Gabrielle Boyd is a creative public relations professional with a decade of experience in travel and lifestyle consumer public relations. She is also skilled in many other areas of communications, especially with event coordination, media relations, and writing.
In her recent roles, she has worked on many high-profile film and television destination PR campaigns including working with the ABC series The Bachelor and the NBC series The Biggest Loser.
Name: Gabrielle BoydI majored in journalism in college as I always loved writing, but when it came to choosing a career I ended up being more interested in PR. My first internship was working for an arts festival which was made up of many different events and it was part of my intern role to promote a game-show
My first internship was working for an arts festival which was made up of many different events and it was part of my intern role to promote a game-show-esque event. I really enjoyed the whole process from thinking of angles, to writing the pitch, identifying media to pitch to and seeing the end results.
I work for a destination marketing organization (DMO) and am part of a small in-house PR team. One of my friends from college (who majored in PR) was working for the same organization when I was applying for the job and thought I’d be a great fit. I applied for the position and got it!
It really depends on what day it is! My job has a ton of variety, which I appreciate as I never get bored. From working on media pitches and press releases to planning media events and media famils, to meeting with journalists and inviting the trades to noteworthy events that our trade marketing team is doing, no day is the same. I also work very closely with the other departments. I connect with corporate communications if there are any negative destination stories that are breaking. I work with our consumer marketing team to promote anything newsworthy.
Our office is open plan and very collaborative. Everyone in the office bounces ideas off of each other and is eager to help each other out. I’m currently working on securing media for upcoming events that we have coming up in 2017 and our regular newsletters and mail outs.
It helps to have thick skin and to not take things personally. Whoever is lashing out/ sending you a rejection email would be sending it to whoever is in your position.
Google trips is a really useful app for keeping track of what trips you have coming up. If you’re a Gmail user you don’t need to send it anything, it pulls everything from your Gmail automatically and suggests things to do and day plans for the place you’re headed.
Ride-share apps Uber and Lyft are both essential for any Angeleno. I also use them frequently when I am traveling for business (except to Vancouver! They don’t have it right now).
I also love Snapchat. I mainly use it for personal use but I’ve gotten some pitch ideas from there too.
I was working with a freelance journalist who was pitching a story to the influential lifestyle magazine Robb Report. The story ended up even better than I imagined, it showcased many different products and was a huge feature story.
Whoever is lashing out/ sending you a rejection email would be sending it to whoever is in your position.
There are so many! The ones that immediately spring to mind are the involved event PR campaigns, like the recent global destination campaign around the movie Pete’s Dragon. Many of my coworkers came together to achieve a common goal. Working with so many great people and building lasting relationships with journalists are the memories that really stand out to me.
I also love Snapchat. I mainly use it for personal use but I’ve gotten some pitch ideas from there too.
Having VIP access to, and working at, two movie junkets as part of partnerships between the organization I work for and the movie studios. It felt very glamorous to have all-access passes and to have movie stars walking by me in the halls.
Late nights packing down pop-up banners and promotional materials after an event. Although that is usually followed by celebratory cocktails, so I can’t complain.
That I don’t do damage control!
Many people think PR is just about putting out fires. Like many organizations, we have a separate department for corporate communications and another for consumer PR, which is what I do.
Working with so many great people and building lasting relationships with journalists are the memories that really stand out to me.
Augmented reality and virtual reality are two trends that have had a lot of hype lately and I’m interested to see what the next steps are for both of them. I stay on top of industry trends by reading a lot, from PR Week and Ad Week to Hollywood Reporter and Media Bistro. I also love watching the local news (LA’s ABC7!) to see what’s important to Angelenos. I’m also a member of several relevant organizations such as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). I attend their events when I can, PRSA also has fantastic conferences.
Many people think PR is just about putting out fires. Like many organizations, we have a separate department for corporate communications and another for consumer PR, which is what I do.
Don’t get into PR because you think it is glamorous, but because it’s something you’re passionate about and interested in. I hear of entry-level PR people that refuse to help with gift bags, mail outs or printing labels. Those are often jobs that the most seasoned PR pros still help with.
Thanks Gabrielle!
