Part 2— How to Contact a Celebrity the Right Way?
This can be incredibly frustrating, especially if you’re a business owner and want to enlist a celebrity’s help to take your brand forward…
We take a look at Part 2 on how to contact a celebrity. So, let us look at a few more ways how to engage a celebrity for your brand or event…
Product Giveaways:
Product giveaways are similar to unofficial partnerships but with one crucial difference. Unofficial partnerships consist of some kind of handshake agreement for a celebrity to use your brand in exchange for a continuous supply of your product.
On the other hand, product giveaways are more of a one-off, and there’s no guarantee that the celebrity will use your product in public to help promote your brand.
Though there are differences between unofficial partnerships and product giveaways, in both cases you’ll want to reach out to the celebrity’s publicist.
Again, since there’s no money and no contract involved, a product giveaway will be a lower priority for a celebrity’s agent or manager, so you’ll have better odds of getting a positive response by going through their publicist.
If you’re running a fashion brand, another option is to go through the celebrity’s stylist. Many brands tend to overlook stylists as a resource, but they can be incredibly useful when it comes to getting your product into the hands of celebrities.
Donations:
Let’s say you’re not running a brand, but a charity, and you’re soliciting donations. The first thing you need to do is determine which celebrities are a good fit for your charity. The best way to do this is by carefully researching celebrities who have previously supported causes in the past.
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential celebrity donors, the next step is to reach out to either the celebrity’s manager or their agent. Because a donation involves money, the agent needs to be looped in; however, your first stop should be the celebrity’s manager.
If you can’t get a hold of an agent or manager, your next option should be the celebrity’s publicist. Since their potential donation will impact their public brand, the celebrity’s publicist will want to know about it, and if they think it’s a good fit for the celebrity.
Agent, Manager, or Publicist:
More often than not, celebrities don’t handle their own business deals, including endorsements and promotional campaigns. If you’re hoping to set up a business arrangement with a celebrity, the first people you should reach out to are their representatives.
You will be contacting celebrity agents to discuss any business deals — simply put, an agent is responsible for finding work for their clients, and they’ll also be your main point of contact for negotiating the contract once you reach that stage.
But the agent isn’t the only person involved in the decision-making process; you may also find yourself discussing your business opportunity with the celebrity’s manager or publicist.
While the celebrity’s publicist usually doesn’t have approval power over potential business deals, they’re a valuable part of the team to ensure that the celebrity they represent is viewed as favourably as possible by the public.
If you want to open a dialogue about your business opportunity, your best bet is to start with the celebrity’s agent and/or manager; eventually, they’ll loop the rest of the team in, but by reaching out to the representation directly, you’ll be able to demonstrate that your opportunity is for real and that you understand how the business works — this is a vital ingredient…
Credit — Billy Bones — Booking agent info.
By Pete Moore — Seamless Entertainment
