What the Flack? Victoria Park on Why Effective Writing Is Effective PR
Victoria Park is communications director at Hero Collective and Hero Media – the 100% independently Black-owned creative agency, and media and technology company, respectively. She also serves as the communications lead for Blackweek, a first-of-its kind diverse-founded marketing conference and economic forum coming to Manhattan in 2024. Previously, Victoria was communications director at McCann Worldgroup. A nerd who knows how to make some noise – she knows how to leverage my diverse skillset to get earned media results.
With over eight years of experience in high-level communications, press relations, content creation, social media and more, Victoria’s expertise has taken her from the halls of the United States Capitol, to Madison Avenue, to Cannes, France and back. She’s travelled around the world in search of the best food and drink she can get her hands on, and her favourite creative spaces are her vegetable garden and kitchen. Currently, Victoria resides in her home town of Rochester, NY with her pride and joy of a pup, Genesee Cream Ale “Genny” Park.
LBB> Tell us about your current role and what you do?
Victoria> I play a couple of different roles. I am the communications director for Hero Collective, Hero Media, and I am also the communications lead for a new project we have embarked on called Blackweek. The first of its kind conference founded by Black and Latino agency founders and executives. They felt like there was a real need for deeper conversations about inclusion and equity for diverse professionals and having the industry understand the huge economic opportunity there is reaching diverse audiences authentically. At the moment it feels like I am wearing three hats but it definitely keeps things interesting!
LBB> And how did you get to where you are today?
Victoria> I went to school for international relations specifically for foreign policy and national security, and I really enjoyed that, but I was struggling to figure out how I was going to apply that in a career that wasn’t working at the state department. I was always a strong writer so I decided to pursue communications classes, and ended up graduating with a double major in PR and international relations. Once I graduated, I ended up getting a job on Capitol Hill, where I worked for US senator Harry Reid at the time for the last six months of his career. It was absolutely PR bootcamp, a really good jump start for a career as a comms practitioner; super faced paced, limited resources, always on defence mode and being able to respond quickly and accurately.
After three years running around Washington, I was looking for a change, and on a whim I applied for a communications manager job at McCann in New York City. I was interested in the role as I would be marketing…marketing! Like wtf even is that? (Little did I know at the time this would essentially become my career). I connected with Jeremy Miller who was the communications officer and we hit it off – I started as a comms manager and left as a communications director. My journey into advertising was quite random, but I have enjoyed it. It has been brilliant learning about this industry immersing myself in creativity daily. I love seeing the ideas that pop up in a brainstorm make their way to Super Bowl commercials. In a weird way, I feel like the work that we do in marketing has a more quantifiable impact on people's day to day, than the work I was doing in politics!
LBB> What does your average day look like?
Victoria> It really depends. I have been doing a lot of content management lately and I think one of the biggest things that we are doing here at Hero is really trying to tell our POV to the industry as an independently owned Black agency. What insights are, our positioning, so a lot of that is thought leadership. I spend a lot of time writing, strategising, thinking about what the content calendar is going to look like for the month, quarter, year etc. I try to make time to make sure I am scouting social everyday, checking the trends just to be abreast of what is going on and what folks are talking about.
But a typical day is really hard to say as it changes depending on what in the world is going on, and I honestly do enjoy that. I have ADHD, so having a different challenge I can focus on and spending a dedicated amount of hours tackling that and moving on to the next project is exciting for me.
LBB> For your organisation, what is the key function of PR and comms? Is it about company culture? Attracting clients? Empowering talent? Something else?
Victoria> It's all about clients and partnership if you’re looking at it from a hierarchy standpoint, but in order to execute upon that, a lot of what we do that I have already mentioned is really what I have been focusing on, telling that story of who Hero is. Being an independently owned Black agency, we often find ourselves pigeonholed in only being able to reach diverse audiences, or only being considered for projects specifically targeting the Black community. When in fact, a lot of the work I have been doing is to communicate that if you are able to effectively resonate with diverse audiences, you are able to resonate with general market audiences. Because culture, in the US and globally is created and driven by diverse communities. That’s our ethos and point of view.
LBB> PR has always been about finding the story. What is your process for staying ahead of the content curve and serving up something fresh and engaging?
Victoria> I think it is all about understanding your audience and who you are talking to. As far as staying ahead of the curve, I am a content-obsessed person, so in my free time I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts that talk about social media trends. I spend a lot of time watching reality television which actually does inform a lot of the conversations on social media, all of the memes, it is very rare for me to come across some meme format that I don’t get! I’m proud to say that as a millennial I can speak the language of gen z. But gen alpha? Forget about it!
I also think the community of PR agency folks is really great. We have our own forms of communication, we rely on each other, we ask each other questions on what may resonate, we ask who the best people are to talk to at other publications and more. As a comms team of one, I find this very reassuring. As the department lead who has to act as everyone from comms manager to comms director, I don’t have that team of 12 that I used to have when I worked at McCann. So that really helps me stay abreast and ahead of the curve because we are in constant communication.
So I would say that just my media diet paired with the PR and agency comms community is what helps me find the right angles that will resonate with desired audiences.
LBB> Historically advertising folk have a very different relationship with the media, especially the press, than PR folk. Advertising is about buying ad space and being able to dictate how and where something is presented – that’s a degree of control you can barely dream of in PR. Does that tension still exist, and if so how do you navigate that tension?
Victoria> I think it has always existed. When it comes to marketing and advertising you are able to choose exactly where you want the message to be told, exactly how you want the message to be shared and reach the exact audience that you want to. When it comes to earned media, it is super strategic and you have to let go to a certain extent when you put news out there into the world. So sometimes there is that fundamental disconnect between marketers and comms folks.
I think as far as overcoming that, it's all about setting very clear expectations from the get go of what the overall goal of an earned media strategy is, understanding the folks you want to reach and being very clear and specific. Sometimes getting picked up in as many outlets as possible isn’t as advantageous as getting a story in a very specific trade that is communicating to folks you really want to talk to. What are CMOs reading? Are we trying to reach them or the general market audience? You can be so meticulous in your press release about how you want to word something, and then the headline that you get may be flattering. But you might have a marketer say ‘Why didn’t they use these words?!’ or ‘Why did they phrase it this way?!’ The answer is because the editor and reporter decided to – and that’s simply it.
LBB> To what extent do you feel 'the work speaks for itself'? To what stage of growth can a business rely on this mantra to gain more clients?
Victoria> I think that in terms of the role of PR in agency communications, in a perfect world the work should speak for itself, we shouldn't have to package it up or add too much spin. But to get there, it's all about talking to your PR person from the very beginning.
The most success I’ve had in getting great campaign coverage that then leads to great case studies which then leads to Cannes Lions–is when you bring in your agency comms people from the get-go. What PR people have an innate ability to do is understand how things will land, and it's another bird’s-eye view on how things will resonate in culture, beyond the industry speaking to itself.
LBB> When it comes to getting coverage for a creative campaign in the consumer press, how should creative teams go about working with their agency’s comms and PR experts?
Victoria> Right from the get-go.
There is nothing more frustrating than hearing: “The campaign is launching in two weeks, we need to reach our agency comms lead because we want this to be on ‘The Today Show’ and ‘The Late Night Show with Jimmy Fallon’”. First of all, two weeks isn’t even enough time to pitch to these outlets and secondly this story may not even resonate with the people you are trying to pitch!
I think it is very important to bring these experts into the room as early on as possible, talk to the creatives, strategists and account leads and figure out what you want the headline to be, and start working towards that as the campaign is put together and executed.
LBB> When a business is faced with very bad news, what’s the key to getting through it?
Victoria> I think it’s getting ahead of it. It’s PR 101, but when you are able (when possible) to get ahead of it and own the narrative as much as possible, be transparent to the extent that you can, be and just be honest. These are very basic things but I think they are often forgotten.
There are only so many ways to spin a bad news story, and most of the time you can see right through it. The other thing is, and this goes back to my politics days, is sharing a lot of good news with the bad. The classic shit sandwich.
But at the end of the day it’s important to understand that everyone has bad news at one point, and people will often forget about it in a couple of weeks. It’s a non-stop news cycle and there is always something to be reported on.
LBB> Generally speaking, how do you approach the hack/flack relationship?
Victoria> Like any other relationship. I don’t under or over write my pitches, I’m very frank and straight up;
“Hey! I have an idea for you. Here is the idea, let me know if you are interested.”
Understanding that in this day and age, the media is really taking a hit in terms of the loss of reporters, writers and editors, and now more than ever folks are under more pressure because they are doing the work of two to three people. Keep things simple and clear. Always consider, is this really the best person to tell this story? Is this something you know they would cover? Have they been talking about similar stories? Think critically about your audience (the reporters you want to reach), understand the pain points and pressures of what they are facing, and keep things as easy and simple as possible. Just like any other colleague. Keep things fun, chill and cheeky when appropriate!
I’m a remote employee which means I’m not based in New York City or any big hub, I live in upstate New York, so sometimes it is hard to foster and build relationships when you are not able to meet in person. This is why I love events like Cannes, and why I look forward to attending this year, being able to meet with people, putting the face to the email, setting up informal coffees (or rosés), and keeping active on each other’s socials.
LBB> How does doing comms for the advertising world differ from any other industry you’ve worked in?
Victoria> I would say there was actually a lot of overlap moving from politics to advertising. It's interesting, because I went from being in the thick of the #MeToo movement in politics to the #MeToo movement in advertising. There was a lot of reckoning with the old boys club that was happening across both industries.
But more tangibly, what makes advertising unique is that we are all creatives in one way or another. We are all creative and strategic problem solvers and thinkers, and I don’t think that there are any other industries where you are in a room filled with really brilliant people in all sorts of different and unique ways. I really think that is the biggest difference in terms of the people it attracts. The people in this industry are so multifaceted, which is not necessarily the case for politics or other corporate areas.
LBB> What are the most useful tools in the arsenal of a comms professional working in advertising industries right now?
Victoria> It's not just right now and it's not just in advertising: The number one most useful tool any PR professional can have is to be an effective and efficient writer.
I think that it is such an invaluable skill that will always be valuable, despite AI and ChatGPT. Being able to translate and distil information and communicate in a persuasive way is so important. I always say this, using the least amount of words to say what you want to say is usually the best way to go about things.
LBB> In your opinion, how has the role of a comms professional evolved during your career span? Have things changed greatly or do core tasks / principles remain the same?
Victoria> Everything has become a lot more ‘pay-to-play’ which makes our job a lot more challenging. Whether it's content opportunities in publications, to getting your folks onto stages, you’re hit with all sorts of different levels of paywalls. That means it's even more critical that you are able to get your message out effectively and efficiently. So I think that’s the biggest change – it's just getting harder and more expensive.
LBB> What frustrates you about the way the media and PR have changed over the years?
Victoria> I think the most frustrating thing is seeing all these jobs in media getting cut, all these tweets and LinkedIn posts about all these brilliant reporters and editors being out of a job due to media layoffs.
To that end a lot of ad trade reporters are now crossing over to do our job, and doing the agency PR comms thing, which makes a lot of sense!
LBB> And what excites you?
Victoria> I guess the speed and evolution of technology. People can be scared sometimes of AI and ChatGPT. I think it’s a brilliant tool when used effectively because it can be very useful to save a lot of time and a great tool for research. I’m excited to see how some of these things evolve and play out.
Like I said, being an effective and efficient, smart writer with the ability to talk in multiple executive voices, and can clearly get across a specific point of view, can never be replaced. But I am excited to see how technology continues to evolve the way that we work.
