Student-Run Events: Celebrity Campaigns
Introduction
INTERVIEW RE: BTTF CELEBRITY CAMPAIGNS & ORIGIN
Francesca D'Ovidio, Brooklyn Tech High School Senior, Intern at BTTF
Francesca (Student): What is your favorite part?
Janice (Executive Director): What I love about these projects is how it changes student perceptions about accessibility and what is possible. They’re not reading about this in a book – they’re doing it. They’re working back and forth with the producers and talent agencies in real time and obtaining real results.
Francesca: How did the celebrity events happen when you first started BTTF?
Janice: In the years leading up to our first full year serving patients in 2007, we gained significant celebrity support from well-known personalities like Demi Moore, Judy Reyes, Bridget Moynahan, Solange, Eve and others. This was back when The Devil Wears Prada was released; many valuable partnerships were tied to Conde Nast print publications. Often, we (the charity) would make talent requests and various publications would pay large sponsorships or make donations for concerts or celebrity-focused events.
A close friend lived with her older sister who worked for Creative Artists Agency (and later married a celebrity). I’d see and hear talent coordination conversations regularly; this exposure allowed me to pick up on key items and insider phrases to formulate more strategic email requests.
Francesca: Then after a few years, the team focused more on programs.
Janice: Things changed during the 2008-09 recession and into 2010. It felt like the end of era for print publication sponsorship; blogs were getting more traction and the print landscape was shifting. As we began to receive AVON Foundation funds and other key foundation support, a stronger focus on programs happened organically. That recession was a somber time, and many were without health insurance - we were slammed.
Francesca: That shift helped also set us up for the celebrity auctions. I remember hearing about this even before I started working in the office.
Janice: Yes. Instead of working to convince talent to come to us for events - it was making more sense to go to them. TV set visits and concerts with meet & greets became the largest revenue generators.
Francesca: Did people think you were crazy to trust teenagers with something like this?
Janice: Not really. You understood how important it was to preserve the talent rep relationships for these packages - often 25% or 30% of our annual revenue. Executing fast, turn-key templates for the producers or publicists, coordinating the meet & greets, writing effective talking points, handling hair/make up, transport, or whatever it was. The best part was revealing later that they’d been coordinating with 16-year-old.
