A PR Girl’s Guide On How To Work With Celebrities
A celebrity wearing your client’s design is the ultimate dream for many PR professionals. When Kate Middleton wears a dress, it’s sold out the next day! You cannot compete with exposure like that! Knowing how to get your client’s products in the hands of an A-lister by working with stylists, agents, and publicists in time for that all-important awards ceremony is the key to victory for fashion PR girls.
A huge part of PR is building and maintaining relationships, and in the case of working with celebrity placement, building a good rapport with celebrity publicists; stylists and assistants will become your golden ticket to the celebrity themselves.
During the award season or prior to big movie premieres etc, stylists will begin to contact you when they need to come up with ideas for red carpet events; if you have a track record of success they’re more likely to come to you first. The stylists will also work with a whole host of celebrities that can refer you onwards. Do your research to make sure you know the celebrity’s style, likes and dislikes and come up with a variety of options for the celeb to choose from.
Once you have pulled the items together with the stylist – it’s likely that the stylist will come to the PR agency’s showroom and pull themselves but sometimes you have to work on requests- and after he/she approves the samples, the clothes will be sent to the celebrity for their consideration. You will often have to work on very tight deadlines, sometimes a day or two before an event.
Unfortunately the next few stages are out of your hands and completely up to the celebrity who can be indecisive and very picky. Many brands and designers have been let down (some even just minutes before the big event) but when the celeb do pick your client’s dress to wear on the red carpet, be sure to watch out for coverage the next day (or within minutes thanks to social media!) Run to the newsstand in the early AM, check out sites such as justjared.com, wenn.com and and be on top of any tv-show or program in which you think the celeb will appear.
Celebrity gifting is another strategy PR’s use for product placement, ensuring key celebrities or influencers are spotted with their client’s latest bag, latest collection or piece of jewelry. A celeb spotted in your client’s clothes or accessories can lead to huge brand awareness and increase sales to the extreme. We already know that magazines feature the latest trends and ‘get the look’ stories, all with explanations of how to look like the hottest Hollywood stars. It can create a huge return on investment too, especially for the more affordable and high street products, such as Topshop- a celeb fave- as it is affordable for everyone.
Following up with stylists on any samples that have been on loan or sent out is important, especially when making sure all dresses and items are returned in good condition – unless the celeb really likes the piece and want to keep it of course.
Next is a case of finding all the evidence! It is important to choose pictures where the item of clothing or jewelry is clearly visible and can be identified; this will make sending the images and information over to key journalists and to your client, as well as creating press kits a lot easier. When pitching out stories to editors and journalists, include a short bio of the product, price and where it can be bought – it will be highly appreciated by fashion journalists if you do. Editors and journalists will receive hundreds of emails daily so remember to make your pitch special, send hi-res images, make a nice photo collage AND follow up and find out the publishing date so you know which copy of the magazine to pick up!
Seeing your client’s items and design in the glossy pages of Vogue, Elle or Cosmo is the great reward for all your hard work and this will not only please your client and make your agency look good, it’s something to definitely include in your portfolio if you’re ever looking to move to a different agency or step up your game.
Whether we like it or not, celebrities have such an influence over all of our buying habits, so understanding the positive publicity that can be achieved from working with celebrities is one of the perks of being a fashion PR girl!
Good luck!
