Australian INfront

Roxy Jacenko founded her PR company, Sweaty Betty PR, at the age of twenty four, with only limited experience working for Diesel and other successful labels during her graduate business and manufacturing course at East Sydney TAFE. Her determined attitude, confidence and thirst for information saw Sweaty Betty PR rapidly become one of the most prominent names in the fashion, lifestyle and beauty PR sector. Today, Roxy has over one hundred and fifty brands on her books including several leading international companies. Roxy’s unfaltering determined attitude has ensured that she consistently achieves successful results for her clients when it comes to securing the maximum amount of media and consumer attention.

Roxy has not only secured the attention of leading media sources for her vast array of clients, but the support of several celebrities as well. Highlights for her so far include, meeting Bill Clinton at the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative in Hong Kong last year and throwing a sunglasses launch party with Snoop Dogg. Roxy has used her interpersonal skills to not only ensure that her client’s names are on everybody’s lips, but also that Sweaty Betty PR itself is a recognized enterprise. Her diligence in branding her own business and promoting it through such avenues as her company blog, which she updates herself daily, has ensured that Sweaty Betty PR is one of the most recognized names in the fashion, lifestyle and beauty industries today.

http://www.sweatybettypr.com

Unfortunately, Roxy was unable to attend the conference, Amy Sutherland spoke on her behalf.

Amy Sutherland provided an overview of this PR company that Roxy Jacenko started at the age of 24, which now currently represents over 80 fashion and lifestyle brands and employs 20 staffers. Amy outlined the Sweaty Betty approach to their clients which involves a high degree of face to face contact and a highly personalised level of service. An example of this approach to dealing with editors and clients included sending cars to pick up magazine and newspaper fashion editors, to bring them to the Sweaty Betty office and return them to their offices, being contactable around the clock and being aware of personal details about the lives of their clients (such as remembering birthdays).

In addition to having positive relationships with clients, Amy emphasised the importance of maintaining positive relationships with the media. Sweaty Betty send regular press releases and create opportunities for clients with media outlets; one particular example was of Roxy reading an article in a local magazine whilst on holidays in the US about a trend towards creating boots with a larger leg to provide for more ample sized women. Roxy contacted channel nine program, A Current Affair and described the trend that was being featured in international womens magazines along with providing specific product details of a boot by Diana Ferrari, a womens shoe label she was representing. By the following week, the story had aired and consequently, the style of boot featured had sold out across Australia within a week of the airing of the show.
Brand identity was a strong focus of the speech. Sweaty Betty employs a full time graphic designer and Amy emphasised the importance of understanding one's brand, having a particularly distinctive logo and being consistent with the approach to representing a brand. She provided the example of Neuw denim, a label that represents itself as being a little bit 'rock and roll' and gritty. When Amy visited the set of a shoot, one of the tattooed models greeted her at the door, shirtless and with a gun in his hand. Although unsettling, Amy pointed out the brands ability to follow through with a conceptual narrative for the brand that was replicated in visual campaigns and by selecting models and actors that are representative of the message that the brand endeavours to communicate.

The focus of the Sweaty Betty session was primarily on the importance of PR to labels and following through with appropriate branding. Amy emphasised the role of the media, particularly print and television to communicate a message to a large audience.