{"id":133128,"date":"2020-11-03T09:30:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T08:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=133128"},"modified":"2020-10-30T16:25:11","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T15:25:11","slug":"pr-spotlight-tas-bhanji-director-at-blakeney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/pr-spotlight-tas-bhanji-director-at-blakeney\/","title":{"rendered":"PR Spotlight: Tas Bhanji, Director at Blakeney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Good communications has the potential to change the fortunes of companies, even whole industries or communities. What could be more exciting than that?\u2019 says Blakeney<\/a> Director Tas Bhanji, who\u2019s helped make change for clients and companies across the globe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With experience of communications in-house and agency-side across the UK, Belgium and Beijing for companies including McDonald\u2019s, CBI, the British Chamber of Commerce in China and even the European Formaldehyde Manufacturing Association, Tas knows the difference that good comms and PR can make. Can PR ever go back to the way things were before the challenges of 2020, and should it? Read on for Tas\u2019s take.<\/p>\n

Tell us a bit about your career so far and what led you to PR\u2026<\/span><\/strong>
\nI graduated with a degree in Mathematics and no idea what I wanted to do with my life other than travel. I got an internship in Beijing which led to becoming events manager for the British Chamber of Commerce. One day, after a long conversation over the exact diameter of a canap\u00e9, I realised it probably wasn\u2019t the career for me, so I resigned to decide what to do next.<\/p>\n

I knew I liked writing and politics, and I just happened to talk to someone who suggested I might like public affairs\/corporate comms. I didn\u2019t really know anything about PR then – it\u2019s funny now to think that despite having read the papers every day for years, I was quite surprised that comments weren\u2019t actually really written (or said) by the people that said them.<\/p>\n

I owe a lot to that chance encounter \u2013 after a couple of years with Weber Shandwick in Beijing, I moved to Brussels with Fleishman-Hillard, and then came back home to the UK and have worked in-house for CBI and McDonald\u2019s, either side of a stint with MHP, and now I\u2019m back consultancy-side with Blakeney.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve held roles at agencies across the world \u2013 what differences (if any) have you noticed with the way the PR industry works across the globe?<\/span><\/strong>
\nOne of the main ones is about channels \u2013 China has its own social networks which many people in the UK would never have heard of. WeChat for example is way more than just a messaging app; you can use it to order a taxi, get groceries delivered, or pay for your dinner. In some countries in mainland Europe, Facebook is often more dominant than Twitter and used for both corporate and consumer communications.<\/p>\n

Public affairs in China is very different to public affairs here in most ways, although having a good network of contacts is very useful wherever you are. My first crisis communications experience was the melamine scandal in China in 2008 \u2013 farmers had been adding melamine to milk products to up their protein content, but it was damaging to health, particularly to babies. I was working for an international confectionary company that had its own verified supply chain and therefore not in any way impacted, but our first action in a lot of countries was to apologise for the situation. If we did that here in the UK, it could be seen as an admission of guilt.<\/p>\n

What have you enjoyed about working in-house compared with working for a consultancy? <\/span><\/strong>
\nIn a consultancy, you can get a lot more variety \u2013 no two days are ever the same and that keeps you constantly on your toes. In-house, I enjoyed getting to see something right through from conception to delivery, getting to understand the minutiae of issues and the way it impacts business. In lots of consultancies, you don\u2019t get that because you\u2019re just brought in for quite specific bits of a project. One great thing about Blakeney is that we are set up to really own issues and work as partners with our clients on projects – that means we get to see it from start to finish.<\/p>\n

How did lockdown change the way you work?<\/span><\/strong>
\nAt first it didn\u2019t seem like a huge shift \u2013 I already worked one day a week from home. I actually only came back from maternity leave in January, so I\u2019d already been working hard at being disciplined around working hours – as a working parent, you have to be super-organised \u2013 something I, like many parents, have to constantly work at. Over time though I did start to miss the office, and especially those chats that seem inconsequential at first but actually trigger a great idea. Thankfully with such a small team we were able to adapt pretty quickly and those chats, though slightly more planned as they are over Zoom or Teams, still happen, and we have a plan in place to allow small groups of people to go to the office on their specified days.<\/p>\n

I have also found that the change has meant more time with clients \u2013 Zoom and Teams make it so much easier to bring people together for a quick chat about things, whereas before we might have shied away from having meetings to discuss just one topic.<\/p>\n

Do you think the PR industry can ever return to the way things were before the COVID-19 crisis?<\/span><\/strong>
\nWhy should it want to? We have shown that working with greater flexibility doesn\u2019t mean any reduction in quality of work. There\u2019s no need to go back just for the sake of it \u2013 PR is all about adapting to this ever-changing world; we should embrace that.<\/p>\n

Which particular sectors among your client base do you see making the quickest recovery post-pandemic?<\/span><\/strong>
\nHonestly, it\u2019s so hard to say \u2013 this pandemic is unlike anything any of us have ever experienced, it\u2019s a risky business if you start making too many predictions. But I think tech can only grow – not least with companies creating and launching new tools, platforms and solutions to allow us to help work, rest and play.<\/p>\n

Sectors which invest in communications and corporate affairs are giving themselves the best chances \u2013 if there\u2019s nobody making the case for why what you do is important, you risk getting forgotten.<\/p>\n

With so many journalists being furloughed, has contact with the media been harder over the last few months?<\/span><\/strong>
\nDefinitely \u2013 sell-ins have been much harder. As you say, furloughing has meant there are fewer journalists, and the ones that remain are more stretched. Plus, in many instances, people haven\u2019t forwarded their desk phones on to their mobiles. It puts a premium on really understanding what journalists want and being able to capture their attention on email.<\/p>\n

The PR industry still has a diversity problem \u2013 what can agencies do to create diverse teams and promote people from a variety of backgrounds into higher roles?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI find the issue of diversity a difficult one \u2013 I think we often get caught up thinking about diversity as just gender or race, but it\u2019s actually about so much more. Our country, the world, is diverse in many different ways and to truly understand those people, and be able to communicate with them, you need to have an insight into their lives and that can only really come through living it.<\/p>\n

So, I think there are two big things. One, understanding that diversity is about more than just having women on your leadership team, and two, truly understanding the value of people with different backgrounds. Think about work you\u2019ve done that has been successful; did it come from people thinking in the same way you\u2019ve always done, or by bringing in a new perspective?<\/p>\n

Which campaigns\/projects from your career are you particularly proud to have worked on?<\/span><\/strong>
\nEarlier this year, Blakeney ran a campaign for LIVE, the industry group representing live music. With politicians receiving so many competing demands from different sectors affected by the pandemic, we wanted to the live music sector to get the support needed to save it from collapse. Our campaign, #LetTheMusicPlay, focused on the sector\u2019s economic contribution \u2013 it supports more than 200,000 jobs. A week after launching the campaign, with the hashtag having been the top global trend on Twitter, the Government announced a \u00a31.57bn rescue package \u2013 that really does demonstrate the value of good communications!<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to those considering working in the PR industry \u2013 is it still a good career choice in 2020?<\/span><\/strong>
\nIt absolutely is. Good communications has the potential to change the fortunes of companies, even whole industries or communities. What could be more exciting than that? It\u2019s also enjoyably varied \u2013 I once worked for the European Formaldehyde Manufacturing Association, which was surprisingly interesting.
\nWith more competition for jobs right now, be creative about gaining experience. Can you help a local community group with social media? Or talk to local businesses about their challenges and see if you can lend a hand? And make sure you\u2019re visible online \u2013 blogging and keeping up your own social media presence will show you\u2019ve got the skills needed for client work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Good communications has the potential to change the fortunes of companies, even whole industries or communities. What could be more exciting than that?\u2019 says Blakeney Director Tas Bhanji, who\u2019s helped make change for clients and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":133091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,3725,7326],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133128"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133144,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133128\/revisions\/133144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}