Hi everyone! My name is Wuchu Song and I am a final year Communication Science student at the UvA.
From August to November 2020, I worked as an intern at the Weber Shandwick Beijing Office. Weber Shandwick is one of the world’s leading global public relations firms with offices in major media, business, and government capitals around the world. It has 126 offices in 81 countries around the world, providing strong support for the multinational development of enterprises.
I worked for the Consumer Team at Weber Shandwick Beijing Office. I was lucky enough to work on-site with my teammates. Our team mainly covers the traditional pubic relation works for our clients, for example, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, media featuring, seeding, and so on. During my internship at Weber Shandwick, I assisted my mentor with public relations work for the Amorepacific Group. The Amorepacific Group is a South Korean beauty and cosmetics conglomerate, operating over 30 beauty, personal care, and health brands, e.g. Sulwhasoo, Laneige, and Mamonde. I also assisted in public relations work for other brands like Filorga and Omron.
My main task was to feature different topics for beauty media, which include print media, websites, and WeChat. Most of the media are fashion magazines like ELLE, Vogue, BAZAAR, etc. At the end of each week, I would conclude everything that I have done during the week in a weekly report; in the middle of each month, I would do a more comprehensive monthly report for the past month, which focuses more on brand exposure and competitive analysis.
There was also work that is not periodic: for example, when the brand released a new line of products, I helped write the press release for the brand; I also helped with the seeding, which is to bring the latest products to editors from different magazines and beauty key opinion leaders, communicate with them, so the editors can learn more about the products and we can also learn about the dynamics of the magazines. Furthermore, I assisted in planning and executing on-site/online public relations activities, for example, live event streaming on Tmall and pop-up store event. During my internship, our team also met many new customers, for example, Drunk Elephant. I helped write proposals and brainstorm with the rest of the team to come up with creative ideas for pitching more opportunities. The schedule was thus highly flexible.
I learned a lot during my three-month internship. For example, I learned how to write proposals for the brands as a PR professional. I used to write proposals for research, which is me as the researcher to control and arrange everything; however, as a PR professional, I worked as the intermediate of the first and the third party. In addition, I improved my skills in making a good presentation. I learned to make different styles of PowerPoint (ppt) slides for different clients and purposes. For example, for an electronics company, it would prefer a ppt to have a sense of science and technology; for a beauty brand, however, it might prefer a colorful ppt with a sense of modernity. Most importantly, I learned how to deal with stress in the working environment.
My experience at Weber Shandwick allows me to learn much more about the PR industry. Also, it gave me the opportunity to apply the knowledge I have learned in a practical way and solve real-life cases.