Press conference strategy
Author: Yi Shenghua
Press conference includes a variety of forms such as press conference, press conference, cocktail party. Generally speaking, the cocktail party is more free, casual some, informal some, the atmosphere is also relatively relaxed some, it can be held separately, can also be attached to other forms, for example, some in the reception held after the wine or tea party. The press conference is generally thematic, with "Q&A" as the main feature. In addition, a press conference can be conducted by a public relations officer, while a press conference is usually attended by a higher level official. Of these formats, the most common is the press conference. Therefore, we will focus on it. In order to make the description more specific, we first assume a case, and then talk about this case:
A domestic biopharmaceutical company has developed an "AIDS vaccine" and a new drug for AIDS treatment, "Ai Ruibi Tuo". The vaccine can be injected or taken orally and implanted into the human body. After implantation, "antibodies" will be produced within three days. When the injected person is exposed to the HIV virus through various routes of transmission, the "antibodies" will automatically perform their immune function. The new AIDS treatment drug "AIRBITO" can control the disease and gradually achieve the effect of treatment (not yet a cure, the cure is under further research). Its effectiveness has been recognized by the drug administration and it has been patented.
Enterprise A is preparing to market the drug on a large scale at home, and the next step is to look for a general agent abroad, for which they are preparing to hold a conference in Beijing. Because the product fills a gap in the country and is also at the forefront of the world's pharmaceutical technology, the enterprise has decided to spend a great deal of effort to make this press conference good.
The target audience for the release of information is: domestic pharmaceuticals, medical industry, the adult general public, and the foreign public is just both.
The target audience to be invited: the news media; health and medicine management officials, experts; drug distributors, patient representatives or concerned about the cause of the celebrities.
Scale of the conference: 90 news media (about 100 people), 25 officials and experts concerned, 40 dealers, 3 patient representatives and 2 celebrities.
Now that you are the chief planner and coordinator of the domestic part of the press conference, how will you start organizing? What are the steps and what points to note?
The press conference involves similar things, generally speaking, including these major parts:
1, activity planning and theme determination
2, program planning and agenda arrangement
3, the preparation of information
4, the participants invited, communication and determination
5, time, venue implementation and scene setup
6, product display, demonstration and information release
7, the scene atmosphere control
The number of participants in this case is less than 200 people, which should be a small and medium-sized conference. Now let's discuss how to get it right step by step.
I. Clearly the objectives to be achieved by the conference, the type of conference to determine its specifications, direction and basic style.
The main purpose of the conference is to convey the new product information to the health care community and the public through the news media, and to convey the image of the company's technological leadership and the brand image of "promoting human health". The type of press conference belongs to the information release, and the specification should be high. Because it is an enterprise information release, therefore, unlike the political strong meeting, the basic style should not be too serious, formal norms in the lively.
Two, the establishment of the planning committee, the organization of relevant personnel, determine the organization, personnel security.
A conference involves all aspects of the work of the interlinked, interlinked, cross each other, must be integrated, multi-pronged, at the same time, only by their own strength, it is difficult to complete. Organization, communication and coordination are very important.
From this conference, the main work can be divided into several blocks: activity planning and information preparation, officials and experts invited and communicated, the news media invited and communicated, dealers invited and communicated, the product explanation and demonstration, logistics and conference services, on-site setup, etc., the establishment of the organization should be in accordance with the matter.
The principle of establishing an organization: First, the "principle of professionalism", professional people do professional things, and know people well. For example, dealer communication, marketing and sales departments are counterparts. Among them, experts, officials to communicate generally to the person in charge of public relations, corporate executives, not another group. Press communication and the preparation of information are the professional expertise of the public relations department, so the press communication also does not set up a separate group; the second is the "principle of balance", set up a group for the matter, each group's workload is relatively balanced; the third is the "principle of division of labor", the division of labor should be clear, a clear division of responsibilities to prevent each other, and to prevent each other. Third, the "principle of division of labor", the division of labor should be clear, clearly defined responsibilities to prevent the phenomenon of mutual commissions, in addition, the subordinate division of labor and horizontal collaboration should be clear; Fourth, the "principle of flat", generally in large-scale activities in the multi-level "pyramid" structure, but in the medium-sized activities, it is not appropriate to most of the layers to ensure flexibility and mobility, and not too many people. Ensure flexibility and mobility, not too many people, lean, efficient for the important; Fifth is the "principle of system", although it is a temporary organization, but once you join the organization, the personnel should be subject to the constraints of the rules and regulations.
The following is a way to establish the organization:
A launch involves various departments, generally speaking, the company's senior management and the vice president in charge will always be in the organizing committee to assume certain positions. There will be some speeches and statements from company executives and even top leaders. Throughout the event, the work of the relevant departments may conflict with their daily work, and it is important to win the understanding and support of each department.
Preparing a press conference involves a lot of energy and time, and companies that have the means to do so can hire a professional PR firm to represent them.
Three, to determine the time, process and target management, and good feedback, adjustment.
The control of time, generally in the form of a time schedule (countdown). Note that the time in the arrangement should be reasonable, while leaving room for maneuver, generally speaking, the front of the time, the progress should be arranged in a more compact manner to ensure that the back of the time to adjust, deploy, perfect.
Process management refers to the entire activity is a systematic project, the various elements of the work of the interconnection, coordination and cooperation between the relationship and its organic combination of process management. For example, in the event, the theme content, the significance of determining to determine the agenda, specifications, scale, specifications to determine the number of people, the number of people to determine the implementation of the venue, the venue to implement the site layout and so on. Process management so that the overall coordinator for the entire event has a clear understanding of the various parts of the work, easy to find out the key points, priorities, difficulties, generally expressed in a procedural block diagram.
Four, activity planning, to determine the theme of the event.
Activity planning mainly includes the following:
1, the meeting agenda planning arrangements
Most of the entire process of the conference is a speech, read the script, routine demonstration. In fact, although the conference is a formal meeting, but can be done more active, especially the opening of the meeting.
From the point of view of the product attributes, it is obvious that the routine singing and dancing is not suitable, but to be able to use the dramatic experience of a mother and daughter infected with AIDS through blood donation to write a drama or skit as the opening, and then automatically lead to the main topic, it is obvious that it will be a bit more unique, and will not spoil the style of the whole conference.
In the meeting agenda arrangement, pay attention to compact, coherent, from the practice, generally controlled in one to two hours is appropriate. In particular, the time to speak, the speech should be controlled by the number of words in the speech manuscript to make the issue clear length, should not be too long, should not be too short, in practice, between 15 minutes to 20 minutes is more appropriate.
2, the theme of the planning
The theme of the conference, there can be a variety of ways to take, common is directly in the theme of the word "XXX conference", but also some have a big theme, the following is the main theme, there is a combination of the two.
For example, this conference can have these three forms:
(1), A enterprise AIDS prevention and treatment of new drugs on the market press conference
(2), "Let mankind away from AIDS"
-A Press Conference on the Launch of New Drugs to Prevent and Control AIDS by Enterprise A
(3), "Enterprise A? Keep Away from AIDS"
The theme of the press conference will appear in the background of the scene, and the communication media will also be mentioned in a high frequency, so it should be concise and catchy, and the number of words should not be too many.
In addition, in accordance with the provisions of the relevant state press and publication departments, where the theme of the word "news" conference, subject to the approval of the state press and publication departments. Generally speaking, in practice, many companies omit the word "news" and use other names.
This way, the entire conference can be virtual simple agenda as follows:
"A enterprise? Keep away from AIDS" new product launch press conference
Agenda
Place: X floor, XX Hall, Beijing International Conference Center
Time: September 15, XX (week X)
9:30-11:30 am
9:00-9:15 am. 9:15-9:15 Company presentation film screening
9:15-9:30 Mini drama
9:30-9:35 Host to open the meeting, guest introduction
9:35-9:50 President's speech Speech
9:50-10:10 new product introduction
11:00-11:30 Questions and Answers
11:30 The host announced the closing of the meeting
V. Determine the participants.
To determine the participants is a very important work, but also a more variable factors, and its changes will affect the entire conference specifications and scale, and thus affect the conference of the various factors. For example, the presence and absence of important people may affect the specifications, or convenience, the meeting place or part of the meeting to the airport, VIP room to carry out, or time adjustments and so on. Therefore, this is the general coordination of the work of the control of the "key points", it is appropriate to focus on.
The choice of participants, the principle of service release content needs, choose the relevance of the personnel to participate. Generally speaking, the officials have chosen to speak more weighty figures, while experts are in the field of establishment or fame. The launch officials and experts are mainly people from health, medicine, quality supervision, business administration, industry associations and academic institutions.
Patient representatives are a difficult problem, hospitals have an equal treatment and confidentiality obligations to AIDS patients, due to perceptions, can openly attend the meeting less, however, it is possible to find, but with their consent. In addition, some foreign ball players and movie stars have also been openly HIV infected, you can try to contact them.
Pu Cunli, a well-known celebrity with a passion for AIDS awareness, could be considered and try to get in touch with his agent and materialize his time.
News reporters are the heavyweights of the conference, generally speaking, first create a list of proposed invitations, a week in advance of the time to send out invitations, and then telephone implementation. Time more sudden news events can be used by phone and fax. After the implementation of a good classification of statistics. The conference media is divided into about four parts: daily government media, evening newspapers, city newspapers and other mass media, medical and health care professional media, international or overseas media.
VI. Prepare the activity plan and specific operation program.
The event plan is a strategic and tactical text to guide the entire event for planning activities. Generally, the core members of the meeting only provided.
Specific operational program is used within the enterprise or to assist the agency public relations company, to guide the specific operation of the entire event, generally more detailed, specific to each and every step, and even specific to the content of the badge, time specific to the minute. General meeting personnel hand a copy.
Seven, press releases and related information to prepare
Provided to the media information, generally in the form of advertising bags or bags, properly organized, placed in order, and then distributed to the news media before the press conference, the order of:
1, the agenda of the meeting
2, the press release
3, speech
4, company brochures
4, the company brochure5, related pictures
6, souvenirs (or souvenir coupons)
7, business card of the person in charge of corporate news (further interviews after the release of the news, the news published in the mail contact)
Press releases include the following:
1, the news release. Shorter words, generally within 1,000 words, released quickly, some media in the end of the conference less than an hour has been published. Some people refer to it as a "short shot".
2, newsletter. Longer, informative, generally in-depth analysis, focusing on the report. The message can not be clear background and other issues can be elaborated.
Message is generally a can, the newsletter can provide a number of different angles, but also in the form of Q&A performance. Some people call it a "spear".
3, background material.
4, pictures.
The above information is generally provided in written form, can also be attached to a computer CD-ROM, floppy disk form.
5, important statements. Useful statements for journalists. For example, the highest responsible person in charge of the enterprise's speech, technology, marketing leaders in charge of the speech, etc., some newsworthy representatives of the speech can also be included in the reporter's information, but to the reporter's coverage of the useful as a standard.
6. Company brochures.
7. Participants in the meeting of important people, celebrities materials.
Eight, time and venue implementation, site layout.
Time selection in the news planning is a kind of art, release timing is different, the effect is very different.
Enterprise conference sometimes to avoid major events, meetings, such as "during the two sessions" page is tense, most of the journalists have arrangements, time can not be guaranteed. Sometimes it is necessary to tend to certain times, such as the relevance of the big time, to play the effect of momentum.
For example, the conference could have been held on International AIDS Awareness Day, which would have been very effective. Of course, it's also important to consider the company's own situation, whether it's worth waiting for this moment? Is it the right time? Is it necessary? The overall analysis and then make a decision.
Additionally, in terms of time, the general choice of people can easily remember the day, such as festivals, the beginning of January, the end of the month, but also to avoid some taboo days. If it is a Saturday, Sunday or other holidays, consider doing it in the afternoon.
The choice of venue is generally a combination of the following:
One is taste and style.
The venue can be chosen outdoors or indoors, but indoors is common. Because all aspects of the package is better.
There are different star levels of hotels, and from the point of view of this launch, it is possible to choose five-star or four-star.
Also, informal meetings, or product attributes that are closer to nature and health, can be chosen to be held in places such as summer resorts.
The hotel also has different styles, different positioning, such as the Great Hall of the People, Diaoyutai State Guesthouse political stronger some, Kempinski, Hilton is Germany, the United States style is stronger, and some of the sports nature is stronger, such as the Asian Games Village or Olympic. Choose the style of the hotel should pay attention to the content of the conference with the unity.
The second is practicality and economy.
Conference hall capacity? The size of the podium? Projection equipment, power supply? Set, chest microphone, remote microphone? How about related services?
Accommodation, alcohol, food, beverages provided?
Is the price reasonable? Is there any wasted space?
And so on, all of which should be considered.
Third is convenience.
Far from the main media, important people, transportation is convenient, parking is convenient?
Site layout, including the following main elements:
1, background layout. Theme background board, the content of the theme, the date of the meeting, some will be written on the convening city, color, font note beautiful and generous, the color can be corporate VI as a benchmark.
2, the hotel peripheral layout, such as hotel banners, vertical banners, floating balloons, arches, etc., each hotel is different, some are allowed, some are not allowed.
3, seat placement.
Placement: the conference is generally the podium and the following desk-type placement, some informal, discussion of the nature of the meeting is a round-table placement. Pay attention to determine the podium personnel. However, many meetings now use the podium only host position and the speaker's seat, VIP sitting in the first row below the way.
Positioning principle: "high position in front of the center, their own people by the side of the back".
The conference can be discharged in this position:
(1) one, two rows: VIP and business leaders, the higher the status of the person tends to be in the middle and in front of the more people can be considered two rows, the most side of the position vacant. If necessary, there are seat cards, indicating the names of VIPs and business leaders, sometimes with units and positions.
(2) three rows below a number of rows: the press gallery, TV reporters try to arrange in front of the channel on the side, the camera can be right on the podium, but also to scan the venue below.
(3) again for the dealer seats.
(4) the company's general staff and the gallery.
Note the reservation of seats, usually in the back of the table will be prepared to sit without some.
4, the relevant equipment before the launch should be repeatedly debugged to ensure that no failure.
5, signing and greeting: generally in the lobby, elevator entrance, turn with a guide to indicate the welcome sign, the general hotel has this service. Beforehand, you can ask a good Miss Manners to welcome the guests.
General meeting will require participants to leave business cards, ready to "please give business cards" box.
Nine, site control.
Site control is a reflection of the general coordinator's ability to adapt to a ring, in fact, a good coordinator will do the work in front: first of all, to prevent the occurrence of variables. For example, usually do some training, do some rehearsal beforehand. From the practical point of view, the sudden change of the scene is often due to miscommunication, ill-considered, as well as courtesy on the mercenary neglect. We should focus on these aspects; secondly, we should prepare a good alternative program beforehand; again, we should pay attention to the accumulation of on-site flexible and adaptive handling skills.
For the officials who come, dealers should be accompanied and communication, for the reporters who come, should be treated equally, can not be open to the A media certain situations while the B media is confidential. For the reporter personal digging news generally should not be relayed to others.
In the control of the atmosphere, the general coordinator is in a balanced "center of gravity", the atmosphere is relaxed and lively, the mood of the participants will also be comfortable. Another important factor is the host, if he or she is hosting will be better, but is often a distraction, so in the conference, the need to arrange some things in advance, beforehand with the host to communicate fully, so that he (she) of the entire conference style has a general understanding and grasp.
In the process of product demonstration and explanation, you can use some modern technology, combined with a good schematic, three-dimensional graphics, video, slides, etc., in order to help participants understand.
Answer questions from reporters, generally speaking, by a main answerer is responsible for answering, if necessary, such as involving a strong sense of professionalism, assisted by others.
In the country, most journalists will not raise maliciously difficult questions, and sometimes even good faith difficult questions are less involved, often feel too unexciting. In fact, the question can reflect the reporter's understanding of the content of the meeting, grasp the breadth and depth of the reporter is standing in the public's position to put forward the controversial points, key points, difficult points and the public concerned about the "point", more helpful to the dissemination.
Pre-conference generally prepare a memorandum outline of the reporter's question and answer, and in advance to obtain consensus, especially the main answer and auxiliary answer to obtain **** knowledge.
In the process of the conference, the reporter's questions should be answered seriously, for irrelevant or too long questions can be politely and politely stop, for issues involving corporate secrets, some can be direct, politely tell it is a corporate secret, generally speaking, the reporter can also understand, some can be politely answered. It is not appropriate to take the "no comment" approach. For complex issues that require a lot of explanation, you can simply answer the main points first and invite them to discuss after the meeting.
There should be a formal conclusion to the meeting. If this conference is scheduled to end at 11:30, there should be a lunchtime reception or buffet banquet, etc. At the end of the meeting, the host will inform the time and place.
After the conference and before the banquet, more in-depth interviews are usually arranged in the VIP room.
It is worth stating that the press conference is a thousand and one things, the method is also different, there are still many details can not be reflected here, this is only one of the methods, and more to be experienced by the reader in practice.