Publicist Rockstars: “Excellent technical skills are required in this business but never underestimate the power of chemistry” With Beth McRae of The McRae Agency

Excellent technical skills are required in this business but never underestimate the power of chemistry. Relationships with the press are fantastic but amazing content creation and ability to pitch compelling story ideas can supersede even the greatest relationships.

As a part of my series about the things you need to know to excel in the modern PR industry I had the pleasure of interviewing Beth McRae. Beth president of The McRae Agency, a full-service PR, marketing and social media firm celebrating 25 years in 2020. Beth has represented clients such as Google, Sprint, Red Bull, KB Home, and CBRE, to name a few. She has won over 45 awards for her work, including the Bank of America Enterprise Award.

Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

When I first started college, my parents said I would be good at PR. My response was “What is PR?” From there I started taking classes, ultimately getting a journalism degree (with an emphasis in PR) and a marketing degree. PR is the fusion of journalism and marketing and this put me on my path to a career in PR. I started with internships and worked my way up to a position with McCann, one of the largest agencies in the world.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

I was invited to help launch Red Bull into the United States at a time when energy drinks didn’t exist here. On top of educating the public about energy drinks and why they were so popular in Europe, we had to introduce them to Red Bull, specifically. As many know, Red Bull is definitely an acquired taste. I ran a campaign (they wanted to launch in San Francisco) where we cut out articles from places like the San Francisco Chronicle and overnighted them back to the reporters with a can of Red Bull, tying in the…