media update’s Adam Wakefield spoke to One-eyed Jack director, Darren Sandras, about their win at the PRISM Awards, how they define media relations, and what experience has taught One-eyed Jack as an agency.

What does it mean to One-eyed Jack to win a PRISM Award for the work you did for Rocking the Daisies last year? What are the benefits of winning an award?

Winning an award is always an honour, especially when it comes from the industry you work in. We’re very proud of the work we’ve done on Rocking the Daisies. Rocking the Daisies is one of the country’s biggest and most well-established music and lifestyle festivals, attracting over 24 000 attendees over four days. 

It’s a big deal for a fairly small agency like ours to get to work on an event of this scale.

Incidentally, 2016 was the first year we were appointed to manage PR for the festival – so to win a Gold PRISM Award for our first time is especially gratifying.

The benefits of winning an award? They aren’t immediate or tangible. Rather, they afford us the ability to say we are an award-winning agency, boost team spirit and morale, and validate some of the hard work we put into our campaigns. Being a small agency that often competes with much bigger ones, winning an award shows the industry, current and future clients, that we can punch above our weight.

For One-eyed Jack, what is your definition of media relations? What are the key characteristics or skills that you execute?

Media relations is a broad term. For us, it represents a key part of what we – and any communication/PR agency should do – create and manage relationships with media. We work hard to develop personal and meaningful relationships with our media contacts so that they know that when we contact them, it’s for something beneficial, real, and valuable to what they do.

It’s also important to always keep in mind that media have a job to do – as do we – so developing and fostering mutual respect for each other’s positioning and responsibilities makes for good long-term media relations.

Why do you think it is important for agencies to enter PRISM Awards? Why did One-eyed Jack enter the awards this year?

Industry awards are both lauded and criticised. Some see them as valuable, others as unnecessary; the work and client satisfaction should be the ultimate award. We’re not in business to win awards – we’re in business to do great work, make our clients happy, and learn as we go. Entering and winning awards is part of this process.

We have learnt a lot by entering the PRISMs for the last two years, and assessing if something could be “award-winning” does help us think differently about how we may – or may not—approach a new brief, client, or project.

What were the important characteristics when managing media relations for Rocking the Daisies last year?

Daisies enjoys editorial support from entertainment and lifestyle media who are eager to interview the international artists, and who have covered the festival in previous years. 

While this assists with generating the usual PR for the festival, it didn’t address the need to broaden our reach to communicate to new audiences – a key objective. We interacted with media to successfully communicate the introduction of the hip-hop stage, without alienating existing fans. 

The task was to appeal to new fans and media who hadn’t considered attending Daisies because it was a “white indie rock festival”. We needed to broaden the appeal through crafted stories and focus on communicating the hip-hop element to traditionally non-Daisies audiences. 

What makes managing media relations for a music festival unique?

I would have to say the level of intimacy you end up sharing with media who attend. You’re all camping, sleeping in tents, getting a little dirty around the edges, staying up late. A degree of bonding is bound to happen. This is great – we’re all human beings. The key, though, is to remain professional at all times and remember what you’re there to do.

As an agency with experience with the live events space, over time, how has this experience influenced the way you manage media relations?

We’ve been fortunate - but through hard work - to have worked on some of the biggest and coolest live events in the country across music, comedy, sports, and family events. This experience has taught us to be adaptable, nimble, and flexible. We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves into one niche or genre. Rather, we’re able to work across multiple genres, multiple brands, multiple clients, and multiple media.

What’s on One-eyed Jack’s radar for the rest of the year?

We’re excited to have a busy rest of the year ahead. From September on, we hit our silly season as summer approaches – live events kick into gear, including this year’s Rocking the Daisies from Thursday, 5 October to Sunday, 8 October.

For more information, visit www.one-eyedjack.co.za.

A long career of achievement culminated in Sej Motau being honoured at the 20th PRISM Awards. Read more in our article, PRISM Lifetime Achievement Award: Beyond Sej Motau’s expectations.

*Image courtesy of One-eyed Jack