The journey started from Singapore's Changi Airport Terminal 2. The last time I travelled on MAS was the first flight in my life, when I was 6 years old or so after a family trip to Penang. I have little memory of the experience and my family subsequently drove or booked coaches for travel to Kuala Lumpur.
What first caught my attention were the bright colourful seats that built my excitement of flying and going to KL. They were very vibrant, as with the culture of Malaysia, yet not too tacky.
Although there was a delay in take-off, I was impressed by how the pilot took the extra effort to state the three reasons behind it before the flight and after we landed. On hindsight, I appreciated this communication between pilot and passengers. It was definitely better than being brushed off as a "technical glitch" and then to wait for an unknown period of time. It happened to me a couple of times before and the end result was a paranoid me even before the flight.
After the check-in at The Saujana Resort(Which was a lovely hotel by the way, with great service staff and wonderful environment of two championship golf courses), I made my way to the "MAS office", officially and affectionately also known as "MAS Komplex at Subang Airport" by the taxi uncles who drove me to work.
My first meeting was of course with Indi, whom I have heard so much about. She gave me an overview of her communications team and we talked about the realistic expectations of a short stint with the company.
At first glance, the structure of the 360 communications team and the touchpoints / communications channels already reflected a rapid changing industry dealing with many stakeholders, issues and challenges.
I was literally blown away when I found out exactly how much was going on at the same time. Granted, every industry is struggling to overcome the obstacles of the current recession. However, the aviation industry is one of the worst-hit "victims" of this economic collapse. The extreme scrutiny and negativity surrounding it only brings about increased uncertainty.
Indi oversees the teams listed below.
1. Customer Relations Unit
2. Advertising & Promotions
3. Business Consultancy (External)
4. Media Relations
5. Investor Relations
6. Going Places (MAS Inflight magazine)
7. Internal Communications / Community Relations
8. Visual Identity (Studio)
And so I next met up with the Heads of Departments (HODs) for a 360 update. I joined the meeting only with what I understood of Ogilvy's "360 degrees brand stewardship". Otherwise, I didn't quite know what to expect. I knew there was the risk of meeting up with a hostile team since there was every reason for them to consider me an outsider and to be cautious with the information they shared with me.
On the contrary, the team welcomed me with warm greetings, big smiles and left the first impression of Malaysian Hospitality that was later instilled in me. And it was also from that point that "360" took on dual meanings, or should I say scope or scale... that of what I know in Ogilvy and 360 redefined by MAS. In Ogilvy, 360 is determined by the no. of discplines that are involved in a campaign, whereas in MAS, it is the constant effort to encompass all communications touchpoints of the influencers.
The subsequent 1-1 sessions with the different HODs and MAS's business consultant, Sue, gave me deep insights on the workings of the team. At the end of it all, I felt like a journalist who interviewed various spokespersons for a feature piece on the company.
Extended evidence of the team being open towards me was the invite to join in a WIP meeting with the media-buying and ad agencies of MAS. It was my first time sitting on the client's side and to watch the agency present a "proposal".
I must say sitting on the other side of the fence is a different experience and to be an effective PR practitioner from an agency, we constantly have to question, anticipate and understand the priorities of the client's business. Agencies are never expected to be experts in the client's industry but they must do their homework to ensure that proposals are up to date with current happenings in the industry and not just based on theories, especially those that still need to be trialled and tested. There's no time or money to lose.
It was definitely a valuable learning experience even if it has been 5 hectic days of catching up with work since I came home. It is definitely all worthwhile because the learning points will not simply last me on this one-off trip. They are long-term ones that will be useful for my career and of which I can constantly turn to for reference whenever I face a challenge block.
I am due to present the learnings at staff meeting tomorrow so I will go more in-depth with a later blog entry. I did wish there was more time for me to be more hands-on in terms of joining the team for events but I understood it would have meant they would be too busy to help me achieve my objectives.
Here are the parting shots with the new friends I met and reflections of the MH experience. :)
With Indi, the lady who made it all possible and is a very inspiring role model for fresh PR upstarts (also known as EUs - Executive Upstarts in MH speak) like myself.
Every last Wednesday of the month is MH day and most, if not all staff wear the blue MH shirts and get together for a team building activity. Ogilvy has the "Be great by Tuesday" shirts too and even though I have been advocating for all of us to own one, it needs to start with our foundation for internal communications.
This is where the MAS team behind the scenes work. The going might be tough right now but I do feel that the team will be able to pull through successfully. The HODs spoke in the same language with so much conviction and pride.
As you can see, competition is very stiff from both international and budget airlines but it is really about finding that edge and to then Live, Breathe and Walk the brand values. I was told by Syahar that advertisers in Malaysia are supposed to make use of a proportion of their display ad spaces for contribution back to community (such as road signs behind the ads) but I didn't manage to snap any.
In KLIA, MH now takes on a whole new meaning. :)
This is one of my favourite photos I took on the trip. To capture AirAsia and MAS fleet in the same shot is not that difficult but to have taken it with my mindset at that point of time was priceless. :D
