of wishful thinking goals include,  “be the #1 brand in Southern California” or “launch two new products within the year.” Examples of more concrete, attainable goals would be to “sell 5,000 units of Product A in the 1st Quarter” or “increase market share by 25% within the Hispanic market.” You’ll want to have figures on-hand supporting performance so you can gauge the prior year to set realistic expectations for the following year. When determining these goals, make sure they are quantifiable and that you can measure results on an ongoing basis to assess how you’re pacing.

2. Research

Research can be performed in a variety of ways and can take many forms. Typically when people hear “research,” they immediately think “how much is that going to cost?” Sure, if you have the budget I would highly recommend working closely with a research firm, but oftentimes, that is not the case. Without going into the nuances of the types of research available, I’m here to tell you that there are a lot of ways you can perform research by spending a few hours of your own time and although your discovery may not be scientific, it will be a starting point. Examples include sending out a survey to 100 of your friends and family members, visiting your clients’ competitors  to find out what they do really well or spending a few hours analyzing competitors websites, research whitepapers and locate articles relating to industry trends, analyze your clients’ database to see what type of opportunities are available, perform “after the sale” customer satisfaction surveys, etc. You need to think like the end user in the mind of your client and research will help you get there.

3. Strategy

The bottom line is to take your client’s goals as well as research performed and utilize it to defend your strategy. Know your target audience well. Create a sound creative strategy that can be utilized across multiple mediums. Diversify your media mix in order to create various avenues and touch points to reach your audience. Treat every new opportunity as a strategic one.

Lastly, from a budgetary standpoint, my recommendation is to always take a big picture approach. Start by allocating budget by initiatives, i.e. retainer, media, creative, PR, etc. and you may even want to add another layer addressing flighting, seeing as though this applies to all agency departments. From there it makes it easier to apportion the budget accordingly. And it doesn’t hurt to consider putting aside a 5% contingency fund, as things inevitably come up.

Share with us how you approach planning for your clients. Do you feel as though technology has changed the planning process?

Happy planning!

On a regular basis at BG, we read books relating to the advertising industry, covering marketing tactics, upcoming trends and research on campaign successes (and failures!).

Recently on a flight back East, I picked up Lead with Luv: A Different Way to Create Real Success by Ken Blanchard and Colleen Barrett.  Blanchard, author of the famed One Minute Manager and Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines, discuss how to lead an organization and create success within your business environment. And no, I was not on a Southwest flight while reading the book.

Collectively Blanchard and Barrett approach leadership in a fashion that most would consider ill-suited for an office setting. Their approach is centered on “love” and how managers can use love in everything they do from leading the team to solving problems. There were a lot of takeaways from this book both personally and professionally but as I sat there, stuck on a six-hour flight, I couldn’t help but notice how many of these leadership principles apply to client leadership. My top three takeaways from the book are listed below.

Create a clear path
In our work environments we all have visions, especially as it relates to taking the next step in our careers, growing our clients or coming up with the next big idea. Blanchard and Barrett talk about the importance of having the proper direction or vision in everything you do, “visions tell you who you are (your purpose), where you are going (your picture of the future), and what will guide your journey (your values).” In a recent client strategy session, we started with these three main principles. Once the vision was defined, we were able to establish priorities, focus on where we were going and determine the steps it would take to get there.

Listen
Encourage your clients to provide feedback, and provide it often. Prior to recommending an ad concept, negotiating a network buy or choosing a paper stock, hold tight and allow your clients to speak their mind. Listen and attempt to find out more – where they are coming from, why they feel a certain way, and how you can help them accomplish their goal. After all, they are the client and although you may not entirely agree with their opinion, they know their brand the best. Take a lot of notes, ask questions and listen carefully.

Build a strong relationship
One of the biggest components of fostering a great partnership with your client is to service them well. Keep the lines of communication open. Get to know your clients on a personal level and “love” them. Respond to their inquiry in a timely manner. Be on the lookout for a potential problem before it arises. Look for ways to grow their business and be strategic in your decision-making. Instead of satisfying your clients or thinking of your accounts as status quo, view their organization as if it were your own. If you don’t take great care of your customers, somebody else will.

While these three principles are nothing new, it is always valuable to analyze your current leadership tactics and look for ways to improve.

Start with the basics. Paving a clear path, encouraging feedback and servicing your clients well are important elements with any partnership. Make a commitment once per month to take a few steps back to look at the bigger picture and evaluate your relationship. Surely there will be missed opportunities. Leading with “love” can happen on many different levels and if you make a conscious effort to think about how to blend some of these principles into your day-to-day decisions, you (and your clients) will succeed.

We’d love to hear from you as a client or marketing professional – what does it take to be a true leader and what traits do you look for in an agency/client partnership?

In PR, we all joke about how we’re a group of type A, take-charge, organizational freaks. And as much as we love to be in control and fully prepared with our pretty Excel schedules, real life teaches us to think on our feet, calm the frenzied feeling we have inside and make things work with media. This being the third year I’ve worked on The San Diego Museum of Art’s annual fundraiser, Art Alive, I’ve come to learn the following three things about media preparation for an event:

1. Those organized Excel docs really do help – For events that have a lot of moving parts, it is essential to plan way in advance and keep track of communication in one or more spreadsheets. For Art Alive, we worked with six TV stations, over 30 print and online publications, eight Museum spokespeople for a fundraiser that had four main events over the course of four days. Having all of our conversations documented and saved in one place allowed us to easily keep track of the changes that continuously popped up and adjust the overall schedule accordingly.
2. Over-communicate - with your clients and with media. It’s easy to get caught up in planning and as the PR pro, your instincts may tell you that you can run the show as you go, but clarifying with media about potential restrictions in advance can really help make the event smoother for you and the media contact (which is the key to ensuring the best possible coverage). For example, with Art Alive the restrictions for photographers changes every year. Over the past three years, photographers’ access to the galleries went from having no restrictions whatsoever to needing escorts through the Museum. It can be frustrating for them to have to run around finding an escort, so creating an easy system and explaining the process in advance ensured that Museum security was appeased, and we got the media coverage we needed.
3. Roll with the punches – This applies particularly to TV coverage for clients. Often times, we’ll book news segments with producers weeks in advance. We’ll outline speaking points, spokespeople, contact information, what time the segment airs and if there are numerous hit times (live air times). However sometimes TV crews may cancel the segment due to breaking news they have to cover or the 6:10 a.m. air time got pushed to 6:30 a.m., leaving you scrambling to adjust your schedule and keeping your client happy. During Art Alive, we were working to facilitate two news stations at the Museum within the same three-hour gap. Due to changes at the news station, we had to put our pretty Excel doc aside, let our spokespeople know of the changes and then make it happen.

Are there any other insights from our fellow PR people relating to event planning? Please feel free to leave a comment or tweet me (@KatyHarrison20).

So we’ve just heard of another Twitter “oops” from the actual human being behind the brand – yes, there is a person (or team) actually drafting and sending updates from brand accounts. Chrysler’s Twitter handle was supposedly “compromised” this week when a tweet went out dropping the F-bomb. Later, it was reported that the agency (or person) responsible for tweeting on behalf of the brand accidentally wrote a tweet meant to come from his/her personal account, but sent it from the brand they’re responsible for managing.

Before you think I’m scolding, let me just share – I, too, have accidentally tweeted from one account when meaning for it to come from another. Though I didn’t include any f-bombs or #gettingslizzerd in my tweets, it was enough to make me sweat for a few seconds, delete the tweet and move on… a little more cautiously. And so I offer the following advice when managing brand tweets:

Use tools to schedule tweets - Though I am all for the real-time updates, if you feel that content must be shared during off-hours, be smart and schedule the tweets using Hootsuite, SocialOomph or other platforms. It’s better to have followers respond to a brand’s tweet and receive a response 40 hours later than to run the risk of offending someone who spent years building the reputation of a brand. Trust me, your client will prefer the former.

Designate different apps when using mobile devices to live tweet - I’ve had the iPhone and I now own a Droid. On these, I’ve tried the Twitter app, TweetDeck and Seesmic. Though the perk of TweetDeck and Seesmic is to only need one application for your numerous handles, the risk of tweeting from the wrong account is very high. That’s why I’d recommend using a separate application for each account. It may seem redundant, but you should be taking the extra care and time to ensure that you’re careful with your tweets – it is your job on the line after all.

Encourage your client to be transparent - Followers aren’t ignorant enough to think that all of our messaging points in tweets are coming from a long approval process or that a robot is making the posts. If a brand is upfront with its followers off the bat and explains that there’s a team of people making updates, they will appreciate the fact that your brand is now a living, breathing being and most will be quick to forgive for human error. Red Cross took it a step further by joking (kindly) about the man behind the #slizzerd.”

Triple check before hitting “send” – I know, it shouldn’t have to be included in this list, but how else are major brands like Chrysler, Red Cross, Kenneth Cole and Charlie Sheen making negative social headlines. Well, I can’t actually save the last two examples, but you get the point. If you have to log out of Twitter.com to log back in and ensure you’re in the right account, or click the avatar in your desktop app a few extra times to bring the drop down menu of handle options, or check that you’re in the correct mobile Twitter application for the designated account – do it! It will save your job and your personal brand that I know you’re trying hard to build.

Tweet others the way you wish to be tweeted – This should go for your own personal account. If you’re writing tweets that could be offensive to the brand’s followers, what makes you think that you wouldn’t offend your own followers? We all have days where people drive like idiots, we want to get sloshed on the weekends or we can’t stop staring at the UPS delivery guy/cute intern, but before you hit “send,” do you really think your followers need to know? If you take the extra step to think about the tweet coming from you, it’ll save you from accidentally costing your client its hard-earned reputation.

Though I have my own thoughts on the right way a brand should handle this situation and the wrong way, what’s important to remember is to slow down, develop a system with tools to save yourself from these embarrassing and sometimes costly snafus, and most of all, pay attention before hitting the “send” button.

To save money, we printed the posters at our office. For a week we turned part of our kitchen into a silk screen studio.

Our pro-bono client Sushi Contemporary Performance and Visual Arts had a problem.

How do you create an ad campaign that increases attendance when you have virtually no budget?

And one maybe even larger problem, how do you target hipsters? That elusive, 20-something population segment that bucks mainstream advertising and is extremely difficult to market to.

First off, we took an in-depth look at our client. Sushi has a diverse range of acts, most of them up-and-coming artists who are launching their career. From musical flute solos to naked performers who crack eggs on their head on stage—each time you go you are guaranteed to see something shockingly different. We needed to capture the excitement and diversity of each performance and sell it.

Our solution?

We came up with an ad campaign that describes the art with phrases that are just as bizarre as the art itself. And knowing our audience loves hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind art pieces, instead of just running them as ads (which we couldn’t afford to buy anyways) we decided to silk screen them as posters on textured cotton papers. We numbered these limited prints and hung them in areas the creative community frequents—walls in North Park, coffee houses, near art museums and music venues. It may sound like a strange goal, but we wanted them to be stolen. The more people take them home and hang them in their houses, the more likely they are to keep Sushi top of mind and attend performances.

Instead of purchasing new ones, we borrowed silk screens from friends. They are almost little art pieces in themselves.

But we didn’t stop there. Our ultimate goal was to recruit new members and we needed a way to entice them to join. So we printed t-shirts and bags to be given out to as gifts for new and renewing memberships.

Lastly, because we were driving our audience to our website, our online presence needed to be just as hip as the artists that perform at Sushi. So we designed an updated, Wordpress site that allows the user to customize the site background image to one of their choosing and features a fly (our logo) that you can move around each page, echoing your experience at Sushi—like a fly on the wall.

What do you think of the campaign? Do you know any other budget-friendly ways to produce an ad campaign?

Working at a public relations agency, we often wear a variety of hats. In my case, I’m a Thoroughbred fan, draped in diamonds with a fetish for street performers, a passion for peace, and a whole lot of REALTORS® at my fingertips.  As you can imagine, I wouldn’t know nearly enough about this variety of clients if I hadn’t done my research.

Here’s a secret.  PR can be done with very little knowledge of the client, but PR is best done with a LOT of knowledge, and in many cases, experience.  Case in point:

The National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) hosts the inspiring Peacemaker Awards every year. One of this year’s honorees is The New Roots Community Farm, a plot of community gardens in San Diego where refugees are starting their new lives and getting back to their roots by farming and providing fresh fruits and vegetables to their families. It seemed like an easy enough pitch, until we did some preliminary research to find that, lo and behold, the story had been done. In fact, Michelle Obama had visited the location last year, which means that we needed a better story. General information from the client wasn’t going to cut it.

So last week, Katie Levien and I headed out to the farm. We met with Bilali, a Somali Bantu refugee who has played a major part in developing and running the community garden. He took us on a tour of the garden and introduced us to others in his community. Within minutes of being on-site, we had the information we needed to make our pitch.

It is imperative that for any PR project, the proper research is done.  Here’s a checklist to ensure you’ve done all you can:

•  Look for prior media coverage. This will ensure that you don’t try to retell a story and will provide you with some great contacts who may be interested in writing a follow-up story to their first.

• See what’s being said on social media. This can be a great real-time window into what others know and think about your client and a great way to make sure that your pitch will go over well.

• Spend time with your client. Set their expectations that you want more than a one-hour meeting. You want a few hours to mine them for any and all information.

• Spend time without your client. Ask them to put you in touch with people from other areas of their company: sales, customer relations and even those on the floor (front desk personnel, those at the cash register, tour guides, etc.).

• Get on site! If your client is a hotel, be a guest. Spend the night, try the food, ask for suggestions of surrounding things to do. Had I not received the information I needed within the first few minutes of my visit to the New Roots Community Farm, I may have spent a day farming and selling at the farmers market with this client.

With the proper information, you’ll discover the deep-rooted story behind your client that is going to set your pitch apart from all the others and empower you to speak to it as if you only have one client. It’s a trick of the agency trade and it’s an imperative part of any public relations practitioner’s job.

The PR plan is the foundation to any public relations campaign. It outlines, over a certain time frame, what the agency intends to do for the client. It ensures that client is clear on what is being promised and the PR agency can use the plan to hold itself accountable and stay on track. Oftentimes, however, PR pros get caught up in the to-do list and focus the PR plan too much on tactics, and not enough on the bigger picture – how PR can help a company or brand reach its objectives and goals. As David Davidoff mentioned on Spin Sucks, PR needs to focus on results not process, and I couldn’t agree more. Below are a few steps every PR pro should think about while drafting a PR plan:

1. What are the company’s objectives? Before you can begin to put a PR plan together, think about what the company’s goals and objectives are and include these in your PR plan. A goal, by definition, is a broad plan with a generic action. An objective is a narrow plan with a specific, measurable action. Does the client want to increase sales by 10%? Increase traffic to the website? Get more brand awareness in a certain demographic? Before you can start pitching and discussing initiatives, you have to figure out how you can help the bottom line. It may not necessarily mean that PR alone will increase sales by a certain percentage, but it can certainly help.

2. Who is the audience? This is another important thing to consider before putting pen to paper on a PR plan. Is the client trying to reach the Hispanic community, for example? If a client only wants to reach a niche audience with a specific interest, say boat owners in San Diego for example, it may be more effective to target specific blogs that cater to this niche audience rather than the New York Times.

3. Now that you know the objectives and audience, what is your strategy? This is the plan or method to achieve your goal. Perhaps if your goal for a client is the build awareness and drive traffic to a new restaurant, your strategy is to target local and regional media and blogs to build buzz around the launch. This will help guide the rest of your plan.

4. What are the tactics that support your strategy? This is when you can finally break down your plan month by month with the specific actions you will use to fulfill the strategy. You can get into the nitty gritty of the plan, like which publications you will contact when and with what story.

If you follow these steps you will have a more well-rounded PR plan that is focused on RESULTS not tactics. If you do not know the answer to the questions above, it is a good idea to meet with the client and ask. Not only will the client be clear that you understand their situation and needs, but the PR agency and client will be working together towards the same goals and hopefully the client will get the results they are looking for.