Request London: Spotting problems in celebrity management companies
When it comes to celebrity booking, you’ll come across a variety of good, bad and ugly celebrity management company websites.
Here are our main red flags to look out for whether you’re a celebrity looking for a booking management company or looking to book a celebrity.
Founder using clients to try and boost their own image/inflate their ego
This is a stand out red flag for obvious reasons. When you’re researching celebrity management companies make sure to check out their Instagram accounts, if by the end of a quick glance you know what the founder looks like… We’d suggest you ask yourself what their priorities are: you or their image?
Things to look out for:
Posting selfies of themselves and / or with clients
Founder have their own brand deals
The main focus’ of the business account around themselves.
The main focus of the celebrity management company should be the clients, if their online presence suggests otherwise, think twice!
Large amount of A-list celebrities
From Honest London, a main complaint from our celebrity clients is their image being used on a variety of random booking sites and asking us to have them removed.
Trust a celebrity management company with a smaller amount of celebrities, not one that claims to have the entire Oscars guest list on their books. We can assure you, they don’t.
Doesn’t put the client first
It’s very easy to accept every brand deal/event/opportunity that comes in as a celebrity management company but let’s be honest, not every deal works with the celebrity and brand.
We have a client on our Honest London books who shared a story of how a celebrity booking agency tried to convince her to promote a brand which is infamous for animal cruelty while she had another collaboration with an animal welfare charity. The money in this deal was huge and the agency really pressured and turned nasty on her to accept it, up till the point she had to leave them.
If she had accepted this deal, it would have caused a huge PR scandal.
It’s really important that the celebrity booking agency researches and understands their client too make sure that the brand is a good option for the celebrity from a reputation perspective.
Simply not being nice
One of our biggest boasts is the sheer amount of people who phone us and follow up with thank you for being kind. We’re always taken back by this as we couldn’t imagine not being nice… Manners cost nothing, right?
It’s sadly a common trend that many ‘celebrity’ focussed agencies struggle with manners and it’s honestly embarrassing at times to be placed in the same category as them.
It seems to be that egos inflate to the stage of explosion when celebrities are involved for many, going back to our first point of founders trying to become a celebrity. This isn’t normal. We don’t get it. Avoid the assholes.