Caricatures, fun bios connect PR agency to media

Agency staffers show off their lighter side, get personal with clients and press

For a whole lot of reasons, PR people rarely get the chance to simply hang out with media contacts. Neither group bellies up to the bar like they did in the old days. Work and family pressures cut into socializing, and the journalists on your press lists are probably scattered all over the world.

So how do you make a personal connection with the media—and hopefully strengthen that relationship—when there’s no opportunity to get to know each other? The PR team at Atlanta’s Carabiner Communications came up with the idea of “fun bios” and personal caricatures to put a fresh face on their public interactions with the media, as well as with clients.

Kathy Cabrera, a Pasadena, Calif.-based account director and writer for Carabiner, explains that the “eureka” moment came last fall, when she and her colleagues were preparing the latest quarterly agency newsletter.