Photo: Christal McIntosh at work.
Ever since I started this blog, I’ve wanted to start a series of interview with public relations and marketing practitioners from throughout the region. Today marks the start of the “Profiling Caribbean PR” series, and features Christal McIntosh from Barbados. Christal is a Corporate Communications Specialist at the Barbados Tourism Authority, and is the founder of Lyrical Lava, a marketing communications company that caters to Christian-based and like-minded businesses. She also recently joined the International Association of Business Communicators.
Christal and I have no blood relation, but certainly we’re linked by a love for communications. We conducted this interview via an emailed questionnaire. Personally, I enjoyed her responses (which were not edited), and I hope that it gives you some insight to the practice and profession of public relations in Barbados. If you’re a public relations or marketing practitioner based in the Caribbean, or you’re abroad and work with a Caribbean audience, and you want to participate in the Profiling Caribbean PR series, please email me at caribbeanprblog@yahoo.com.
Here goes the interview with Christal:
Karel: Tell me about your background, and how you came to be in the public relations field.
Christal: While I was pursuing a B.Sc. in Public Sector Management at the UWI’s Cave Hill Campus from 1999 – 2003 I worked as a freelance journalist at the Nation Newspaper by day and professional entertainer by night. Journalism taught me how to channel my writing skills in the areas of entertainment, youth affairs and travel writing. Singing on the hotel circuit sensitized me to the tourism industry. Early in 2003 I joined the Bridgetown Toastmaster Club, which has given me a great foundation in the area of public speaking, speech writing and leadership training.
I tied it all up with an internship in Grenada in the summer of 2003 with Eugene Gittens, former manager with the Grenada Broadcasting Network and producer of the National Talent Search Competition. He baptised me into event planning, writing media releases, doing radio and television interviews and mentoring contestants. By the time I got back to Barbados I was ready and rearing to go in my interview for my current post. So yes, PR just happened to me!
Karel: Are public relations, marketing, advertising and related fields respected as professions in Barbados?
Christal: Marketing and advertising have long been accepted. However, I think that many people still restrict PR to writing media releases and producing press conferences and perhaps I have to thank them for giving me, a former journalist, a shot at the field. However, there is a need for greater sensitization among practitioners and their senior management so that the scope of the job goes beyond these things, as vital as they are. Having said that, I imagine obtaining respect or financing for your ideas will remain difficult. However, being able to demonstrate the role PR plays in the company’s ROI will make it much easier to get the resources needed.
Karel: Describe the public relations industry in your country, its history, reach etc?
Christal: I think as an industry public relations is still very new in Barbados. As I understand it, the first PR manager at the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) taught me tourism at the UWI; the second one was there when I came at 22-years-old. This says to me that the seed was sown recently, that this PR was something we needed an entire department to pay attention to as a critical part of our organizational success.
I don’t have the numbers but I think I’m fairly accurate in saying that nationally, more PR staffers in Barbados are trained in marketing and journalism than actual PR, with a few seasoned people that have graduated from such distinguished schools as Syracuse University. Certainly, there is yet to be an associate degree, further more a bachelors or masters being offered in the area locally. Recently, I attended to a training course on Web 2.0 in St. Maarten through the European Union and the Caribbean Tourism Organization. This session reinforced the fact that Internet Public Relations has now become necessary to be mastered as well.
I long for Barbados and the Caribbean get to the stage where we are influencing PR’s global development and winning our share of bronze and silver anvils from PRSA, and other international bodies. I believe the Caribbean can generate exemplars and theorists in the field. We have the human resource capacity and our context is unique enough to produce such internationally influential concepts. I tried my hand at it recently and was able to design a model to determine the ROI of our international, media facilitations. This is now being tested across our global offices and who knows, it may become a regionally accepted model. I know there are others in the region who are even brighter shining examples, and I long for the day when they are all appropriately lauded and awarded.
Karel: Are there any local, professional associations?
Christal: Not so long ago some of Barbados’ best trained and most experienced personnel sought to establish a professional body. When I learned of their efforts, I had already taken it upon myself to rally all of us together under the banner of the Barbados Public Relations Association. However, from my research there is yet to be a legally operating body. Stage one for BPRA is to get a sizeable group of persons to join this online community at www.bajanpr.ning.com, at least 50 I’d reckon. Right now our main discussion is whether we want to align ourselves with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) or the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Once we have done this, through our executive arm, I envision we will start to catapult the training needs of the industry through scholarships, internship programs, presentations at career showcases, and assisting our local educational institutions in establishing formal qualifications.
I also see our role as defining and representing our industry in very much the same way as other professional entities, and perhaps even staging one of the international conferences right here in Barbados (can’t get away from the tourism). What is fantastic is that we have already built a relationship with the founders of the IABC Chapter in Trinidad and Tobago who are currently honorary members of our online forum.
Karel: What’s the media landscape like in Barbados?
Christal: Dynamic is perhaps the best way to describe our media landscape. In working on my most recent campaign, I was pleased to hear nearly all of our major media houses trumpet their desire to do things more animatedly and innovatively. This really thrilled me because I was able to think outside of the box with abandon, something seldom heard of in the public sector.
For me going out of my way to ensure that our media get passes hand delivered or an exclusive that they otherwise might not have had is easy because of the relationships I maintain with them. Similarly, when I ask them to hold a story until some unexpected dynamic is quelled, they give me that respect. That to me is the heart of media relations and successful PR. I think we need more entities such as www.cmccaribbean.com that provide online news as well as fringe benefits like press clipping services and that type of thing. I honestly believe more and more entities will start to see the desirability in such services. I’m glad, however, that at least one major media house has a blog, and I expect more will go in that direction.
Karel: Social media has influenced how people view various, traditional, communication channels, and has given target publics free and easy ways to express themselves. How does this affect integrated communications?
Christal: I think social media is an absolutely brilliant concept. For so long we have been drumming on the minds of our various target markets with our ideas of who we thought we were or wanted to be viewed as. At last, someone has awoken to the fact that our target audience has something vital to say, that these are the best promoters for our products, and, above all, that they deserve the freedom to say how they feel whether good or bad. We just need to train our minds to managing this new channel. The fact is the rules have not really changed that much.
Karel: Do you think that blogging and other social media tools will become mainstream media for Caribbean publics?
Christal: Absolutely; ever heard the term “the greying of Facebook”? Once upon a time these tools were used predominantly by the “X-box” crowd. Now, persons over 25 are a huge segment of users of such social media devices. What is interesting too is that it’s not just an American phenomenon. Europe and Asia, especially those admirable UAE folk are very much online and using these forums. Why should the Caribbean be left out? While the integrity of sites like Travelocity and Barbadosfreepress.wordpress.com will always be questioned, I think Surowiecki was right in his assertion that there is great “wisdom in crowds. The more people join and participate in these forums the more they will gain credibility and the word will spread and the cycle will continue.
Karel: What are the critical elements needed to build a successful PR campaign within the Caribbean context?
Christal: Local intelligence cannot be understated. Every island has its own nuances that need to be properly navigated; very few campaigns should be applied carte blanche. One needs to start early too, tap into the heart of those people and the specific demographic in each nation in order to be heard. The more local faces, voices and themes one uses, the better. The worst thing you can do in my opinion is be insensitive to the major issues of the day; yet one of the best things you can do is craftily mould elements of your campaign to genuinely address those issues.
Karel: What advice would you give to practitioners abroad who have to communicate with the Caribbean Diaspora, abroad and within the region? Anything special about your nationality)/ the Caribbean psyche they should know?
Christal: Barbadians are known to be conservative at best, but highly educated; Trinidadians, creatively adventurous; Jamaicans, bold and sexy; and I could go on classifying the whole region because it is a fact is every nation has its own personality. If you can afford to, work closely with a specialist agency in the destination; if not, you can use websites such as www.reachcaribbean.com because they work.
In terms of reaching Caribbean people in the Diaspora, diplomatic offices in the market you are seeking to penetrate are great places to start when collecting statistical data. There are several publications, radio and television stations and certainly websites dedicated to serving these persons but I do know for a fact that many of the Caribbean media is shipped to these places, and is available online. I have found SMAC Productions and Ken Webb’s Internet radio to be useful outlets for reaching Bajans in North America, for example, as well as www.nationnews.com, www.barbadosfreepress.wordpress.com and www.cbc.bb. You just need to keep you ears to the ground and hiring a local PR firm can do that too, if you can afford one.
Karel: What advice would you give to someone wanting to enter this profession?
Christal: Stay on the learning curve as the profession is ever evolving, especially by changes in the wider organizational and industry context. The worst thing you can do is think PR stopped growing after you graduated – that is self-defeating. Master the Internet and you can be a leader in this new communication channel, even if your company is not yet ready to incorporate it. That day is eventually going to be here, especially as companies begin to acknowledge the need to give way for today’s increasingly educated and liberal consumer. Remember the basics never change – maintain healthy your relationships with both your internal and external publics. Measure, measure, measure the impact of your efforts and keep pushing the envelope, even beyond the legacy of the person who held the job or the larger part of the market share before you. Lastly, aspire to become a precursor and not just a practitioner of the established profession. Change has to come eventually; be postured for it to occur through you.
Karel: What educational or training opportunities are there locally for communications professionals?
Christal: I’ve heard of a certificate course through the UWI School of Continuing Education and a few electives at the Barbados Community College. I believe the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity may also have a certificate course but again, there is yet to be an actual degree – associate, bachelors or masters, and this is something I hope the BPRA will be able to have a role in championing in the very near future.
Karel: Which local/ Caribbean practitioner(s) do you admire? Why?
Christal: If there is one person who has been very influential to me as a PR practitioner it would be young Sueann Tannis, a Howard PR graduate, and now Corporate Communications Manager at FirstCaribbean International Bank. She is as sympathetic as she is forthright and her advice is ever sound. She also does the work of 10 men! I also admire Judette Coward-Puglisi, founder of Mango Media Communications and IABC Trinidad and Tobago. I have been reading her blog for while now, and before that her column in the Barbados Business Authority. I can always count on her to spark my interest with something new or a different perspective.
Karel: Are there any personal/ professional projects that you’re working on that you’d like to tell us about? What are they?
Christal: One of the most interesting assignments I’ve ever had has been working with my church, Love & Faith Ministries Inc. In addition to being instrumental in switching our radio station to an online, syndicated Caribbean station at www.cbc.bb/ 94.7 FM, I started two blogs, www.operationmarriagerestore.blogspot.com and www.lordofthemarketplace.blogspot.com.
I am also free to experiment with any and all new techniques I learn along the way with little or no time restraints such as viral marketing/ email signatures; and third party validations by persons whose lives have been transformed through the ministry, which were a hit in the newspaper and on the morning show in 2006. What I feel most happy about is the fact that we have such tiny budgets yet we have to treat every effort as a national campaign, and somehow God turns up and we get the results!
Karel: Any last thoughts about PR in general?
Christal: I’d like to make a regional appeal to PR practitioners to stop abusing press conferences! Some of us spend thousands of dollars sometimes, securing a venue, refreshments, and signage and sending out invitations only to waste the media’s time with something that could have been announced via a media release and emailing a recorded quote under the watchful eye of a communications manager. We need to use vlogging, blogging, and RSS more so that we can keep our stakeholders informed constantly. It’s time consuming at times, but can be cheaper and more effective. Let’s start maximizing the new technology that is out there. Also, I want us to start recognizing our internal publics/ colleagues are just as important as our customers, shareholders and parent companies. Happy staff makes for good products and services, which leads to happy customers and by extension, happy shareholders, not the other way around. Finally, I long to see our regional practitioners being honoured for their efforts, acknowledged for their innovations and awarded for their successes. This in my mind is the beginning of growing an industry in the region, by treating our internal publics, ourselves, with the greatest admiration and respect.
In the next instalment of Profiling Caribbean PR, look out for insights from Jamaica.
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