PR and Hollywood

Today I am going to write about a recent article I read in "Public Relations Tactics." The article is called "Event planning intersection:where brands meet celebrities." This article stood out to me because I have also been fascinated with celebrity endorsements. Probably because I am a huge fan of movies and Hollywood in general.

The article by Dana Marciniak explains how to work with celebrity accounts and how to pitch your event or product to the media. A celebrity name can instantaneously draw attention to an event and get coverage. Hopefully, the coverage will be positive, and that is why who you chose to be the representative is crucial.

When I see celebrities on television being a spokesperson for a certain product, I stop and think if they are really using it. Especially, when a 30 year old actress is promoting wrinkle cream! Sometimes, I get frustrated when I see Tiger Woods endorsing Gillette when he already makes millions upon millions of dollars with many other endorsement deals and winning gold tournaments. Why do celebrates make so much money just for saying they use a certain product? This was my opinion pre-public relations student.

Now being on the public relations side, I understand why companies would want celebrity endorsements. It is because they are one of the best ways to get your product's name recognized. What professional does not want their product to be synonymous with Tiger Woods? It is all about maximum coverage for an event or product, and one huge way to get that attention can be through a celebrity endorsement.

The Tipping Point

In “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell describes how epidemics can be explained by three rules: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. These rules are also the rules for the Tipping Point. A Tipping point refers to a mysterious change or point in a company or trend that usually results in something positive. My favorite example in the book is when Malcolm writes about the Hush Puppies trend because being in college, I have seen a lot of old trends come back. Wolverine, the makers of Hush Puppies, had nothing to do with its rebirth in 1994. One group of kids in New York starting wearing them, and suddenly they became cool again, just like that. Some examples of trends reappearing that I have noticed are Ray Ban sunglasses and Jellies.

For our own class project, the Athletic Auction, there are some possible ways we could make it tip. For the first suggestion, we would use the Law of the Few. Mavens, connectors and salesmen are people who spread or contain a message. “Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it,” said Gladwell. In the auction’s case, our PR Administration class are mavens. Therefore, we need to find the connectors of Milledgeville and of athletics to broadcast our message even further.

Another idea for the Athletic Auction to tip is to make the event sticky. Hopefully, our theme will play a big role in the stickiness factor because people will enjoy it and be drawn to the event. As a class, we need find out what has not stuck in years past and find ways to present the information to obtain stickiness.

As previously stated, there are three types of peopling according to Gladwell and they are mavens, connectors and salesmen. It is hard to categorize myself in any of these. The one I am definitely not is a salesman. With more time in the public relations field, I hope to become a connector. Networking will play a huge part on my path to becoming a connector, but I feel I already possess a few qualities of a connector. They are a passion for getting to know people and an interest in multiple groups. I doubt I will ever get to the level of obsession like Roger Horchow, but I feel everyone in public relations should be somewhat of a connector.

Through using social media, I have already become more of a connector. Social media opens up opportunities for word-of-mouth epidemics and many others. Now having used Twitter and my blog for a couple of months, I can say I have definitely experienced a tipping point with social media. It can open so many opportunities, and to think I found out about Twitter through a maven and connector!

Networking

Throughout my time as a public relations student, the importance of one word has been drilled into me: networking. A dictionary defines networking as "a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest."

I have only heard positive things about networking: that you can gain a potential employer, obtain contacts with media, gain vital information and the list goes on and on. To me networking is intimidating exactly for those reasons. I want to be myself when I meet a new person, but knowing I have to impress that person scares me a little. What if I say the wrong thing or do not meet their standards?

Having gone to Real World PR, I got great experiences with being myself while talking to potential employers. Talking to the first organization representative was extremely intimidating, but after awhile it seemed I was just talking like I would to anyone else. As the afternoon went on, I did not hesitate to speak to public relations professionals and ask them my questions.

First impressions are an extremely important part of networking. One does not want to seem uninterested or disrespectful. Great eye contact and a firm handshake is a great start to a conversation. Networking opens doors and windows, which would otherwise be closed if you did not make that connection. Just as important as making that first connection is keeping a relationship with that person because that connection may not payoff until five years down the line.

Real World PR prepared me for a lot of things, and networking was definitely on the top of that list.