“They know how to have a great time,” said Kutcher from his front-row seat. “Their parties have the more substantive people — people you can actually have a conversation with, as opposed to just the eye candy.” He paused to take in the view, then added with a grin, “but they have plenty of eye candy too.”
Tom Freydl, director of Ketchum Entertainment Marketing, tapped into the trend last fall when he was faced with the challenge of promoting a Minneapolis-based computer service called the Geek Squad. Freydl hired the Alliance to make the geek-fest chic. Together with party planner Jeffrey Best, the team delivered a blowout bash at the ArcLight Cinemas with a guest list that included David Arquette, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a brigade of long-legged babes.
“Honestly, I had never been to a party with that level of coolness,” says Freydl. “People stayed until the very end. That never happens at a corporate event.”
Jessica Meisels knows all about coolness — and the power of celebrity. Meisels, a self-described “talent coordinator,” and her partner Greg Link are the co-owners of the publicity and events firm Fingerprint Communications. They are regularly called on by clients such as W Magazine and the Indy Racing League to utilize a Rolodex that includes everyone from philanthropist Barbara Davis (Meisels is friends with Davis’ grandson Brandon) to Paris Hilton (they’ve known each other since Meisels’ New York days).
Corporate can be hip
Pumping up corporate fetes with star power is nothing new; it’s long been an unpaid part of the PR package. But with the recent boom of weekly celeb rags and “Entertainment Tonight” rip-offs, and the free publicity they provide, it’s become a big business, one that commands up to $50,000 if you include budget for celebrity bait — gifts, transportation and charity donations in the stars’ name. Top publicity houses such as BNC (Bragman Nyman Cafarelli) regularly hire well-connected independent operators such as Fingerprint and the Alliance to jump-start their clients’ events with some trophy guests.
But those in the field bristle at the label of “celebrity wranglers” (try celebrity recruiter, liaison or even guest list manager) and fill out their job descriptions with other duties including marketing, event consulting and production.
“It just sounds so tacky,” says Ashlee Margolis, who left her PR gig two years ago to start her own wrangling business. Still, Margolis, an L.A. scenester who grew up palling around with Quincy Jones’ daughter, Rashida, and is now a go-to wrangler for the charity luncheon set, accepts that the title comes with the territory. She works out of her house and doesn’t even have a business card, but if she did, she says it would have to have a lasso on it.
“When I tell people outside of the industry what I do, they have no idea what I’m talking about. I should be working on a ranch,” she jokes. “That would make more sense.”
Semantics aside, they’re all linked by their ability to deliver the in-crowd and help their clients’ fetes stand out in an increasingly glutted market filled with ubiquitous award shows, the charity dinner du jour and competing blowout parties.
“There’s so much more competition now,” says David Pinsky, director of entertainment marketing at Motorola. “It’s no longer ‘let’s just throw a party.’ You have to make it the party that everyone’s talking about, the event of the season.”
In other words, a $300 gift bag isn’t going to cut it anymore. To attract the cranky, partied-out corps of Hollywood celebs, you need to guarantee an event’s “it” factor.
To do so, they all agree, you’ve got to ensure the right mix of people. Celebs may get you the press, but they don’t necessarily guarantee a good time. Giving good guest list is a strategic balancing act that requires just the right mix of stars, industry-ites and beautiful people, explains Meisels.
A big part of the promoting game, then, is mastering the degrees-of-separation strategy. “It’s who knows who, who can put in the personal call, who has the relationship,” says Jose Martinez, who heads up celebrity recruiting at Harrison & Shriftman, one of the few big publicity firms where all of the celeb outreach is done in-house.
If there’s no direct relationship, you work your way down. You want Nicole Kidman? Start with her pal Naomi Watts. If it’s Watts you want, invite her stylist, her trainer, her homeopath. Keeping tabs on their love lives is also key. Margolis managed to lure Charlize Theron to a charity benefit for the Aaliyah Memorial Fund last year wh
en Theron’s boyfriend, Stuart Townsend, agreed to be on the host committee. Once the connections are exhausted, it’s a matter of basic street-team tactics. Going out every night, partying like it’s their job, and spreading the word.
Yeah, but will they show?
Of course, any party thrower’s worst nightmare is that the talent won’t show. Shara Koplowitz, a former vice president at Harrison & Shriftman, narrowly averted that disaster a few years back at a party for hip-hop artist and producer Pharrell Williams at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. “We thought it was a no-brainer,” says Koplowitz, who figured Williams’ clients — among them Snoop, Puffy and Justin Timberlake — would be sure to show. But half an hour into the event, the red carpet was still as empty as a bottle of Cristal on Sunday morning, and everyone, including the Hard Rock CEO, was freaking out. Koplowitz had no choice but to start begging.
A few years earlier, she’d worked with ‘N Sync’s charity, Challenge for the Children, and hit it off with Timberlake’s bodyguard. Over the years she sent him free stuff — a bottle of Tanqueray here, a cellphone there. So when she put out the pager-plea, Big Mike responded right away. Within 15 minutes, Timberlake was at the back door. “Next thing we know, the place was packed and Justin and Busta Rhymes are on stage singing together,” recalls Koplowitz. “It was my biggest save.”
Snagging the premium A-listers — the Toms, Brads and Halles — requires a little more maneuvering. There’s always the gifting game. Come to our party and we’ll give you a PlayStation, a Cartier necklace or VW Bug. Paying them to party is another strategy. But the price tags can be steep. According to Martinez, stars of the moment, such as Eva Longoria and Teri Hatcher, have been known to command $50,000 appearance fees. Attaching a charity or creating an award in their honor, he says, is a safer, cheaper bet. Better yet? Give an award to one of their pals.
Take, for example, the time he landed Tom Cruise for Movieline’s Young Hollywood Awards
. The hook? They were honoring “Jerry Maguire” director Cameron Crowe with a role model award, and Cruise agreed to present. Was the award just a ploy to get the A-lister to commit? Martinez won’t say. “But it was the Young Hollywood awards, and let’s face it, Cruise and Crowe aren’t exactly fresh faces anymore.”
Of course, things don’t always go so smoothly. Even if a celeb says yes to the invite, there’s never any guarantee they’ll actually show. “You work and work to confirm them, and you always know that 60-70% of them aren’t even going to make it,” says Koplowitz, who retired from wrangling last year.
As frustrating as it is, the flake factor is an inevitable — and necessary — part of the game. If A-listers were actually easy to pin down, celeb recruiters would be out of a job. No one understands that better than Koplowitz, who now works on the other side of the fence as a personal publicist, playing gatekeeper for the celebs she once courted. “Now I know just how many of those invites go straight into the trash.”
