A PR student has made the most of her placement opportunity by working in China for one of the largest PR agencies in the world.

Suelyn Howe works for Ogilvy, a PR, Advertising and Marketing agency that has 467 offices worldwide. She is currently based in Guangzhou but may work in the Beijing office for the last few months of her placement.

She said: “Being the only international person in the office, I get called in to a lot of the brainstorming meetings for my ‘international ideas’ which is good! Also being the youngest, I seem to come up with the more ‘out of the box’ ideas.”

Suelyn works for the Wrigley’s and the Hong Kong Disney team and has just been involved in the 2008 PR proposal for Disney.

She said: “It doesn’t quite feel like work. Disney is all about fairytales and storytelling so the power point had to be in that style. It was quite fun.”

Carnival themed office

Suelyn’s surroundings aren’t like your average office either. She has recently moved to a building along the Pearl River that has a carnival theme throughout.

“We have a horse carrousel in our library, two bars, arcade machines, pop corn machines, spinning tea cups just outside, ferrace wheel pods on the walls as you walk in, a loft that has massive sofas in and a theatre! This is all to inspire creativity and to allow us to have great ideas.”

She says Public Relations in China is much different than in the West because the Chinese Government won’t allow campaigns to be too commercial which requires a new way of thinking.

“The wording and the way you get around this issue, simply requires a little more thought. This was important in writing all the press releases, which is what I have been working on. You can’t specifically say ‘Wrigley is doing …. for example.”

Suelyn says she is constantly kept on her toes and loves the clients she works with.

Insight

“They are young and fun. You wonder about what ideas are going to be required from you. Brainstorming is always preferably a team thing, and when you start brainstorming and you have ideas bouncing off one person to the other, and then you finally get that moment when you have come up with the best idea and insight – it’s probably the best feeling in the world.”

Suelyn is ambitious and came to UCLan because of the placement option in her third year.

She says she always knew she wanted to work abroad.

“2008 for China is a very important year with it hosting the Olympics and I thought it would be awesome to get over here for that. Also China is developing at a ridiculous rate so it’s nice to be a part of it.”

Suelyn plans to incorporate work with travel when she graduates from UCLan and already has a placement lined up in Australia for 2009.

She added: “I will stay with Ogilvy hopefully for a long time after graduation, and continue my journey across the globe. My theory is that the more you travel; you experience more culture.

“Career definitely comes first for me, and I also think that by the time I have experienced working in all these different offices and areas of the world, when it comes to settling down in a place, I’ll be able to walk in to a director’s position…hopefully!”

More info
BA (Hons) Public Relations
Ogilvy

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