Author: Calvin R. Evans
Published: October 20, 2005
Tool: [ email ]
Manhunt: Hello Edna, how are you?
Edna: Fine, how are you?
Manhunt: Wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us at Manhunt.
Edna: Your welcome.
Manhunt: I want to start off by getting some background information from you. Now, the name of your PR agency is ESPPR.
Edna Bruce: Correct.
Manhunt: And how long have you been doing public relations?
Edna Bruce: I’ve been doing PR for about fifteen years or so.
Manhunt: Fifteen years, and did you start off independently or did you start off with a record label.
Edna Bruce: No, I started off independently, with a passion. When I started, I had another business. I was doing sports camps for professional basketball players and football players.
Manhunt: OK
Edna Bruce: At that time I was basically working with the Lakers camp. That was during the time they were doing all of that winning. I was getting a lot of calls from different TV shows and magazines for either Magic Johnson or one of my other players, and I would tell them to call the Forums publicist but they would tell me they couldn’t get through. So I started doing a lot of the booking of the basketball players for television shows, magazine interviews and commercials. So when I went to start my next business, which was PR, it was just natural. It just flowed because I was doing a lot of talking and working with the press.
Manhunt: Certainly. It sounds like a pretty exciting job. If there is a way to get started in the business, that sounds like a pretty exciting way to get started.
Edna Bruce: Yes it was. These were for big shows like NBC specials, huge companies, media outlets and television shows wanting to talk to the players.
Manhunt: Well it also sounds as though you didn’t have much time to get warmed up in this thing; you kind of jumped in feet first.
Edna Bruce: That’s right. I jumped in and did it.
Manhunt: That is very exciting. Now, you are obviously still an independent publicist. What artists do you currently work with?
Edna Bruce: Oh gosh. Kathy Hughes, Radio One, Witness, Frieda Battle, Shekinah Glory Ministries. We don’t just do gospel public relations. That’s the unique thing about our company; we are not confined to a specific genre. We’ll go from being on the phone pitching hip-hop artists, then we’ll turn around and start pitching for Crenshaw Christian Center, which is Dr. Fredrick Price, another one of our clients.
Manhunt: Right. It must be difficult dealing with such different markets. Since the markets are different I would guess that the way you do public relations for them must be different. How do you switch gears when doing publicity for such diverse markets at the same time? Do you have a different approach?
Edna Bruce: No not at all. A pitch is a pitch, whether you’re pitching a gospel artist or if you’re pitching David Talbert, who is a playwright that we’re are working right now. Or let’s say when we switching over and doing The Realest or Twista, the pitch is the same. It’s the genre, or the magazine, or the media outlet, which is different. And of course that all has to be communicated, but we don’t have a problem with doing that because my firm started with doing professional athletes, which then went on into hip-hop and rap. And as the years went on and I being a Christian, I prayed and asked for clients in the gospel music industry, because I wanted to share what I had in the gospel industry. So that’s how that happened, so actually it’s very refreshing and it kind of keeps your day moving because your doing all different varieties of pitching for different clients. Then we have the Ford Motor Company, we do some corporate stuff, we have Chrysler, so we could be pitching that one hour and then the next hour we’ll go on and begin to talk about Dr. Fredrick Price purchasing a church in New York City and start to get interviews on that. So it’s fun, it’s just straight up fun.
Manhunt: Well I was going to say that it sounds like there is never a dull moment with what you do.
Edna Bruce: There’s not. And because of the different genres that are out, you know the rappers, we don’t even change our vocabulary for them. We keep it straight; we just keep it business. So I don’t have to, lets say, go down to there level or anything, they like the professionalism that we give versus saying, “Hey ya’ll” and all that. We don’t have to talk in that slang. They like it, as a matter of fact, they prefer for you to handle your business as they would say, then to try to be buddy buddy or friends with them or anything. And of course when your talking to the press you have to be intelligent and speak clearly as to whom you are representing and what is it that you want.
Manhunt: Right. Now when you are thinking about taking on a new artist what is your criteria, what do you look for in an artist that makes you want to work with them?
Edna Bruce: Good music, if it’s music industry it has to be good music. The music is what sells. You’ve got to have good music.
Manhunt: Do you find it easy to work with an artist that may not necessarily have an outgoing personality but has great music, or do you look for the total package?
Edna Bruce: No, if they have good music but don’t have a good personality then we’ll work with that artist on how to prepare them.
Manhunt: OK. So that’s something that you can overcome.
Edna Bruce: Yes. We have worked with artists that you can’t even talk to them. They’re in prison. You have to keep it as exciting as possible. You know, sometimes we can get through and get interviews through the prison system, but I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to anyone in prison, it can be very difficult because there this recording that comes on every 15 minutes that says “you are talking to someone who is incarcerated, blah, blah, blah…” So it can be very challenging but you can still promote an artist even if they don’t speak. Or you can promote an event, or a movie, because there are a lot of times where you won’t speak to these artists.
Manhunt: Right. Well I’ll tell you what; I find that molding an artist can be exciting about the job. Which in this day and age, from the labels point of view, just doesn’t happen anymore.
Edna Bruce: Right…. that’s right. But you know what the key is, a good press release. If you have a good press release with quotes, where you can make it appear from these wonderful quotes that the writer has talked to the artist, they don’t need to actually talk to the artist if it’s inconvenient. Of course it’s always best for them to talk to the artist, but if for some reason they can’t, you have wonderful quotes. And that’s why a good press release is always essential. It has to be to the point and filled with good quotes.
Manhunt: OK, so now of course the next question is going to be, what is a good press release? What makes for a good press release?
Edna Bruce: A good press release basically has all of these elements: who, what, where, why, and then great quotes. It should tell a story, and some people have a one-page format, which is good, it should be short and concise, but it should be informative.
Manhunt: Certainly.
Edna Bruce: And you shouldn’t have to go back to the person’s very humble beginnings and all that stuff, it should be what’s current and what they are promoting. And like I said, it should stick to a page but if it’s a page and a half, as long as the information is there I don’t think they mind. You don’t want a book about the artist.
Manhunt: Certainly. Does it have to necessarily be newsworthy?
Edna Bruce: Yes, it should be newsworthy. The content should be something that will excite, something new about that artist, or if they are not known, then something about them to want to write about. There has to be an angle. You have to create press angles as part of your press kit to drive to whatever it is that they are promoting.
Manhunt: OK.
Edna Bruce: I think so.
Manhunt: All right. In your daily work that you do, what is a PR/Publicists primary responsibility?
Edna Bruce: In our daily work what it has come to now, because it has changed with the technology, it’s primarily emailing, we do a lot of emailing, and conversation. That is something that is being left out now. A lot of publicists are just to the email writing and they don’t talk to people, they don’t develop relationships and that’s important. PR is about relationship and in order to form a relationship you have to talk to that person. So we talk on the phone a lot and we email a lot everyday, all day long that is basically what we do. We talk and we email.
Manhunt: I guess one would probably think that can become monotonous over a period of time, but I assume that with the diverse clientele that you work with it never gets monotonous.
Edna Bruce: No. And that goes for anything that you do, whether you’re a publicist, or you do promotions, or your doing radio, if you love what you do, you won’t mind doing the same repetitive things everyday like talking on the phone or emailing all day long.
Manhunt: I tend to agree.
If you don’t like it, it’s like if you dig that same ditch everyday, if you don’t like it you’re not going to like going there and digging that ditch.
Manhunt: See I enjoy talking to people, so I love doing interviews. I absolutely love it. I get to meet new people all of the time, get an opportunity to talk about things that are very interesting to me, and get an opportunity to learn about people. So I can totally relate.
Edna Bruce: That’s right. And see that’s the thing too, we you talk to people you learn. As you know, your on this path of life and you’re constantly…you should be constantly learning.
Manhunt: Always.
Edna Bruce: You’ve got to. You can never stop, or be a know-it-all because you don’t. There’s always something new to learn. There’s always another person’s perspective to listen to, to comprehend, and to discern. And there comes about learning, as well as with facts.
Absolutely.
Edna Bruce: I’m sure when Hurricane Katrina came around, I never learned as much about hurricanes until that came along.
Manhunt: I know, because the coverage was non-stop. You know how they form, you know how they travel, and you know how they gain energy.
Edna Bruce: Right. You know that if you’re on the right side of the eye of the hurricane
Then you know that you’re going to get it. If you’re on the left side, you have a little better chance.
Manhunt: Right.
Edna Bruce: You know all the stuff that you’ve learned, you know, how it grows in warm waters. So you learn, it’s a constant state of learning as you talk to people and as you listen to people. That’s important too, because it can’t always be about talking, you have to listen too. That’s another important thing in our industry, if you listen to what these artists are saying then I think you can better pitch them.
Manhunt: Sure.
Edna Bruce: A lot of people who have artists, they don’t talk to their artists so they don’t know a lot about them.
Manhunt: Well it’s always good to know about the product that you are pitching, and if the artist were your product, then I would guess that it would be important to get to know about them.
Edna Bruce: That’s right.
Manhunt: So, in your opinion, what are the essential components of a PR campaign?
Edna Bruce: Well, a PR campaign…I guess you have to know your market. Then you have to know your artist, or if you don’t know about you’re artist, then being interested in learning more about your artist. I think when you know these things that is essential to the campaign of which you are going to target your client to. So that’s where marketing and PR kind of comes together.
Manhunt: OK, all right.
Edna Bruce: As well as when you start PR you have to establish the look of your artist, that’s important for a publicist. How you present the artist in the pictures, videos and CD covers. A lot of record companies don’t involve publicists in that aspect, but I think that they should.
Manhunt: I agree.
Edna Bruce: The look is so important, and how they look is very important. I can’t express when it comes time for the pictures that a publicist presents, that those pictures should be, especially on new artists, their whole face should be on that picture. If they are going to do a shot, they should not have on sunglasses to hide their eyes or hats to hide the head. They need to grasp that artist by being able to see their face. Not looking down, because a lot of artists take these pictures and they want to like their reflecting, or thinking. If they are known it’s ok, but if they’re new it won’t work because you are trying to establish your artist as a household commodity and in order to do that you have to be able to see that person.
Manhunt: Sure.
Edna Bruce: So I think the pictures are important, the press release is important in that campaign, and the marketing of the artist, which goes into the PR, is important as well.
And then of course you have the pitch.
Manhunt: How often does it happen that you get into a power struggle with an artist who says, “I want my image to look like this” or, “This is how I want my pictures to look.” Does that happen frequently?
Edna Bruce: It happens frequently.
Manhunt: OK. How do you overcome that?
Edna Bruce: You know, you can advise and if it gets to the point where they will just not listen, then you just have to go with it and they will find out. They’ll find out when they find that things aren’t as successful or they are not being known, or no one knows what they look like when they walk in a store then they will see. It does happen but we have been quite successful in getting the artist to work on their look, and to have them look into the camera. And the look is a whole different thing because you want your look to be special to you. That is basically on the artist, you can make recommendations but I think that is where you give in to the artist. You know you’ll say, “All right I’ll give you the look, but you’ve got to look into the camera. We’ve got to see your face.”
(Interviewer laughs)
Manhunt: So at some point there usually is some level of compromise?
Edna Bruce: Definitely.
Manhunt: So my final question for you is, what advice would you give to someone who wants to get into the field of PR/Publicity?
Edna Bruce: Well I think that they should definitely take writing classes and communication classes and if they’re college or university has classes on public relations, then take that as well. The education is important and understanding what publicity is about. I jumped in on it, but before I was a publicist and before I started my first business, I was a college professor. I was a college professor at 21 years old in the Cal State University system teaching English and Psychology. So you have to know the basics of writing and communications, and I would also recommend that they intern in order to get in there. I would talk to people who are in the business about either interning or volunteering to work so you can understand how this whole PR game works. My husband and I, we are a husband and wife team, Damian Bruce and myself, and we cater to the press. Any event that you know, and I am sure you know this, we make sure the press has everything in an event that they are going to need.
Manhunt: Right, you definitely do.
Edna Bruce: We don’t want you to come in and waste your time. We make sure that the press has all the materials that they are going to need, press releases, press kits, what have you. After the event, if it necessitates that you have a post release or pictures with captions. We make sure you get the things you need to do your job because without the press you can’t really promote your client. So it behooves you to be nice to the press, make sure that they are comfortable, and make sure that they have everything they need to do a good job to promote what it is that you’re publicizing. That’s one of the key things, and sometimes that does not always happen. We get calls about that all the time, “Oh you’re not working that event. Oh God, we might not get our interview.” But that’s the thing, we take care of the press.
Manhunt: I have to say you really do.
Edna Bruce: Just as much as we do the clients. You’re going to get special from us. If you need water, we’re going to get you water. If you’re hungry, we’re going to get you some food.
Manhunt: You do. I thought that the Gospel Super Fest in Atlanta was awesome. I felt you guys did a wonderful job. So you really do.
Edna Bruce: Thank you.
Manhunt: You’re welcome. I enjoyed myself very much.
Edna Bruce: We appreciate that because that’s what we want to hear from the media. We want to hear that we were treated well, we had everything we needed, and we got the interview. We’ll break our backs to get you an interview that you need.
Manhunt: Oh we enjoyed it very much, and I am so thankful that you took the time to do the interview with us. We really do appreciate it.
Edna Bruce: Oh you’re welcome.
