Celebrity publicist Howard Bragman is taking his expertise to the technology world.
Bragman, founder of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations in Los Angeles, announced last week that he has joined Redwood City-based Reputation.com as vice chairman.
His move to the company, which helps people manage their online reputations, highlights the expanding role the Internet plays in the PR industry. In this world, a PR whiz can push his clients’ appeal as in the past, but a gaffe or a rumor that goes viral poses a new kind of challenge.
“The whole industry is in a transition,” Bragman said. “While people like me might help create reputations, they live and die on the Internet.”
To take the vice chairmanship at Reputation, he has stepped down as chief executive of Fifteen Minutes and promoted Bill Harrison, the company’s president and chief operating officer, to that role. Bragman will remain based in Los Angeles and will continue as chairman of Fifteen Minutes.
He said the transition gives him more time to work with his roster of clients, which have included celebrities such as Chaz Bono, Paula Abdul and Ricki Lake.
“I’m getting out of a lot of the day-to-day things that I’d been involved with,” he said, “and really free myself to do more big-picture things and be more involved with the handful of clients that I work with specifically.”
Bragman has been in the public relations industry for more than 30 years. He got his start in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s as a vice president with Burson-Marsteller Public Relations.
He then went on to co-found Bragman Nyman Cafarelli, which is now PMK/BNC, and sold the company in 2000 to New York ad conglomerate Interpublic Group. He started Fifteen Minutes, a strategic media and PR firm, in 2005.
TV appearances
Bragman has also become known as one of the top celebrity and crisis publicists through his appearances on “Good Morning America,” “Entertainment Tonight” and “Showbiz Tonight.”
Michael Levine, founder of Beverly Hills-based Levine Communications Office, said Bragman will be a valuable asset to a company such as Reputation.
“He’s a very skilled, bright public relations veteran,” Levine said. “I think it’s a tremendous move for Reputation.com to have acquired him.”
Reputation.com was founded in 2006 to help people and businesses track the personal information about them that’s easily accessible on the Internet. It sells subscriptions to software products that secure private data or track negative or misleading information that other people have posted.
Bragman will bring his traditional PR background to the company by introducing Reputation’s services to his Hollywood contacts and helping it develop products.
He will also help increase the company’s visibility. When he appears on talk shows, he will now be identified by his role with Reputation.
Michael Fertik, Reputation’s founder and chief executive, said he asked Bragman to join the board because of his prominence in the PR community and his experience in the industry.
“He has a lot of credibility in the public relations world,” Fertik said. “He’s on national TV and he’s a guy who has his own brand in public relations. It’s very helpful to have an expert perspective on what PR historically has been.”
Joining the company will also give Bragman an opportunity to address the PR challenges on the Internet. With social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s much harder for publicists to control their clients’ images, Levine said.
“This wild west of Internet libel and slander is a very serious problem,” he said. “When you’re really smart and you’ve been around the media world as long as Howard has, you bring a lot of knowledge and lot of history to this new and frightening problem.”
Bragman said his decision to join Reputation and limit his role at Fifteen Minutes was fueled by his interest to challenge himself and evolve his career.
“Now I have at least three jobs,” he said. “I don’t know what to do if I’m not busy.”
