Not - so - Fabulous Entertainment Public Relations

Being knowledgeable in legal terminology and precedents in our industry of choice is vital to maintain a successful business. This knowledge provides a laying foundation of what to expect if engaging in a legal battle.

We generally see entertainment public relations professionals in the midst of legal battles playing the role of firefighters, representing their clients as legislative public relations representatives, a sub segment of crisis management. Yet, the public relations industry, especially that related to the entertainment world, does have legal liabilities, and although not common, from time to time you'll see a public relations representative as one of the parties of a legal feud. These liabilities definitely make the industry seem less fabulous and more risky than Samantha Jone’s job in Sex and the City.

Wanted: A PR for PR

In the past couple of years, there has been a growing interest to explore and expose the inner workings of the public relations industry. Although some movies and TV shows like The Spin Crowd, PoweR Girls and The City, positioned our industry in the spotlight, they haven’t exactly portrayed it in the best light. It’s a known fact that pop culture has overly glamorized the public relations industry. From Samantha in Sex and the City series to Whitney Port in The Hills, public relations professionals are portrayed as powerful ladies dressed head-to-toe in Gucci and Dior, who spend their nights in exclusive VIP parties. All in all, the PR industry is perceived as superficial and frivolous.

Kim Cattrall plays Samantha, a glamorous PR Executive
 in Sex and the City.
Photo Credit

Artist Manager (aka Jack-of-all-Trades)

Behind every great artist, there is a great manager. Everyone knows that in the entertainment industry, talent is simply not enough. To make it big in saturated markets, such as the music industry, artists need to portray a unique image, have access to the right contacts, and have a great support system. It’s the artist manager who provides those elements that complement the artist’s craft, and enable him/her to reach stardom. 

After signing with an artist manager, the artist becomes a company, and the manager, its CEO. It’s the artist manager who oversees all aspects of the artist’s career and makes sure that the artist’s vision is articulated properly across all channels. Of course, like in all businesses, CEOs can’t do it all by themselves. While he is truly the personal representative of the artist, the artist manager has to assemble and manage a team of professionals that will help him achieve the artist’s career goals. It’s common knowledge that the artist needs a good lawyer, to protect his career against restrictive contracts or dangerous lawsuits, and an experienced accountant to manage the financial aspects. Traditionally, the manager will also bring a publicist and a booking agent on board. Yet, it has come to my attention that there’s an emerging trend, especially in the Puerto Rican market, where managers also act as the client’s publicists and booking agents.

This “jack-of-all-trades” management approach has certainly surprised me, due to the time consuming nature of Public Relations. It’s difficult for me to conceive that a manager can put in the necessary time and dedication to develop and execute an effective PR campaign, while dealing with all the other duties that artist management involves.

Words or Numbers?

If you’re like me, getting out of high school and pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication meant not only following my dreams, but also saying goodbye forever to endless math homework and abstract mathematical concepts. That was true for the most part, because in order to meet the credits to graduate I only had to take one basic math class. Yet, when practicing public relations I’ve had to deal with numbers in a variety of ways. While I may never work with strange theorems, angles, and high-tech graphing calculators ever again, I still have found the need to understand the correlation between numbers, analyzing data and performing single math equations to fulfill adequately my tasks.

As public relations professionals, the art of storytelling plays a central role in our daily lives; and if you’re a seasoned PR specialist your ability to sway clients and your target market with your words should be astonishing. Nonetheless, we now live in an informational era, where each day our target market demands more and more information about topics and it’s our job as managers of our customer’s communication strategies to provide this information. Words are not cutting it for people anymore; they want detailed and precise information. This means numbers. Therefore, you need to know how to analyze data and come up with conclusions to include in our press releases and into our campaigns as a whole. We have to build the story with words and support it with data.

Career Kickstart

Kickstarter and other “crowdfunding” platforms have become extremely popular, taking the fundraising and social media scene by storm. This site is already even part of Time Magazine's Best Websites of 2011. That's because every week, thousands of people upload their creative projects to the website and pledge money with the hope of getting their dream project funded. The catch is that on Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before its deadline or the money is not given to the user.

Image Retrieved from

The imminent benefit of using this platform is, of course, getting the necessary funds to kick-start projects. Yet, Kickstarter is about more than just money; I find this website to have a superb underlying public relations power. Kickstarter allows the user to share their stories, their hopes and dreams. Since most people love compelling stories that exhibit genuineness and passion, and feel good supporting a captivating cause, if it’s a good idea, communicated in an attractive fashion, it’ll spread exponentially. Therefore, the buzz-generating power of this platform is surreal.

Even if the project doesn’t get funded, the storytelling aspect of Kickstarter provides space for people to discover creative ideas, identify with the storyteller, and for the user to get free exposure. Ultimately, this is what publicists want.

Joining the Club

While researching topics to write about in this blog, I found myself constantly going back to the website or social media sites of the Association for Public Relations Professionals of Puerto Rico for ideas. That’s when I realized the important role this professional association has in the daily life of public relations specialists or aspiring publicists in Puerto Rico.

This Association was created initially to establish ethic guidelines for the Public Relations industry in the Island and to establish a professional community for industry professionals. Yet, they have recently taken a much important role by serving as the official regulation committee for the industry in the Island. Since 2008, the Association and the Department of Labor of Puerto Rico joined together to establish the requirements to practice Public Relations in the Island and the Association for Public Relations Professionals of Puerto Rico was put in charge of deciding on those candidates that met the requirements to get certified as Public Relations professionals. In this sense, this Association is responsible for the future of aspiring Public Relations professionals like myself.

Touch that snake!

We live in a world that tries to divide the creative people from the non-creative, where innovative ideas are looked upon with fear and in which humans have become creatures of habit. This explains why, in a recent study conducted by Adobe, the vast majority of people stated that they are not living up to their creative potential. Although they understand the importance of creativity in their workplace, they feel like time constraints and pressure from upper management makes them be productive instead of creative. When I came across this study titled “The Creativity Gap” a couple of weeks ago, I was so sad to see how this portrayed a gloomy panorama for all industries, especially the entertainment one, that feeds and evolves based on creative ideas.