Voice Over:

Welcome to the Taylor 10. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

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Kait Stack:

This is Kait Stack. I'm a Vice President at Taylor and I'm here with Heather Krug. She's an entertainment consumer sports publicist who we work with and have worked with for years at Taylor and continues to be such a great mentor and confidant. So Heather, thanks for chatting with me.

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Heather Krug: 

Well, thank you for that incredible introduction, Kait.

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Kait Stack:

So we're going to chat a little bit today about what I think is a really interesting topic, Heather. I mean, you've been in this space for so long and for anyone who doesn't know, Heather's also based in LA, so I think you have a really unique perspective on leveraging tabloids for PR reach and specifically trying to be strategic with PR output. And I think a lot of our clients or even PR practitioners would think, oh, tabloids, we don't necessarily deem that as a top target outlet for some of our clients, but we do utilize them fairly frequently, especially on some of our more consumer-facing pieces of business. So I'm interested to talk to you, and we were just talking a little bit offline about even the definition of tabloid. What does that mean in today's day and age? And I'm curious just to hear kind of your take on that initial question to set the groundwork.

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Heather Krug:

Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think in my area of expertise now, it's more common that PR people work with brands but also work with celebrities. And I think what I bring into the fold is that I have represented celebrities on a personal PR level and athletes, and then I've also worked with brands. So I kind of have the understanding and especially in the quote tabloid world, how it all works. And it used to be that tabloids were all bucketed into a category of the National Enquirer or even some of the real old school talk shows like your Dr. Phil. And nowadays when you're looking at tabloids, it's interesting depending upon what celebrity that you're working with, what they categorize as tabloids. So some of them still consider People magazine as a tabloid, whereas others don't.

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And then you have your US Weeklys and your entertainment shows like Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight. Some celebrities consider those tabloids, others don't. And then for brands as well, it's the same kind of discussion. What's the bucket of where the tabloid fits under? And then of course you have your TMZs of the world, you still have your Perez Hilton, you have any of the more gossip media that can be considered tabloid. And then of course, one of my favorites, if utilized correctly is Page Six. And so whether you're controlling and dropping an item or whether you're working crisis management and dealing with an item that runs, these are some of the categories I would say where tabloid comes into play. But it's really important to define what is considered tabloid.

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Kait Stack:

As we've worked together a little bit on several brands, you mentioned earlier, brands are using the power of celebrity more and more we're coming off of Super Bowl where I think every other piece of a campaign or even just an ad that was during Super Bowl commercials, it felt to me like they were all celebrity driven. So I'm curious about your take on how you see the role of tabloid media, especially when it comes to brands leveraging celebrities for the power of marketing. Do you think that we've exhausted or are we still climbing or are we ready to hit the iceberg as it pertains to how brands are leveraging tabloids? Are we overexposed? I guess at the end of the day is what I'm trying to say.

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Heather Krug:

It's an interesting conversation because from a celebrity's point of view, how they control the narrative is on their own platforms where it never used to be where they would break a story with people or do an exclusive, which still happens. But nowadays with social media, the celebrity has the power to be able to break their own news depending upon if they're in the millions of followers. So that's an interesting take so that when a brand is evaluating star power and what it brings to the table, I think it also factors in the different filters that you want to put into place when working with a celebrity. Different things considered, are they authentic? Is it going to move the needle? Is it going to create when you're looking at some of the entertainment media or some of the tabloids, some of it does really shape cultural norms and values.

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So when you ask the question, when you're looking at celebrities, are we oversaturated? The answer is always yes, because we always are in the world and there are always too much celebrity. It's even, I'll take something in the news. When it was the Palisades Fire and it was talking about all the celebrity homes, well, there were tons of people that weren't celebrities and they weren't rich, and a lot of the stories were focused on the celebrities and that was obviously horrific news coming out from the Super Bowl. You're always going to have the power players with the brands that have the media budgets that are going to hook the big celebrities. My favorite this year, definitely Dunkin Donuts. And when you see success, how do you keep that going? I think about different years. It changes brands also, it's scary because if you put all your budget into a celebrity and then something negative happens, an old example, but Jared from Subway, that whole situation, but that's a classic example that you have your whole ad campaign tied to one person who becomes this icon for the brand. It could be detrimental. So I think when evaluating celebrities and which way to go, it's really important to consider the current state and how much I think consumers are gravitating towards that.

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Kait Stack:

Jared from Subway I think was a really great example there for a while, pre scandal of how Subway as a brand really strategically leveraged someone. I mean, Jared wasn't a celebrity, but he became one, but it was so authentic and organic that I think consumers really responded well to that. How do you think brands should look at tabloid success?

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Heather Krug:

Well, I see it a couple of different ways in the feedback that I've gotten from clients and then of course working with you guys as well. If you're selling a product, if it's something that's a consumer food item or whatever it may be, if there's sales. So I can't tell you how many clients going on the Today Show or CBS mornings or GMA, there were certain shows and those aren't necessarily considered tabloid, those I would consider more mainstream, but how it really moves the needle, when Travis Kelse and Taylor Swift were first dating, and it looked like it was heading down a serious road, every single brand was how do we tap into that? Well, there was a jewelry designer I worked with who came up with the ring and offered it to them knowing that the chances of them taking the ring were probably going to be small, but being able to our strategy, we dropped it with an exclusive story with Page Six and it went viral and other outlets started to pick up about it. Other people started to become more familiar with the jeweler and it was an interesting kind of litmus test. So doing a campaign like that, is it really just for more familiarity with that jeweler and his company, or is it more about driving sales to his website and that people, if they want to get married, are going to go check out the engagement rings? It's the question that people have been thinking about for years because we try to educate our clients on the best way to measure success.

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Kait Stack:

Yeah, there's so much of this balance of awareness to drive to purchase, and it differs for every client. But I love that example of your jewelry client because in that case, they didn't partner with a celebrity, they just leveraged the power of celebrity. And I sometimes like to say like an ask is as good as a take. They made that ask or they put that out there to Taylor and Travis effectively. They probably didn't get a response, but it was a powerful story and definitely made some headlines for them. So it's an interesting take on using celebrities in that case. Thanks so much, Heather. I always enjoy talking to you and such a wealth of information as always.

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Heather Krug:

Thank you.

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