Courtney Blackman is one of the preeminent women in fashion in the UK. The MD of boutique agency Forward PR and the co-founder of the Fashion Business Club, Courtney has been featured in Drapers and Vogue.com.

Forward PR has secured coverage for their clients in press such as InStyle Spain, British Vogue and The Financial Times’ How to spend it supplement, to name a few.

1) What was your inspiration behind starting Forward PR?

I started Forward PR in 2004 after working as the in-house PR and marketing director for a British designer who relocated to Tokyo. Honestly, I’m not sure if there was a lot of inspiration behind it. I absolutely love doing PR and it was more like oh, the label I’m working with is moving abroad and I’m staying in the UK. I’ll just launch my own agency! I initially worked with jewellery and accessory designers, which occurred organically, but in the last few years, Forward PR has taken on a variety of clients ranging from fashion designers, jewellery designers, luxury lingerie designers, a model agency and a handbag label, to big events including the Ford Models Supermodel of the World UK Search and the Fashion Summit.

2) Forward PR works with lots of designers. Can you give us an insight on how designers are like when it comes to promoting their work?

When signing a new client, I have to feel a connection to the brand and the designer behind it, and the client has to bring something to the table in terms of quality, uniqueness and marketability. They have to understand the commitment that PR requires from both them and us. A lot of times brands want to engage in a PR campaign, but they’re just not ready. Some designers are really quite media savvy and understand the power of both traditional and online media, which is great!

Maintaining a profile and market presence is so important in riding out fluctuations and coming out on top. I think if designers can understand what an important role their profile plays in consumer awareness and therefore sales, they’ll do well.

3) As a co-founder of the Fashion Business Club, how important do you think is the business of fashion, and what part can PR professionals play in it?

Looking in on the industry, the glamorous side is often the only side portrayed, almost like looking at a photograph and not realising all the time and effort that went into creating it, but the truth is that business is the backbone and without the support of the business arm, the creative arm couldn’t function. Creatives need a team around them that can manage supply chains, cash flow, marketing, sales, everything that makes a business work. Building strong relationships, engaging in ethical practices and communicating with consumers are all important elements of the fashion world.

This is where PR professionals come in: they have both the skills and expertise to act as liaisons between fashion brands and their end consumers via the media and unique partnerships, which is fundamental to success. Maintaining positive relationships with other industry professionals is a good way to stay relevant. Idea-sharing and professional collaborations are products of such relationships, and this is what keeps the industry innovative, growing and continuously moving forward.

4) For fashion obsessed graduates, films and TV shows like The City have made fashion PR look like an exciting industry to be in. Do you value work experience for entry level graduates?

Work experience for graduates prior to entering the field is really important. I fully believe that a day in the field can prove more fruitful than an entire semester of lectures. Learning about the industry and actually working in the industry are two very different things. A graduate with previous experience is more likely to be able to add value to a company and complete tasks confidently. However, a graduate with no work experience can be more easily shaped by a company and may be more willing to learn from his or her own mistakes. Also, students with previous experience may have developed bad working habits or been taught improper ways to handle situations, so breaking these behaviours may be necessary.

5) What tips would you give to anyone wanting to start a boutique agency as you have?

Anyone starting a boutique agency must have a deep understanding of press/public relations and be passionate about brands and promoting them. They also must understand the basics of business if they are to make a success of running a business! And of course, connections. A boutique agency will have to work that little bit harder than a larger, more established agency, so having good, solid contact is of critical importance.

6) Is it vital for graduates to work for someone else first or can they start cold?

Understanding the business from the inside out would make starting a boutique agency a bit easier, but if someone feels confident that they can start cold and have the business skills to underpin a new agency, why not give it a go?

7) How important is social media in your daily work?

Social media is an extremely important part of our daily work at Forward PR. We are active users of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare; We use the platforms for promotion, engaging with people, discussing events, anything and everything. I personally find Twitter more functional as a PR tool, due to its flexibility. I think technology and especially social media is brilliant for growing a business, in that information can be shared quickly and inexpensively. It just takes time and intelligent communication.

You can follow Forward PR and Courtney on Twitter on @ForwardPR and @courtnyblackman.

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Image courtesy of Courtney Blackman.

The first fruits of my labour are ready to read and I would love your feedback. In my first post here on the Vox-pop site I spoke about getting ahead in the PR industry and work placements to gain hands on experience.

I have been working at global tolerance for 2 months and my placement is in full swing and whilst working on lots of different live accounts and projects I have also been assigned a personal research project that is very close to my heart. The task is to look at PR as Personal Relations, I have elaborated more on this in my blog post on the global tolerance connect site which I would love if you could read and let me  know your thoughts and your opinions on PR being Personal Relations. In a time when PR has developed to have quite negative connotations and associates with Propaganda, Spin and lies I want to develop a humanising approach to the industry that offers an alternative option. PR is a communication led industry and we cannot forget that Communication is really powerful, the words that we use and the way that we say them sends a message to the receiver be it in our professional or our personal lives, they reflect who we are and the type of person that we are. Think about Obama and the powerful message of Hope he built his campaign on. One word said with passion and conviction to paint a picture to the Americans……. read more at http:/tiny.cc/upp42 and you can also see more about global tolerance, communications consultancy and the work that they do at www.globaltolerance.com

I would love to hear your personal opinion, Becky

The next result from our survey highlighted the relationship between the respondents and pensions. 59 per cent said they did not have a personal pension. The diagram below shows this visually:

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One of our most interesting results from our personal finance survey is about income insurance. Of the 37 respondents, 94.4 per cent said they do not have income insurance. The difference between those who do and those who don’t is shown in the image below:

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Our next result from our survey shows that 48.6 per cent of PRs save money by using cash Instant Savings Accounts (ISAs). ISAs can be obtained from banks like NatWest or building societies like Nationwide. The doughnut chart below shows other ways that PRs are saving money:

An illuminating result from our personal finance survey showed that 67.6 per cent of PRs are not saving for retirement. Our sample size for the survey was 37 respondents, so while this is small, the result still shows that PRs are not thinking of retirement yet.

However, 32.4 per cent of PRs said they are saving for retirement. A look at the chart below shows the visual difference between the two:

PRs can find out more information for saving for their futures from National Savings & Investments.

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It’s a great day today.

vox-popPRcareers has been featured on Milkround.com. Check out the article that mentions us here.

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The second result from our survey about finance for PRs has revealed that 46 per cent of PRs think the industry pays well. As you can see from the diagram below, this was the majority. We had 37 responses from PRs via Twitter, who completed the questionnaire using Surveymonkey.

16.2 per cent said they did not think PR was a well paid profession. 43 per cent chose the ‘Other’ option. This allowed them to write down a few words to explain their answer to the question.

Results included PRs saying:

At first it is quite low, but this rises very quickly, making it a very well paid profession.

Better than private sector, depends on level too, less financial benefits such as pensions etc seem typical

You have to work hard, but if you play it right you can make good money.

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vox-popPRcareers conducted a unique survey among 37 PROs to discover their personal finance attitude within the prism of their career.

As a salary is a by-product of a career, our survey sought to discover if there were any trends that PROs had to personal finance.

Our first result is fascinating: when asked if they were spenders or savers, 78.4 per cent said they were spenders.

Nearly one third of the respondents said they were savers (29.7 per cent).

If you want to stay in the loop with the forthcoming results from the survey, do not forget to subscribe for free via email at this link.

My name is Becky and I am a first year undergraduate student, studying for a BA in Public Relations. I am a mature student with an ambitious streak, wanting to get ahead in life and carve myself a thriving and exciting career in the world of communication. I realised something though as I started my studies last October. PR once an unknown industry to many, now an expanding, extremely competitive and thriving industry even in the midst of a recession.

I must admit I am a worrier and it got me thinking that I will be graduating with the majority of my class 8 years younger than me (that’s nearly a decade and that is scary) my thoughts were that not only will I be competing for jobs with those who are 10 years younger and therefore slightly more sprightly and with the same qualification, I am also competing with people my own age but with years of experience on their CVs, a daunting and very scary thought. So how do I get ahead?? I decided to take control and to forgo the student life of parties and festivals and lounging around in the garden half asleep all day for a piece of the action. I am talking about a full time, unpaid work placement in the City! Sounds ghastly I know but hear me out.

I have realised since I returned to studying, that hands on work experience is without a doubt the best thing you could do to advance your career and get some real life experience under your belt because if nothing else it is going to open your eyes to the real world, to the industry that you are aspiring to work in and yet those aspirations are probably based on something you read, something someone told you or a friend of a friend that knew someone who had…. need I say more! If you are studying the subject it is because are attracted to something and even I admit I had glamourised ideas before I started my degree you read about Max Clifford in the papers, you see Sex and the City and Kim Cattrell oozing sex apeal as the gorgeous Samatha Jones and you think I could do that!! Well its not all cocktails and LBD’s let me tell you! No industry however great it looks on the exterior can ever just be fun but if its a career you enjoy then you will enjoy working at it. That is why I am a great advocator of getting some hands on experience becuase lets face it the worst thing you could do is spend 3 years working for a degree, graduate and start your first job and go “Man this sucks” “I didn’t realise I would be doing this” or having to retrain to become a teacher or something becuase you did not prepare properly.

So why am I ranting and who am I to rant? Good question! I am YOU! Someone that wants to get ahead and I am going to share with you over the coming weeks the exciting things that I experience on my placement. The things I learn and the challenges I am given, so let me start by introducing the company its called global tolerance and they do “Communications with Conscience” This is not just any experience this is cutting edge experience because lets face it the hottest topic at the moment is Ethical PR, do those two words go hand in hand?? I always get the raised eyebrow when I tell people where I am working because they think that Ethical PR is a double negative. I am an advocator of good, honnest communication, of dealing with people on a personal level that is where I think the future of PR is. Look at the way this BP scandel has been handled, where is the crisis communicaiton?? Where is the communicaiton?? That is what I will be deavling into over the coming weeks and I would love to hear your thoughts!

Hope I haven’t bored you too much, and seriously if you are serious about getting ahead experience within the industry will make you more knowledgeable, more focussed and more prepared. It is worth the sacrifice!