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Public Relations Adds to Your Success
April 24, 2003
PR Adds to Your Success Interview with Christi Harbor
by: Hadjy - Ism Staff Writer
How long have you been in public relations?
Well, in a way I’d say I’ve been doing it all my life.
How so?
My mom and my grandmother were in charge of a lot of events in my hometown. They were in a lot of organizations so there was a lot of mailing, sending out announcements, contacting newspapers and local television stations, which were things I had always done, helping my mother and grandmother out with their events, coming up with innovative and creative ideas.
Where was your hometown?
Paducah, Kentucky
Tell me about your education.
Well, originally I was studying Criminal Justice. I wanted to be an attorney, but then I changed my major to Communications, minored in journalism and from my sophomore year on until I graduated from SIU I did everything I could in communications. I wrote for the daily newspaper for a couple semesters, I worked in the sales department to learn how to sell advertisement, I worked for the PBS affiliate at SIU for two years, I worked on the news station created by the student body, I worked for the local radio station WIDB for a year then my friend and I created our own television show on the student programming network. All of these things really helped me in the long run when I finished school by having experience in all those different fields, now being a publicist trying to get my clients placed in magazines and newspapers and booked on radio and television interviews, because I was on the flip side. I know how to set it up and I know what they’re looking for.
Who are some of your clients?
Champagne. I did their 125th Anniversary party – Paint the Town Rouge; Chicago Talent Network; B Posse Body Guards; Andy C the producer; Slick Lounge; Ezuli restaurants
In your own words, define Public Relations.
Public Relations is a lot of things, but mainly handling publicity.
Then what’s the difference between public relations and advertising?
I’ll put it like this – advertising is paid for, publicity is prayed for.
And the difference between public relations and promotions?
Promotions can fall under public relations so it’s better to say the difference between publicity and promotions. Publicity is getting you placed in different media outlets and getting you put the right position to reach a large targeted audience. So if you spend 10 hours getting in the Chicago Tribune you’re going to reach like 3.5 million viewers in the city.
So public relations is penetrating where promotions is…
Just getting it out
What do artists lack when they cut out public relations?
When artists cut out public relations they’re cutting out people knowing who they are.
So the benefits expand beyond just getting a name out?
Yes. The longer you have someone that’s continuing to put you out there, continuing to talk about you, to sell you, what your product is, what your business is, your music, who you are as a person, what you do. It’s going to keep people hearing your name and keep people interested in you. Look at Jennifer Lopez, she’s always in the news. Always in the news. And even before she got really big she would always do things that put her in the right place to be in the right publications, right there where people continue to talk about her. So when people continue to talk about you and know you exist then they can continue to buy from you, but if people don’t know you exist they can’t support you or buy you so your business will automatically go down or your album won’t sell.
Is there a common cost of good PR?
PR is not brain surgery. Anyone can do it that has a personality, drive and ambition and is organized. The difference is, everyone can’t pick up the phone and talk to a stranger. Everyone can’t walk up to a person they’ve never met before and make things happen. Basically you are paying for with publicity is someone who has the skill to talk to strangers or who have contacts and who can come up with creative and innovative ideas to help get you out there and keep people talking about you. To help you do things that will put you on the front page of the newspaper or will get you an article or reviews. If you are an artist and you are just starting out, it is good to do some grass roots promotions for yourself before you come to a publicist. People get this misconception and think that they can get a publicist and they’ll blow up overnight. No, it’s a lot of leg work.
Have you ever had any messy situations you had to smooth over?
Triumph over Tragedy, but it really wasn’t too messy. The only thing is we had a fight at the event. I really don’t want to advertise the fight. It was a misfortunate situation at the end of the night and things were handled very well with the venue, the security and the staff. Just the next day a couple of places talked about the incident so I had to make a couple of calls so we could get someone from the planning committee to get on the air and actually tell what happened because it’s just like operator, one person tells someone then another person tells everybody and then it gets around the whole circle and it’s a whole different story.
Exploiting the negative
Right. So we had to focus on the positive, what was accomplished and who accomplished it – youth. People under 30 put it together and raised over $6,000 for the fund. We wanted to make sure that was put out there. We were able to get it out there through another press release.
Any words of advice for up and coming artists?
If you want to get out there and get a publicist you have to sell yourself. Do some grass roots campaign in the beginning, maybe consult with a publicist and definitely work on finding one because you won’t be able to do it forever. But it’s always a good thing to get out there yourself, going to record stores yourself, pass out flyers, make calls and eventually you’ll get yourself to that point to where you don’t have to do it, you can get someone to do it for you. Publicity is something you definitely need to sell records. You reach so many more people when you do a t.v. interview or a newspaper article than if you’re out on the streets handing it out.
If someone came to you from the streets with a record and it was good, needed public relations but didn’t have the money for it…
Well, nothing’s for free. You can’t stay in business working for free. If the material is really good and I can help them out what I would rather do is on the side consult them and help put themselves in a position where they could hire my services and negotiate something on the back end. People think, “Oh, all you have to do is make a call” and it’s that easy. It looks that simple, and while it’s not that difficult for me, but to someone else it may not be that easy. But I can pick up the phone and make something happen that you can’t make happen and if I get you an interview on MTV and the next day your album goes platinum, you didn’t do that on your own. So there I need to be, you know I need to be considered.
Christi needs to get her piece of the pie
Yes.
To contact Christi regarding Public Relations, you can reach her at Christiwithani@aol.com
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