CASH FOR COVERAGE

This was a week when the largely academic and logistical challenges of starting EASTWEST in China became superceded by practical issues of sifting through resumes,  the moral dilemma of ‘cash for coverage’ and the realization that even some simple tasks are open to misinterpretation. In response to our 4 page questionnaire that I use to filter job seekers, Nicole and I received some 15 replies, not all as expected. Raymond, a 35 year old Vice General Manager apparently at a local PR firm , replied:

"Nicole, i hate waste too much time to answer those questiones.i am not a usual guy.. here is beijing china,the clients are wating special company and special man... pls just schedule a time to meet next week if you want to know real market or forget it. good luck, raymond"

Good luck indeed Raymond. This terse response was quite a contrast to the many extremely polite and considered answers, not all of which were spell checked, as one candidate elegantly named ‘Snow’ replied to the question, ‘what do you understand a PR firm does’ as “Go Pubic” for the clients.” Of course it’s not fair to poke fun as I wonder if Haier or Lenovo ask American or British candidates to answer questionnaires in Mandarin. My goal is to find a recent graduate who can help me to build the network of contacts I need. Last year some 3,380,000 young people poured out of the 2,210 higher education institutes . Apparently 25% didn’t find jobs and so someone must be available. What has impressed me from the questionnaires has been the keen desire of all the applicants to learn, and the honesty with which they declare their ignorance, but take adventurous steps defining how we can build the business. Public Relations is seen as a new and emerging profession, and while Raymond’s delivery may have not been so diplomatic he identified the real opportunities and challenges that I face. In China there is an entirely different approach to PR. While in Europe and America, and in Singapore, there is a tacit agreement on the separation between advertising and editorial, in China this line doesn’t exist. In other words, agencies pay journalists a ‘transport allowance’ to get coverage. I have dealt with this previously, but always through our partner agencies. This week I had a call with a potential client selling properties in Mongolia who want coverage in Beijing and Shanghai newspapers. Delighted at the prospect of a client, I am also hamstrung by my inability to call the journalists myself, and by a realisation that I will have to navigate the ‘allowance’ negotiations. The ‘allowance’ ranges from RMB100 (US$12.5) to RMB1000 (US$125) depending upon the merit of the news release. In a way I can see the logic of this arrangement – the media own the channel through which one distributes information, just like a middleman takes a commission when selling fruit or furniture. Why should they pay for journalists, layout, printing and postage to help promote another company’s products? It is a moral dilemma for all agencies in that as long as ‘cash for coverage’ exists the profession will struggle with it’s reputation as paymasters not perception managers; the poor brethren of advertising agencies. For me it presents practical issues of how much, how to disburse but also what precedent it sets for EASTWEST as a new arrival. Nicole, arriving on Monday for one month to help at the office, couldn’t empathise with my dilemma and assumed that ‘cash for coverage’ was how PR works, one of a few areas of miscommunication. Nicole is my former language coach from when I was in the Beijing Culture Language University in 2004, and I asked her to come and work with me as I trust her implicitly. On Wednesday a courier company made a delivery and I asked Nicole to take a note of the courier company’ phone number and she called them requesting pricing information. On Thursday morning I asked her to send a document and the 12 photos for the company registration to Ken Lee by courier. At the close of the day I asked her why the document was still on the desk. “What’s a courier?” she sweetly enquired. Slightly incredulous, I recounted the previous day’s activities. “Oh – I wasn’t sure if you meant this letter had to go to Korea, or it had something to do with my career, and tell me, what is a courier?” I know and trust Nicole – I spent 3 months with her teaching me Chinese – and here we were sitting no more than 2 feet away from one another with the simplest of tasks completely misunderstood. Nicole promptly picked up the phone and had a man take the document and deliver it. That evening Nicole went to Ikea to source more office furniture – seen here looking at career enhancing shelves made in Korea that could be delivered by courier. Today is Easter Sunday, and I have failed to celebrate. Lent’s forty days have passed, the fifty days of the Easter Season has begun. The last forty days have meant going without a number of things, including heating, and I am praying that the Easter season, although of course not recognized in secular China, will bring me some salvation in the form of a bright, bi-lingual graduate who understands the difference between a person, a vocation and a country, and who is good at negotiating transport allowances.