{"id":12325,"date":"2022-12-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/?p=12325"},"modified":"2022-12-31T21:29:47","modified_gmt":"2023-01-01T02:29:47","slug":"reaching-for-the-stars-a-look-into-pr-relationships-with-celebrities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/2022\/12\/14\/reaching-for-the-stars-a-look-into-pr-relationships-with-celebrities\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching For the Stars: A Look into PR Relationships with Celebrities <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hosted by \u201cCelebrity Whisperer\u201d Rita Tateel, the PRSSA 2022 ICON session \u201cReaching For the Stars\u201d focused on how public relations professionals maintain healthy relationships with high profile celebrities. This session broke down the key factors necessary to properly market celebrities and build clients\u2019 trust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tateel serves as the founder and president of The Celebrity Source, an organization that has been recruiting celebrities for PR, marketing, advertising and special events for over 30 years. The Celebrity Source works with a large range of extremely famous celebrities, some of the most famous including Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Queen Latifah, Megan Fox and Matthew McConaughey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tateel\u2019s presentation highlighted four key factors necessary to maintaining a healthy relationship with celebrity PR clients: the definition of a celebrity, the benefits of working with a celebrity, what to avoid when working with a celebrity, and the psychology of a celebrity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Definition of a Celebrity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Tateel, a celebrity is defined as any individual who is well-known by the public involved in their field of discipline. She emphasized that their field of discipline also corresponds with their audience, strengthening a niche definition of a celebrity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf a person is famous within their field of discipline and their audience, they are classified as a celebrity,\u201d Tateel said. \u201cIt is extremely important to understand who your audience is; not just any celebrity will work for every audience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benefits of Working With a Celebrity <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tateel discussed the benefits of working with celebrities. She emphasized both commercial and reputational aspects along with increased preferences for specific clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudies have shown that consumers show greater recall of products that have been endorsed by celebrities,\u201d Tateel said. \u201cWhy? Because there’s a face attached to it, not just words.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She highlighted that celebrity endorsements increase sales by astronomical amounts and that the public is easily influenced when a product is attached to a familiar face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to Avoid When Working With a Celebrity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tateel\u2019s first piece of advice for working with a celebrity is to avoid not knowing why you want to work with that specific celebrity. She advised that if the PR practitioner has a clear measurable goal \u2014 along with specific reasoning for working with a celebrity \u2014 the partnership with the celebrity will be strengthened and the outcome will turn out better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAvoid recruiting a celebrity solely based on their popularity,\u201d Tateel said. \u201cJust because someone has 40 million followers does not mean that they will be more effective than someone who has far fewer followers.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also assured that asking a celebrity for more time than necessary should be avoided at all costs, because it is disrespectful to them. A celebrity’s time is precious, and should not be wasted by PR practitioners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among all pieces of advice on what to avoid, Tateel placed the greatest emphasis on avoiding false hope for the client. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t make any promises that you can\u2019t keep, and keep all of the promises you make,\u201d Tateel said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the reasons celebrities like to work with us\u2026 they know it\u2019s something we stick to. If we make a promise, and something happens, and [that promise] becomes difficult to keep, we will do whatever we can to make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychology of a Celebrity <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tateel analyzed the psychology of celebrities and what motivates them to say \u201cyes\u201d to working with specific clients. Tateel highlighted that at their core, most celebrities experience insecurity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThink about this: if you’re a famous person, and the minute you leave your house, you’re recognized and people start talking to you. You don’t know \u2014 as this famous person \u2014 whether that person is being sincere or if they have some sort of hidden agenda with what they’re saying,\u201d Tateel said. \u201cYou don’t know if they’re being nice because they really are being nice, or they have some sort of ulterior motive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also said that one of the biggest complaints individuals may have when working with celebrities is that they are often perceived as demanding. She emphasized that understanding the root of insecurity is essential to understanding why they may come across as demanding or difficult to work with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The psychology of celebrities coincides with getting celebrities to say yes. She advised that to simultaneously diminish this insecurity and persuade celebrities to agree to PR deals, the practitioner must go above and beyond to build trust with the celebrity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you take control of a situation, you’re feeling secure, right? So, keep in mind that the takeaway from here is to help celebrities and their representatives because you’ll be dealing with them first,\u201d Tateel said. \u201cIt\u2019s important that they feel secure about working with you, that you pay attention to detail, that you are giving them all the elements, what they want to know, what they need to know and most importantly, what their celebrity is going to need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re hoping to work with a celebrity in a future campaign, remember that celebrities are also human beings when you interact with them. Consider applying some of Tateel\u2019s advice to create a successful relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Camryn Lanning is a junior public relations major with minors in fashion media and sociology at Kent State University. Camryn uses she\/her\/hers pronouns and is from Pittsburgh, PA. This will be Camryn\u2019s first year as a Kent State\u2019s PRSSA board member, serving as the diversity, equity, and inclusion co-chair. Outside of PRSSA, Camryn is also the social director for Kent State\u2019s Her Campus Chapter and has a radio show on Black Squirrel Radio. After graduation, Camryn hopes to pursue a career in fashion public relations.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Hosted by \u201cCelebrity Whisperer\u201d Rita Tateel, the PRSSA 2022 ICON session \u201cReaching For the Stars\u201d focused on how public relations professionals maintain healthy relationships with high profile celebrities. This session broke down the key factors necessary to properly market celebrities and build clients\u2019 trust.  Tateel serves as the founder and president of The Celebrity Source, an organization that has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":12359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3512,3652,2895],"tags":[3654,75,41,15,3653,2035,40,1595],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12361,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12325\/revisions\/12361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}