PR

General overview

The PR team is responsible for ensuring that Arcadia brands gain maximum positive exposure in the fashion pages of the national and regional press and in the fashion 'glossies'.

Types of role

• PR Manager
• Senior PR Officer
• PR Officer
• PR Co-ordinator

This team reports into the Director of PR and Communications.

If you are interested in any of these roles please click here to find out if we have opportunities available.

Profile

Erica Graffin
Senior PR Manager

"I manage the PR for Dorothy Perkins and Wallis and plan the PR strategy in line with the brands' strategy. We have a calendar of activity focusing on four key seasons (spring/summer, high summer, autumn/winter and Christmas) alongside other new launches. The calendar includes press days and events where we launch new collections or initiatives to press, press packs shot on models and still life look books, filming, third-party projects and charity collaborations. We have a Press Showroom in head office where journalists come in every day to view the collections and choose product to feature on their pages.

PR is very reactive. We get last-minute requests from journalists all the time, for samples for photoshoots or quotes. We also need to react to the business needs so, if a brand asks us to do a PR push on a specific collection or range, we need to turn things around and generate press coverage really quickly.

PR is all about communication and so maintaining good relationships with our target media is extremely important. I meet journalists regularly to discuss our brands and hopefully encourage them to feature us. We also organise seasonal press trips where we showcase the new collections to small exclusive groups and then give them a treat as well, such as a spa treatment or concerts.

The media is changing all the time. When I started in PR we focused on two main media groups: the long-lead glossy magazines, who work three to four months ahead of real time, and the national newspapers, who can literally be shooting a story for publication the next day. Now the market is much wider - with the recent explosion of all the new celebrity weekly magazines, the many hundreds of websites and e-zines and increasingly more and more fashion-focused TV programmes.

To do this job you need to have creativity, enthusiasm, excellent writing skills and to be a good all-round communicator. Obviously an interest in fashion, retailing and the media helps. You need to be able to think on your feet and react quickly, accept that you will often work really hard and get little or no result but then when you do get a fantastic piece of editorial or a big feature, you know instantly that it's all worthwhile!

I love the fact that we see all the most fashion-forward and directional product months before it hits the stores; that some of the journalists I have known for years are now really good friends and so it is a genuine pleasure to spend time with them; and that we can see the results of what we do. For example, we recently had a Wallis feature in YOU magazine and subsequently our office and Customer Services have had masses of calls from readers asking where they can buy the clothes.

I studied English at university, originally planning to be a journalist, but in my third year started looking into Public Relations. I applied for various graduate trainee schemes at large companies and was lucky enough to be offered a graduate trainee position at Arcadia. I had a fairly rigorous interview process, one assessment day and two interviews, the last of which taking place the week of my finals. The scheme was for a year and involved placements in PR, Events and Marketing and at the end of the year I was offered a permanent position in PR. That was eight years ago and since then I have worked on a range of brands, including two years on Miss Selfridge and been involved in some fantastic projects."