10 Minutes with…Laura Tomasetti
Time flies when you’re having fun! It’s been 10 years since 360 launched. So, in the spirit of celebrating the past 10 years – and with an eye to the next 10 – we’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned along the way. Be sure to check our 10th site for a look at some of our favorite campaigns, 10 trends to watch, and a “Faces of 360” employee spotlight. Here on our blog, we’re launching our “10 Minutes with…” series, which will feature interviews with our practice leaders. First up is 360PR Founder Laura Tomasetti!
If you had to choose one trait that a successful PR practitioner absolutely has to employ, what would it be?
It’s hard to choose just one, because PR requires so many skills and qualities. The best PR people can do a lot of things well – create, communicate, listen, analyze. One trait I’ve seen in the youngest and the most seasoned PR professionals is that ‘fire in the belly.’ PR is hard. It takes a real commitment, focus, authenticity and energy every day to produce the desired results.
At what point in your career did you know you wanted to start your own business? What were your motivations and goals?
I had always worked in larger organizations and thought of myself as a “big company” person. But when it got down to it, what I really enjoyed was the work – the size of the organization didn’t matter, it was more about the quality of the client, the brand, the campaign. Our very first client was Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro, and the agency grew from there. The goal from the start was pretty simple – do great work for great brands. Everything else came out of that singular goal – attracting and getting to work with great people, for example. And it still does.
Do you think it’s feasible for a PR firm to exist solely virtually in 2011? If not, do you think “the office” will ever be obsolete?
There are several virtual agencies that have been quite successful. However, from my perspective at 360, our most valuable thinking and best results come from the dynamic and often unpredictable interchange you get in-person. Technology has yet to replace that, though tools like IM and Skype are pretty cool and should be part of the day-to-day. The creative process will always be #1 in our business and we’re most creative when we’re together, collaborating and building on each other’s ideas. Plus that’s more fun.
Is there any particular trend or innovation from the past 10 years that has fundamentally changed the field of public relations?
That’s an easy but important one – social media and, as part of that, brands’ and organizations’ ability to talk directly with their audience and receive instant feedback – and to be able to adjust and amplify just as quickly. It’s really an amazing time to be in PR. There are so many more places to go with your story in so many different ways – to be able to really target specific communities and, at the same time, to be able to go mass. The audience, and what they will do with a story or a thread of a story, is paramount. How do we tap into that? We must constantly ask and challenge ourselves with that question.
In what ways do you think that PR has really set itself apart from other marketing functions in recent years? What do we “get” that others may not?
It’s not so much what we get as what we do – fuel the conversation in ways that are authentic and credible. That’s worth so much more than paid media. Another thing we do well is to see and set the broader communications strategy. The idea of connecting the dots between all media and all stakeholders is really what we at 360 set out to do 10 years ago and that full circle, integrated approach is even more relevant today.
What do you think will be the driving trend in PR for the next 10 years?
That’s a hard one to call. In the past few years, authenticity and transparency have been pervasive communications themes and I believe they’ll continue to be the guiding principles of everything we do in PR. Functionally, I think you’re going to see audiences become more channel agnostic. They may not know if they saw something on Twitter or YouTube or Facebook, but they’ll most likely have seen and shared the news, the recommendation, the video via their mobile device – at least for the next few years. In terms of the content that compels the audience, I think it will be less about celebrity and more about the user – hyper-local, hyper-personal, truly relevant and useful to the consumer’s day to day routine and world. And all of that will be highly measureable. We’re already making great strides in understanding and proving PR’s value. Certainly the ability to benchmark and track social media campaigns – with volume, engagement and sentiment metrics – has helped, and the PR industry is focused on developing standards that will extend across media and campaigns.
