Pop culture loves to show PR as a whirlwind of red-carpet events, A-list celebrity management, and high-stakes crises solved in mere hours by a small, mighty team. But how much of that is reality? This week’s imPRessions episode welcomes Brandon Cox, an experienced PR, marketing, and communications executive to help us set the record straight on what TV and movies get right – and wrong – about the world of public relations.
imPRessions Season 2 Episode #15 Transcript
Kalli: Hey, Jenn.
Jenn: Hey.
Kalli: So, Jenn, what is your favorite show that depicts PR people?
Jenn: Oh, that’s a great question because there are actually a lot. I would probably have to say Scandal is one of my favorites because I always thought that even though Olivia Pope doesn’t necessarily call herself a PR person, she calls herself a fixer. And a lot of what she does is crisis management and, you know, working in the White House and all the crazy crap that goes on there. So, I’d have to say scandal. How about you?
Kalli: Actually, same. I am a huge Olivia Pope fan. And yeah, it’s always after a stressful day of working in PR, I’d watch Scandal and be like, “Oh, thank God my life is not that stressful.”
Jenn: Good point.
Kalli: Yeah. So today, we actually have Brandon Cox, who is going to share some of his insight from his very long and diverse career to talk about the different myths in PR and pop culture and help us debunk them or prove them.
Jenn: Oh, I can’t wait. This is going to be good.
Kalli: All right, let’s get to it. Sounds good.
Jenn: Pop culture has portrayed the PR career from anything to weekly red carpet events to managing A-list celebrities or a personal favorite. Handling a crisis that ranges from saving the country to fixing political fires, all in a matter of hours, and maybe with a team of 3 to 4 professionals. As fun as it may sound, PR isn’t exactly how you see it on TV and in the movies. Today, we’re debunking popular PR myths with Brandon Cox, a seasoned PR, marketing, and communications executive, who is joining us to set the story straight once and for all on what pop culture gets right and wrong about working in PR. Hi, Brandon, great to have you on today.
Brandon: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Kalli: We are very excited to dive in today. So, let’s start with one of my favorite PR myths: That PR is all about glam parties and celebrities. And, of course, we have to thank Samantha Jones from Sex and the City for that one. So, what is it like in PR to really plan a brand event?
Brandon: Doing a celebrity event or just events in general, especially in and around talent? And kind of the quote-unquote sexy parts of the industry. I like to tell people that the event is actually probably about 20% of the actual work. I would say 50% of the work is the before doors even open. That’s the event planning, the amount of time you will spend creating PowerPoints and Google slide decks, asking for budgets, approvals, mood boards, um, working with your vendors, wrangling your talent, writing your press release and your pitch angles, writing your tip sheets. So most of your event work is actually before doors even open. And that’s the stuff that people do not see that is fighting over. You know what? What is your budget going to allow? Does that allow you to have open bar for a thousand people, or does that mean open bar for 500, really making hard choices on what type of event you want to have? Then I’d say another 20% is the actual event, which is, you know, showing up and everyone having a good time, etc. the thing they don’t show you, especially if you are a season PR pro, is when the end of the night comes, you’re not going home. You’re sitting with the photographer. Going through selects for Getty Images. You’re getting approvals from the tally on which images can go out and which ones can’t. So much of that work is not what you see. And then I’d say about 30% is, you know, is after the event, it’s the post pitching, it’s the recap decks. It is all of the work to show your, you know, your management teams and your clients that this event was successful.
Jenn: Yeah, that’s so true. Kalli and I are working on an account right now, and the big event is happening next June. It has some celebrity speakers like Martha Stewart and whatnot. Yeah, you’re right, 90% of everything they will do for that event is planning for it is the pre-planning. And yep, we’re going to go back to our rooms after the day’s over and pick out the images that our social team got. And yeah, we’re not walking around sipping champagne and wearing like, these beautiful gowns and some.
Samantha Jones is not the only one who does it, but it’s one that always strikes me because that, for me, was one of the first depictions of PR I saw as a young teenager watching Sex and the City thinking like, this is a real job. Like, how cool is that? She never works. She just goes to parties and bars and hangs out with people. And she’s wearing designer clothes so that Samantha, we love her, but it’s not real.
Brandon: It is not.
Kalli: It’s very funny. I remember my first PR class. My professor said the first thing she said was “Welcome. If you think that you’re going to be Samantha Jones, this is not a career for you.
Brandon: It is so not.
Kalli: It’s no, it’s not. And I remember earlier in my career, especially in internships, I did so many events, and I remember going to fashion shows, and my mom would be like, oh, who do you think you’re going to sit by at the show? And I’m like, who’s sitting?
Brandon: I am either running around with a walkie-talkie, or you’re standing outside. Yeah, I started my career in hotels, and all of my bosses, our whole department, were women, and they used to have the trick because, you know, getting the hotel was massive, and it was in Las Vegas, so they would have a pair of heels for when the event started, and then they would slip into flats because they would do so much running around. And that was kind of the thing because you don’t sit like you said, like the first time I may sit at an event is at the end of the night when I’m going over selects. So it’s like, you know, you see all the red carpet stuff which you don’t see is immediately after those photos are done, we got to sit down at the end of the night and actually go through and get all of those approved, and it’s 3:30 in the morning or 2:30 in the morning, and you’re emailing client rapture, texting images, getting approvals. It’s not sexy at all. It just looks sexy when it comes across on camera.
Jenn: Exactly. It’s not sexy. Well, if you’re a fan of Olivia Pope from scandal like I am. I love Olivia Pope. Myth number two portrays PR professionals handling high-stakes situations, which are obviously often exaggerated. Like we can have an entire, I want to say, entire episode. We could have like a five parter on all of the ridiculousness of scandal. So, what is the typical protocol for crisis management, in your opinion?
Brandon: I would say there’s two forms of crisis, and one’s a lot easier to manage than the other. I would say if we’re talking about a consumer harm crisis where it’s like, you know, I worked for a hotel, and there was a norovirus outbreak. So you had harm to people. You had harm for consumers, things like that. If you are working for a brand and someone dies. It’s very unfortunate. From a PR perspective, the simplest way to say it is you really don’t. You’re going to deal with lawyers, you’re going to deal with authorities. There’s going to be legal entities involved. So, a lot of that is really just about stepping back and letting either the lawyers or the local authorities handle it. Now, for the most part, we’re talking about reputational harm, which is brand harm where it’s, you know, bad product reviews or stories going viral or something like that, and those types of situations. What I really say in just any situation, regardless of the, of the harm level, is really just take a step back and get all of the information first. Do not rush out to say anything. Get it right before trying to get it fast. And I think that because when a crisis happens, there’s a rush to say something or do something. Oftentimes, as PR professionals, because we are kind of a cog in a bigger wheel, a lot of times we don’t have all of the information, and we may only have two pieces of the information, and we’re trying to put together a statement or trying to put together a social media post. And we don’t have all the accurate information. So it’s really good to get all your information together before saying anything. And that means sometimes talking to people who you may not know you need to talk to. You may need to talk to the customer service team. You may need to talk to your IT department.
You need to get all the information first before you make a statement. Because we live in a world now where today is anyone an investigative reporter, and anything you say if you’re a in a position of crisis or harm, people are going to dissect it with a fine tooth comb and take it upon themselves to investigate. So you want to make sure that you have a statement that is defensible and you have clear actions that you want to do to solve it. Try to leave no questions that a consumer can ask that you can’t answer. People don’t mind mistakes. People mind not being heard about their mistakes, and people mind about being ignored and having mistakes not rectified. And I think as PR professionals, we often forget that we’re consumers as well. We wouldn’t like to be on the other side if we weren’t being given, you know, real information and real information to act upon. So I always try to say, you know, even as a PR professional, put a consumer hat on first before you put on a PR hat. If you’re a consumer, what would you need to know for you to be able to say, “Okay, I understand what they’re saying. Let me back off, or let me see their perspective.”
Kalli: Oh, I think that’s really great advice. And it’s something I like to do too. If you want to think about how it would affect you, kind of take yourself outside of that PR mindset because sometimes you’re so focused and don’t actually think. You have to take a step back and see the whole picture and really understand what people want and need to hear. So talking about things that people like and want to hear, you know, going to another fan favorite show, Entourage. In shows like Entourage, we see myth number three very often, where PR professionals strictly manage the public image of celebrities. You know, they’re red-carpet treatments, high-profile media interviews, and the like. In your experience, what has it been like managing an A-list influencer or celebrity?
Brandon: Managing A-list talent, celebrity, influencer, or anything around the event is actually really fun. It is demanding. It’s a lot of work, but in my experience, it’s all it’s really fun because it gives you a lot of visibility into that world that you typically don’t. You get to see just the amount of inputs that a celebrity has, from stylists to glam squads to managers, PR people, etc., so you get to interface with a lot of people outside your traditional world. But I also think that it is very, very, very demanding And that’s what we don’t see. You take kind of that 5% of what the cool part is, and we elaborate it as if it’s a whole show. It’s really not that the other side of that is what you don’t see is the 2 a.m. calls about the car service didn’t arrive. It is your job to make sure that that talent has the best time and the best experience, and that they walk away saying that they would want to work with you again. So it’s really important that you are a best representation of the brand, but then also have a point of view. Ask what their interests are. Take a little bit of extra step. I’ve worked with talent who have become friends because we’ve had such positive experiences, and you don’t treat them like they’re the quote-unquote celebrity. You treat them like a person, but you recognize that they’re bringing value to whatever it is that you’re doing. I think just as a PR person, part of your job is to be is to be of service. You’re not a function of execution. You typically have to ask other people to do stuff. So when you’re in a position to solve a problem, I think it makes you a better professional if you just solve the problem as opposed to, you know, looking for others to help do it, especially in and around talent, because time is critical. And if you know they’re supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, and the car service isn’t there and it was ordered and they don’t know where it is, I’ve had to just drive talent before because it’s been that kind of a thing where we couldn’t find it. You know, you’re at Coachella and car service is terrible. You never know. So it’s like, just be of service and be open because then all of their people, whether it’s a manager, agent, etc., will thank you for it. And you can call them back when you need them.
Jenn: Yeah. Before I worked in agency life, I worked for a music company, and I kind of did a little bit of everything, but I did artist relations for a bit, and it was probably the best part of my job just because you, you know, you’re obviously surrounded by so much talent and, you know, people that you look up to and that are inspiring. But you’re right, there are just people. And if you just treat them like people, you know, your relationship just kind of grows from that. And it’s very similar to us, like kind of working with our client’s celebrity as a client. So, you know, you just got to do what you need to make sure that you’re exceeding their expectations. But yeah, I really miss artist relations. It essentially was PR, but just working with the artists of our brand that would use our stuff and, you know, perform shows, and we would go and get content and do all these interviews and stuff and, and sort of set them up with a bunch of whatever they needed. It was it was fun. there’s one component I do kind of miss.
Brandon: Yes, you’re kind of a PR agent for your client for the day. And, you know, especially when we’re talking about interviews and media interviews, that really is a way to connect with the artist. That’s an opportunity for you to be able to give them power in the situation because oftentimes you haven’t worked with them before. If they’re an endorsed, like I’ve done projects with talent where, you know, they were endorser of the product. And so the first time I’ve ever met them is when we’re about five minutes before an interview or ten minutes before an interview. Use that opportunity to allow yourself to be disarmed so they don’t feel as if you’re the quote-unquote suit. Use that opportunity to reinforce it. Hey, I just want to make sure we’re good. Is there anything you don’t want to talk about? Is there anything that you really want to talk about? If there’s anything that I can do to help if you feel like something’s getting uncomfortable, let’s create a safe word. Throw out a word so that I know to jump in. If you feel like that’s an opportunity for you to really connect to where they’re like, okay, I have an advocate with me in this interview, and it’s not just someone who’s quote-unquote from the brand, but someone who actually gives a damn about my exposure in this because I’m here to sell. I’m here to talk about deodorant, and now they’re asking me about what I think about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. That’s not my bag. That’s not my beat. And I don’t want to go viral on that.
Jenn: Yeah, exactly. I love that. I want to switch gears for a second because this is one of my favorite myths. So I, during Covid got really into Mad Men. I binged the whole thing because why not? There was nothing else to do. And they portray something I just find so hilarious. Pitching an idea to a room of people and getting them to immediately shake hands and sign $1 million contract, like often without even asking any questions. They’re just Don Draper would just, like, woo them with his charisma and his good looks and this like, Pepsi idea or whatever. So let’s debunk myth number four and tell us what actually does land a good pitch.
Brandon: In my opinion, two things that land a good pitch are passion and relationships. And where you don’t have one, you need to overcompensate in the other. If you have a good relationship, there’s a lot less work. You’re not getting $1 million deals with a handshake. You know, a lot of Mad Men…that’s just not happening anymore. But you do need to have great relationships because you’re only as good as who walks you through the door. So, if you come highly recommended from people that a brand respects, then that does half of the work for you. You need to understand their business and what their business needs. And then, you know, the passion piece. People want to know that you care about their brand. I find that in PR, there’s often there’s always been, I think just in marketing and general, there’s always kind of been this tug of war between pitching in terms of do we bring a lot of people or do we bring a few people? Do we show that we have a big show of force? And you know, that we have a big squad that can support, or do we just get the right people who can really wow them? And I think that it’s somewhere in the middle. But I think that everyone needs to have passion. I would rather have three AEs and a Senior Supervisor who are passionate about the business than three SVPs because, again, they will overlook the quote-unquote mistakes in the pitch because the passion is there. And I think that people want to feel like they’re working with brands and partners that care about their stuff. We had a pitch recently, and the potential client said, “This is one of the best pitches I’ve ever been in because it felt like everyone cared.” And I feel that in PR and just in pitching in general and within marketing, there’s this kind of coldness to it that “We know what you need better than you do.” And I feel that as PR professionals, we need to be a little bit more humble about that and be more passionate about just being able to contribute to what already works. And how can we help amplify and make better? I think that a strong presentation looks good, a deck. Spend the money on a designer if you can. Less is more. I like to create one that’s for presentations and one that’s for a leave-behind. So the one for the presentation is going to have gifts in it. It’s going to have random questions in the middle of a pitch. I will stop a pitch and ask a random question about what’s the last thing you binged just to keep people on their toes? Because if we’re sitting in a pitch with 5 or 6 different business units, no one’s paying attention if they’re business units not there. So, use all of the tools that you have. And I think a big part of that is just passion and just having a passion for people and having a passion for your product.
Kalli: I love that. Go ahead, Kalli, I know what you’re going to say. You binged. Go ahead to say it.
Brandon: What was the last thing you all binged? I want to know.
Kalli: It may or may not have been Vampire Diaries.
Jenn: Yep. There it is. Yeah.
Brandon: Oh, a classic, okay, okay.
Kalli: Thank you for your appreciation. Because some of us have yet to see the magic and don’t understand. Jenn. So, speaking about all things Hellmouth-related, one show that is not quite vampire but…
Jenn: Kind of.
Kalli: Kind of. Yeah, kind of a little bit. So Kell on Earth was a reality show that depicted a day in the life of a PR founder who famously coined the term or the phrase if you need to cry, go outside. Which I know for me, and probably for so many people, that was one of the first times that you really heard that and had that mind frame of that, like Devil Wears Prada type of scariness around PR. So, myth number five is one that we’ve heard quite a bit that PR is cutthroat, it’s stressful and not for the faint of heart. Is this something that you agree with?
Brandon: I would say no, but I understand why people would say yes. I think it depends on your industry, but I’ve worked a lot with consumer packaged goods and I’ve worked entertainment adjacent. I actually work for a film company now called Makro. So, this is my first time actually working directly in entertainment, but I’ve worked around it and adjacent to it my whole career. And I’ve found that, you know, working with the entertainment people is such a stark difference in working with consumer product people. And I believe because consumer packaged goods are it’s such a longer road from product to announce. It can be always on. But there’s always these roadmaps about product launches and different campaigns that are launching. You’re kind of always in this mode of building, even as you’re launching. So, you always find value in the things that you’re doing because you’re always starting something new. I feel like an entertainment PR because it doesn’t have that same routine of milestones, it becomes much more cutthroat, so it becomes much more competitive because you don’t get to show value so much more if you’re working with one specific client, one specific studio. So that’s kind of how I feel about it. But for me, I’ve had a largely positive experience within the PR world because I believe in just being a decent person and you’re a decent person. People tend to be decent back to you. To me, it’s always been about how do you, you know, how do you make fans? I feel like as a PR people, we’re supposed to want to be liked. So I’ve never kind of got this idea of trying to be the mean PR person again. I think that we get a bad rap because it’s looked at like it’s this hardcore, hard-nosed position where you always have to be the bad person, the gatekeeper. When I think it’s kind of the opposite, it’s kind of like you need to be permeable.
Jenn: Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re really we’re just storytellers. And, you know, we find creative ways to tell that story, or we have to change the story that’s already being told. But that is essentially the core and the foundation of what we do. I think that was really well said. And, yes, like I said, I agree with your take that it’s not all, you know, stress and crying outside. But it is portrayed frequently like that in pop culture. But then, on the flip side, there is Parks and Rec, which is an iconic TV comedy. I’ve always found their take on PR media really funny. The anchors and the reporters and the journalists, they’re quirky and eccentric and they sort of use comedy to navigate issues in the community and on the show. Does myth number five hold any weight to you? Do you feel we are serious celebrity chasers, or are we awkward PR professionals?
Brandon: A bit of both.
Jenn: But that’s what I was going to say. I think we’re both.
Yeah. I would love to hear you all’s take on it, too. You know, I would love to hear you all’s positions because I feel both. I would love to hear you all first because, I definitely think it’s somewhere in the middle.
Kalli: No, I, I agree, because, I mean, obviously, there are certain things that attract you to PR, and I think what’s interesting is at this point in my career, it’s not so much about the celebrity chasing, but you still get that same like fan feeling about the things that you’re working on. Like some of my clients, like, I get so excited if I, like, hear somebody talking about them or when I see, you know, the articles coming out and you can’t get enough. You become a fan of what you’re working on.
Brandon: To me, it goes back to the passion piece, like, um, you know, depending again, on your vertical, if you’re working in working entertainment, it may be a small celebrity like, say, I work for a film studio. So I’m going to go up for macro anytime that I can, because I really do love the people who work on the projects that we create. So I’m biased and I’m honest with that bias. And I think that, you know, being honest about that is a good thing. And I think that there are I think there are PR people who do get into it just for the celebrities or get into it just for the access. That’s in any industry. So PR is not is not in indemnified of it. But I always think that kind of goes through and shows it. I’ve always thought when the PR people define themselves by being PR people; I’ve just always been of the mind of, you know, as a PR person, your best place, the best place you should be is behind the camera, the audio guy, unless it’s in service of your client. The most effective PR person you can be is one who is out of the way.
Kalli: So I know we’ve talked about a lot of older shows like Scandal, Entourage, Mad Men. But actually, even still, there are a lot of shows that portrayed different publicists in different light. In Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix hit, Fall of the House of Usher, one of his children is a master publicist who finds ways to spin the controversies of the family into heartwarming media stories. So how can PR professionals debunk myth number six, and address the lure of being spin masters, and actually emphasize their true role as strategic communicators who are focused on honesty, transparency, and building genuine relationships with media?
Brandon: Yeah, that one’s tough because the problem is, we do have people who are just spin masters. And in a world where there’s just so many inputs and so much information, I think that our role, again, just goes back to what makes a good PR person versus a bad. I think the goal in debunking that myth is like you said, honesty, transparency, and building that relationship with the media in service to the greater good. But again, it’s also just rooted in honesty. I always say the difference between a brand and a company is the humanization of it. And if we know that every human makes mistakes and we give it grace, we need to extend that same grace to brands. But you can’t get grace until you have accountability and honesty. So this idea that all things are great, nothing’s wrong, and anything can be spun into a positive is BS, and it goes back. You know, it’s the old adage: there’s no such thing as bad PR. Everyone says that you’ve had bad PR. Bad PR is bad PR, and it defines how people think of you. It defines how people associate your product, etc. And again, we have to think like consumers. You know, I think that just so many marketers, my biggest frustration in marketing is that people, marketers, and oftentimes publicists feel that they’re better than their consumers. They feel like they know more, know better, or do better. I’m not too good to eat at Taco Bell. I’m not too good to shop at Dollar Tree or anywhere. And I take that same approach in anything that I’m doing. I don’t know better than the consumer, but what I do know is know better about what’s going on in this building than the consumer. So I don’t want to treat my consumers like an idiot and look at something that is, on its face, very obviously bad and try to tell them that it’s not so bad if only they just knew this was part of a bigger plan. So I think the answer somewhat is already in that question about just being transparent and honest and working with media in a way that doesn’t absolve yourself from scrutiny, but it helps build trust with the community at large.
Jenn: Absolutely. That was so well said. And I, I think we can all kind of agree that, well, Samantha Jones and Olivia Pope are entertaining to watch, if you decide a career in PR is for you based on these characters, think again. While some manage crises and others do work with celebrities, they are far and few in between and trust us when we say anything but glamorous. So thank you, Brandon for joining us today. It was really fun debugging pure myths with you.
Brandon: Thank you so much for having me. I love the work that you all do. Please keep, keep it going. And thank you for highlighting our profession because, again, everyone understands they think what we do, but very few do. So, thank you for shedding the light on good PR.
Jenn: Thank you! Thank you for joining us in this really, really fun conversation. And thanks to our listeners for joining us, and be sure to listen every other Wednesday for new episodes wherever you stream podcasts, follow us on social media, like and rate our podcast, and, of course, drop us a line anytime at impressions@pollackgroup.com. See you next time.
