This week on Strivin & Thrivin, we spoke with Lorna Hegarty, Brand and Communications Manager at Squiz.
Lorna has listened to the podcast quite a bit and told us that she’s recognised that a lot of people talk about falling into her career. “I definitely didn’t”, she said when referencing studying public relations.
“But I think obviously my career has taken a different path as I’ve gone along and it’s evolved. But then I was thinking back even further, and it was quite a semi-conscious effort when I even studied PR.”
Lorna started out in PR and spent a number of years in agency, and did a stint in a Deloitte press office in London before moving to Australia where she continued in agency PR. She then moved to New Zealand and took an in-house role with Xref, and is now working for Squiz.
With a role that has a broader comms focus, Lorna has seen PR agencies take this approach as well. It was the move to Xref that gave her her first look into a broader comms and brand aspect…but she admits she didn’t really know what she was doing.
“Last year, I did the Marketing Week Mini MBA in brand management and that was a real turning point for me. I knew I wanted to understand it better, and so doing that course was like this kind of make or break, and it was absolutely make. It just ignited something in me from a brand perspective and I realised I absolutely loved it.”
There’s no doubt the PR landscape has dramatically changed in the last 10 years, and anyone who has been in the game for a while will agree with that. Lorna remembers it being all about having a little black book when she first started, and now it’s even harder with the introduction of content creators and influencers over the years.
“I think the pure PR agency model has changed so much, and PR agencies now have to think a lot more broadly about how they position their clients and how they really get that traction with the audiences that they need to…you can’t rely on having a good list of emails anymore.”
With all the experience Lorna has had in her career, we loved what her response was to, “what’s one thing you wish you knew at the start of your career that you know now?”
Lorna said, “You really don’t need to sweat the small stuff. And actually, the stuff that you’re worrying about now, you’ll look back on in a few years and be like, ‘why was I worried about that now that I’ve got to think about this?’”
