In late March, as everyone (including the Elettra team) was cooped up inside due to COVID-19, a certain Netflix docuseries about a colourful zookeeper took the world by storm. Little did we know as we watched our way through all seven episodes that this fantastical series about a big cat zoo in Oklahoma was going to hit far closer to home.

Indeed, it wasn’t long afterwards that, through an unlikely client connection, we found ourselves doing PR for none other than Dillon Passage, Joe Exotic’s current husband.

Now, it won’t surprise you to learn that doing PR for a reality TV star is different than doing it for a CEO or a politician. The strategies that you need to employ and the approach you need to take are completely different. To give you an idea, here are some of the ways that doing PR for a reality TV star is different than regular PR:

1. The normal PR rules no longer apply

Reality TV stars are different from your typical PR client. While audiences expect CEOs and government officials to provide information in a serious and professional manner and to be accountable to the public, they expect celebrities to be entertaining and authentic. As such, things that we would normally advise against doing in interviews like making jokes, being flippant and using sarcasm are much better received by audiences when done by celebrities. With celebrity PR, the celebrity is the brand, so the more they are able to come across as likeable and relatable, the more they will be able to endear themselves to the public.

2. It will get personal

While interviews with traditional clients tend to be confined to their professional lives and will only delve into their personal lives if it is relevant, celebrity interviews are much more likely to be broader in focus and touch on intimate areas like relationships, politics and even sexual preferences. You and your client should be prepared to respond to these types of questions or use bridging tactics to steer the conversation back to more comfortable territory.

3. You can dictate the terms

Unlike with traditional clients where you have to go out and pitch the client to media, with celebrity clients, the media will come to you. As a result of this power reversal, you have freer rein to dictate the terms of any interview. This could be by setting a time limit, establishing no-go areas or even asking the interviewer to make a point of mentioning whatever your client happens to be promoting at the moment.

4. You will be overwhelmed

Given their fame, celebrity PR clients can generate an incredible amount of media interest. As a result, you may find yourself quicky buried under an avalanche of media requests. What’s more, granting an interview to one outlet can have the knock-on effect of generating more interview requests from other outlets.

In order to stay on top of it all, it is important to have a proper system in place for receiving, vetting and scheduling media requests. It’s also important to prepare in advance any media tools that you might need such as promo photos, fact sheets and b-roll so that they can be sent out on the fly. You’ll also want to set up some of the basic infrastructure that your client will need like a secondary phone number that can be used for phone interviews (to avoid giving out clients’ primary phone number to media) and a quiet, well-lit location for at-home video interviews.

Read more about how to manage a deluge of media requests.

The Tiger King & I