Conversations with Dr. J on Public Relations (PR)

(Note: Dr. J has always been my "self-brand" since I started doing PR work. I will soon realize it when I finish my PhD. Anyway, I wish to share a recent interview on me and my work)


What inspired you or drove you to enter the PR industry?

I wanted to be part of the action. I just didn’t want to write about it. I was a reporter and I was happy with what I was doing at the beginning. I got to meet a lot of high-level personalities in the fields of politics and business. I hobnobbed with them and chronicled what they were doing.

However, after while, I found myself wanting to be part of events not as a chronicler but as a participant. I found myself wanting to shape what can happen and what will happen with reporters willingly writing about it. I guess it is this power of the PR that attracted me to the industry.

More than muscle, this power involved psychology – an expression of wit, elan and creativity that people around me feel and follow without them feeling my physical presence. As PR I shape, mold, convince, and persuade without people knowing they are being shaped, molded, convinced and persuaded. I thought that was magic and the magic remains. This is wizardry without the robe and the wand.

What was your greatest break?—or event that led to your continued success?

The greatest break occurs every time one falls, at the heels of mistakes, and at the moment of wrong decisions. The learning after these falls make one better than ever. I had a number of these “falls” during my early years. I had become a PR manager at the age of 22. I didn’t know the intricacies of PR. I didn’t know who to trust and not to trust. My naivete in the industry at that time showed all over.

But I slowly rose from the doldrums and the quagmire of a number of missteps and wrong curbs. I gained more confidence and never looked back. I put up my first PR agency at the age of 25. I suffered yet another series of mistakes.

Owning an agency is far different from being a mere employee. Relationships are a lot different when you are on your own. From bad pitches to new clients and proposals being copied and to new ideas being stolen from you, I suffered all. The tenacity of spirit however raged on. I rose from these challenges, albeit bruised, but with my name as my brand intact. And the brand stuck, people remembered and more people trusted. On top of my PR agency, I put up an events company and a small “out of home” ad firm.

Learning from past experiences and rising from these challenges are the greatest breaks one can ever experience in an industry that hates mediocrity, stupidity and frowns on onion-skinned personalities. Guts, wit, patience, charm, luck and a lot of creativity and intelligence with a gracious sprinkle of good conversational skills spell for a good recipe in PR.

What was the greatest challenge that you experienced?

The greatest challenges had always been instances where morality is at stake. This is when personal motives clash with moral upbringing. And there were many instances in my career that are reminiscent of this dilemma. Should I take a client that a lot of people believed to be corrupt? Should I take a client that has already been caught bribing people? Should I take a client that requests me to ruin the competitor?

These were real cases and dilemma that had to face. I had to contend with my moral values. If I were to decide using my Catholified upbringing that exalts good deeds and vilifies bad ones, I would not have taken these clients.

However, these cases were challenges to me. Similar to a lawyer, I took on these clients and presumed them to be innocent until proven guilty. If lawyers win or lose cases in the courts of law, I challenged myself to win these cases in the courts of public opinion.

I didn’t look at these cases using my moral lenses. Instead, I looked at them as challenges on how good a PR I have become. While I was crucified by many in these chapter of my PR life (now I called my Dark Ages), I, at that time, viewed them as testimonies to my capabilities as a PR to shape, mold, convince and persuade the public to cast a good eye to my clients.


What do you think was the trait that you held on to and helped you succeed in the industry?

The constant drive to challenge myself has been the guiding post of my career. I have never been contented despite successes. My incessant desire to inquire, path-find and discover new areas where my capabilities as PR will be tested to the limits has, for weird reasons, been a mark of whatever little success I am enjoying as PR.


What advice can you give aspiring practitioners like me?

I only have one advice and this is short: just be happy with everything you do and continue pushing yourself to do better. Challenge is a word that is on top of my list all the time. But a word of caution: in your drive to challenge and carve out successes, never step on other people. If you can blend well and still come out as a winner, that is a sweet success. Remember, we PRs win not through brute force but the power of the mind and the charm of our words.