On the third day of the conference I attended a sessions titled “Entertainment: Creating the Limelight” presented by JoAnne Freed of Hunter PR and Gary McCormick of HGTV. This was the session I was most excited for upon learning about the conference topics. The idea of working in the entertainment industry and working with celebrities was one of the main reasons I first became interest in the field of public relations years ago.
Freed spoke about the general entertainment marketing and brand integration. She described the main elements of entertainment marketing which are: celebrity seeding, talent procurement, special events, media relations, brand integration, and sponsorship activation. She stressed the importance of matching celebrity personalities with the brand or product you are trying to sell and the need for an expert for endorsements. One of the most interesting facts I learned during this session was that having your Facebook or Twitter endorsed by a celebrity leads to 50% more results, 21 times the amount of click-throughs on Facebook, and 17 times the amount of click-throughs on Twitter.
McCormick tied in all of the elements that Freed had discussed with specific examples of what HGTV does. It was very helpful to see firsthand examples. Each HGTV star has their own Facebook pages to interact with their fans and do appearances at home-improvement related events. One way that they implore sponsorship activation, as Freed had discussed, is by teaming up with home decorating and even parenting magazines. HGTV starts have, like Genevive, have columns in those magazines and in turn, at the end of Genevive’s show, HGTV will air a quick plug saying “Check out Genevive’s column in this month’s Parenting magazine”.
This session explained not only how to work in the entertainment industry, but also how to take an everyday product and get it in the hands of celebrities. Overall, a very interesting session that only strengthened my desires to work in the entertainment industry.
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