On September 9th, PRSSA and Hill Communications welcomed Stephanie Manas, the Corporate Communications Specialist and Senior Account Executive at Ogilvy Public Relations, who spoke to students about her job and her experiences in the Public Relations Society of America. Because I am a PR major, the presentation was extremely relevant to me. I attended because I was interested in hearing about Manas’s experiences in the workforce and learning more about the industry of PR as a whole. Manas gave a professional, informative, and interesting presentation about different techniques and goals in public relations.
Manas discussed her role at Ogilvy and gave some background on the company itself. Ogilvy is a large PR firm that is headquartered in New York City and has offices all over the world. Manas talked about different campaigns she has worked on in the past and showed some examples of her work. Surprisingly, I actually found that there was a large connection between PR and multimedia storytelling. In fact, Manas actually said that Ogilvy strives to promote companies, events, or ideas by using storytelling. She showed various videos that Ogilvy produced that completely transformed brands for certain companies. A few of her examples literally brought tears to my eyes. I found it fascinating how she was able to evoke such emotion from her videos and stories, and then was able to apply those videos to a company to improve its public image. By using videos that drew sympathy or a feeling of patriotism, she was able to engage viewers, essentially making them eat right out of the palm of her hand. I found myself thinking about our upcoming PSA assignment and brainstorming ways to evoke that type of emotion. Her examples excited me because I hope to someday do that type of work in Public Relations. Manas also discussed different events she planned during her time at Ogilvy. In addition, she spoke briefly about her work in PRSA, the Public Relations Society of America, and gave tips about how to benefit from the society once out in the workforce.
In addition to being fascinated by her stories and advice, I was also inspired by the fact that Manas was so young – only a few years out of college. It showed me that if one works hard and makes the right connections, he or she can move up in the PR industry rather quickly, providing they do quality work. I enjoyed the presentation, and I think that I will be able to use some of the information that Manas provided as I move forward with my education in PR and begin to look for internships and jobs in the industry.