From Stage to Stardom Learn How Stacy Jones Turns Brand Partnerships into Gold

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. This is Ekta and I'm really excited for our guest today because she is truly the guru when it comes to Hollywood partnerships and understanding how those work and all of the hard work to skin and all of skin and all of skin and all of skin and all of skin and all of skin and all the skin of skin and all the skin of skin and all the skin of skin and all the skin of the skin from you. I'm so curious about how things work in Hollywood, you know, from the marketing perspective, from the PR angle, like it's just a world that I think a lot of us just don't know much about.

0:40I'd love to learn more about you. I know you have such an amazing background and such a cool story behind what brought you to this career track. So if you could kind of walk us down memory lane and tell us what got you into this field, everything that led up to it. I certainly did not know my track when I was starting off in life. I had lots of stumbles along the way, but I was always very driven. I always was very passionate about finding hobbies that I turned into businesses. And I did that from a very early age, starting at my first lemonade stand, quite frankly, that my mother made me turn into something that I self-funded because it was profitable enough that she didn't feel like she needed to buy the lemonade anymore.

1:21I had an early age intent to make sales happen from brownies and Girl Scouts and cookies to world-class chocolate bars to designing an earring business and launching it and getting it into stores all over New Mexico. You know, I always was driven to do and go a little bit above beyond what my peers were doing. And when I got to college, though, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. and I set out as a communications major and I got into my first big lecture hall, looked around at those 300 fellow students all looking at me and I was very reserved. As long as I put myself into a scenario or situation that I had an ownership stake, like I was hostess at a restaurant in high school and a waitress, like I could take ownership.

2:11But being around my peers, it was very intimidating. And they told us on that first lecture day hall that by for the end of the semester, I would be speaking in front of everyone. And I'm like, hell no, that's not going to happen. Hustled myself to the counselor's office and changed my whole degree. And they said that, you know, I started my background in the classes and how I could get out of a lot of classes that I didn't necessarily want to take anymore, that I should go liberal arts. And one of those degrees would be theater production. I'm like, sure, why not? I like plays. And I became a behind the scenes theater production major and got a BFA where I started a student-run film company during that time that got funded actually by brands in the community and when I got out to Hollywood I went around a track ended up with a job in product placement working with those same people those same scene design set design rock design masters who I had an affiliation with an understanding with.

3:09And I ended up running an agency for 10 years, launched it, left, hit the proverbial feeling and started Hollywood Branded. Wow, that's amazing. So this was really inspired from the very beginning with your theater background. That's really cool. Yeah, it just stumbled away. And I managed to make that theater background go into a sales background into launching an agency where we have now made partnerships that have generated over a billion dollars for other brands. Wow. Now that's, that's where I get so lost in the world of Hollywood because I, we never know, right? I mean, we always see celebrities endorsing brands.

3:46And I mean, how did you find this niche though? When you did get to Hollywood, did you feel like it was like a white space or how did that work? Well, I stumbled into the job. I started, I had a couple of odd jobs out there. I was doing production assistant work. My mother said, you know, going from set to set, job to job, they don't give you insurance and you're getting old enough that you should have your own insurance. So it set me off into finding an actual like nine to five type of job, which doesn't exist in Hollywood, by the way, there is nothing nine to five out here. You're just working.

4:19You're working on set 24 seven. You're working at office 24 seven. You are hustling. You are working. You really have to be driving yourself to be able to succeed out here. I ended up looking at an ad. I was at a job and I was working for the wife of a very famous actor. And quite frankly, she was not the easiest one to work for. And as her team members kept departing and I kept taking over their jobs and stepping into roles without getting additional financing for my additional efforts I was putting in and realizing that this was not what I wanted to do right out of college as my whole life and how to be treated, I stumbled across a job in the a Hollywood reporter that said that it was product placement.

5:03And that made sense. It made sense. I had already funded a school program, all based on product placement. And so I applied and ended up going off the way I went. I feel like, you know, it's hard to get into this world now. This marketing, PR, communications world is really difficult, I feel like, these days, at least from what I'm seeing on LinkedIn. You know, I see that too. And I have so many interviews with so many people. We get, you know, our door knocked on by a lot of people who want to have jobs. And I think it's because people are not actually, if they want to be in marketing, they want to be in communication.

5:38They're not understanding that they need to be creators and they need to be able to build. And so even coming out of college, they need to have skills that they've given themselves. Internships or self-developed would be fine, where they're actually creating. The solution now to make yourself iron-proof and to get a job anywhere that you want is to figure out inbound marketing, how you create content, whether it's written or video, that you can get imagery that you do, e-books that you can write, infographics that you can create, ways that you could actually produce something and be your own almost influencer for the company that you work for, where you put that hat on that you produce, you create, you direct, you start, you up.

6:23act, you make something, that's where a world exists. And you don't have to have insane talents, because there's so many awesome tools out there, especially in AI today. That's a really, really good advice, too. I mean, I think that, you know, it's such an interesting world, you know, with I feel like people get communications degrees, but then actually navigating the workspace, you know, the job front, I mean, that's a whole different world. I want to actually I want to take a step back and talk to you a little bit more about the wonderful brand partnerships that you've worked on. And if you could tell us, what does it take to make like something really magical, like with a brand partnerships with celebrities, for example, what is that secret sauce that you've noticed over the years that hits, you know, with consumers and people watching?

7:09Yeah, it doesn't, it does not matter what the brand category is. And it doesn't matter who the celebrity is. What makes that magic sauce is that it's an authentic partnership that is mutually beneficial, whether it is through money that makes it beneficial to the celebrity to be stepping in or equity on the back end, or whether it is through something, an affinity that the brand can actually bring to that celebrity and help them grow. There's so much based on authentic, real relationships that can be built where both see a win in growing the partnership together versus just seeing it as a one and done deal leading to nothing.

7:51When you're keeping it transactional, that's where people sit there in bulk and they step back. It's really about trying to figure out how you build a partnership that has legs to continue growing. Yeah. No, I love that you said that. I've seen like certain like, I shouldn't call it ads, like where you're just like, okay, you know, how much does this celebrity get paid to promote this? Because you wonder, it's like, do they even like the product? That's where it gets lost. And I wonder about perception at that point. In Hollywood, perception is everything. So could you speak to us a little bit about that, you know, in terms of what actually leads to whatever is being perceived to be positive?

8:28Yeah, I get to speak all the time on major media news, exactly on this topic. And it's basically about how celebrities have fucked up their brand. Hopefully I can cuss on your show. So I have not terribly offended you. This happens all the time. Celebrities get in the limelight for doing something wrong. They fall from their pedestal. They hit the ground hard. Their moment in the spotlight is no longer something that they want and that they've desired all their life to have. Now all they hope for is people stop posting about them through social media, right? They're in crisis control at that point.

9:04They're trying to figure out what they do, whether it is, oh, You know, you're driving a car for an ad campaign that releases at Super Bowl. And right at that same time, they find out that you had a DUI you never shared. And that sends the Jeep campaign out the door. Real life happened, right? Or all of a sudden, you know, you're in a Pepsi commercial and everyone's saying, oh, my gosh, that is the most non-PC thing to have ever done. Poor Kylie, it happened. When people screw up and make a mistake, they have their fuck up of their own. Things happen when they're just in a scenario or situation that they did not understand the full ramifications of.

9:45You can look at the entire crises that went on around all of the crypto fallout with different celebrities who are being called in for, you know, all the things that happened is money tumbled and went away. but celebrities had stood on and said, hey, this is a great thing because they were brought on and they were making money. And now they're being held responsible. Things happen. But what everyone forgets is like celebrities are people. They're just a normal person. They just happen to set their goals, their light, their eye on a goal that's higher than what most others have even ever dreamed to imagine of.

10:25They've set out there, they've gold, they've followed a path. Maybe it's just luck and they've stumbled upon it, but whatever it is, they've managed to stay and they've glommed on and they have grown. They have kicked, they have fought, they have worked really hard as far as people to get where they're at with whatever their craft is, whether or not you admire them for it or not, they have found a level of success just as others find success. But the world of celebrity is extra sparkly, extra shiny. And so when they find that success, they find themselves on a higher pedestal as well. Then that pedestal, everyone who is below them is looking up to them at, and they are all waiting because people are people.

11:05And a lot of people are haters and who do not do well when someone has more than they have and they delight in their fall. Yeah, no, that is really powerful. I'm glad that you said that because that's something that I always wonder about people look up to celebrities and it's just like I feel like they're like manifesting they've got it mastered you know at some degree they've manifested the life they wanted and forget their their people um and on that note I want to actually ask you for the brand founders that might be listening in you know if a brand does choose to do a partnership with a celebrity what are some things that they should be aware of I will tell you first of all you will never get more than what is contracted in black and white.

11:47So if it's not in that contract, do not expect that it's going to happen unless you write another check. Keep that in mind. It always holds true no matter the best intentions. It really is the end result. This is a business transaction when you're working with a celebrity, even when they have an equity stake in your business. Now you're hoping that you're building this to be as authentic as possible. You're hoping that you're creating something that they truly love and enjoy. And you are going to work really hard to make sure there is a framework built out that it's a mutual benefit for all. But they are in it for business.

12:22Their talent agent representing them, their commercial agent is in it for business, their publicist for business, their lawyer for business, their manager for business. Everyone's making money off of this deal. So that just needs to be kept in mind. That's the most important thing. Where's the difference between like that dynamic for smaller brands versus larger ones? Smaller brands can do a lot in trade. There's so many opportunities to get your brand in the hand of a celebrity. It's not impossible by any means. You can do it through product placement and movies and TV shows, getting the brand into the hand by going through the plot masters and set decorators and the producers and directors by bringing them something that helps make their scene authentic and unique.

13:07You can solve a problem for them by doing that. It can be through trade and loan, or it could be through cash fees. Now that's a different approach. And quite frankly, way less costly typically than working with a celebrity who has all of these contracts down. But you have to remember with a celebrity, when you're actually paying them to do something for you, or if you're asking for them to do something that they're not getting money for, you are potentially eliminating future money that they could get. They're going to be exclusivity clauses and timeframes. So if you are negotiating with a celebrity, you want to make sure that you get your own exclusivity and carve out if you can, where no other brand in your category could touch that celebrity within a halo timeframe.

13:53You know, let's just say that you are a wine brand. You don't want them doing a partnership with you, with your wine brand, and then two weeks later doing it with another wine brand because they're not going to remember the two wine brands and it's going to get very confusing. When you're working with social influencers, very different. We're not talking about celebrities. With a celebrity, they too and their manager, all those people I talked about, their lawyer, their agent, their manager, their publicist, they're going to keep them from doing brand deals that are going to keep them from getting bigger money.

14:25They're not going to say, yes, you can do this partnership with a limited time window with car company A for three months because they know no other car company is going to touch the same celebrity for at least a year, if not two or more. So you're buying out that celebrity because a celebrity is different than being just an influencer. They are the package that you're branding your product around. So there's longer carve outs and needs. That's, you know, that's the interesting part too, for me is like understanding how that image of a celebrity fits into the image of a brand what the brand is trying to create for themselves because a lot of times these brands go viral and it's based on just one thing that like makes them go viral especially in the beauty industry i've seen this time and time again and then i always wonder if you are working with someone who's a big you know really big celebrity say how do you manage that difference between your brand image and then what that image of that celebrity is?

15:23Well, I mean, they're two different things, really. I mean, if you're creating a brand with a celebrity, you're creating a celebrity brand. So that would be like a brand that is now named. There's a lot of, think of Fenty and Rihanna, right? She has a brand and it's her brand. Everything is hers. She cannot be separated from that. You think of Nike. Now you have a lot of different brands there. You have Michael Jordan, right? You have that, that's strong in itself. but then you also have all these other celebrities who have different shoe products and faces of campaigns and the like and nike on its own is its own brand so there's different initiatives and needs a brand is a brand and it should be a brand unless it should be a celebrity brand you're using the allure of the celebrity you're using it just like you're doing with a product placement or a movie or a tv show you're using the sexy factor and the fan base of that other individual of that entity to bring that shine to your brand, to cast it in its light, to give it a little bit of extra sparkle, to stand out, to show that you are a pop culture cool, that you're culturally relevant.

16:35That's really what you're doing here. That's how you're connecting into a fan base. And you're trying to say, hey, XYZ likes us, thumbs up. We're pretty cool. don't you want to give us a try too that's really what the celebrity endorsement deal is about you know for smaller brands what are some recommendations then for them because i feel like they don't have the budgets right i mean their budgets are not nearly what something like usually like a l 'oreal would have but they want that they want that endorsement they want that celebrity to be like yeah this is my go-to foundation what is your advice for working with that small budget with the means that they have and still getting like a meaningful endorsement It's very difficult.

17:17It's why you have levels of different influencers at all different sizes. Magic can happen. You can do a celebrity gifting lounge and get your product in a gift bag or on a table and get magic photo shot. It can happen. You're going to have to hustle and try to work that out a lot if you do it. So when you sign up for those partnerships, they don't usually yield to a lot of results unless you actually have an active framework that you're going to work within. you can look for sponsoring you know to me it's really about how much money do you have to unlock and open a door and look at that and then see who else is in the room to the door that you just unlocked so it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do a one-on-one deal with a brand with this celebrity look at the events you can sponsor look at the media collaborations are out there and you can get just at least a glow.

18:12Start building yourself in that way. You can send products out, you can do all of that. It's just realistically, you're not going to get a random social post, most likely from a celebrity, because they know that their posts are really valuable. Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, that's interesting, because, you know, I know with social media right now, there's just so much. I mean, you mentioned this briefly earlier about like influencers, right? And I feel like that's something I'm very curious about is where is that real difference that brands can notice between working with say like an influencer that has seven million followers or something you know right on like tiktok or whatever versus a celebrity what is that true difference and what should brands consider when they're making this kind of decision which way to go celebrity is going to be about three times more expensive so that's the base one that's number one what's your budget celebrity is also not typically a content creator when you work with a celebrity and you do a partnership, you're bringing the makeup artist, you're bringing the hairstylist, you're bringing the clothes, the photo shoot, you're making sure it's framed out and they're showing up and they're being cast in that.

19:18They're not going to just whip out their phone and do a moment of a story for you. Those things are crafted and produced. There's too much money that goes into it to do anything else. When you're working as a social influencer, you're working with someone who can do it all they can put the producer hat director hat writer hat acting hat set designer hat all of those different things editing make them post production then their marketing then their packaging then they're doing all the copywriting right that's what you're buying with a social influencer it's two very different approaches and different ways of working that makes sense it's a lot of work i think either way but yeah with celebrities i can see it being like a whole thing it's a whole thing yeah it's a whole thing yes well i want to i want to circle back to you a little bit because i know that building hollywood branded wasn't just about like a business you know it was very personal for you and i'd love for you to speak on that a little bit sure so the way i've gotten to this level of success is i rebuilt my agency and myself over and over and over again i am the most resilient creature you are ever going to meet I have just stumbled from so many falls and hit the ground, knock on splat, managed to crawl away in my wounds and build myself up again.

20:35But we've had traumatic, traumatic things happen to my agency through the years, from client losses to fraud that took out our entire operations and sent it overseas. and actually Nigeria, where I can actually say that I funded drug running and gun smuggling operations that the FBI had a whole case built out around. So I have had so many things. I have had a client walk off on an over a million dollar media bill that I had to still step forward and pay off some of the biggest players in Hollywood for. I've had and then fight them in court to win. I have had every struggle under the sun from COVID shutting down Hollywood to back-to-back strike shutting down Hollywood.

21:22It has not been easy, but I've made it and I continue to make it and I continue to struggle and I continue to achieve and I continue to fail. I continue to fuck up and I continue to learn. And that's how I have achieved. That is so amazing. I mean, I honestly like, I'm like baffled right now that you've gone through all of this. I mean, can I get like whatever your skin is made of you know what I mean let me just clone your skin because that's thick skin I mean I feel like right now with the way the generation is I look at this generation and I'm like they don't even want to fail they don't want to fail once like it's like it's hard for them to fail at one little thing or here or no and then get back up and try again what's your advice for people you know that are growing up in this time and they don't know what rejection is or if they do face it they're just screw it you know I give up we spend a lot of time working with our team members, helping them develop resiliency and tougher skin and understanding that life is about perception.

22:23So everything that we do is about perception and you can control the perception others have of you. And in doing so, you can direct yourself into the life that you want to lead and have, because now you've set a goal of how you're controlling your environment and setting your own focus. So we spend a lot of time talking about that. And we're talking about how to have passion, how to have drive, how to find ways to actually be inspired where you're not looking for someone to say, good boy, good girl, you did a great job, but where you can find that inner light inside where you can find that passion and drive where when you have a success, no matter how small, you can find out that you and your head can say good job.

23:07so we really try to teach that and it's a struggle and it takes time and we also work so much on ego and drama and everyone having this point of pride that they think that every little fuck up is an absolute like mess on them and they don't realize that in life you have to fuck up you have to fail you have to sometimes fall hard so that you can learn a lesson so that you know how to never do that again. No, you know, it's so interesting, because it makes me think of the true meaning of like hard work, hearing like what you've gone through to like, but you said you had to rebuild yourself over and over again.

23:45What's your take on work ethic? You're never at a point in life that it's perfection. When you've actually figured out we have a motto here that I created, it's called learned you teach, you learn everything that you can, you then go out, you do, you do it, you perfect it, you keep on doing it until you know it so well that you can then teach it. And when you can teach it to others, it's time for them to be able to learn and take on whatever it is that you are doing so that you can move on to learn something yourself. So it's a constant life cycle of growth, a constant life cycle of pushing yourself, a constant life cycle of devouring new information, moving forward, improving the scenario and situations you're in, and then making sure that you're growing yourself.

24:37And by growing yourself, you can help grow the business that you're working in. It's so important right now more than ever for people to find this inner spark and inner fire that is going to keep them propelled forward. And exactly what you said, where it's like they're working towards perfecting right i mean i i just feel like it's it's this like momentary gratification thing that we're on these days just society overall and i'm just i look at it every day and i'm like i wish that there was a way to kind of like get it into their people's heads like you have to actually keep trying and you have to keep working towards a goal i mean what what would be your advice for someone who wants to improve goal setting achieving those goals in terms of what you said where you're like you know you have to keep working you know then quit if this isn't the thing that you don't want to do then fuck that go find something else you want to do instead like if you don't have passion and drive for something why are you trying to make yourself do it it means that you just haven't come across what it is that you have passion and drive now if you cannot find anything in life that you have passion for if there is nothing that sparks your interest then there is something that you need to figure out and probably get on some cannabis or talk to a good shrink because you really do need to figure out what is going to power you.

25:53No one is stepping forward into your life. No one is going to come and tell you, you stand up, you walk forward. You have to do that for yourself. You have to find out, are you the person who's going to sit there like a cow, chewing cud, staring off, typing away, mindlessly or doing grunt work, whatever it might be, dreaming about what you would like to be doing better? Or are you going to figure out in this world that we have of entrepreneurism or ways that you can do freelancing or step in and learn new things? Are you going to find something that gives you passion, you drive to let you have your own growth?

26:28I love your energy. You're awesome. Thank you. Yeah, no, really. It's so refreshing to hear someone speak about this because no one talks about it. You know, no one talks about like the true meaning of doing what you you're good at finding what you're good at yeah but no one knows what they're good at you don't know you're gonna stumble and then you're gonna get really good at something and it's gonna get so boring to you that you need to do something else you need to keep growing you need to do something more but you have all this awesome knowledge after you've done that so you can help mentor and teach and help someone else learn from your life lessons and that's what impassions me That's what gives me that drive to share in my own journey because it's been a bitch.

27:11It's been a rough one and it continues to be. I work in one of the hardest jobs and professions in the world in Hollywood. It is not an easy space. You add being a woman on top of that. It is not easy. Then you add in Madison Avenue with brands and then the creative world of directors and producers and actors. And it is a shit show very often, quite frankly. But you know what? I can do it if I can do it other people can do it you just put focus on something and you can make magic happen you just have to look sometimes outside the box to figure it out that's really that's really powerful and I really encourage anyone that is listening in right now I mean if you're at a point we really take this to heart you know what Stacy's saying I feel like it's just so powerful when you get to that point where you're you're you do have that fuck it mentality you You know, you're like, okay, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it no matter what.

28:06No, I love that. And I'm curious, like looking ahead, you know, for Hollywood Branded, what's next? Yeah, we're taking on the world. We're growing this agency. We are going to be bigger and a household name and make actually magic happen. We are going to ensure that mutually beneficial partnerships and relationships is a message that if we can build that in Hollywood, we know that we can help people understand that they can build that in their own lives too. That's freaking awesome. I love that. Well, I wish you all the success. I don't think you'll need my wishes because you're really on the right track with everything.

28:41And I love your energy. I love you stand for. I feel like it's so rare to see and it's so refreshing to see because, like I said, I look at this generation, Stacey, and I'm not going to lie, I get worried for them. It doesn't matter if you fail, right? You just have to find that thing that drives you. And so I think everything you've said is just so, so important, you know, for that message to get across. Of course. Well, thank you so much for listening and taking the time. I really had fun talking with you. Oh, likewise. Thank you so much. And for everyone listening, definitely chime in on this topic.

29:13I mean, I feel like this is this is a topic we don't get to talk about a lot on this podcast. So it's very meaningful to me and I'd love to hear from you guys. So thank you so much. Hey, guys. So I hope you love that episode. Please make sure to hit subscribe if you're tuning in to us on any podcast platform. We are available on so many different platforms. So wherever it is that you're tuning in, just go hit subscribe. You will be immediately notified when we publish new episodes. This way you're able to tune in to amazing insights from experts, brand founders, industry leaders, authors, all the wonderful people that we host.

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