by Matthew Jones

By the time dib caught up with Gina Johnson, she was in Las Vegas, traveling on business for her client, Kenmore.  It was the third city she had visited in less than a week.  Earlier jaunts had taken her to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

The week of travel is not an unusual for Johnson.  Throughout her career, she has been drawn to demanding accounts that move at light speed.

Johnson is a Vice President at Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading public relations agencies.  It also happens to be where she began her career; but there have been stops at other leading firms along the way, including Leo Burnett Public Relations, and Fleishman-Hillard.

Like many successful PR practitioners, Johnson’s path to public relations was, in a word, indirect.  “I landed in PR by accident,” she explained.  “I majored in journalism thinking that I would get a job at the Chicago Tribune straight out of college.  That clearly turned out to not be the case, so I thought I’d do the next best thing.”

For Johnson, there’s no regret over the change in path.  “I’m still here,” she said.

Glad Products Company, Campbell Soup Company, Kellogg’s, Maytag, Oldsmobile – are among Johnson’s past blue chip clients.  By any measure, she has had a career to be proud of.  For Johnson, her zeal for knowledge and her curiosity about her clients’ businesses have been among her greatest assets.

“You have to have a willingness to learn about your clients’ business, and the industries where they compete,” said Johnson.  “You have to stay on top of current event, pop culture (etc.).”

A self-described communicator, Johnson has no problem getting her ideas out – in writing, presentations, speeches – and she loves being part of a team.  However, she is at her best in a fast-paced environment where things change quickly.  The frantic nature of PR is an aspect of the business she enjoys most.

“In PR, you’re always getting the chance to do something different,” she said.  “Every day is different challenge.”  Which might explain why Johnson is so good at juggling amazing amounts of work, and why she always gravitates toward the most demanding clients.  “I like working on a variety of clients.  It’s impossible to ever get bored.  If I had to work on only one client for the rest of my career, I’d go insane.”

The good news, is, Johnson hasn’t gone insane yet.  Instead, she has built up an impressive list of clients and accomplishments in an industry where it can be extremely difficult to make a significant mark.

She’d be the first one to tell you that she hasn’t done all of this alone.  Johnson flourishes in an environment where there are people who will help her grow and learn.  If they are women, or people of color, then that’s all the better.

“(Diversity) is one of the fortunate parts of being in PR,” said Johnson, speaking of the agency side of the business.  “It’s a relatively female-dominated industry.  There are a lot of female role models and mentors to look up to – women you can learn from.  I’ve always found a female mentor anywhere I’ve been.  I’ve always actively looked for that, and I’ve always been lucky.”

Agencies may still have a long way to go before calling themselves truly diverse, but they tend to be a few steps ahead of all but their most aggressive counterparts on the client side of the industry.

“The client side – the corporate side – is a different story,” continued Johnson.  Admittedly, it can be a very cloudy situation; it’s not always easy to separate general corporate politics from actual racial or gender discrimination.  “Sometimes, it’s a situation where marketing is not really understood, and therefore not really respected.  In those situations, marketing is the last voice to be heard, and PR is the last voice in the marketing group.  You wind up with the smallest budget.  Some of that might be a gender dynamic, as well.”

Tossed a Mixed Blessing

For Johnson, who is half Vietnamese on her mother’s side, most of the obstacles she has faced have been gender related, rather than racial – at least in her view.  At one point in her career, Johnson stepped out of agency life to take a position as marketing director for a prominent chain of restaurants.  “It was an amazing opportunity to broaden my experience beyond the PR mix and focus on one of my passions: food,” she said with a laugh.

However, in addition to her experience with her agency clients, the new job offered her yet another perspective on being a minority woman in the workplace.  The restaurant industry, like the automotive or financial consulting industries, has a predominately male power culture.  While working for her employer, Johnson was exposed to many different levels of the industry, from vendors to other restaurant chains to other leaders of the restaurant world.  At times, it was a tough, eye opening experience; and Johnson was unwilling to keep her thoughts about discriminatory treatment to herself.  In the end, she found overcoming gender biases an extremely tall order.

“I don’t know if I ever overcame it, really,” continued Johnson.  “That’s part of why I’m back on the agency side.  It was frustrating, and I was quick to voice that frustration.  Men sometimes view that as ‘being emotional in the workplace;’  but I have a lot of passion for my work.  I care about what I’m doing.  So sometimes it’s hard to separate that.”

Johnson is fully capable of getting in someone’s face if she needs to, but it’s the last place she wants to be.  Recognizing that the restaurant industry may not be the best place for her at that point in her career, she made changes.

“It led me back to the PR world, which in my opinion, is a more nurturing environment,” said Johnson.  So, it was back to the fast-paced world of agency life, which suits Johnson just fine.

Making a Positive Difference

“The most rewarding work is when I feel I’m making a positive difference that extends beyond my career and my clients’ business…”

Johnson is happiest when she feels she is helping others through the work she does for clients.  Looking back at her greatest successes, Johnson found they typically involve a strong charitable or activist effort of some sort – disaster relief, water conservation, or heart disease.

“I’m happiest in my job when I can make recommendations that involve strategic philanthropy – efforts that bring the community and the brand together, said Johnson.  “For me, the most rewarding work is when I feel I’m making a positive difference that extends beyond my career and my clients’ business.”

One of the greatest, and most recent examples was an effort Johnson help put together for her client, Glad.  As the first-ever corporate sponsor of Mardi Gras, Glad was on the ground in New Orleans not long after the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.  They created a program called the Glad ForceFlex Mardi Gras Clean-Up 2006.   It was a landmark effort that helped to preserve the city’s most precious tradition.

“I had been to New Orleans many times before – so it was interesting to go back so soon after Hurricane Katrina,” said Johnson, who, along with her client, led a massive cleanup effort across the city, and supplied trash bags and other services.  They also supplied trash bags for the major parades, so spectators could clean up after themselves.

“Glad was the only brand to step up,” said Johnson of the risky nature of adding a major corporate brand to such a traditionally non-corporate event.  “Our recommendation could have gone either way.  Being the first-ever corporate sponsor of Mardi Gras was a big deal.  It could have backlashed.  In the end, we were really happy that Glad decided to commit to it.”

For Johnson, the reaction from the community gave her even greater satisfaction than the marketing success of the program.  “That was really rewarding – seeing the people of New Orleans expressing their gratitude,” said Johnson.  “We were there handing out Glad trash bags at a parade, and people were coming up to us and thanking us for being there.”

One of the greatest visual traditions of Mardi Gras is when the participants of the parades create their own costumes.  After Katrina, many parade-goers decided to incorporate Glad brand into their wardrobe.  “It was amazing to be there,” continued Johnson.  “People were wearing the Glad logo on their heads, wearing our trash bags as costumes – all as their way of thanking us.”

Meeting Changing Conditions

While Johnson is truly proud of her efforts in the marketing arena, she spends more time looking forward than back.  As she, and the industry, move forward, Johnson anticipates major changes that are going to make her job harder.

“We’ve seen the lines between advertising and editorial continue to blur.  That makes our job more challenging,” said Johnson.  Historically, there has been a strong, fixed line between the editorial pages and the advertising staff.  Today, however, there seems to be growing interference.  “Sometimes, you’re close to successfully pitching a meaningful story, and at the last minute some rep from the ad side of the publication says ‘We have a conflict because one of your competitors placed an ad,’” she explained.

Like almost every industry in the world, technology continues to play an increasing role in how public relations professionals go about their jobs.  From YouTube to Wikipedia to the endless array of people and publications popping up online, it’s a different world for today’s PR practitioners.

“The way people interact on the Internet has dramatically changed.  The explosion of blogging has changed the landscape of online journalism,” continued Johnson.  “Anyone can do it – you don’t have to be accredited.  Yet, they’re still affecting public opinion.  There are more sources of information than there are ways to reach them.  It becomes really difficult to control your brand in this kind of environment.”

Rather than dwell in the doom and gloom scenario, Johnson prefers to look on the bright side.  “These are challenges and opportunities, I suppose,” she said.

Regardless of which direction the industry follows in the future, professionals like Johnson are likely to help lead it.  Thus far in her career, she has moved from landmark effort to landmark effort.  Her mentors and role models have played a big part in her success, but her family has played an equally important role, offering encouragement and enthusiasm along the way – even if they still don’t know exactly what she does.

“My family is very proud of my career – they’ve been very supportive, and they’re excited for me.  But they used to tell people I was in advertising,” said Johnson of her parents.  For PR people, it’s not an uncommon problem.  “PR people don’t do a good job of PR for our business,” joked Johnson.

“My mother has always been very excited about what I’ve had a chance to do and experience – particularly as someone who wasn’t able to enjoy a long, business-oriented career herself,” she added.

All told, Johnson’s philosophies on succeeding in marketing sound relatively universal – they can almost be applied to any career.  However basic, the rules have worked for her.

“Write everything down,” she said.  “Be extremely organized – we have to handle everything at once in this business.  You need to figure out how to keep all the balls in the air.”

On a more philosophical note, Johnson had more to add.  “Listen – really and truly listen – to what people are really saying,” she continued.  That goes for your clients, your team members, and reporters who have very specific needs.  Most importantly, you have to find inspiration.  It’s easy to get stuck in cookie cutter programs and delivering cookie cutter ideas.  Get yourself into a more creative space – read a book, take a walk, see a movie.  Do something that helps you see the world in a different way.”

The End