Emma Hazan, managing director of Skywrite Communications, explains what “PR golden pants” are

Emma Hazan joined the PR world in 2000, just as the dotcom bubble burst and it seemed the good times were over. Undeterred, she maintained faith in the consumer technology PR space at agencies Lewis and Shine, before joining Hotwire. Three years ago she set up Hotwire’s sister agency Skywrite, that focuses on consumer PR.

My day

7.00am: Make the decision to either do a quick work out and get into the office for 9 or get a head-start on the day and be at my desk for 8.30am. Unless it’s winter – then more often than not the third option of another half an hour’s sleep usually wins.

8.00am: Whilst on the daily commute I scan the morning headlines and any overnight emails from our US clients on my BlackBerry, check who’s saying what on Twitter and post a few Tweets of my own.

9.00am: It’s a Monday, so after talking through the most relevant stories in the papers with my team, as well as any interesting escapades from the weekend, we’ll meet in the Sky Room and go through the week ahead – discussing any client meetings, press briefings or upcoming pitches and any changes in client plans for the month. We also give out ‘gold starz’ – my team nominate each other for great work they’ve done in the past week, and whoever gets the most gold starz wins the gold pants – they really do exist! Joking aside, it is a good motivational tool and sets everyone up for the week ahead.

10.00am: I jump on a weekly conference call with Vodafone. We’ve just finished the first phase of a new campaign we’re running around apps and it’s gone well so everyone’s in a celebratory mood. But then it’s back to business and on to discussing phase two.

11.00am: We’re organising a World Cup media party for one of the England games and the invite has just gone out so it’s all hands on deck today, securing as many journalists as possible. We did this for the last World Cup and had about 80 journalists attend so the pressure is on to get an even better turn-out this time. We’re a competitive bunch so there’s obviously a prize for whoever secures the most – never one to miss out I’ve handed the role of adjudicator over to our IT manager so I can hit the phones too! It also gives us the chance to sell-in World Cup-related products from some of our clients at the same time so it’s a super efficient morning!

12:30pm: I go through the company figures with the finance team. We spend time looking through last month’s final revenue figures and operating costs and then discuss forecasts for the rest of the financial year, making sure we are staying closely aligned to our targets. Following my meeting I update my team on the figures so everyone has a clear picture of how the business is doing. I’m a strong believer in being open and honest – financials aren’t just for senior management.

1:15pm: I pick up some soup from the office favourite lunch locale, Nusa, and after running a few errands settle down in the Skywrite kitchen to finish flicking through Grazia and Closer to get my weekly celeb and fashion fix.

2.00pm: One of my account managers has arranged a brainstorm for the first client in Skywrite’s new health and beauty department – there’s always treats involved so it’s not hard to get enough people to pitch in! We think of different ways we can leverage the new Sex & the City movie to get fashion media and beauty bloggers talking about our clients’ products. There’s no shortage of ideas and we quickly come up with a strategy and a few fun ideas that are sure to spark the media’s interest.

3.00pm: I spend the next hour on a call to one of our US clients discussing their news pipeline and upcoming launches, making sure the UK and US plans are completely aligned. We talk through the ongoing social media outreach, the success we’ve had in the UK so far and what improvements we can make to our current strategy.

4.00pm: A client in the digital music space has come in for a quarterly PR review meeting. We have put in place a bespoke analysis process for them so that we can accurately look at coverage levels quarter on quarter, breaking them down by type, quality of coverage, positive versus negative sentiment, etc. They also like to look to see how they’re being talked about on key blogs and forums and analyse consumer search trends so we go through each of these areas, comparing any spikes to our own activity over the last few months.

6.00pm: It’s been an intense but positive review meeting and so we take the client to the pub for a well-deserved drink. Conscious it’s a Monday so no doubles for me!