News

The expansion of Queensland’s Black Grace Marketing & Communications company in 2010 takes on board a new face in partner Brian Harrower.
His skills and experience in public relations and news media at high level complement the key marketing and advertising background of the founder Anna Delaney. Brian operated one of Queensland’s most respected public relations companies for 19 years before selling it and maybe thinking it was time for a change. Then along came Anna Delaney with a business title he simply couldn’t go past. After they each did their checks and balances they decided to team up.
Brian is a firm believer that sophisticated PR through ethical persuasion delivers lasting value compared to cheap shot spin so at Black Grace we set the bar high when it comes to quality messages.
The persuasive power of ethical public relations is more important today than ever in business, says Brian.
Yet many business owners, managers and even their marketing managers don’t understand or even fear the news media.
Brian, who’s operated in business and in the news media from both sides of the proverbial fence, isn’t surprised at how little business marketing managers, PR managers and some higher up in command understand how to harness the power of the media - apart from buying expensive advertising space or electronic time.
When he put together a two-day media training workshop for South-East Asia’s largest conference organiser, the Asia Business Forum, for its client the Asia Pacific Centre for Continuing & Professional Development in Singapore, it revealed just how anxious companies were about getting on better with the media.
“We attracted marketing and PR manager delegates from Thailand, Hong Kong and Philippines as well as the Singapore locals thanks to the way the workshop was extensively marketed in that region by the ABF, Brian said.
“While the Straits Times was the region’s most read newspaper the workshop covered an understanding of newsrooms in television and radio as well as how journalists think and operate differently in those mediums as well as magazines, on-line reporting and the different approaches to daily, bi-weekly and weekly newspapers.
“Attendee companies included Singapore Tourist Board, Philip Morris (Thailand), ABN Amro Asia Pacific, Citibank, BMW, SembCorp Utilities and Raffles City Shopping Centre among the many companies that saw the need to be better informed on not just media management strategies but aspects of their public relations approach.”
It goes to show that the bigger you are the harder you can fall and most people attending that workshop feared the media rather than seeing it as friend more than a foe.