Guest Speaker- Tim Bowcock, Managing Director of Black Cat Public Relations

Agency vs in-house Public Relations 10th October 2008

Tim Bowcock of Black Cat Public Relations began his inspirational presentation by explaining how he got to where he is today. His career in journalism started by working for Pirate Fm radio, where his tasks involved news reading and producing. Three years later he moved to Spotlight, concentrating on documentaries and transport. With this experience Tim realised his passion. Transport. Especially trains, which saw his move to Railtrack, and then finally to First Great Western five years ago. During his time working in-house for this relatively large company, Tim’s role was to be the face of the company. Here he was in charge of press releases, calls and radio shows. So he had to use a variety of PR disciplines, including learning a lot about the product itself, as well as being very strategic and hands on.

Black Cat was set up in May 2006, by Tim himself, when he saw a niche in the market. Through research he discovered that companies in Cornwall didn't have the luxury of a good PR agency. So Black Cat grew. Although Tim said he was, "not visible, not front line", when working in an agency, he did get varied clients. From organising concerts for girl bands, to community consultations for Tesco and setting up events for more corporate campaigns. Tim explained the downside to being the managing director for Black Cat is that it’s slower and less vibrant, and bringing in the clients is hard and long hours.

My thoughts on which career path would suit me before the presentation were unsure, simply because I was unaware of the differences of in-house and agency. But Tim went on to present the plus sides of both in-house and working for an agency. A very reasonable £23,700 average starting wage for press officer in-house, as opposed to £19,000 for an account executive in an agency, was a good head start for in-house. But Tim also mentioned that the increase in wage and career progress was steeper in an agency. Both consultancy and in-house offers diversity, but the latter provides variety in PR disciplines rather than variety in products and people. An attraction to in-house is that you would, in most companies, be the only PR specialist so therefore the decision maker. Although consultancy offers the chance for advice and joint discussions within the work place and you are surrounded by "PR types".

Limited opportunities lie in-house, and the product may become a bore when your mind is occupied by it every day with little variation. Although the response you receive when working in-house would be more professional than that of an agency, therefore would build up your confidence in PR practice. With the excitement of not knowing who your next client will be, consultancy would be more appealing for me after a few years in house. After hearing Tim share his experience, the majority of the class agreed that the most obvious career path is to start in-house working for a company you feel passionately about. Subsequently gaining the experience and PR skills, move to a more traditional agency that offers long term job safety and the opportunity to choose the clients in areas of your expertise.