Needed: Lifestyle PR with little more STYLE
By Editor on Sep 24, 2008 in Indian PR industry, PRevents, events PR, filmPR, lifestylePR
Recently we did an event for an eye wear company for the launch of its new collection. Even though I knew it was totally a lifestyle event, I was expecting a little bit of a corporate element in it. May be because I was running away from the lifestyle part of it as I personally don’t like it much. My experience with lifestyle PR has been not so well.
After handling some of these so called ‘lifestyle’ events, I thought lifestyle PR was nothing but more of a coordination job.
Back to the event, the venue was full of the page three type people and the models were walking on the ramp. We forgot we were there for an event and started getting the feel of a ‘party’ even though, every minute the phone would ring and the journalists would remind you that you are there for work and not to enjoy the ‘party’.
Strangely, I found the media too enthusiastic to attend the event. We did very less of the follow ups.
But there was nothing to be happy about it. Besides it was really a tough job to control the media during such events. Every one of them needs time with a celebrity for a byte and if something goes wrong, then it’s the PR agency that is to be blamed for that.
Talking about that, it’s been noticed that PR agencies are to be blamed for everything that go wrong at these types of events. Despite the fact that the person is out of control after three pegs of a drink, they wanted to speak to the media and give their ’special’ comments. Another problem is the timing, which needs to be taken care of. Most of the time, celebrities are not available before or after the event and sometime they are not in the MOOD to speak to the media. Again the PR agency is on fire.
We had more than five events recently with some famous celebrities for the launch of spas, fitness machines, etc. The only job the PR agency did was coordinating the timing for the interactions with the media. There were lots of fight for getting the interactions first, before any other. We had to refuse interactions for some of the media houses due to time constraint. I felt it could have been done by their secretaries or personal assistants as well.
Lifestyle PR is totally different from corporate PR. Here, we are not selling the company news, corporate figures, or any marketing strategies. The only thing media and the public want is celebrity and related gossip. I felt so odd when celebrity talked about her upcoming movies during the interaction. I felt like limiting their conversation only to the event and the organizer company. But that’s not the way things works. Readers need little more masala.
Sometime this masala creates crisis situation. For example, when one celebrity slapped his girlfriend few hours before an event. Consequently the entire coverage turned to their personal story and the media highlighted the slap case instead of what the event was all about. Everybody enjoyed the masala news and the channels gained their much desired TRPs, but that left the PR agency with a crisis situation. The client wants the event coverage, not the personal affairs of the celebrities.
It is becoming a trend to use celebrity as a brand ambassador to promote the brand. Companies can’t think of launching anything without a celebrity. Even few car manufacturers are using celebrities to launch their cars in the market. So celebrities are anyhow becoming a part of the corporate events as well. Hence PR agencies need to make a tight grip on corporate as well as lifestyle PR. To cope up this situation we need to gear up and accept the case that lifestyle PR is now an integral part of Corporate PR.
It doesn’t happen just with Hollywood or Bollywood stars. Sportsmen are also increasingly participating in this maddening but profitabe melee. The problems are same. I remember when I organised a face to face interaction for the opening batsman of the India Cricket team with one of the biggest publications. This interaction was the result of two days hard work but finally Mr.Batsman denied speaking to that particular publication, due to some personal reason. The PR agency got a major blasting from the journalist, who was waiting for his turn for more than three hours.
Another bad experience was when one of clients decided to take another world famous Indian cricketer (brand ambassador) to shopping for one day. However, the surprise was when Mr.World famous cricketer couldn’t speak much about the company his endorsing before the media. I believe they need proper media training before they face any media on behalf of any company.
All said and done, lifestyle PR seems to need a little more style from the PR agency and PR persons. It reminds me a dialogue from the movie DHOOM: HUM JO BHI KARENGE STYLE SE KARENGE.
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On Sep 24, 2008, Kavita Kapoor said:
Hi Vikas,
Your article is very well written.I completely agree to what all have been mentioned, especially about the tantrums of Journalists and Celebrity / Endorsers.
Yes, at times, it becomes difficult to control the media. I guess this happens everywhere.
Kavita Kapoor
On Sep 24, 2008, Vikas Kumar said:
Hi Kavita,
Thanks for thought. Also I am little confused to tackle this problem as it is very different from corporate PR.
On Sep 24, 2008, Kavita said:
Hi Vikas,
I strongly feel that often client does not brief Brand Endorsers and Agency properly. Thats why Celebrities often end up saying something else …..Perception of client differs from PR Pro most of the times, I believe that what leads to confusion and chaos during events.
Do let me know your thoughts on this.
Kavita
On Sep 24, 2008, himanshu kapadia said:
well , i have always been fasinated by the page 3 types, they are so hollow and so artifical, although i have done many such events as u have outlined and faced similar situations i remember a prominent director whom i had accompanied for a cnbc shoot to the studio kept instructing the cameramen and the lights men for their angles and placements and acted like it was his film being shot , the anchor got so pissed off that he took off on the peron and did a nasty interview.
On Sep 25, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Hey Vikas,
Very interesting article, and wow, you seem to have had more than your share of celeb-tantrums. However, I think you are refering to event PR and celebrity PR in your article when you say lifestyle.
While events involving celebs/semi-celebs can get out of hand, an ongoing campaign on a lifestyle account can be challenging in very different ways. Corporate stories can be cracked based on announcements and profiling. Lifestyle clients usually have infrequent ‘news’/launches if any. I had once worked on a lifestyle client that brought out a new collection…once in 6 months!! The rest of the time, we had to research global and local trends and ‘create’ client-related stories around them for sustained PR, week on week. It was challenging and the kind of creativity that goes into it can never be matched by corporate PR. I totally vouch for lifestyle PR:-)
On Sep 25, 2008, Vikas Kumar said:
Dear Kavita, Himanshu and Bina,
Thanx a lot for your suggestions and sharing your experiences on the same. But I strongly feel that somewhere or the other things in PR needs to be changed. Specially the perception regarding the different verticals.
Well all I can say that these kind of events are of little fun
On Sep 25, 2008, Vikas Kumar said:
Dear Kavita, Himanshu and Bina thanx for your suggestions and sharing your experience on the same. I feel that the perception regarding PR needs to be changed in various verticals. Also I feel that these kind of lifestyle events are of little fun
On Sep 26, 2008, Jaideep Roy said:
Dear Vikas,
Thanks a ton, for sharing your experiences. I am a management student(2nd year) and I handle PR for our B-school. I have often been caught in similar situations and have learned many a lessons. Looking forward to more of your articles.Thank you, Vikas.
On Sep 26, 2008, Vikas Kumar said:
HI Jaideep,
Sure you will get these type of articles based on first hand experience.
On Sep 30, 2008, sandy said:
hi Vikash,
good posting on Lifestyle PR. I would like to say one thing that Lifestyle pR is not so easy and its as difficult as your so called corporate pR. first of all I dont find any different in L & C PR except Jornalist BEAT.At the end of the day, companies look for brand building, so they use all type of mediam,i.e visual, glamour etc….
On Oct 1, 2008, aanchal said:
Hey Vikas
Very nice article. I can echo your thoughts having had similar experiences. I used to handle a 5-star hotel in my previous agency and they regularly hosted events involving celebs. And who were their regular celebs – Arshad Warsi & Maria Goretti, Roshan & Shaheen Abbas, Ash Chandler, Achala Sachdev, Rohit Roy. Imagine getting media everytime for the same set of guests. Finally one fine day an exasperated journo told me, “at least get some real celebs”.
And to top it all, every media house wants to be the first to meet the celeb.
On Oct 1, 2008, Saurabh said:
Hi Vikas,
Uve really captured the real PR emotions. dont worry we are evolving we surely are nice article
On Oct 3, 2008, Vikas Kumar said:
Thanx a lot to all of you but my contribution to this blogs ends here.
On Oct 16, 2008, Sushil Megharaj said:
Dear Vikas
I completely second whatever you have said. I have been in similar situation few times. But I am slightly confused when you say Lifestyle account is more of coordination and nothing else. But what if you dont have big celeb attending your event. Then Pr agency is really under fire if there is no large piece of coverage, so agency need to do more than just “Coordination”.
Please revert back.
On Apr 3, 2009, dion roy said:
Hey there –
Very interesting read. lifestyle PR is a strange animal indeed!
On Dec 21, 2009, Deepika said:
Dear Vikas:
I completely agree with you Vikas . I second your point, however, I really feel that there’s not much Pr people can do about except that they show some presence of mind, when such incidents happen.