Having worked at board game firm Esdevium, games PR specialists Premier, Daniela Pietrosanu was recently hired by Elite Dangerous and Screamride studio Frontier. We caught up with her for some key tips about working in PR.
What is your job?
Starting this January, I am the associate PR manager at Frontier Developments.
What does it involve?
On a day-to-day basis, I am a key contact for press so I work with the other teams in the communications department to ensure we are constantly talking to media and the community, giving them the right information about our products and creating great opportunities for our titles to shine.
What are your main responsibilities?
Creating and managing press relationships is a big part of my work so I make sure we’re always in touch with members of the media about the most recent developments for all our titles and the company as a whole. Equally important, I advise on best practice and manage PR campaigns from inception to implementation and evaluation while making sure all PR activity is feeding into the wider marketing strategy.
How did you get your job?
I started in the board games industry working as part of the marketing department of Esdevium - now Asmodee UK - where my position as a PR and marketing executive included not only working on PR initiatives but also using my graphic design skills to create all of the communication materials we produced, planning media buys and advertising spend and helping organise and manage gaming events. Working on a host of products, in a constantly growing market, gave me the skills I needed to be able to balance a wide variety of activities for a large number of titles. From analogue gaming I then moved to Premier PR, in the video games department, where I worked with a number of publishers such as Square Enix, Crytek and Jagex. It was at Premier that I gained the industry experience and knowledge which lead me to join the great team at Frontier.
What special skills or qualifications did you need?
One of the most important skills needed to work in PR is being able to manage your workload. Organisational skills are a key part of this, especially when it comes to time management as working on multiple campaigns at a time and balancing a number of activities, events and initiatives while adhering to strict timescales and working to deadlines is very important.
What new skills have you had to learn for this role?
Since I’ve started working in such a fast-moving, fast-changing industry, I found it’s important to keep up to date with news and trends relating to the wider gaming market. Also, one important point that they don’t tell you in university - I say this as a graduate of a PR course - is that a lot of PR work, especially in our very inventive industry, is about being creative and coming up with out of the box solutions and initiatives.
Describe a normal day. What do you do?
I’m not sure there is such a thing as a normal day! Each day is different and can bring new challenges and opportunities and that’s one of the great aspects of my job.
What are the best and worst parts of your role?
The best part is seeing something I’ve planned and worked on come to life!
There’s no real bad part, but I would say that throughout my career I have worked on campaigns and ideas we ended up not implementing and it’s difficult not getting attached to something you’ve spent time planning.
What tips would you give to someone applying for a similar position?
Use your individuality to create a space for yourself in the industry you want to be a part of and always be confident, but don’t overpromise.
This piece is part of our New Year New Job coverage for the start of 2018. If you want to get in touch to share your insight, email [email protected].
