TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Live from New York City and on Skype, this is Inside Communications. And I'm your host, Mike Baco. Today on the show, Rembrandt Flores takes us inside the world of entertainment pr Coming up next on Inside Communications. And welcome back to Inside Communications. We're joined by Rembrandt Flores from Los Angeles. Rembrandt, thanks for joining us today on Skype.

Thanks for having me.

All right, so you deal with some heavy hitters in entertainment public relations. You've planned parties for Justin Bieber, Usher, Kim Kardashian. What goes into planning a celebrity party?

Well, I guess it's basically a lot of communication. You have to know what they want and their expectations and how we can deliver on their expectations. It's very easy to sit there and say you can do everything, but you have to be very honest with them and say not everything can happen. And of course, you have to pay attention to mind their budget. Not a lot of celebrities want to pay a lot of money for an event. And so you have to be very, very creative and then might have to bring in sponsorships to help lower the cost. There's just a lot that goes into it. But again, if you are always communicating with the client, whether they be a celebrity or not, I think you'll be okay.

And that's an interesting point about celebrities. When they think that when they attach their name to something that sponsors are just going to come rolling in. But usually it's a two way street. Sponsors want something from the celebrity and usually the celebrity has to give something to those sponsors.

Correct. Everyone wants something. No matter if they say they don't, they want something. So obviously the celebrity wants the money to offset the production costs for that particular event. But when you have sponsors attached, then they want something in return. And usually the ROI for them is brand mentioned at the party or it could be done via the press. So after an event's over, the dissemination of the photos, mentioning the brand or just mentioning the brand period that was attached to the event is always key for a lot of these brands. Again, these brands have their bosses and people they have to answer to, whether it be a board or whether it's a public company. So they want to make sure that they're spending their money wisely because obviously they're allocating this money toward an event, whereas they could have done it via an ad campaign or another marketing campaign. So again, this money is coming from somewhere. It's not just coming out of the air. So there has to be a reason for doing this event. And There has to be some benefit for doing this event. So if it's a party attached with a Justin Bieber or a Kim Kardashian or Serena Williams or someone like that, and they want to do it because they want to attach those names, then obviously they need to know that it came across in the press.

Has that interplay gotten easier or harder over the last few years? Certainly, we're now aware of celebrities tweeting out endorsements, paid tweets, different things like that, product placements in shows and movies, and certainly now even at parties where an alcohol company may sponsor a birthday party for someone, or someone may actually just show up at an opening of a club or a hotel just because they're being paid to show up.

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So is that interplay now easier or harder? Because it's almost expected and now you have to convince the client to do it?

I would have to say it's harder. And I think it's harder for many reasons. And I think the main reason why it keeps getting harder is because of the economy. Again, everyone has to be really, really smart of where they're spending the money, especially brands. And so because of that, they have to say why option A is better than option B and option C. So again, I think it's really tied into the fact that the economy is just not where it was in 2007 and 2008. 2010 and 2009 were really, really bad years for, I think, for events and for brands to sponsor events. 2011 is definitely better than the last two years, but it's still not bringing in the sort of the windfall of 2007, 2008, when brands would spend an exorbitant amount of money on events. And no one is frivolous about money anymore. And regardless how big a brand is or how small a brand is, everyone has to be really, really smart because again, there's a lot more options and there's a lot ways to sort of get your brand out there. And you just mentioned a couple of things, like they can do it via Twitter. They can do a lot of things in social media where they can spend money that way. Obviously, there's traditional methods of advertising like we talked about, and there's always the events and event marketing and so on and so forth. So they just have to be really smart. And so it's not like they want to spend money just because the celebrity is having a party. They have to know that a, that the brand makes sense for that particular celebrity and vice versa, and that they're going to get a return on their investment.

How do you help a celebrity? How do you help a brand? You've certainly worked with some heavy hitters like Oakley, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, LG Mobile. How do you get them involved in social media? How do you convince some of these bigger brands that that's where it's at? If you really want to penetrate a market, really get in with the younger attendees, younger viewers, younger buyers, is that a hard sell for them to get involved in social media to promote events and parties?

Right. I have to be really honest with you, it was hard. I think last year was very, very difficult. But I think 2011 proved to be the year of social media. Like everyone now wants to do something in social media. We just created a social media department at EFT not too long ago, two or three years ago, prior to everyone else starting a social media division or digital department at Entertainment Fusion Group. And our clients include Guess and DL1961 and Miss Me Denim. But I think that everyone gets it now that they need to have a presence on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, that it's no longer a question of being doing a campaign with social media. Now it's like, how much money do we spend on it and what kind of campaign are we going to do with it? Are you going to do a contest? Are you going to be doing any other platforms? Are you going to do Ning? Are you going to do. What do you call that? Check in Foursquare? There are so many now, so many platforms on, in social media that you have to be really smart and know what you want.

Is that part of the challenge though, knowing what you can provide to a client what they want, as opposed to just forcing out information? Is there a difficulty in actually getting that interaction, trying to get people to like a party, attend a party, things like that?

Yeah. You always have to have a strategy in place. Right. So you, you know, if a brand like Guest says we want to do social media, we don't know how. We have to give them the reasons of what and how to tackle social media. It's not just put on an iPhone application, put up an iPad and that's it. That's great that Guest has an iPad application, iPhone application and stuff. But then what are you going to do when it's out there? No one's going to use it. So you have to sort of PR and market the fact that they have an iPhone application. And what makes it so amazing that people want to use it. So again, there's always a method to the madness. You have to sort of tell the client and suggest to them, here are the reasons why and here are the platforms on social media. And then have them know how to use it and how to basically spread the word. Because at the end of the day, if no one's using your platform on social media, then what's the point? The whole point is to try to generate new customers and generate new interest in the brand. So again, it has to be very well thought out. It can't just be, I want to do social media and throw things on a wall and see if it sticks.

You're watching Inside Communications. I'm your host, Mike Baker. We're joined today by Rembrandt Flores. Rembrandt, you've touched on some of the changes in entertainment PR, like social media, coming through some of the harder years, 2009, 2010, specifically. What are some of the trends that you see now moving forward as we head into 2012, aside from some of the social media things that you mentioned?

I mean, I really think that's still where it's going to go, is this sort of social media and trying to find out where that cross section and intersection is between traditional communication, social media, and then still doing the stuff like guerrilla marketing and stuff that you see people doing stunts still. There's a lot of people still doing sort of marketing stunts and doing flash mobs and all these things that are sort of like buzz, buzz things and doing YouTube videos and funny or Die segments. There's so many things. So I think that now is sort of finding what we can do that mixes all of those platforms together. I think that's going to be sort of what we're going to see more in 2012 and beyond.

Tell us a little bit about some of the outreach that you do. You also do some charity work and work with different charities. How's that different than working with a celebrity or working with a corporate client?

Well, you know, we have our own charity here that we work with at EFG called My Hope for Children, and it provides health care for children who can't afford it. And we partnered with clinics so that, you know, the doctors are not getting paid and they're obviously just donating their time. But I think the difference is how you feel after the fact. Don't get me wrong, I feel great after I do a celebrity event or whatnot. But I think there's just this added, I guess, feeling I get after the fact when I do something when I know I'm not getting paid or I know, I'm doing something for the betterment of the world. You would think that there's a lot of opportunity out there to be involved in charities and whatnot, and I think there is. But to me, it's all about finding a charity and finding a cause that you actually, actually, truly 100% believe in and know in your hearts and hearts of hearts that you want to be involved in. Because, you know, I can say that I'm involved in all these charities, and yes, I can go to the meetings and yes, I can pay $100 and attend an event or a function, but that's not doing much. I think it's better to find something that you really are passionate about and. And a cause that you really, really value and want to be involved in, and then doing something regardless of what it is. It could be aids, it could be cancer. It could be, you know, you had someone in your family who died of a certain disease or something, something like that. But I think it should be very, very personal, and you should really only spend time with a charity that you truly believe in.

Rambran, thanks for spending time with us today on Inside Communications and taking us inside the world of entertainment public relations.

Thank you for having me.