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S3E13 Jaime (Maser) Berman
134 Plays5 months ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Jaime (Maser) Berman, founder of Maser Communications.
Meredith / Content People Links:
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Email Meredith: [email protected]
We loved talking to Jaime. ♥️
Check out her site here: https://maserpr.com/
And subscribe to her GREAT newsletter, Media Intel, here: https://manage.campaignzee.com/lDYmaMVARK
And connect with Jaime on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-berman-2072616/
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Transcript
Introducing Jamie Mazer Berman
00:00:04
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to content people. I am your host Meredith Farley. Jamie, I am so stoked to get to have this conversation with you here.
00:00:22
Speaker
Thank you so much for doing this.
Jamie's Background in PR
00:00:24
Speaker
For anyone who doesn't know you, could you intro yourself and just say a little bit about who you are and what you do? So I'm Jamie Mazer Berman. I am a longtime publicist. I consider myself one of the OGs in this world, specifically in beauty PR. I live outside the city in one of the suburbs of New Jersey now, but I spent
00:00:44
Speaker
about almost 18 years in Manhattan before we came to the the dark side and had kids and moved to the suburbs. And yeah PR has been my bread and butter from the jump. I majored in it in college and I did the agency and in-house thing before I went out on my own in 2014 and now fast-forward 10 years, four kids, countless clients, multiple apartments and homes later and here we are.
Why PR Over Advertising?
00:01:10
Speaker
So what
00:01:11
Speaker
first-picture interest in PR. What's your PR origin story? Why did you major in it? What were the first few years of your post-college career like?
00:01:21
Speaker
So funny enough, I actually thought I would be in advertising, I think funny enough in two ways. One is that I actually majored in what I do for a living because I don't find that many people, everyone gets a poli sci degree and then what do you do with that? So I think I like knew I wanted to be in communications, but I originally thought I would be in advertising because there was a show in the eighties and I will fully admit I'm 45. I'm very proud to be my age. So I'm dating myself, but not really. Cause I'll say my date, my age called who's the boss and Judith Light was in it.
00:01:49
Speaker
I know who's the boss. Yeah, classic. I love the show. And she was this bad bitch advertising leader. And it was just incredible. And so I used to watch who's the boss. And I was like, I'm going to be the boss one day. I want to be Judith Light.
00:02:05
Speaker
And so I would take all these advertising classes my freshman year at BU and I actually realized I do not want to be in advertising. No shade to anyone who's in advertising out there. I have friends that are creative directors and are genius at what they do.
00:02:20
Speaker
But I quickly realized I liked the storytelling component more than the here's an ad I'm obvious I'm 30 seconds in the middle of your TV show or I'm reading an article and then there's one full color page with a tagline and a very like call to action and I thought I want to be on the other side of the page in the story I want to be able to doing the work that is included in that and not on this side of the page and
00:02:45
Speaker
And so I switched my second semester of freshman year after I took these ad classes to public relations because I thought there's this real storytelling component to it. I've always loved being a storyteller, and writing is a big part of what you do, and I always loved the writing aspect of it. And then there is the people aspect of it and the relationship part, which has always been something I've excelled in. And I thought, OK, then I'm checking all those boxes. I could do this.
00:03:09
Speaker
So I majored in PR. I did a few internships during college, one when I was studying abroad in Sydney, Australia at an agency there, and then one at the Boston Visitors and Convention Bureau in your backyard. And I graduated with my degree in communications. I backpacked through Europe for eight weeks as one did in 2000. And then I came back and waitressed until I got my full-time job. And then I continued waitressing because I was making more money waitressing than I was as a PR assistant in September of 2000.
00:03:39
Speaker
So interesting about like being drawn to the storytelling side
Evolution of Storytelling in PR
00:03:43
Speaker
of it. It makes so much sense. Last week interviewed Maggie Sous, who's the head of marketing at Red Antler, which is, I don't know if you know them, but they're really great agency. And we were talking a bit about how there was this brief golden.
00:03:57
Speaker
era of seven years where you could just pay for Facebook ads and you would build a business on it. But the pendulum has totally swung back the other way. Storytelling and PR and marketing are like merging in a way that they hadn't before. Just the story is the most important thing again.
00:04:14
Speaker
That's exactly. Even think about the name of it. Now it's not even called public relations anymore. Now you're like Marcom. Everything's like marketing and communications. And even PR perhaps used to report into a separate, I guess if you were like going up the funnel at a big company, you would report into something different, but now everything is under this marketing umbrella. So I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah. It's all become almost, I don't know if it's synonymous with each other, but they're much more meshed together. It's like slash. Whereas before it was almost commas that separated it.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Also, who's the boss? Is that the one with Tony Danza? Yes. Okay. I watched that. He was the mani. Yes, he was. He was the mani before there were manis. The re-kids? Or were there four kids? I think they only had two. I thought it was a boy and a girl. Am I wrong? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still focus on Jana's light and she had these power suits. And I just thought she was amazing. Is she just...
00:05:09
Speaker
Everything about her I just thought was incredible. I remember one of my first papers, I wrote, who's the boss? Me. Like, I actually referenced this show. I thought that's how much I loved everything that she stood for and what was presenting on TV at the time. I just thought it was a really cool thing to aspire to be, which is hysterical when I say this out loud.
00:05:29
Speaker
No, I think it's so interesting. I feel like everyone's got those like archetypes that you look back on and it's, oh yeah, that person was there. That had a seriously outsized impact on what my thinking around something.
Moving to NYC for Beauty PR
00:05:42
Speaker
Okay. And then once you moved up into kind of beyond your entry level role,
00:05:49
Speaker
At what point did you start to focus on beauty? When did that come in? So I graduated in 2000 and then I started my career at a bigger PR agency and I was doing CPG, which is consumer packaged goods. And my big client at the time was Hasbro Games. So I remember being blown away by
00:06:10
Speaker
Everything that entailed from the products and doubts to the seating and this was right around September 11th was one year later in 2001 and everyone was going back to being at home and doing things with your family and these games had a resurgence at the time because before it was like all going out and about and then like family game night came back as you were holding close everything that was dear to you.
00:06:29
Speaker
I was also working on an electronics brand. I did the Ronzoni pasta party before the Boston Marathon. It was hysterical. The brands that I worked on now, looking back on it, these major brands, Energy Star was the big brand that I worked with, but I was very low in the totem pole at this PR agency. But I didn't mind. I always thought it's really good to do the grunt work. And even now, I'm almost 25 years out, like my office off camera looks like a UPS.
00:06:56
Speaker
center. And I always say you should never be too big to pack the box and know how to do the FedEx label. There's no ego. Just get the job done. I was at this PR agency and I was just trying to learn and learn. I had a great account supervisor. I had a great VP above her, but I was in Boston and
00:07:12
Speaker
I knew that if I really wanted to do PR, I had to move to New York. It was the epicenter of media. It was where all of the major corporations specifically in beauty and fashion were. And I had a feeling that was the direction I wanted to go into. So I started interviewing at different agencies in New York.
00:07:28
Speaker
thinking maybe I would even do food and beverage in hospitality, but I've been a vegetarian for 38 years. And I remember meeting with this F&B head and they said, how could you possibly talk about this if you're not even tasting half the dishes? How are you going to take editors to this restaurant if you're not willing to share with them and all of this? And it just knocked me on my ass.
00:07:49
Speaker
And so I really started pursuing beauty and fashion a little bit more than lifestyle and ended up getting a job at an agency in New York. And so I moved here in May of 2002. And that is when I really honed in on beauty. So I've been doing beauty since then. So 22 years and change. Do you still think for folks who are like just graduating and they're trying to figure out where to go and they maybe want to build a career in PR and comms.
Importance of In-Person Interactions in PR
00:08:15
Speaker
Do you still think you have to go to New York for it? Do you think remote work has changed? No, you really have to be here. I think that the pandemic, the silver lining to the pandemic was I think people realized you don't have to be in one place to get it done. People can do jobs remotely and do them well. My small print with that is I think if you're just starting out,
00:08:35
Speaker
You should be somewhere where there's some office presence. Otherwise, how do you even get cultural nuances, social braces, learning from peers and mentors if you don't have some face time? So I think if you're fully remote, you might be missing out on the benefits that you would get, like the hard knocks of being the grunt or the runt rather at an agency or wherever you're working.
00:08:58
Speaker
I think maybe further along in your career, no, you don't need to necessarily be in Manhattan. And unfortunately, the state of media is such that this is hardly the epicenter that it once was. But I think the heart is still beating. It's just not kapow like it used to be. Yeah. No, I think I really agree with you on just the importance of that in person during the first five or so years of your career. I feel like
00:09:21
Speaker
I learned so much just being so constantly in relation to other people, what they modeled, what they didn't model, what I learned how much. That's exactly it. Yeah. And I also think that things get lost over.
00:09:33
Speaker
digital communication. Emails don't translate as well. You throw it in a emoticon or something, but then it seems like you're half joking. When you have the FaceTime, I just think your people skills, there is so much lacking in people skills these days in terms of social graces, I always say. A friend of mine used to joke, I had a PhD in social graces. I think that's really missing these days because people aren't
00:09:56
Speaker
interfacing as much as they used to. We rely on tiny screens and big screens and all different types of communicating except this. There's a reason that like water cooler talk was a thing. You would gather around a water cooler and like BS about current events or what was happening or the show premiere or the show finale and you had these moments and interactions perhaps that you might not get digitally. You might run into the VP in the kitchen while you guys are both grabbing your morning coffee.
00:10:24
Speaker
that you wouldn't have if you're fully working remote and those become priceless. Hey guys, interrupting this interview for 10 seconds to talk about Medberry. At Medberry, we work with executives to help them build their brand and tell their stories on LinkedIn. If you're an exec, your LinkedIn profile can be really, really powerful. It can attract top talent, dream clients, and PR for your organization.
00:10:51
Speaker
And it can turn you into a magnet for opportunities that you might be curious about, like board seats, high ping speaking gigs, podcast appearances, writing projects, or even sometimes a new dream job. But you don't have to post super cringy LinkedIn content to get there. It's totally possible to build a brand with great content that you feel excited and proud to put out into the world. Our process starts with an interview. It's actually a lot like being a guest on Content People.
00:11:17
Speaker
We ask strategic questions to draw out your personal stories and expertise. Then we create a brand plan, optimize your profile, and deliver a batch of content to you for review each month. Once you approve it, we post and engage on LinkedIn on your behalf.
00:11:33
Speaker
We're on their building community and you never have to log in unless you want to. Here's a testimonial from a client. I'm reading it off of our website. She said, just want to reiterate how amazing it's been working with you and how happy I am with the content we're putting out on the channel and the credibility and engagement we're building. I've had so many people tell me how much they love what I've been putting on LinkedIn recently. And when I tell them I have a team helping me, they can't believe it's not me. It's so in line with what I would write and truly comes from my voice.
00:12:02
Speaker
That is a great client of ours. She's a CEO and founder. To learn more, check out our website. I will throw it in the show notes. It's medberryagency.com. And I'll also include a link to book a 15-minute call with me. Thank you so much for listening. Back to the show.
Current Trends in Beauty PR
00:12:22
Speaker
The beauty space NPR has changed so much.
00:12:26
Speaker
What do you think matters more now and what matters less now than it did five, seven years ago? Oh my God. I feel like I need to unroll the scroll. The list is so epic. The first thing that is top of mind that matters now is SEO. It used to be that if you had a good enough story that you could make waves.
00:12:48
Speaker
whether it was an ingredient or a price point or a celebrity ambassador, something that was really going to shake things up. And now I think it's all about SEO. Fortunately or unfortunately, but you have to have something that will help drive people to a site or I don't even know how algorithms work, but that your story keeps coming up when people are searching for Rosacea or Best SPF or products for KP or anything along those lines.
00:13:18
Speaker
So that used to not be the case. You would build your product line or your pipeline or your marketing calendar around various launches based on the ingredients or the technologies of the delivery systems that were available or franchises that you wanted to build out. And now for better or for worse, I think that's not necessarily the case. I think the other thing that has changed is just the sheer number of brands that are out there. When I was growing up, you'd go to the drug store. There were legacy brands and by legacy brands, the ones that my mom might've used.
00:13:48
Speaker
any of the J&J brands or the wheel of the laser, now it's just a laser, the Neutrogenas. And now you go to the drugstores, which I love because many of the brands I rep happen to be in this space, but there are just so many new brands on the shelves and there was just not this. So I think the game has changed and more and more people are able to bring things to market.
00:14:14
Speaker
there's more investment out there. It's more talked about. There's shows like Shark Tank where a multitude of beauty brands have gotten deals. And then they have this level of exposure that they would have never had before. There's maybe now it was more and now less, but there used to be these little indie beauty shops where maybe you don't have a shot at getting into a major department store, but you could go to one of these smaller
00:14:36
Speaker
beauty chains that had maybe 10, 15, 20, and you might be able to get distribution there. So I think that the market just continues to shift and flow. But I think the biggest is that there's so much of what's out there in beauty. And there just wasn't that before. Yes.
00:14:53
Speaker
I think from a PR perspective, it's changed in that there's so much more, but yet there's so many less places to cover it because of all of the conglomerates that have either folded into each other or folded altogether or became just a digital site instead of having print. So you're fighting, all of these brands are fighting for less and less places to cover it. When I had my media list
00:15:19
Speaker
how long ago, five, six, seven years ago, you had it broken down by silo. So it was long leads, then it was shortly, then there were digital, and then there were trade. And the long lead was much longer. And now the long lead is...
00:15:35
Speaker
fortunately, so much smaller. And your digital is so much larger. And then you have a freelance tab. And then you have a podcast tab. And then you have an influencer and a content creator tab. And so it's just shifted so much in terms of who you're pitching and where your item can be covered and what's considered media these days. That's the other thing is before media used to just be something that you consumed, something tangible.
00:16:00
Speaker
And then there was the advent of dot coms and blogs. And so you added that digital writer that you would start targeting. And then that evolved into Tumblr. And then it evolved into people doing like long forms on Instagram. And then it evolved into podcasts. And then we had Clubhouse for a beat. So now it's like media is all encompassing. What you're consuming is just it's covered in different places, but it's still content. So that's why when people are like PR said mom, like it's not that.
00:16:30
Speaker
You have to think of it in a different way. People are still getting news, question mark news. They're getting product reviews. They're getting ideas. It's just where are they getting it from that's changed. To go back something you said, for folks who don't know, what is a short lead versus a long lead?
00:16:48
Speaker
for folks who don't know includes Meredith, me? No, of course. Okay. That's so funny. Whenever I will often brief my clients before they appear on podcasts like this, and I say, you always have to explain what something is, figure you're talking to a layman, figure you're talking to your husband or a friend who works as a CPA. And you have to understand things. So I apologize that I didn't do that. A long lead magazine is they have a very long lead time. So think about the magazines when you go to a new stand, which they're very few anymore, but at the airport, any of the magazines,
00:17:17
Speaker
that are no lower, which is no longer in print. Let's edit this so I list the ones that are in print. And it doesn't sell no dire straits, but Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Men's Health, any book that is printed that usually is a month on the spine. So if it's People magazine, it's a short lead. It's
00:17:39
Speaker
The May 9th issue, a long lead is the May, June or the April issue, something along those lines, but it's a long lead time. So they are trying to pull together their stories that go within that. It used to be anywhere from four to six months in advance of it going to print.
00:17:57
Speaker
Now, there's been more May, June, July, August, like any months that, December, January is usually standalone, Jan, Feb. So now it's more of Jan, Feb, May, June, July, August that are these combo issues, but they're still long lead. But instead of producing 12 monthly issues a year, now they might be producing nine or 10.
00:18:17
Speaker
A short lead is a lot of the, or are a lot of the celebrity weeklies. People, Us Weekly, New York Magazine's a weekly, The Atlantic is a weekly, anything that comes out on a weekly basis. So it's a shorter lead time. Got it. And so the way you would pitch them is
Shifts in the Media Landscape
00:18:35
Speaker
very different. For a long lead, we would go out to them
00:18:39
Speaker
four or five, six months before a product was actually launched. And we would say it's embargoed, which means you can't talk about this until it launches. But we would like you to write about this, hopefully, if there's space in your May issue. And here's the story that we're thinking that we could tell. And here's the expert that we'd love for you to speak to. And do you think this is something that might work for you? And then you would line it all up in January. So you were never living in the season. You were always living a season ahead.
00:19:05
Speaker
So in July, you were talking about holiday with long leads. So a lot of PR agencies would host these holiday and July parties where you would make the office look like it was the holiday time and you would serve first some hot chocolate and you would be previewing holiday gifts, but it would be 95 degrees out.
00:19:19
Speaker
Interesting. Actually, one of the things propping up my laptop right now is... Oh, see, okay, so print the lies, yes. It's so insanely cheap though. I feel like it was like 12 bucks for the year or something. I know. It's wild. And I feel like magazines are a nice way to not be on my phone, but also do something a little mindless and frivolous. I still like that for that reason.
00:19:44
Speaker
I love a magazine. I am a long time subscriber of people. I joke I will go down with that magazine. I've been so long with them. I subscribe to less these days, but I still subscribe and I still like going to Hudson News when I go to the airport and picking up a few magazines to have for the plane or wherever I'm landing. I don't think
00:20:03
Speaker
Maybe it's the publicist in me speaking, but you can't take away the feeling. I will run to the newsstand when I know I have an article. I've been doing this for 24 plus years. If I'm flipping through, there's a few newsstands in the city called Iconic, and I used to live in Soho. I'd run to the one that was on, is it Mulberry and Prince?
00:20:21
Speaker
on the corner. And it was every other publicist in Soho. And you'd all be furiously thumbing through the magazine to try to see your story there. And then you would bring it home and scan it in and send it to your client. There's nothing better than opening a print or a newspaper and seeing your work in there. So I don't think that feeling, unfortunately, can be duplicated. There's still a rush. You still get that dopamine like, yeah, when you see a story break online. But the tangible nature of it is missing. And so I get why
00:20:52
Speaker
Think about newspapers. They're still around. Maybe there's fewer of them, but there's something about hearing that newspaper hit the front porch and opening it up and reading the paper that you just can't get from reading it on your phone. Yes. No, I agree. There's something nice tactile.
00:21:08
Speaker
have such like sensory memories of being a kind of woman, like they'd be really cold if the weather was cold that day and the mailbox was hot if the mailbox was hot, it was the summer. I even just think about difference in bathrooms. You used to go to your parents' friend houses and everyone would keep magazines in there. There was always like a prevention or a reader's digest. They were everywhere so I think it's just a different place and space but I like to think that
00:21:36
Speaker
And from what I've read and from what I've seen, there are still magazines, I think, from the ones that are doing well and what people are latching onto are like niche publications that speak to you in a very specific way. Like Cherry Bomb, this, she used to be a publicist, Carrie Diamond, she launched this food magazine.
00:21:53
Speaker
And it's really awesome. And there are people out there, and maybe I don't know what her production schedule is. I don't know how many issues she produces a year. But it's beautiful and tactile. Organic spa is meant for spa-goers, these people that are very into wellness and well-being. And there's something amazing about opening this. And you see it. And even if you go to Barnes & Noble,
00:22:14
Speaker
And there's still the cigar magazines and there's still the car magazines and there's still like the women's service magazines. There's still some fitness magazines. There's something about it that I am still a little, I'm old school, but I evolved, but there's something about it that I don't think can be replaced. And so that's why I still hold on to it very fondly.
00:22:33
Speaker
In general, are the lead times just significantly shorter now across the border? Yes. We still work with a big online outlet for a story six months out. Yes. Interestingly enough, now the online, a lot of online functions like the old school magazines used to. And they think of their editorial calendar, which is when magazines or websites say, OK, this is the month of February. And so here's what we're going to cover day by day. And you think about the cultural moments. So there's red carpets.
00:23:00
Speaker
there might be New York Fashion Week in February. So you know that those moments are going to play a role on certain days. There's February is Black History Month. So you know that you're going to do some stories for that. And then you look at the other days and see if they fill out an editorial calendar. There might be a massive advertiser that is doing a huge hair package in February. And so all of a sudden then there's six or seven hair stories that pop up because they want to work in the advertiser for added value.
00:23:25
Speaker
by weaving it into a hair story. So they are working on editorial calendars, used to approach them at a different time, but now I go out to all of my media list tabs that I was mentioning at the same time. I believe in transparency across the board. I'm not trying to shop the story to someone and not to the other. I'm very honest and forthright if I'm going wide with a story, which means I'm going to every outlet with it.
00:23:48
Speaker
or if I'm coming to you with an exclusive, which means I'd like you to break it first, and then I might go to other outlets to break it later. But I believe in being fully transparent. That's how I keep my relationships. That's why people trust me. I think it's a little bit dodgy if you are not being forthright in that you're telling a story to everybody all at once, and maybe some people don't like it. They want the exclusive. But I feel like you get more by being forthright about it and being honest about it than you do by being a little shady behind it.
Building Successful PR Relationships
00:24:17
Speaker
I can see that with PR being from maybe it's not, but my perspective is that it's based on long-term relationships a lot of the time too.
00:24:26
Speaker
like that integrity people remember and it matters. Yeah. That's everything with PR. It's a long game. I say it to every new business call I have. I think everyone wants this quick hit. Like they are ready for it. And I'm like, sure, I feel you, but buckle up. We're going to be here for a while. It is such a long game before you get to your goal and then your new goal. And maybe you have a spike. Maybe you have something that goes TikTok viral and holy shit, your December is crazy. But then that's a moment. And so the key is to just play
00:24:55
Speaker
play the long game. I apologize, I keep cursing. It's a really hard habit to breathe, so I'm sorry. No, I love it. We'll keep that. So I do. I say it to people all the time. It is. It's the long game, and that it's applicable to clients, and it's applicable to your relationships. You grow up the ranks together. A friend of mine, Leah Wire Romito, she is such a BFD. I joke with her, but not joke, that I don't even know what she does anymore. I just know that she's like the president of the beauty and style group for dot dash Meredith.
00:25:21
Speaker
And we were assistants together. She was the beauty assistant at health. I was the beauty assistant at Caplo Communications. And she continually was promoted. I continually to move jobs. And now when I look at where she is, Jackie Gifford, she used to be an editorial assistant at Travel and Leisure. And now she's the editor in chief. And we've known each other literally for 20 something years.
00:25:42
Speaker
I think that it is a long game and the reason that you get a reputation or you get word of mouth referrals is people remember you and they remember that you're kind and that if they lost their job or they left a job and perhaps they went to a less sexy title, you didn't turn a blind eye to them. You were so like, I want to take you out because I like you, not because I like you because you're with this title. I like you as a person. And they do remember that. They remember the people that are good to them and that are good people.
00:26:10
Speaker
I am a strong believer in that at the end of the day. It's great to have sexy clients and to be the name du jour, but it's more important to me that I do my job, I do it well, and then I'm well-liked by people. And I do have a lot of integrity in what I do. It's my name on the door. Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
No, that all makes so much sense to me and it really resonates with me a lot. What do you think brands need to focus on to succeed now? I'd imagine you might talk about the long game.
00:26:41
Speaker
integrity, but maybe that's not where you'd take it. No, I would. I would say that. I would say the white space. I think on one hand I applaud brand founders that come out and they believe so passionately about what they are launching. They truly believe that there is a white space for yet another face cream.
00:27:03
Speaker
I love that because that's what you need. You need that unbelief in something in order to succeed and work it to succeed. I do think that. But I do also think you need to have someone, whether it's a friend or an advisor, someone who can put on a lens and give you perhaps a different perspective.
00:27:22
Speaker
just to make sure that you know what you're getting into. And I think that you need to hire out. I don't think you can be everything to everyone. And so you should build out a team. And yes, that's expensive, but you're not the expert in everything, nor should you be expected to be. So hire and make sure that you have people in the roles that you need that can do everything really well.
00:27:44
Speaker
I think you also need to be smart about what you're doing and not just go do it when you're good and ready. One of my old bosses used to say, you can only launch once, which I remember thinking, yes, of course, you can only launch once. But then I double clicked on it, as you would say. And I thought, yes, you can only launch once. That means some people get so wrapped up in the number. I need to launch November 2nd. I have to launch November 2nd. I build everything around November 2nd. If it's not ready, November 2nd.
00:28:14
Speaker
So be it. Let's launch November 10th. Screw it. Let's launch November 17th. Why November 2nd? If you need another week to beta test or to refine your messaging or to do a friends and family soft launch, do that and then launch when you're good and ready. At the end of the day, no one will remember whether you launched November 2nd or you launched December 15th.
00:28:36
Speaker
don't launch on a holiday, but otherwise, maybe in my November, December analogy was a bad timing, but yeah, you can only launch once. So do it when everything is in place and then pull the trigger rather than be so consumed by, you were supposed to hit it at a certain date or a certain time or tie to a certain moment. I feel like you've probably seen founders like through like the cycles of the journey.
00:29:00
Speaker
And I think there can be moments where suddenly you're just like, I'm so frustrated. Everything is so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I just want to get it done so I can move on to the next thing as opposed to letting it take the time it takes and be right. I think what everyone needs in that moment is someone like you in their corner being like,
00:29:19
Speaker
Actually, that's an arbitrary date that you set and like what if you took a day off and then we'll deal with it. And I don't believe in Hemingway. I say T to the P, trust the process. So you might have this date, but it could be days, months, years, or you might have the season that you think it is, but things are ready when they're ready. You can't, it's like a baby. I've had four of them, like they'll come when they're good and ready. You might be ready for them to come out, but when they're ready and then they come in hot. So I think it's one of these things.
00:29:47
Speaker
There's a journey.
Finding Market White Space
00:29:49
Speaker
Again, it goes back to the long game. So don't get hung up on a specific arbitrary detail. Yes, I love that. And also T the pH, that's the process. I'm the queen of analogies. The joke is you have to learn how to speak Jamie. Everything I do is an abbreviation, which goes to I try to get so many things done that I'm like, we have to jam this all in. There's only 24 hours in a day. So where can I abbreviate and make things shorter?
00:30:14
Speaker
So yes, to the peak, there's a lot of them there to go behind the scenes. You shared with me some info about affiliate links, which absolutely blew my mind. And I feel was such a key part of PR today. And I want to try and say it back to you and you correct me where I'm doing it wrong. So I understood the concept of affiliate links, say an influencer or a content creator or a, an outlet, like maybe the strategist uses a link.
00:30:44
Speaker
And they collect a percentage of any purchases being via that link. So if they wrote up a review of face oil and you bought it, they get, I don't know, 10% or something, varies of your purchase. What I did not clock is some, is that some of the major retailers like Amazon, for example,
00:31:09
Speaker
If I had a bunch of things in my cart, like 400 bucks worth of stuff, and I added the rose oil and I click buy now, whoever, wherever I got that link from.
00:31:20
Speaker
they get the percentage of my whole cart, not. Correct. If you click through the link that was in your story about the rose oil, correct. And then you add all these other things to cart. You made the point that for direct to consumer brands that don't have distribution via these bigger retailers, sometimes it's harder to get them coverage because brands are like, but we will get so much more money if we go with the product you can get from Amazon because we will get the percentage of that person's entire cart
00:31:48
Speaker
as opposed to 10% of just the product price. That's exactly, yes, you nailed it. Yeah, that's exactly it. And I also, let me just say that this has been a learning curve over the last however many years that this has evolved where commerce writers and shopping writers have become more of the language and people that you're speaking to, not just a dedicated beauty editor. It used to just be that there was a beauty staff.
00:32:15
Speaker
or a fashion staff or a health staff or a fitness staff. And now they're commerce writers. They have to figure out which, to your point, stockists or retailers that they can put in there. And there are partnership managers that are acting as a liaison between basically the website and these networks or these retailers to try to set up a higher percentage for an affiliate link.
00:32:38
Speaker
And so to your point about these little smaller indie brands that perhaps are just selling D2C, you're competing for, let's say there's a roundup of the top 15 mascaras. You're competing for one of those 15 spaces, but if your mascara is only sold on your website and 27 other brands are sold on Amazon, Nordstrom, Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Target,
00:33:02
Speaker
Those brands likely have a leg up because there are different percentages that have been negotiated between the retailer or the affiliate, as well as the publishing house or the website. It is extremely difficult, and I always tread lightly when I'm speaking to D2C brands because of that, because I know the uphill battle that I face in editorial with it. Even having amazing relationships, there's only so much that can be done. Sometimes the publishing house
00:33:29
Speaker
Determines and there will be a call out for products from an editor or a writer, but they say specifically looking for products that are available on skim links specifically looking for products that are available on Amazon specifically looking for products that are available on Sephora and so you lose out on an opportunity for coverage if your brand doesn't cover or isn't carried there.
00:33:48
Speaker
And it's hard for these D2C brands, these indie brands, because there can be really big margins or there could be certain minimums or certain buy-ins that they're not producing at the scale that they need to be in these big retailers. But it does impact PR. And let me just say this is not how it used to be. This has really been an evolution of how media has changed and transformed. But I always say, don't whoever said don't hate the play or hate the game or whatever it was,
00:34:12
Speaker
This is how it is. So we can be grudged or be moaning or we can say, okay, that's the way it is. And some brands will say, all right, I'm staying DTC because I know that's all I can do right now. And I'm okay with, I might not get as much coverage. And some brands say, okay, so let me investigate or look into if I can come up with a partnership with one of these other retailers or set up something with Amazon so I can have an official storefront and things along those lines.
00:34:37
Speaker
So interesting. And it's making me think about Into the Gloss, for example. It was these kind of like cult products like 50, which you have to get through some one weird website. My perception, which could be wrong, is that I don't think that the affiliate links
00:34:56
Speaker
for the product racks were driving the, what was covered in the same way. Yes. Still outlets that have that, that are still like, we're not playing that game or they're very separate. There is a commerce side of the website and then there is a straight up editorial side and there's not a sway. There's not as much
00:35:15
Speaker
attention or push paid on where the retailer is. It's kept separate. But I think of it, I guess my comparison of the then and the now is back in the day. And I remember when I first met my now husband and he was subscribing to a few different men's magazines. And he, we used to fold down the page of something that he found interesting. And then maybe we'd go to Blooby Dales and we'd say, oh, we saw this in GQ or whatever to buy it.
00:35:38
Speaker
And so I said to him, look, flip four pages past that or before that. Did you see that they were advertised? And he said, why they made it into the roundup. I said, it's not necessarily why. But was there certainly a conversation between the publisher side of things and the editorial side saying, OK, this retailer is advertising quite aggressively, or this brand is advertising? And so if you are doing a story on winter coats, perhaps they could be one of the 10 that you're going to look at or consider.
00:36:06
Speaker
And now it's just translated a little bit into the digital world. So the affiliate team and the partnership team is saying, okay, we have a really great relationship with X retailers. So we're going to have a dedicated writer that only covers products and sales and items that are covered on this retailer because it is driving so much revenue. And you have to also understand in today's day and age, commerce is helping keep the lights on. And I spoke to before our podcast, I spoke to
00:36:36
Speaker
three or four friends that work in the commerce world, which I'm very grateful that they share their insight and their intel with me. And that's the message that was echoed. It's, if this commerce that keeps the lights on, it's think about brands that are doing events, it's events and these commerce that is the revenue stream. Whereas before it was, it was advertising and it was circulation. They were selling subscriptions and unfortunately or unfortunately that's just not what's
00:37:01
Speaker
keeping it on anymore. And so I, again, I don't hate the game. This is the way it is. So let's just do it. Yeah, no, I agree. And I just, it's so interesting. You will never read an article again and be like, Oh my God, it's neck coincidental. You're gonna be like, Oh my God, that's why they all tagged this. It's mind blowing. Once you pay attention to it. Yeah. Seriously, I feel like even since that first combo we had, I've been more mindful now of who's
00:37:27
Speaker
more who's pushing Amazon products most is just really enlightening. It is. It's wild. And I give, again, I give my commerce editor friends all the credit in the world. It is not easy and so much of it. And again, I'm not the expert in this at all, but now you're competing against AI and the algorithm. And so it is tougher and tougher to keep your stories performing.
00:37:51
Speaker
And so you need to include products that you know your readers are interested in or sites that you know that they're shopping. And then you keep your job. It's really important that I give them the utmost respect. I bow down. I think that they are churning out a lot of content all the time. And perhaps that's not this long form thought out, super researched like it would be if it was in a print magazine, but everyone's doing their job.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yes. And same. I also want to be careful. There's no part of me that's like, this is shady. It's just totally interesting. And it's like an aha. Yes. Yes. Okay. I really want to make sure that we talk about your media intel newsletter. So can you talk a little bit about it, why you started it, what it is? I think it's so
The Media and Tell Newsletter
00:38:36
Speaker
cool. Thank you.
00:38:37
Speaker
Media and Tell, there was an article not too long ago by, I think, is an incomparable writer. His name is Brennan Cobain, and he wrote in Business of Fashion, which is one of the trade pubs I subscribe and read religiously over there in Beauty, where he had spoken to a bunch of
00:38:53
Speaker
different people in the world about what is Substack doing for beauty these days. And a good friend of mine is named Erica Metzper. She was a longtime beauty director who since went freelance post dot dash. And she was speaking to Brennan and very kindly gave me a little hat tip and said, actually, Jamie, you should talk to she's like the OG, but I don't do Substack. I know you do. I just do a straight up newsletter that I send out to subscribers. And it started from back in 2009 ish.
00:39:23
Speaker
I was at La Prix, which is a very beautiful, luxurious Swiss skincare brand. And I would have lunches with a few other PR people that were from other luxury skincare and makeup lines and some agency people, but it was mostly people that were in-house communications roles.
00:39:40
Speaker
And whenever we'd go to these lunches, we would catch up. And I hate picking each other's brains, but pick each other's brains, but also talk a little bit about the industry and blah, blah, blah. And I always had the scoop on a writer or an editor who was leaving, coming, going, unhappy, looking to take on blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:57
Speaker
And so I would send this out to this group of ladies that I would do this lunch with. It was all women. And I only did it once I had the blessing from whomever the writer or the editor was. I would never do it without their okay to share their news.
00:40:11
Speaker
And so it was one of these things that it started out with maybe, let's say, 12 people. And then they said, oh, can you add so-and-so to your news blast? And then it became 20, and then it became 30, and then it became, it was not just publicist, then editors wanted to be on it, and then writers wanted to be on it.
00:40:28
Speaker
And then there were producers that were on it and it became this beast. And so a girlfriend of mine named Polly Glitzer had said, what are you doing? Like, why aren't you monetizing this, Jay? She was on a press trip and a bunch of them said, we're waiting for the maser dispatch, like the media intel dispatch about what's coming on from what's going on in the world. And so I thought, okay, how hard would this be to monetize? What do I feel right about charging, which lesson learned charge more from the upfront because
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's a whole other conversation, but that is one of your little lessons to as founders. I'm like, charge your worth. So I charge like peanuts for the service, but it's invaluable from what I'm told. So I said, okay, you know what? I'll set this up as a monetize. And I gave my current members a heads up that I was going to start monetizing it for the new year. And I said, I hope that they'll join me and that they found this service valuable. And basically it is, I act as a liaison. So editors will come to me and say, I'm going to be leaving. I'd love you to put it on media and tell.
00:41:25
Speaker
and I include their verbiage or their language, their contact information, when they'll be leaving, if they want product sent, if they're interested in packages or invitations, or I'm a voracious reader. I spend so much of my time online reading the news, watching the news, listening to various news, and just consuming media. I think that's
00:41:45
Speaker
part of our job as publicists. And so it sometimes is things that I've been told with their blessing. Sometimes it's things that I spotted on social media. Sometimes it's things that I saw a LinkedIn update and then I share it with my subscription list and it's not meant to be fancy.
00:42:00
Speaker
It's no pomp and circumstances. It's a screen grab with a spotted on or as heard in or as seen by or whatever it was. And the subject line says media intel. So it's very easy to search. I include any of the details. And then if I don't have all the details, then I'll send an update afterwards if that person ends up landing somewhere else.
00:42:19
Speaker
And I think of it as a really good, affordable resource. It's a way to stay organized. It can be very hard to keep your media list. And as a publicist, your media lists are your everything. And media intel helps you just stay up to date on who's going where. And if you're a writer, it's a way to know who to pitch. And it's very affordable. It's $75 a year, which I always like to say. If you buy 10 coffees, 10 coffees, like you've paid for your media intel already. I'll get the link from you. Thank you.
00:42:46
Speaker
notes and I'll put it in the sub stack. And loving this combo with Jamie and wants to subscribe. And yeah, that's 75 bucks a year. And that's only 625 a month. You have to have these subscriptions. I always crack up when a fellow publicist will say to me, do you have a women's wear daily subscription? Could you PDF this article for me? I'm like, how do you work in beauty without a women's wear daily subscription? I honestly need to know how one is getting by
00:43:13
Speaker
without a mentor subscription. It's whatever the cost is, 300 a year. It's the cost of doing business. If you expect to be an expert in your field, you need to subscribe and read your trade outlets. You need to pay for these various sub stacks. You need to pay attention or else where do you get off charging your clients what you're charging them? I totally agree with that. So a lot of founders in their first one to two years of business listen.
00:43:37
Speaker
Can you remember some of the best business advice you've ever gotten or your own advice on starting and running your
Advice on Resilience and Business
00:43:43
Speaker
own business? We were out with another couple. My husband and I am James Alvech. He has a company called Music and Strategy Moss. He is married to my friend Alexis Rodriguez, who's also a beauty publicist. And James said, the biggest thing is you figure out how to figure it out.
00:43:56
Speaker
And I didn't know what he meant. It was literally, I was starting Mason Communications. It must have been very early in the beginning of 2014. I started in February of 2014. This was in the first two months or so. And I get what he means. You do. You figure out how to figure it out. You don't really have a choice in the matter. Google is your friend. Friends are your friends. Books are your friends. Mistakes are your friends. There are so many ways to figure out
00:44:23
Speaker
how to figure it out and you just do. It's like anything else in life, personally or professionally, I've had some personal things and you think that I don't know how I'll get through this, but guess what? You do. I think when James said that, I thought that's wonderful. I think that's a really good way to think about something, especially if you can be overwhelmed. Okay. You figure out how to figure it out. You just do.
00:44:45
Speaker
So thank you, Jane Savage, for that little wisdom. My husband's name is Hallie Bergman and he always tells me I move a mile a minute. See also earlier in our conversation, I say I try to fit 36 hours into 24. And one of the things that he told me is, take a beat. You see a text come through or an email come through and you're like, okay.
00:45:04
Speaker
And yes, what I work in is a time-sensitive industry with certain things. Also, gut check. We're talking about skin creams. Is it time-sensitive? I'm not saving lives. There's this expression like it's PR, not ER. You have to check yourself sometimes.
00:45:20
Speaker
Take a beat. You don't need to respond. Like breathe it in, breathe it out before you hit go. Because if you give yourself that hour, those two hours, those five hours, you might articulate your thoughts better. You might have had time to digest whatever this person was coming back to you with. You might have time to find a typo that perhaps you did not see originally. You're just in a better mind
00:45:45
Speaker
place or a mine state to respond and you should have those two, three, four hours. There was a meme going around about how every other country when they get an out of office would come out of office. I'll respond when I return in two weeks at the US. I'm having neck surgery, but if you ping me, then I should be able to respond when the anesthesia wears off. We feel this urgency, but it's not a contest. You don't get a prize because you responded within two minutes of receiving an email.
00:46:14
Speaker
You don't get a prize even when you do things really well. Do your job well, take a beat, mull it over. The other thing that I think, these are, I have two others, if that's not too much. Is that okay? I always tell people have a ceiling and have a floor. So I think that you go into conversations when you do retainer work or anything that involves a dollar and you feel like you need to say yes to the amount.
00:46:39
Speaker
And why? Something else will happen and come along. So I have my ceiling. Okay. In a great scenario, this is what I would love to ask for. This feels like my balls to the wall number. And then I have my floor. Okay. They're probably not going to meet me there. So what's the very bottom number that I'm willing to do the work for? And then what's my in-betweener?
00:46:59
Speaker
And don't budge because you have to know your worth. So I think in the beginning of my career, I underestimated my worth and my ceiling was too low and my floor was too low. And now I said it to you in one of our earlier calls, like your people will be your people. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. They might want a big agency.
00:47:19
Speaker
with multiple people staffing their account. And the Shore Mesa Communications that's run by me, I do it all. So I'm not everyone's, but the brands that are with me and have been with me, I'm their people and I'm good with that.
00:47:33
Speaker
So I think it's okay to know your worth to add tax and your worth, but also to say, I want to meet you so badly in the middle and I want to make this work, but unfortunately our fees are just off. But here are some names that I'd love to give you and perhaps they have a little bit more flexibility. And I do that, I pay it forward and it gets paid back to me and I do it because it's just the right thing to do, not because I get paid back.
00:47:56
Speaker
buy it, but just because I really like this brand, but I just know we can't meet in that middle. My floor is their ceiling, and sometimes it just doesn't work out. Is there any super bad advice that you've gotten that you're like, oh my God, I can't believe that person told me that? Yes, so I have two. In this one, I had someone who said I would bill hourly.
00:48:17
Speaker
in PR, sometimes you can bill hourly or you allocate X many hours to work on a project. And then if you go over, you let the client know or before ahead of time, you say, we're getting close to hours. Would you like to do X amount of hours? And it'll be billed at this hourly rate. Perhaps there's an overtime fee or whatever. Or you could bill hourly in general. And I work very quickly.
00:48:43
Speaker
And so I don't subscribe to that mindset because I think you're paying for my expertise, not how quickly I work. So I know a lot of people, Bill Adlerly, and I think, again, it's like everyone has their own advice, different strokes for different folks. You do if that works for you or you say, okay, I'm going to spend 30 hours a month on this client.
00:49:01
Speaker
But to me, my fee is my fee. You get me, all of me, at the risk of sounding like a Grey's Anatomy episode. This is it. So we're in this together. I'm not charging you more because this month was especially stellar or this month was especially taxing. The next month will not be especially taxing. So my fees are my fees because I know the ebb and flow of the business and how things work.
00:49:24
Speaker
So I personally don't believe in that. The other thing I always say is people would say you just have to say yes and I don't believe in that. I think that saying no can be very empowering and it will lead to a yes later. So I don't think you need to say yes to everything. And again, a lot of my things that I say apply to my personal life as well as my professional life.
00:49:44
Speaker
I think that I am a people pleaser by nature, but I still very much will say, unfortunately, I can't do that. Or can I have a deadline extension? I won't be able to make it by your deadline, but I'm happy to do this if you can give me until next Monday. So it's saying no, but I think that it's okay and not boundaries, but I think sometimes it's okay to say no. You don't always have to say yes, even in the client service industry, which is what we are in. Yeah.
00:50:12
Speaker
Oh my gosh. It's just such good advice. And to go back to the pause bit, I feel like you and I talked about that offline. And that one resonated with me so hard because it's funny. I think back, even when I was an exec, by the time I had been a COO for a few years, I felt like I had boundaries of steel. And I was constantly coaching everyone on my team. I was like, that client email was not urgent. You could have waited till the next day. We can take our time with these things. We can slow down.
00:50:40
Speaker
But then I think in the first maybe six months of Medbury, I was like triggered back into a more like survival stress spot and my people pleasing tendencies. It's like I started from scratch, but everything you're saying, like take your time, say no, like the right yeses will weirdly come around the corner so fast. It resonates so, so much. But it's still easy Meredith. I've been doing this for 24 years and I still have moments. We're creatures of habit and we go back to what we think is the easy fix or the band aid or the
00:51:10
Speaker
It's your knee-jerk reaction, but I do very much, and my therapist is working with me on breathing, and you just have to breathe. It's very easy to go through life and to just go. But if you pause and you think beforehand, the end result is so much more worth it. And again, this is not like easier said than done. It's so much easier to give people great advice than to do it yourself. But I do really pride myself on certain things. And I think if I'm going to be in touch, I want it to be thoughtful. I don't want it to be sloppy.
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah. So apologies to anybody that I was sloppy with. I just can't imagine that. Okay, final question. Yes. This ghost writing, Jamie, have you ever seen a ghost?
00:51:53
Speaker
I have not seen a ghost, but I do believe that there are spirits in some way, shape, or form, and I will often see, and I say often, because it's happened to me, and even I remember, I wouldn't even since, but I was on the T in Boston. I went to school at BU, and then I lived there for two years after, and I was on the T. I was waitressing at this restaurant, Paparazzi, at the time, and I swore I saw my grandmother who had passed.
00:52:16
Speaker
So there, and then I've since seen someone who looks like my grandmother at this workout class that I did when I was visiting my family and PA, and I've seen someone who looks like my father throughout New York. And so I think there are these kind of like alternate lives or like that sliding doors where if it's not happening now, it's happening in another space in another time. And this sounds very hippie-dippy. And when I used to be very hippie-dippy and woo, circle like the early 90s. So perhaps that's those roots coming out. But I do think it's like when you meet someone, you're like, have you met before?
00:52:45
Speaker
There's a reason that someone looks so familiar or feels so familiar. So maybe not a ghost, but a spirit, I will say. Okay. That's so funny. It was on a train because my mom has a story. She grew up and lived in Brooklyn until she was like 40 and she was on a train and she saw her mom and she was like, mom,
00:53:05
Speaker
And she was yelling and she's like, that's my mom. And my mom's not, her mom also lived in Brooklyn, didn't respond. And her mom was like, no, I was like out of town that day. And my mom still cannot believe this. She's like, I saw my mother on the train. Yeah, it is. It's trippy. Life is trippy full stop, right? But there are sometimes these things that happen and you're like, what was that? You just have to take almost reassessively about it. That just happened that I know it was like seeing things. Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
Jamie, this has been so incredible. Thank you so much. Meredith, I'm so honored and flattered, so thank you. Hey, content people. Do you mind if I call you that? If you like the show, there are a few ways you can stay in touch and support us. The first is you could subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. The second is you could leave a five-star rating and a review.
00:53:58
Speaker
Those make a really big impact. I know they're a pain and they take a little bit of time, but if you're feeling generous and you've been listening to the show, I'd appreciate it so much. And the third is you could sign up for the Content People newsletter. The link is in the show notes. We share news about the show and episodes. And I also write a lot about the intersection between work and creativity, which is at the heart of so many of these Content People conversations. We also love feedback if you want to
00:54:23
Speaker
request a guest or a topic, pitch yourself to be on the show, advertise with us, learn more about Medberry social media or otherwise just be in touch, shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you. It's Meredith at medberryagency.com. That's M-E-D-B-U-R-Y agency.com. I will throw that in the show notes too. All right, until next time.