Heather Seet & Victoria Brown, ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup finalists – Team Singapore

Heather Seet and Victoria Brown are one of 11 teams partaking in the inaugural ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup finals.

The finals of the global event kicked off on October 13th and comes to a close today, October 18th. Before an official winner emerges, ICCO and PRCA wanted to highlight the talented group of young professionals who’ve made it into the finals after winning local and regional rounds of the contest over the past month. Join us as we get to know team Singapore below, in a brief round of Q&A.

Victoria Brown, Manager at Mutant Communications & ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup finalist from Singapore

Victoria Brown

Manager at Mutant Communications

 

Q: What’s your favourite PR campaign that you’ve been involved in or have seen?
Victoria: My favourite PR campaign that I’ve worked on recently has to be Pavilion KL’s Christmas campaign in 2020. Pavilion KL is Malaysia’s premier shopping destination and known for their stunning festive decorations. However, because we were in the middle of a pandemic, we could not organise a big media launch to unveil the mall’s Christmas decor. So, to engage the media, we organised the delivery of festive media drops filled with Christmas goodies to select media and KOLs to invite them for a specially curated Christmas experience at Pavilion KL. Media and KOLs were treated to a personal one-on-one tour of the mall’s festive decorations, a pampering session, a festive dinner, followed by an overnight stay at Pavilion Hotel.

This personalised and fun-filled media engagement not only built media relationships with key editors, journalists, and KOLs, but we also garnered quality coverage and social media posts on the mall’s festive decorations and pitched listicles on Christmas gifting and Christmas activities at Pavilion KL.

On top of that, we pitched and secured regional coverage on Pavilion KL’s exclusive Dior Holiday Tree from the likes of Bazaar Vietnam and LionhearTV (Philippines). We also secured an exclusive interview in Malaysia’s largest English daily The Star, where shoppers shared their favourite Christmas memory at Pavilion KL and reminisced about their favourite Christmas decorations over the years.

Despite the restrictions and challenges faced due to the pandemic, we managed to secure 88 pieces of media coverage (a 214% increase from the year before) that helped to boost awareness and drive footfall to the mall. It was overall such a fun campaign to work on, I loved coming up with creative ways to engage the media and different angles to pitch to different publications to garner maximum PR mileage for the client.

Q: What does being creative mean to you?
Victoria: Coming up with fresh, bold, engaging, out-of-the-box ideas!

Q: Favourite social media account to follow?
Victoria: There’s so many! I love Ryan Reynolds’ digital marketing agency Maximum Effort’s Instagram page (@maximumeffort) – I like their approach to video ads. I am also a fan of Nike’s and Heineken’s social pages. They have great campaigns, videos, and social content!

 

Heather Seet, Associate at Mutant Communications & 2021 ICCO Next-Gen PR World Cup Finalist

Heather Seet

Associate at Mutant Communications

 

Q: What’s your favourite PR campaign that you’ve been involved in or have seen?

Heather: I remember coming across the IKEA ThisAbles Project via its award-winning campaign. The project was conceived to allow people with special needs to easily use and access IKEA products within their homes. It had all the right elements: compelling storytelling, meaningful purpose, targeted partnerships, and scalable outcomes that really make a difference. My favourite part is that the campaign continues to expand and impact – new blueprints have been created, including developments for children. That’s how you know an idea really moves people – when it goes beyond the campaign to become its very own movement.

Q: What does being creative mean to you?

Heather: Creativity goes beyond big, bold ideas – it needs to present vibrant solutions to existing challenges. So creativity at its best is a collaborative process, a constant refinement that blends different perspectives and opinions to deliver holistic results.

Q: Favourite social media account to follow?

Heather: Ketnipz – I love how the artist uses Instagram Stories in compelling, engaging ways. Even ads on the account don’t seem like it, because they blend with creative storytelling to deliver the most satisfying and engaging content!

 

Over the last 5 days, the Victoria and Heather have worked to create and film a video pitch of an original campaign for a brief set by Think Tank, the International SOS Foundation. As of today, an international team of judges will score each pitch. Winners will be announced on October 21st.