Outpost MD & Founder David Silverman talks to Unicorn Jobs about the world for PRIn a band, and having promised the Arts Council he’d help promote new artists in return for a five grand grant, David Silverman found himself on the phone to a local newspaper securing coverage. It was then he realised he should perhaps quit the band and start a career in PR.
But the passion for music remained, so he moved to London and started working in music publicity. In late 2004 the entrepreneurial bug that had led to the aforementioned Arts Council grant returned, and he set up his own agency, Outpost.
Although probably best known for working with music clients, including labels, festivals, artists and DJs, David’s agency has gone beyond traditional music PR, working with brands like O2, Fiat, Red Stripe and Calvin Klein, though often utilising the company’s music expertise as part of those campaigns.
We spoke to David about his career to date, life at Outpost, and what makes a PR tick.
How did you first get into PR?Well, it’s going to sound like a cliche, but I really fell into it. I was in a band and we applied for an ‘Awards For All’ lottery grant to set up a community-based record label. To our surprise, we were successful and they gave us £5000. We were on the dole at the time, so it was a lot of money, so we set about starting the label, and one thing that we had said we would do was set up a night to promote local artists.
The guy I was in the band with wasn’t really keen on getting involved with the events side, so I started promoting the night myself. I phoned up the local paper to start generating some publicity, mainly to get demos from bands interested in playing at our night. I got us in the music pages and, unbeknownst to me, had just generated my first bit of press. I didn’t even realise at the time that people got PAID to do that! The penny dropped and a PR was born.
Tell us a bit about the history of Outpost
Armed with my minuscule bits of self-generated press for my night, I moved to London in 2000 to work in PR, because it seemed my best bet of getting a job that I would look forward to going into everyday. By late 2004, I was an established music PR, having worked for a couple of different agencies.
The problem was that I was outgrowing the company I was with, mainly because they didn’t share my ambition, and I eventually became frustrated. So I decided to quit and start my own agency. Generally when you are offered an opportunity in life, that window only remains open for so long. So, when the opportunity came, I took it. And once you are committed to something, things start to happen that you could never predict. By our launch date in January 2005 I had four new clients. Within four weeks I had taken on Outpost’s first employee, and within six months we launched our online, radio and TV divisions.
Our culture is that we go into battle for our clients and we offer them the best service we can. We are also honest with them, and manage their expectations, something too often lacking in our industry. Sticking to these values allowed us to quickly create an excellent reputation for Outpost, and work started to flow in.
What kind of clients do you now work for?We work with a range of clients. A lot of music companies, record labels, promoters, festivals, DJs, artists themselves. We’ve worked with so many over the years, Sony Music, Warner Brothers, The Big Chill Festival, Warp, !K7, Groove Armada, Skream, Terry Callier… I could go on.
We also work with consumer brands, mainly on their music projects. At the moment we’re working with O2 and Fiat, but in the past we’ve also worked with clients like Red Stripe, Calvin Klein and Coca-Cola. We’re also in the process of working with our first fashion client, Mr Jones Watches.
How does your work for music companies differ from what you do for consumer brands?The terminology is different, and our actual clients within brands tend to be more experienced in marketing and communications, and to think more strategically. That’s not to say that’s never the case in music, the major record companies are very good when it comes to strategy.
But some of the smaller music firms, or when we are working directly for artists, those clients might find it harder to adjust to our way of thinking: after all, musicians are supposed to write and perform music, and not run businesses. In those cases, often we will have to explain the PR process to people.
If you’re working with a brand, then they’ve got a boss, who’s got a boss, and their job is on the line, so there is no messing around, which I prefer. As a result, you are judged on delivery of targets, and that more structured experience has definitely influenced the way we approach our music campaigns.
What is your typical working day like?I usually get up around eight and check my e-mails and then get into the office about 9/9.30, sometimes later, sometimes earlier. I am definitely not an “up at 6am, in the office at 7am” person, that’s just not me. I’ll go through emails, catch up on the news, and then I will have short individual meetings with the team. I’ll spend the day dealing with current campaigns and clients, and maybe follow up on some interesting projects that I think we would like to work on. I finish around 7ish, but then I’ll be out at an event or I’ll check e-mails later in the evening, I don’t switch off.
You have relations with all kinds of media. TV and radio have always been priorities for the music industry, but less so for other sectors. Do you represent your non-music clients to these media to?That’s where our music experience really comes in to play. We’ve got contacts at a level other traditional agencies can’t compete with, and brands want to tap into that. We’ve had considerable success in getting coverage for non-music clients on radio and TV. For example, we recently generated substantial coverage for Fiat on Radio 4 and ‘Newsnight’ on BBC2.
You’ve been doing online PR for sometime, how has this part of your business changed as the internet has developed?We started doing online PR as a separate service to printed press almost right from the beginning. It was clear the way the media was going. Online is constantly evolving, if you went away for a year you wouldn’t know what was going on when you came back. Press and radio pretty much stay the same, except for a few changes here and there. Online moves at a frenetic pace and the landscape is constantly changing. And the appetite for content is voracious.
Do you think the growth of online and social media has had an impact on your more traditional PR work too?Well, I think from a communication point of view, it’s been great – a whole new kind of media came up from nowhere that needed to be serviced. Information is everywhere, as much as you can eat. It has meant that the number of printed publications we work with have decreased though, by about half I would say, in the last ten years.
However the essence of communication is still there, it hasn’t changed – whether it’s online, offline, paid for or non-paid for, there are still the fundamental elements of communicating with consumers that need to be adhered to: is it believable? is it genuine? is it truthful? These are the basic building blocks for communication, and that has not changed.
What’s the best bit about your job?The best bit is when you come up with a campaign plan – a cracking creative idea that you tell everyone is going to work – and then you see it in the press and think “we’ve created that”. When your colleagues and clients look at you in disbelief and say “how on earth did you do that?”. That’s the ultimate buzz you get from being a PR, there’s a real punch the air feeling. If you’re not getting a buzz from those big media hits, or indeed not getting those media hits at all, then you’re in the wrong job.
Running the company, I also enjoy it when you work with new members of staff, train them up so that they can achieve the same results, and have their own “how did you do that?” moments. Seeing the next generation of PRs race out of the traps is another great buzz.
What’s the worst bit?Clients who have unrealistic expectations. When you are presented with very limited budgets and are expected to, how shall I say it politely, turn a sow’s ear into a silver purse. In fact we turn down about 40% of companies who approach us to work for them – mainly for these reasons. Maintaining our integrity as an agency is important to us and is what works in the long term.
What advice would you give people considering a career in PR?It’s a tough climate, particularly in the music industry. The only advice I would give is persistence, without stalking – there’s a difference! Also, you need to have good written English. And be good on the phone. You have to be good at cold calling, and that starts by calling the people you want to work for. Emailing is too easy, there’s a whole generation of people that think sending an email equals working – and it really doesn’t. Young people have grown up with email and texts and forgotten the art of the phone call. When they come to Outpost it’s like we have to gradually retrain their text messaged/email brainwashed minds! PS that doesn’t mean every aspiring PR should start calling me everyday!
Tell us something about yourself we couldn’t find out on the internetI just bought my first ever car yesterday, an Audi A3 Automatic – because I can’t be bothered changing the gears.
unicornjobs.com/articles/2010/nov/16/david-silverman-music-and-beyond/
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