Renate Roca Rozenberg (PR & More): “I could bet in 10 years we’ll all be doing PR in Virtual Reality”

She started her PR career in 2001, after almost a decade spent as a journalist, and since then has been working for tens of clients in the corporate and cultural events and entertainment areas. When one says PR in Cluj Napoca, he/she immediately associates the name with her: Renate Roca Rozenberg. In 2008, Renate launched, alongside Adrian Gog, the independent agency PR & More that became multi-awarded at Romanian PR Awards and finalist at SABRE, one of the most important international PR competitions. Moreover, PR & More is part of the global network of independent agencies International Public Relations Network (IPRN). While in Cluj, BR met with her and talked about the insights of the local and regional PR market and the agency she proudly runs.

By Romanita Oprea

What made you decide to go on your own and launch your own agency?

It all comes with growing old. I realized that there are many limits when you work for the PR department of an advertising agency. Even if the department was large and had a generous portfolio, some of it coming out of the general advertising client base, the business itself was not oriented to developing its PR services. After a few years, I began seeing this as a limitation in terms of projects I could work on, as I needed the freedom to work for clients who really wanted PR, needed PR and understood what PR is.

How did you chose the name and what is its significance to you?

It was a natural fit, because it described what I wanted to do most: more PR, more engaging campaigns, better brand experiences. After a while in the new agency, we realized it described very well what we are actually providing to our clients. For most of them, it’s never only about PR. We are helping with BTL, we’ve had public affairs campaigns, we do design work every day and we are very involved in media strategy. And sometimes we get a request that really doesn’t fit any definition. Some days we just laugh and say “today it was only about & more”. But we try to stick to what we do best, and that is PR.

What were the criteria for choosing the team members?

I am old fashioned, I have always believed that with a lot of curiosity and good writing skills one can be a great PR person. This hasn’t changed a lot during the years, even if the focus on communication has moved from print to online, for example, those skills are still vital. In general, we are looking for diversity in our team; we want to have people with different personalities and interests, still with the same passion for communication. We are also a team of team players: we want everyone to enjoy their daily activity, which means tasks, but also the company of the other colleagues. Many things can be learned, but being supportive, encouraging and able to function with people who are different is something we look for in any candidate.

Do you also work with freelancers? If so, when and why?

Sometimes, there are short‑term projects that would be difficult to cover with internal resources and that’s when we invite freelancers to join us. It happens that we have everything planned for the next months and we find out we won a pitch or a very, very old offer was accepted. But it doesn’t happen very often; we try to involve mostly our team because it is pretty difficult to get the same rhythm and style with a freelancer. In other words: freelancers do not know your client. That means that sometimes they will come up with fresh ideas that the internal team can adapt to the client’s identity and strategy, but also that more effort needs to be put in to make the work consistent.

How would you characterize the freelance market in Cluj?

It is pretty generous in numbers, still not very diverse. I hope that freelancers will become more specialized in certain fields of PR and this way it will become easier even for us, the agencies, to approach them. Considering that no more than 4 years ago it would have been almost impossible to find a freelancer on our market in Cluj, I think it grew quite fast.

What about the PR market in Cluj in general (in terms of budgets, creativity, services provided, etc?)

It is still a small market. We would have been very limited if we had decided to work only for clients in Cluj. We have been on the market for 8 years now and we do remember that only 5 years ago Cluj was still very undemanding in terms of communication services. Everybody is mentioning Cluj as a huge IT market, but there are still dozens of very big IT companies who may have not released a press note, for example. But here is a huge potential now and I hope that the market will catch up in terms of budgets and services required. There are very good communication specialists here, but the market needs to grow. And it will, eventually.

How hard was it to find people then and how different is the situation at this moment?

It has always been difficult to find people with a certain level of expertise. Not having a very competitive market for years, it forced us to grow up our own people. This is a continuous challenge, you cannot be 100 percent successful, and it is certainly not very productive in terms of business. It takes at least a year for a talented young person to be able to handle by herself a client’s account.

What were the services you were providing then? Have they changed during the years?

The services are still the same, the tools are different. And I think it’s a very important distinction that people sometimes forget to make. Our service is getting a message across or building your reputation: managing your Facebook page is just a way to reach that goal. So in terms of services, we grew naturally, as our experience grew, and we started to have PR campaigns with more ambitious goals and using different tools. For example, we are quite at home with social media, but we don’t see it as the Holy Grail. It’s just one set of tools we use today to provide better brand interactions and customer experiences, and I could bet in 10 years we’ll all be doing PR in VR (virtual reality).

What were the main challenges since opening PR&More?

It was really difficult to stand by our initial idea: we do PR because we love it, not because we have to. We wanted to have the freedom to choose the projects we are working for. We wanted to learn something new with every new client. Does it help paying salaries every month or does it turn into profit? Certainly not. But at least we are smarter than 8 years ago and we still have fun.

Do you work only for Cluj clients or also for regional ones?

Our clients are mostly located in Transylvania, but active at a national level, while some require constant communication with an international market. For instance, Tenaris Silcotub has its headquarters in Zalau, but has plants and offices in 7 cities. We have been working with them for 8 years now, covering corporate and internal communications for their ever-expanding team. Another example is BOSCH Romania that also has production facilities around Transylvania. Even working with cultural events, such as TIFF or Electric Castle, our public is international, though they are happening here, in Cluj. Nowadays, being located in a certain town means very little; businesses are evolving fast and it is rarely that we handle communication only for a specific local or regional public.

What type of client do you still want in your portfolio?

Difficult to say. We already have a very eclectic client data base, if I may use a term we so often hear when talking about our favorite music festival. During the years, we learnt that it really does not matter what our clients’ business is about, but how open they are and willing to experiment outside their comfort zone. At the beginning of 2000s, we could have never imagined having a very creative campaign with an IT company, and then we did some impressive ones with Betfair Development Romania or Steelcase. Anyone with a challenge is always welcome!

What should the clients must know about PR & More?

We are the people who can handle a crisis on the oil & gas market and still have the best headline for announcing a new music super star coming to Romania. And this is hard, but this is our challenge.

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