I have always been curious about the role of a publicist in an actor’s career.  We know that stars have them, but when is it something that the rest of us should start thinking about?  I remember when I first arrived in LA from NY, I heard about actors having publicists “just to get them into the right parties.”  It seemed like one of the many excesses of LA, and not like something that my friends and I needed to think about.  But these days, I’m willing to admit that I think about myself and my projects on a larger scale, and I had a sneaking suspicion that there was a lot more to this whole publicist thing than I had previously believed.  We are actors, after all, in the entertainment industry, and we need an audience.  Joy Donnell, CEO and founder of 720 PR was gracious enough to sit down and talk to me about how she helps her clients find theirs.

Q: Tell us a little about how you first got into PR.

A: I started in corporate PR.  I really liked the conversations that you get to have about a company, about a person, about a brand, where PR is concerned.  That you can take the message and make it media.

I noticed that with all these brands, Coca-Cola and IBM, you weren’t sitting there telling them what their brand was, they already knew.  They knew what their message was. They knew why people liked them.  Why people bought them.  They did their focus groups, and they were very intelligent about what people wanted from them and why a consumer kept coming back.  And when I started looking at people like Queen Latifah and Diddy and others who were taking their individual image and turning it into an empire, I got a lot more fascinated about becoming a part of that kind of conversation.    That’s what led me to start my own business.

Q: Is part of what you do to allow people to be as certain about what their image and brand is as those corporations are?

A: Yes, that’s exactly what I want to accomplish.  Also to connect them to opportunities that maybe they wouldn’t have had before.  Ultimately, we want to use PR to help build and maintain a brand and help keep that brand fiscal.  So the more that you are out there with your image and reaching the people that are going to be loyal to you, the more you are going to grow, and the smarter you are going to be able to be about the opportunities that come to you.  Then you have more strength in your leveraging.

Q: Is there a process by which you help people discover their brand, or does it work best when people come to you with a sense of it already?

A: Well, it’s great for creative individuals to have an idea of who they are when they come to us.  The tricky thing is that brand isn’t determined so much by who they want to be and how they they want to be seen.  Brand, in a true sense, is actually linked to how you are perceived and what people want from you.  That is what a lot of people get confused about.  They think, I want to be a leading lady.  Ok, but if no one sees you that way, I’m not saying that you can’t get to be a leading lady, but you need to play on your strengths.  You might get to be a leading lady if you play up what you actually are and what people like about you and what people want from you.

A lot of times when I’m speaking, I use the analogy of Coca-Cola.  Coca-Cola makes beverages.  We love Coca-Cola.  Share a coke and a smile.  We get it.  We’ll drink Coca-Cola all day long.  But would you want to fly in a plane that Coca-Cola built?  Coca-Cola is not Boeing.  Boeing makes planes.  Coca-Cola makes soft-drinks.  Do you really trust Coca-Cola to build a plane?  They can sponsor it.  They can wrap it in their logo and serve you coke on the plane, but Boeing better build the plane that I fly in.  That is how i feel about it.

Coca-Cola gets that you don’t want to fly in a plane they built.  That’s why they haven’t gone into aviation.

I was talking to a friend who’s a director and we were talking about Clint Eastwood and how when Clint Eastwood directs a movie you have an idea of what you are going to get.  You are not going to get Clint Eastwood directing something that you’d expect to see from Peter Jackson.  Peter Jackson is visual.  Peter Jackson has all the special effects.  Clint Eastwood gives you something gritty.  He gives you a lot of leeway to make up your own mind about the characters.  That’s what you’ve come to expect from Clint Eastwood.  A strong story of triumph and turmoil, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way that you thought it would, but it’s always a human saga.  If Clint Eastwood all of a sudden decided to be Peter Jackson, people probably wouldn’t buy it.

Clint Eastwood has a very strong sense of what people want from him.  I was watching an interview after Bridges of Madison County had come out, and Meryl Streep was talking about a scene that they had together where Clint cried and she said that he turned away from the camera and had that moment when he was crying.  And she went to him later and said, “Clint, why didn’t you turn to the camera?  Any other actor would have just been all up in the camera having that moment,” and he said to her, “Meryl, no one wants to see me cry.”  Because he is Clint Eastwood.  No matter what else he does you know him as ball-busting Dirty Harry.  You don’t want to see Dirty Harry cry.

Q: Tell us a little about the actual day to day of what you do.

A: We do a lot of maintaining and controlling – as much control as you can possibly have in today’s world, which is very different than it was.  Now you have the internet and you have all these blogs and you have twitter and facebook and there is only so much of the message that you can control, but what we do most of the day is try to make sure that enough of the right message is out there for people to discover.  We’re dealing with our individual clients.  We’re looking at getting them public appearances, speaking engagements, and interviews- TV, print, radio, and online.

We also look at branding them with corporations that make sense.  One reason why I fully believe in that, is that it gives your client leverage.  It gives them an opportunity to have various revenue streams coming in, so that everything isn’t just about – I got to get that next gig – and that’s the only option that you have for how you’re building your business.  The more you have coming in, the more opportunities you can have and the more you can evaluate everything in a calm way.  We just want to be able to give our clients the opportunity to negotiate everything they do from a position of strength.

Q: How does the process of working with a new client start?

A: We sit down and we look at everything overall that they are doing.  Whatever they’ve already done press wise, what we call their press kit, and their bio, and what projects they have coming up, because you want to know what you have to publicize.  Sometimes you have the situation where someone’s come to you before they’re actually ready to work with you and so, you have that conversation.  We have to have something to publicize and if people haven’t gotten to the point where “I have this project coming up, or I have this book coming out,” then we have to wait, because we’ll just be spinning our wheels.

Every now and then people come to us and they are looking for help with introductions, and we help them build relationships.  Because part of our job is making sure that their peer group is what they want it to be, too.

Q: How hands on and intensive is that relationship?  What is the publicist/actor relationship?

A: The publicist/actor relationship at it’s best is actually very close, because there has to be a high level of trust.  They have to come to you with everything, because you don’t want surprises.  You have to talk about those things that maybe you normally wouldn’t want to talk about, even those things that are secret that you wouldn’t want someone to know, because the more we know, the better we can protect our clients.  You have to be prepared for the good, the bad, and the ugly.  As you put yourself out there, a lot of people are taken aback by how much other stuff comes back to them, not just opportunity.  Also people that are like, “Oh, I remember this person from twelve years ago and look at this photo that i have…” because people can get very opportunistic when they feel like your star is rising.

Q: Can I ask what people pay for that service?

A:  For the most part, if you are in LA or NY, the retainer for a PR firm, and we’re at the boutique level, is going to run you typically somewhere around $2,000 a month.  That’s your starting off point.  It’s definitely a situation, in my opinion, that you get what you pay for.  There are people that are trying to cut corners that want to find someone off of craigslist to do it for free.  I’m not saying that that person won’t do a good job, but you have to bear in mind that you’re not paying their bills.  Free pays no bills.  So, they are only going to be able to devote so much time.  Whereas when you go ahead and have a retainer situation with a reputable PR firm or PR individual, then you are going to get a certain amount of time dedicated to you and you know that you have access to them.

You need to make sure before you start working with a person that you have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and that they have talked to you about what they think they can actually do for you.

Q: How can the actor carry out their half of the partnership in the best possible way?

A: Agree to do the interviews that you need to do.  Don’t argue with the person that you’re paying.  Trust them enough to guide you in terms of press and then actually listen to them when they say you need to do this interview.  Be responsible about those things.  You’re responsible about your auditions.  Take the press just as seriously.  And if you’re worried about something, communicate.  You should work with someone that you can talk to.  Because if you can’t talk to the publicist that you’re dealing with then you don’t have the right relationship.  So communicate problems, communicate questions.  It’s ok to ask for a clarification if you are confused about something.

Make sure that you are as prepared as you can possibly be.  If you are having a moment where you are like, “This radio interview is coming up and I’m not quite sure that I’m prepared,” let us know.  We get that kind of message, we’re going to go through pre-questions, we’re going to start doing some media training, so that you can be as prepared as possible, because no one wants to just throw you into the water and see if you’ll swim.

Q: Are there different strategies that you would use now than you would have 5 yrs ago?

A: Definitely.  I love social media.  To a large extent, it can give you instant gratification in a way that you wouldn’t normally get.  You get an article in Glamour magazine, that’s great and you know that Glamour has a certain amount of readership, but when something goes out online, you actually see people commenting and you see people re-tweeting it and putting it up on Facebook.  You see the mileage that you get instantly.  There is something extremely fascinating and exciting about that.  It’s like watching a horse race.

What that is, is word of mouth.  Word of mouth is a completely different thing now than it used to be.  Word of mouth is that un-gettable get, that intangible thing that you always want.  Because ultimately what you want is people being your media for you.  That’s the heat and the buzz that you really want behind everything that you do.

Q: Is there a way that you go after that?  Is there something that you are doing to reach out to a different network?

A: I encourage all my clients to be as involved in social media as they possibly can.  Even if it’s not so much for a networking thing, to at least be visible that way for people who like them, for their fans.  People expect more transparency and access than they did before.  We see that even with the way that things are happening with the pursuit of celebrity.  I remember a time when everyone respected the fact that you would be out with your kid and they’d leave you alone.  I think that is part of the negative way that it’s changing.  One of the positive ways, is that now you can actually have conversations with people that normally you would never have conversations with and you can have that conversation in a safe controlled way and make the connection.

It’s very exciting the way the information can move now and the way the playing field can be leveled.  Now you don’t have to be Ashton Kutcher to develop a fan base and connect to people who support your career.  All you have to do is be visible in the right way.

There is more to come.  In part two, Joy talks about how to create buzz and act as your own publicist!

Photo by Jonathan Farrer