Carolyn Bernucca: What is your job like?

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Tony Loke: My typical day starts around 8, when I get into the office and clear my inbox from the prior evening. If there’s not a special project, I typically get about 30 emails overnight, including newsletters. I read the news to get a sense of what the day’s coverage will look like. After I finishing reading the morning news and look at my calendar for the day, I start answering emails from clients and colleagues.

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My day to day varies alot, depending on projects I have. For some clients, I plan a leadership role, where I determine client needs and organize work for the team to execute. 

On other clients, I play a consulting role where I provide my perspective on a media issue, such as how to answer a reporter on an inquiry or what media to target for an announcement. My day is a mix of both. From a reporter outreach perspective, I probably handle about 10 or so a week, mostly to top tier outlets. My outreach is a mix of checking in with reporters to see what they’re doing, specific pitches on behalf of a client, and trying to meet/get to know new reporters of interest that I have not worked with before.

 

I currently lead two accounts – Campbell Soup Company corporate communications and Johnson & Johnson’s Health & Wellness Unit – and consult on about half a dozen other accounts.

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CB: Why are you in PR?

 

TL: I like the challenge of helping people and organizations tell their own stories. The agency setting is attractive to me in that I get to work on and learn about so many different businesses and issues. I think PR work is an intellectual omnivore’s dream.

 

 

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CB: How did you get your job? What experiences have led you to your present position?

 

TL: I got into PR as a writer. I was hired by an agency that specialized in representing small biotechnology companies and my first job was to write company descriptions, technology backgrounders and executive biographies. I went from writing to pitching reporters given my interest in the subject I was working on. From that point on, I focused on media relations as my area of expertise. I spent six or so years just being a media pitcher and in the last six years, have lead accounts.

 

 

 

CB: How has your experience in PR overlapped with other experiences in your life? Have certain experiences prepared you for this industry?

 

TL: I use my PR experience just about every day! As someone who pays close attention to language, I read newspaper articles very differently than most people. I pay attention to who gets quoted, what they say, who they support and work out from there if it was a story that pushes a specific point of view. It makes newspaper reading very interesting. Also, when close friends get married, I’m usually get asked to either emcee or say a few words because “you’re the PR guy and have a way with language.”

 

From a preparation standpoint, I think being intellectually curious has been helpful to do well in an agency setting. I am always hungry to learn something new – whether if it’s the process through which the FDA clears a drug, how contact lenses get made, or the difficulty of getting free-trade coca for chocolates – being curious is a plus in making the work fun.

 

 

 

CB: What has been your most difficult experience in this field to date? How was it resolved?

 

TL: We’re in the business of human relations, so learning to work with different people who have very different expectations and work styles is the most difficult part of the job. You can have clients who have unrealistic expectations, or colleagues who don’t know what you do and overpromises. Navigating these misunderstandings is something that I find most difficult – with some people, you can be very direct, with others, you have to be more educational – it’s a constant assessment to calibrate what your responses should be.

 

 

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CB: What has been your most gratifying work experience?

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TL: I’ve worked on many health awareness campaigns, such as diabetes awareness and Crohn’s Disease awareness – seeing people who suffer from these ailments get the help they need or helping the general public understand their challenges is really satisfying.

 

 

 

CB: What do you think is the most common misconception about PR/your job?

 

TL: There is a cultural view of PR as not telling the truth. In fact, we always tell the truth. What people tend not to realize is that what they mean isn’t always what other people hear. Our job is a craft – a way to help people communicate clearly. Is there a way to negate it? Since I think it’s a cultural problem, we need cultural solutions. Shows like The West Wing went a long way to help the perception of PR  

 

 

 

CB: What are some changes you would like to see made, internally, to PR?

 

TL: As a professional service, I think we can do a better job with measuring the impact of our work for the client. There really has not been an accepted, trusted way to measure what we do. The most popular is advertisement-equivalence, what would a column we helped placed cost in equal ad space, but it doesn’t measure the goodwill that a successful media hit can generate with the public.

 

 

 

CB: Whom would you encourage to pursue​ this industry?

 

TL: People who love language and are “people persons.”

 

 

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CB: What are some things that you think have influenced the industry since you started?

 

TL: For sure, the shift of the media world to a new technology – the Internet – is the biggest change in our industry since I started. Traditional media companies like newspapers, magazines and broadcasters are having to redefine their business model and new technology companies like Facebook and Snapchat are giving us new content and new ways to get content. We are still in the middle of this change and our world will continue to look very different.

 

 

 

CB: What key piece of advice would you have given yourself back when you first realized you were interested in PR?

 

TL: Be very detail oriented. Our work is entirely about the words we choose and every punctuation, every typo matters.

 

 

 

CB: What is the significance of diversity in PR?

 

TL: Diversity is really important in our work – just as the media needs to have a multitude of voices to tell different stories, the public relations field needs people from every kind of background to broaden our client’s perspective. We are the filter between what the client wants and how they come across.

 

 

 

CB: In a few words/one sentence, what does PR mean to you?

 

TL: PR helps people say what they mean

 

 

 

CB: What is an "insider" tip you've learned over the years?

 

TL: Learn to read a balance sheet – it will help you follow the money and get to the bottom of what motivates many actions!

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