By: Hailey Herzik

Madeline Brooks, an HR specialist, spoke with Texas PRSSA about Giant Noise, a PR firm born and raised right here in Austin. Giant Noise offers a wide range of services from Public Relations (obviously) to crisis management to even photography. The firm also has an impressive list of clients, such as Plucker’s Wing Bar and Home Slice Pizza.

Brooks told the story of how Giant Noise came to be. It all began when Elaine Garza, University of Texas alumni and founder of Giant Noise, decided to leave New York City to move back to Austin to raise her family. Before she left, one of her clients said to her, “If you open up your own agency, I’ll be your first client.” This was the moment Giant Noise was born.

Garza’s talent and hard work can be seen in the work Giant Noise does, especially in their case studies, which Brooks presented at the meeting. One case study was about Kemuri Tatsu-Ya. Kemuri Tatsu-Ya is an Austin-based restaurant that fuses Japanese inspired dishes with Texas BBQ.

The goal was to establish Kemuri as an essential “culinary destination” in Austin. The team at Giant Noise accomplished this by pitching the restaurant’s unique food and beverage combinations and the Tatsu-Ya team. Giant Noise’s work helped Kemuri be one of the most anticipated new restaurant openings in 2017.

Kemuri was featured in several magazines, some of which were Eater, Food & Wine and Vice. The restaurant was also featured in GQ, who wrote that, “If you’re not having a little fun here [Kemuri Tatsu-Ya] then you’re on the wrong Tinder date.”

The case study Brooks presented about Kemuri Tatsu-Ya highlighted just how effective good PR can be to a brand. Along with this, she highlighted the various services that can be offered and how clients sometimes need multiple services, and others may only need one. One client she mentioned only used Giant Noise to create a guest list to invite important influencers and media to their SXSW event.

To close off the meeting, Brooks presented some exciting internship opportunities with Giant Noise. There are three different types of internships: Public Relations, Social Media, and Business Development.

A Public Relations intern is what it sounds like: this intern assists the team with writing pitches and press release drafts and pretty much any task related to PR. Along with this, the intern would attend client events.

The Social Media intern helps draft copies for social media posts on the top platforms. They also do research to compile list of top social media influencers. Brooks mentioned that while the Social Media and Public Relations teams are still separate entities, the two cross paths often, allowing these interns to dabble in both of these fields.

The final internship position is the Business Development intern. While this program seems to deviate away from the Public Relations field, Brooks said it was an exciting and rewarding program. Business Development interns get the chance to become close with their clients by creating fact sheets, client case studies and participating in meeting with clients.