Brooke Primero
Photo: Cat Jimenez for BizBash
Best of Both Worlds: As the former senior director of special events with entertainment public relations and marketing firm BNC, Brooke Primero handled PR for everything from major product launches to award show after-parties to events for T-Mobile and Vanity Fair. But she was tired of dividing her efforts among several accounts. “You’re assigning a certain fee for a project, and you keep track of your hours based on that fee so that you don’t over service anybody and everybody gets your attention. I found that kind of stifling,” she says. “You get to the point where you can see opportunities being missed because you don’t have time to explore them on behalf of the client.”
So when the Academy of Country Music offered Primero a position as senior director of publicity and marketing in June, with the possibility of taking on side projects, Primero accepted their offer and formed her own event PR company, Primero Media.
A Multidimensional Approach: In an effort to explore and execute every publicity angle for clients, Primero handpicks no more than two events per month and refrains from taking on two in the same week. She looks for two- to three-month projects and takes a very hands-on approach. “At another firm, you might have an assistant who has maybe done three events sit in on the call to rep the firm. [Here] it’s going to be me, who has done about 100 events a year for nine years,” she says. While Primero tackles typical PR tasks like red-carpet management and securing media coverage, she also advises clients on venues and interactive activities, drawing on her experience as a journalist for Petersen Publishing and Disney Magazine Publishing and in event production at Paramount Pictures.For an October YMI Jeanswear fashion show, Primero came up with the idea of sending out jeans to key press, as well as creating an interactive trick-or-treat-style gift bag. “Everything from the red carpet to the press lines and celebrity guests were handled like clockwork,” says YMI Jeanswear International’s director of marketing, Dina De Fazio. “We’ve done our events for several seasons now, and this is the most impact we’ve ever had.”
Staying Small: Primero is content with her two-event policy and has no plans to expand her fledgling company. “I’m almost more at the account level, versus the executive level that I was [when I was] at the agency, and that’s absolutely fine with me,” she says. “I don’t want to end up with 30 people working for me and [be] far removed from the fun.”
So when the Academy of Country Music offered Primero a position as senior director of publicity and marketing in June, with the possibility of taking on side projects, Primero accepted their offer and formed her own event PR company, Primero Media.
A Multidimensional Approach: In an effort to explore and execute every publicity angle for clients, Primero handpicks no more than two events per month and refrains from taking on two in the same week. She looks for two- to three-month projects and takes a very hands-on approach. “At another firm, you might have an assistant who has maybe done three events sit in on the call to rep the firm. [Here] it’s going to be me, who has done about 100 events a year for nine years,” she says. While Primero tackles typical PR tasks like red-carpet management and securing media coverage, she also advises clients on venues and interactive activities, drawing on her experience as a journalist for Petersen Publishing and Disney Magazine Publishing and in event production at Paramount Pictures.For an October YMI Jeanswear fashion show, Primero came up with the idea of sending out jeans to key press, as well as creating an interactive trick-or-treat-style gift bag. “Everything from the red carpet to the press lines and celebrity guests were handled like clockwork,” says YMI Jeanswear International’s director of marketing, Dina De Fazio. “We’ve done our events for several seasons now, and this is the most impact we’ve ever had.”
Staying Small: Primero is content with her two-event policy and has no plans to expand her fledgling company. “I’m almost more at the account level, versus the executive level that I was [when I was] at the agency, and that’s absolutely fine with me,” she says. “I don’t want to end up with 30 people working for me and [be] far removed from the fun.”
