Spin Sisters
Photography: Mark Maziarz
I’ve just been seated at Café Terigo with the four people most responsible for keeping Park City in the news. Our server hasn’t even filled our water glasses yet and already I’m compellingly reminded why it’s so easy to envy my lunch partners’ jobs and lifestyles. The talk is of travel schedules. Christa Graff, communications manager for Deer Valley Resort, just returned from London where she wined and dined leading British travel writers. Katie Eldridge, public relations director at The Canyons, leaves in four days for a Ski Utah junket in Chile. She’ll then be home for two days before flying to St. Moritz, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers. Christa Graff will also be in Switzerland for the meeting, as will Park City Chamber/Bureau Communications Manager Mark Bennett. Park City Mountain Resort Public Relations Manager Krista Rowles is getting married in three weeks, so she’s trying to curtail her travel schedule. “That’s the only week I could find to squeeze in my wedding,” she says almost apologetically.
In addition to the international trips, my lunch companions will travel together before ski season with other Park City Chamber/ Bureau and Ski Utah representatives to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco to entertain journalists in each of those cities. Late summer and fall are the busiest travel times for Park City’s public relations pros. Once ski season starts, they’ll be busy hosting national and international journalists on familiarization tours (“FAM” tours in travel industry lingo) to show off Park City and its resorts. Park City FAM tours are legendary for extravagance and whirlwind itineraries, which whisk journalists from one attraction to another with little time for sleep.
The point of all this travel and entertaining is to get Park City and its resorts in as many magazine, newspaper, television, Web site and other media stories as possible which, in turn, will entice some of the millions of readers and viewers to visit Park City. Public relations efforts differ from traditional marketing efforts in that, unlike advertising, the subject of the story doesn’t pay for the space. “We get free publicity,” says Eldridge. “We don’t pay journalists to run a story. We provide background and content and then strategically pitch the idea.”
Rowles adds, “It’s a matter of third-party credibility. When information comes from a journalist, it’s more believable than if we say it ourselves in a paid ad.”
Organizations come up with different formulas to calculate the value of media stories. Using a very conservative formula, last year Park City received $16.5 million worth of publicity in media stories, according to Mark Bennett. Park City and its resorts were showcased in publications such as Town & Country, Money Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and all the major ski publications. Most of those stories can be attributed directly to the efforts of my four lunch companions. Getting those stories placed isn’t always easy. Bennett chuckles at the notion that all those positive stories just miraculously appear. He points to a recent feature article on Park City in Bon Appetit Magazine. “We worked with the writer and the magazine for two years to get that story placed,” he says.
Another notion that amuses all four public relations pros is that everyone, it seems, wants their jobs. All four love their jobs, but the high-profile glamour part — the travel and entertaining — is only a small part of what they do. “For everything you do that on the surface is fun and carefree, you spend double that time at the computer or on the phone,” says Eldridge. Add to that the facts that most of the entertaining comes on evenings and weekends; that as spokespeople for their respective companies, “PR” people are fair game for questions from anyone and everyone whenever they go out in public; and that each serves as their company’s media point person whenever a crisis arises. You quickly see that leaving work at the office simply isn’t an option with any of these jobs.
I ask if they ever get away from work. “I’m hoping to at least on my wedding day,” muses Rowles. After a pause she adds, “Or at least by the third day of my honeymoon.” Eldridge jokes that as a wedding present, she’s going to steal Rowles’ cell phone so she can’t take it on the honeymoon.
There are times, too, when media attention turns into too much of a good thing — like when President Clinton and his family visited Deer Valley during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “Dealing with all the paparazzi was definitely crisis management,” says Graff. “It was the most stressful thing I’ve ever gone through.” One overzealous journalist tried to hide in a tree so he could get photos of the President. When Deer Valley’s ski patrol director told him he couldn’t be there, the journalist replied, “Yes I can. Christa Graff gave me permission.” The journalist should have looked at the ski patrol director’s name tag: Steve Graff. Yup, Christa’s husband. “Oh really,” said Steve as he whipped out his cell phone, “Let’s call Christa just to be sure.” Oops.
Our lunch conversation is peppered with personal anecdotes like the one above. Park City’s PR professionals are smart, funny and engaging — in short, the kind of people it’s fun to hang out with. That’s a big plus in this business. I’ve worked both sides of the PR and journalism game and I can tell you that there are certain PR people who always seem to get their resort or company in the news. Journalists want interesting, engaging, and well-informed stories, so it follows that PR people who are interesting, engaging and well-informed are going to get their companies in the news a whole lot more than those who are boring or ill-informed. The PR folks who can turn a phrase, put their story in a succinct, interesting sound bite, and write an appealing press release, are the ones who make the news.
I can also tell you that a PR person who thinks (or has a boss who thinks) that their job is to cover up a negative story when it arises, doesn’t make it far in this business. Journalists, like any other professional group, talk to each other. Nothing will get a PR person blacklisted faster than dodging tough questions or lying to the media. As a company spokesperson, it isn’t your job to volunteer negative information, but it is your job to answer as honestly as you can any question that comes your way. Eldridge takes it a step further: “If something bad happens on our mountain, I want to be the one to tell the media about it. You can’t run from the media, so it’s always better to step forward with whatever information you can give them.”
Another reason for Park City’s success in the media is that the three resorts work cooperatively on media strategies with both the Park City Chamber and, on a broader scale, Ski Utah. “I’ve never felt competition for media attention among the resorts here,” says Rowles. “We know once they’re in Park City, we all benefit,” adds Graff.
My final question — “What’s a typical day at work like?” — is met with bemused grins all around. “That’s what I love about my job,” says Rowles. “There’s no such thing as a typical day.” The others agree. “You have to be prepared for anything in this business,” says Graff. “You come to work in the morning and you just never know where your day will end up.”
When the check comes, I pick up my pen to jot a few more notes and Mark Bennett quickly reaches for the bill. One more reason writers like to go to lunch with PR people: the unwritten rule that PR folks always pick up the tab.
Before jumping to the “other side” to become a struggling writer, Mark Menlove worked in the communications field doing PR for the Park City Chamber/Bureau, the U.S. Ski Team, Park City Mountain Resort and Ski Utah.
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