| Q & A 11.06.06 9:00 PM |
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| Time Inc.'s West Coast Post |
| From her L.A. office, Cyd Wilson directs event strategy for two of New York's biggest celebrity magazines. |
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 | | Kevin Winter/Getty Images |
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Cyd Wilson
Title: Director of creative development for In Style and People
What She Plans: Wilson throws two dozen events a year around the world. “I am responsible for all the branding events that involve the Hollywood community. I do events internationally for our international publications, anything that’s entertainment-industry related. The events are about a quarter of my responsibilities. I do all of our cause-related marketing between our advertisers and Hollywood charities, as well as all of our philanthropic giving for both of the magazines. I’m also responsible for our larger relationships—like maintaining partnerships in the entertainment industry, such as In Style’s marketing partnership with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.”
Staff: An L.A.-based manager and coordinator
Age: 54
Career Path: Wilson graduated from CSUN with a B.A. in business administration, and then worked in psychiatric hospital administration for 10 years. After taking a decade off to raise her kids, she volunteered with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. From there, she became development director and helped create the Time for Heroes event. Sponsors included People, whose then-president, Ann Moore, recruited her as a liaison between Time Inc. magazines and charities. Wilson began as a consultant in 1995 and moved to In Style when it launched. When its founding editor, Martha Nelson, moved to People, Wilson agreed to work with the weekly as well.
Where She Lives: Brentwood
Where She Grew Up: Born in Hollywood, raised in Van Nuys
Favorite Event Designers: Stanley Gatti, Thomas Ford
Favorite Song: “I Will Survive”
With nearly all of Time Inc.’s staff in New York, why are you based in Los Angeles and how do you coordinate with people there?
We’re in Los Angeles because the entertainment industry primarily is
here. And even though the majority of both magazines’ editorial staff
is in New York, there is still the need to have someone here on the
ground interfacing with the Hollywood community. There is a team of
events people in the New York offices of In Style and People
that primarily do in-store events, events related to their advertisers.
If there’s no Hollywood connection to it, I’m not involved. The events
I coordinate and am responsible for only have to do with charitable
entities that we’re involved with and/or the entertainment industry. I
interface with our New York teams primarily when I’m working on a
charity event and I want to bring one of our advertisers in as a
sponsor.
Do you take a different approach to the two magazines?
In Style is about entertaining, so we try to bring the pages to life when we entertain. When you go to an In Style event, there’s a certain feel to it. Not that People doesn’t want to be gracious to its guests as well. People magazine is more about their relationships than it is about entertaining, so I do take a little bit of a different tack. The [People] SAG awards party was produced very similarly to the way we produce In Style events. People has had a relationship with the Screen Actors Guild
for eight or nine years. That event and that relationship were created
to give our advertisers an opportunity to sponsor things in the
Hollywood community. When Martha Nelson, the founding editor of In Style magazine, moved to People
and saw this was a Hollywood community event that was very important to
the editorial brand, she made the conscious decision to say that this
is an event that we will no longer have our advertisers involved in.
This is more about us celebrating the Screen Actors Guild. With that a
large donation is made to the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, $100,000.
How do you decide whom to partner with?
Sometimes it’s somebody who’s already being featured in the magazine.
We may say to them, “We want to thank you for being on the cover and
we’d like to host something for you.” Many years ago, Jennifer Aniston
was on the cover [of In Style]
and she had a friend who was a photographer who was struggling to make
it. She said she wanted to host an exhibit for him, and so we did. It
was also in our magazine because a celebrity had purchased some of his
photography and hung it in their home, and we shot it. So there was
reason behind all of it. Everything is strategic that way. We don’t
usually say, let’s have a party just to have a party. There’s form and
function to these parties, and it’s based on the content of the
magazine. The competition for celebrity magazine parties has been getting more intense in recent years.
How do you continue to reinvent yourself in such a competitive atmosphere?
In Style doesn’t talk about [celebrities’] work, we don’t
review their clothing. I think because we’re not critiquing them,
they’re much more comfortable with us. They know we’re not going to
take pictures of them drinking and smoking, because that’s not what
goes into our magazine.
So do you think it’s easier for you to get A-list people to your events?
Here’s the thing that’s so fickle about Hollywood. This week somebody’s
A-list, and next week, they’re not. What we try to develop are
long-standing relationships that will ride the ups and the downs of
everybody’s career. We love people before they’re anybody. I was having
lunch with J. J. Harris, Charlize Theron’s
manager. She said she loves the dinners we host and asked if we would
consider doing one for Theron. Before anybody knew anything about Monster, I said, “We’d love to host a dinner for her.” And Charlize will say again and again, In Style was there for her before she got her Golden Globe, before she got her Academy Award.
How do you manage to avoid repeating yourself and come up with something fresh every time?
I have been fortunate to work with some fabulously creative and fun
people. I choose not to work with designers and vendors that are prima
donnas. [For] the designers that I use for our events, this is not
about their PR. I’ve worked with people before like that, [where] first
on the designer’s list is, “How many PR spots am I going to get? I’m
going to get my hair and makeup done and walk the red carpet.” Because
we work in a very fun environment, I have designers working on the
event for next year the day after they finish the event.
One of the signatures of In Style parties is your nuclear-strength gift bags. How does that fit into your branding strategy?
It was born from the fact that we have a lot of luxury advertisers that
would like to have their products in the hands of the Hollywood
community— agents and managers, people who are the movers and shakers.
We go out to our advertisers and PR firms and we try to put together
the best bag we possibly can, but it’s an opportunity for our
advertisers.
Are you steering a steady course or is your strategy evolving?
It evolves because there is no real course. I’m given a set budget
every year. We know a year ahead of time whether we’re going to do an
Oscar or a Golden Globes party.
But the rest of my budget is ever evolving. I may say, I’m going to do
three cover parties, a book party, and a couple of small dinners, but
it changes every month. When In Style started, we were going
to do one big event a year and ten that were 100 to 200 people. That
strategy has changed completely. We do a couple of the big events, but
primarily we try to do many smaller events. We sponsored Elton [John]’s Oscar party
for nine years. We haven’t sponsored it for two years, and we will not
sponsor it again. It doesn’t mean we don’t support him, but the
organization is so big and so healthy that they easily can get other
sponsors on board. For six years, we’ve done a small viewing party for
the Oscars—small being 150 to 200 people—because Elton’s party was a
fund-raiser and we were limited to two tables at the event and 15 to 20
people at the after-party. It was branding for us at an important time,
during the Oscars, but we also felt that there was a need for our
editors to do some entertaining. That party continues and I think that
will continue forever for us. I can’t say that budget cuts didn’t have
a lot to do with [pulling out of the foundation fund-raiser]. Times
have changed at Time Inc. On a night when Elton can garner $25,000 a
table [for charity], for us to underwrite the event and then on top of
that buy extra seats—we didn’t feel that was something we could do.
—Irene Lacher
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
RELATED TOPICS
Time Inc., People Magazine, In Style Magazine, Oscars, Golden Globes
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