Expertise

Media Relations

Effectively telling your organisation’s story through the news media is one of the most trusted, cost efficient and effective methods for achieving brand recognition and audience influence.

Media coverage shapes opinions, forecasts trends, raises issues, attracts consumers and advocates.

News coverage also creates powerful thought leaders whose profile and influence helps organisations promote their value, communicate a policy position, and develop new commercial markets. Publicity can also generate valuable audiences for events and advocacy campaigns.

However, news media coverage must be earned, with well-crafted messages, insightful data and clear commentary.

BBS’ team of expert communicators and former journalists have the specialist media relations skills, industry contacts and strategic experience that allow us to identify and manage opportunities for clients; be it across digital, print, or broadcast media.

What we do best

Achieve media coverage to showcase a brand or enhance a personal profile
Drive the news agenda on particular topics and issues based on client briefs
Engage with journalists and key media outlets to add positive voices to public conversations, ensuring balance and factual accuracy
Use publicity to drive participation in events and activities
Educate and engage markets on an issue or product, and even build a customer base

How we do it

Our specialist areas

Opportunity or Risk?

Engaging with journalists in the contemporary media environment is an activity rich with opportunity but also fraught with danger. The risk that your point of view is misunderstood, misrepresented and misreported is real. Our approach is to better equip organisations and their spokespeople to be more effective in their engagement with media by equipping them with knowledge, practical skills and also a broad view of the media agenda.

Rather than deter organisations from engaging with the news media, this approach builds confident and successful media relationships which deliver the desired result – positive profiling for brands and individuals in the publications and news bulletins which are highly prized.

In the context of thought leadership designed to build profile in valuable markets or influence the attitudes and behaviour of important customers and stakeholders, the confidence and performance capability of spokespeople can never be underestimated.

This is particularly critically when communicating a complex situation or technical concept to an audience without prior knowledge. Journalists are experienced information gatherers and, to some degree interpreters, but they are not content specialists. Like anyone new to an idea or perspective, they need clear information, often repeated and presented in multiple different ways, in order to truly comprehend. This is where skill is needed to craft and deliver key messages which are both ‘understandable’ and ‘sticky’.

Whether your media interaction is via a face-to-face interview – with or without the support of a written media release – clarity, brevity and a solid understanding of the news agenda is critical to success.


It’s the AFR or bust…

The value of mainstream media coverage is already well understood but industry and niche media opportunities are commonly overlooked or considered to be the ‘poor cousin’ to coverage in, for example, the Australian Financial Review or The Australian newspapers. 

Consider this… a passionate readership (listenership or viewership) where 100 per cent of the audience is intently interested in 100 per cent of the content presented! That is the opportunity that industry and special-interest media presents so on a comparative basis a thought leadership strategy which includes these media outlet represents terrific return on effort and investment. National media is important and valuable of course, but there are commentary opportunities worth considering which go way beyond these outlets.

The fact remains though that an effective engagement strategy, a strong message and a good spokespeople are key regardless of the media you’re looking to target.

Get in touch

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Intern at BBS

BBS operates a University Internship Program which offers placements in line with the university semesters, plus holiday period intakes, generally June/July and December/January/ February.

We accommodate trimester students and our program is open to applicants who are pursuing an internship of their own accord outside of the standard university semester calendar.

As a BBS intern you can expect to work alongside experienced professionals on real client projects, an environment which provides an accurate picture of what life as a communications consultant is like. 

BBS interns are always considered first for our graduate roles and many of our former interns have gone on to senior roles within our firm.

Working in a consultancy is diverse, fast-paced. It’s often said that “you’ll learn more in your first year in consultancy than in your first 3 – 5 years in another role”.

To apply for a BBS Internship, please email the Intern Program Coordinators with the following:

Register for our newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive regular news and insights from our team of professional communicators.

Register for our resources

Join our mailing list to download our resources as well as receive regular news and insights from our team of professional communicators.

Register for our resources

Join our mailing list to download our resources as well as receive regular news and insights from our team of professional communicators.

Intern at BBS

BBS operates a University Internship Program which offers placements in line with the university semesters, plus holiday period intakes, generally June/July and December/January/ February.

We accommodate trimester students and our program is open to applicants who are pursuing an internship of their own accord outside of the standard university semester calendar.

As a BBS intern you can expect to work alongside experienced professionals on real client projects, an environment which provides an accurate picture of what life as a communications consultant is like. 

BBS interns are always considered first for our graduate roles and many of our former interns have gone on to senior roles within our firm.

Working in a consultancy is diverse, fast-paced. It’s often said that “you’ll learn more in your first year in consultancy than in your first 3 – 5 years in another role”.

To apply for a BBS Internship, please email the Intern Program Coordinators with the following:

Register for our newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive regular news and insights from our team of professional communicators.