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We talked to a range of successful people, from CEOs to Filmmakers to fashion designers, and asked them what has made them successful in their careers. Some said determination, some said talent, and some said it was a little luck, but ALL said they had a great publicity campaign and a good PR person.<\/p>\n
So what is PR? Publicity, or public relations, is precisely what it sounds like; it\u2019s everything that relates a message to the public. Following that logic, it makes sense that publicists have a hand in everything that is a tool or a means of communication to the public – meaning, in general, me and you! Back in the olden days, 20 years ago, that was just the press – so publicists focused all their attention on the press at the time, which was printed magazines and newspapers or television and, even further back, some would say, radio. These days there are so many more ways that the \u201cpublic\u201d get their information, the internet for example, online press is far outnumbering print media in terms of readership, and the king of instant messaging- social media, either from the brands directly, the media on social or via their favorite celebrities or influencers.<\/p>\n
PR experts know how to take your product or project and craft interesting ways to grab the attention of your ideal customers and the best media (in all its forms) to relay that information to the broadest possible audience within your target market, which means they know how to \u201crelay\u201d your information to the public.<\/p>\n
It is, as you can imagine, a talent and a skill. The best publicists in the world are often referred to behind closed doors as almost magical, with an invisible finger on the pulse of the media and an almost god-like ability to create \u201cnews\u201d out of nothing and simultaneously make stories mysteriously vanish.<\/p>\n
One such publicist is Jane Owen, the CEO, and founder of Jane Owen Public Relations. Jane admits candidly, \u201cSome of my biggest accomplishments in PR are the stories you have never heard, for the simple reason that we were hired to ensure that you never do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane, who started Jane Owen PR 12 years ago in Los Angeles, now has a presence in New York, London, and the Middle East. Her clients range from film and TV production companies to world governments; however, she loves working with charities and start-ups too.<\/p>\n
We caught up with Jane at Soho House in New York, one of her regular places to take client meetings when she\u2019s in \u201cthe city.\u201d Jane and her husband, Emmy-nominated film and TV producer Fernando Ferro, recently bought a house in West Hartford, Connecticut, and now split their time between the East Coast and their home of many years on Doheny Drive, in the heart of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lucky enough to get my start in PR in London,\u201d says Jane, dressed all in black (the classic PR uniform), her casual sneakers and jeans dressed up with a Chanel jacket and Celine handbag, \u201cMy first assistant Job was working as the assistant to legendary publicist Joan Rolls, and I was immediately given the best crash course in publicist working for Van Cleef & Arpels, and thier gorgeous jewelry. I always think of the knowledge and confidence that working for Joan gave me, and I hope to replicate that with every single intern and staff member on my team. Their success is my success!\u201d<\/p>\n
So how did Jane get from assistant to running her own company? Many years of hard work and dedication and a little risk-taking\u2026 \u201cI left London and moved to L.A. when I was 21 with not more than a few hundred dollars and only one person who lived there that I could crash with for a bit. It was unbelievably crazy in retrospect, but I think we can do crazy things when we are young because it\u2019s ok to fail and start again when you are in your 20s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane has made a name for herself since then, having now won more than ten awards for PR, including a social media award for a celebrity campaign during the pandemic and a “Global Excellence Award” for Professional PR services, and many years other accolades.<\/p>\n
So, now that we have established that Jane knows a thing or two about public relations, what advice does she have to enlighten people as to the mysteries of PR?<\/p>\n
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We asked, \u201cHow do you know when you need PR?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s easy,\u201d says Jane in her soft British accent, \u201cIf you have a product, whether it is a thing or a service or even yourself, and you don\u2019t have the maximum work that you can imagine yourself having – as in you couldn\u2019t take on even one more client or charge them even one more dollar – then you need PR. Publicity is the most powerful tool to grow your business. It\u2019s scientifically proven to be five thousand times more valuable than advertising. Why? Because people scan over the adverts to read the articles, they fast forward the adverts to get to the news. We work to ensure YOU are the story they are skipping past the adverts to read about or watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all very well if you are Coca-Cola, but what if you have a small independent business and you want more customers locally, not nationally or internationally?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a campaign out there for even the smallest local business. We have done hyper-local press campaigns for a cafe or a local ballet company. We target their local news stations and the micro-influencers in their communities. It\u2019s the same skills that we use on a global scale but just tailored to their specific needs.\u201d Jane explains that you don\u2019t have to have an enormous budget either. \u201cWe have to have some budget, of course, but it\u2019s not as bad as people think. There\u2019s always a way to make a campaign fit a budget, especially with a company like mine that\u2019s medium to small. There are mega PR companies with 300-plus staff that can\u2019t even look at you if you can\u2019t pay tens of thousands a month. However, I started my firm so I could be flexible. I have clients of all sizes. The one thing they all share is that I can make a difference for all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That being said, Jane just returned to the US from over a month of working in Europe on various projects and clients, including a hugely successful party at MIPTV, the television market for a new dramatic series called Paper Empire<\/em> created by Robert Gillings, which stars Robert Davi, Denise Richards, Kelsey Grammer, Wesley Snipes, Helena Mattsson, Bleona and Carol Alt to name a few. The drama centers around the explosive world of high crimes in cryptocurrency, and the campaign Jane\u2019s company handled for Robert Gillings Productions was equally fierce, generating over four billion media impressions in only a few days.<\/p>\n Jane and her team then went on to work with several films and film-related companies at the Cannes Film Festival and did the PR for a charity event for The Art of Elysium.<\/p>\n The event, which was presented by MARLI New York and The Hollywood Reporter, was attended by Julia Fox, Claire Holt, Lily Gladstone, Anok Yai, Alton Mason, Chase Crawford, Jeremy O\u2019Harris, Carmella Rose, Maja Malnar, Patrick Ta, Elizabeth Sulcer, Kimberley Garner, Hofit Golan amongst others who celebrated the return of the Art of Elysium to Cannes on the stunning \u2018The Wellesley\u2019 yacht, co-hosted by Sinan Tuna, Daniel Krizek, and Maurice Fadida.<\/p>\n Thanks to the hard work of Jane and the event producer Ryan Heil, along with an incredibly eye-catching dress worn by Julia Fox, the event was one of the most successful events of this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival, despite having nothing to do with the film. All one has to do is look up the Cannes Film Festival 2023, and you can’t help but see one of the several hundred press articles generated from the event ranging from the tabloids to Harper\u2019s Bazaar<\/em> and W<\/em> magazine, to name just a few.<\/p>\n What else did you do in Cannes for the festival? We asked her. \u201cWe were lucky enough to be chosen to represent a young actress who made her Cannes debut with us,\u201d she says proudly \u201c Shannon K is a remarkable young actress and singer who had never been to the festival before. We pulled out all the stops and got her into all the biggest and best events, including walking the red carpet at the Palais du Festival for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe also represented a film called Our House Is on Fire<\/em> shot in Ukraine during the war, for which we worked with Deadline<\/em> to produce a panel discussion for the filmmakers to talk about the trials and struggles and inspirations that came from such a unique filmmaking experience.\u201d says Jane \u201cIt’s a beautiful film made by courageous and dynamic people who continued to film through air raids and explosions. Incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n What’s next for Jane and her team now they are back in the US? When we spoke, her team was gearing up to run the PR for the Cinemagic Charity\u2019s Los Angeles Gala, an event they have worked on Annually for many years. The event will be attended by many of Jane\u2019s long-time friends and clients, past and present, including cast members from Selling Sunset<\/em> and movie stars,\u00a0 because, as Jane puts it, \u201cConnection is the lifeblood of PR, we get a terrible rap for being horrible people, but I’ve always found that it is much easier to do my job if I’m friendly and kind to everyone. That way even if\u00a0 we aren’t working together as PR and client, we can still work together as friends\u201d<\/p>\n In fact Jane counts herself lucky enough to have lots of famous friends she doesn’t represent but are only a phone call away. Her impressive phone book includes a direct line to over 300 famous names, including Goldie Hawn, Gerard Butler, Hayden Christensen, Jude Law, Tom Felton and on and on.<\/p>\n Would she represent her A-list friends if they asked? \u201cOf course I would love to help them out if they needed it. Most of them have the most amazing publicists ever so they wouldn’t ever need to! But of course I would not say no, and I’m sure it would be a lot of fun. On the other hand, to be honest sometimes it’s nicer to be friends, and invite them to events, where they can help a good cause.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter Cinemagic, I expect to be working on the next \u2018Healthy Humor\u2019 charity event with my good friends David & Christina Arquette, who brought us on to their last event with the charity that brings laughter to sick kids. We are also supporting the Connecticut Children\u2019s Hospital, who invited me to join the Board of their Foundation recently. They have an incredible Gala coming up in November that I am excited to help them with.\u201d<\/p>\n So is PR all focused on Hollywood or charity? Jane says not at all, Public Relations is useful to everyone. \u201cWe also have a wide range of clients that aren’t celebrity related\u201d ,she says \u201cCurrently we are looking after a few amazing fine art painters, a plastic surgeon, a CEO, a university, a local start-up and a Michelin-star chef. We like to keep things diverse and interesting!\u201d<\/p>\n So what’s the secret to success in PR for people that want to follow in the footsteps of Jane and others like her? \u201cNEVER give up, you always get the no\u2019s before the yes\u2019s. It could take 1,000 no\u2019s to get there but you will get a yes eventually\u2026so just keep your spirits up and keep thinking of another way your client could be newsworthy to the journalist you are talking to. Eventually there will be a fit and you will get press for your client and all the no\u2019s will be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/image_6483441-133-copy.jpg\")
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