The PR agency, the charity & the lack of understanding

It’s a common old story.  A small charity wants to try and recruit some celebrity support to help raise the profile of their work. Not an unreasonable thought, but as ever the question is how you go about it.

Finding celebrities who might have an affinity with your cause is a time consuming business which can involve hours of painstaking research – I genuinely know someone who was on page 86 of a Google search when they found a mention of a celebrity who had a direct link with the work of their charity (the celebrity did go on to support them!).

Of course a bit of luck never hurts.  Nothing like spotting a reference to something useful in the last but one paragraph of an interview with a celebrity who’d be perfect.

I’m not discounting luck but random mass appeals for celebrity support rarely if ever work and hardly make a celebrity feel like it’s them in particular with whom you’d like to work. 

I’ve queried before the use of tweeting as a method of approaching celebrities.  Today I’ve seen another version of this kind of apparently untargeted appeal which does nothing to enhance the reputation of the charity involved.  Those in the PR and communications world will probably have heard of Response Source – a way for journalists and PR’s to get in touch with each other.

An email from Response Source today read as follows (I’ve removed references that I think might identify the charity):

Hi,

I work for [name of small UK charity] and we're in the process of appointing some more high profile ambassadors to help promote our messages of [key message].

We're particularly interested in GB Olympians past and present as well as other sports stars from the world of football, rugby and tennis to promote the importance of [area of work].

We're also after celebrities that would appeal to housewives and families such as daytime TV personalities and big name soap stars.

We would hope that any ambassador would be able to give up a couple of hours for one appearance a year and the possible endorsement of some quotes once in a while - we appreciate that their time will be limited.

Had it been an enthusiastic, overworked, PR from an understaffed communications team in a small organisation I might have had some sympathy.  However it isn’t.  It’s from a PR agency appointed by the charity to run a national awareness campaign.

I doubt they’ll get any response since the one group of people I know won’t be reading it is agents and managers.  This is not the sort of service that most agents subscribe to.  The only people who might be relevant are companies who have a contract with a celebrity to promote that company’s product or service.

If the charity wants to gain one or more high profile supporters they, or their PR agency, should develop ‘thought through’, relevant approaches to individuals who have an affinity to the cause and with whom they would hope to have a long term relationship.

This email shows very little understanding of how to work with celebrities when you’re a charity.  If I was the charity I wouldn’t be very happy with my agency.  More particularly I’d be unhappy paying for expertise which doesn’t appear to be there – although for all I know the agency is very generously doing this pro-bono. 

If you want a long term relationship, how do you make someone feel wanted and special when you haven’t sent them a personal approach?  What happens if someone comes back who doesn’t fit with your brand or (as a health charity) healthy living messages and you have to turn them down? 

They’ve clearly identified their target media and the sorts of people who might appeal, now they need to do the research.  I’ve done radio days with celebs and when we had to change the interviewee at the last minute what was the first question I was asked by the radio stations? What’s your new celeb’s link to the cause?

Whilst they are quite clear in the ‘ask’ I’d question whether they’ve got it right. They want a “couple of hours for one appearance a year” but what does that mean?  They talk about target media so maybe they mean be available for two hours of interviews – except that is frequently not two hours.  If they live in Dundee and the interviews need to be done face to face in London that’s at least a day.  If they were lucky enough to get their celeb on ITV1’s This Morning (given the demographic they’ve identified) that alone would use up the commitment they’ve asked for.

If they really do mean a personal appearance do they honestly think two hours is sufficient?  Again they don’t seem to have allowed for any travel time although I assume they’ve allowed for any travel costs and possible food or accommodation.

Whilst the concept of working with a celebrity is perfectly reasonable this is not the way to be going about it.  There are no short cuts to gaining celebrity support and an email like this does nothing to enhance the reputation of the charity or its PR company.

The thing I find most perplexing, above everything else, is that the agency itself claims strong sport related clients.  Surely they have access to just the sort of people they need? 

Oh well, maybe this email is just a blip – after all who hasn’t had an off day?