POP INTERVIEW: Publicist Michael Gartenlaub Has the Recipe for Finding Work Happiness
Michael Gartenlaub, associate publicist at Benvenuti Public Relations, has to spin his clients into publicity gold. At a firm where he has to work with high profile clients, even by Manhattan standards – Benvenuti’s clients have included Mario Batali, Nobu Matsuhisa, the Trump Soho Hotel and a round of the city’s other top chefs – the foodie found his calling when he could merge his love for fine cuisine and his PR day job. Ha buona fortuna!
Did you go to spring fashion week? What did your firm do this year there?
I personally couldn’t make it over to the shows this season, but my firm, Benvenuti PR, is very involved with Mercedes Benz Fashion Week every season and we have our clients do catering for the American Express card member show and whatever other opportunities are available. The AMEX show is with a different designer every season and it’s a really great opportunity for our clients to get in with the fashion crowd and the designers. We always have a great time organizing the catering for the shows and getting to actually see the shows are a lot of fun. I loved the show they did with Tommy Hilfiger a few seasons back – they had everyone from the commercials walking the runway, including the dog, and Cobra Starship was there performing live. It was really cool! We also work with the fashion shows at Milk Studios.
How did you get started with public relations? Why do you love it?
I fell into it in college. My major had a sequence of courses in public relations and I immediately fell in love with it. What I loved was how there were so many sides to it, other than the flashy celebrity side they always show on TV. I loved the idea of being able to promote products and lifestyle clients. But when I found Benvenuti PR and saw they specialized mostly in restaurants and food & beverage, I knew that was my calling. I’ve always been in love with food and I even considered becoming a chef at one point, so food & restaurant PR just seemed like a natural fit for me. It’s really such an interesting job, and you’re always being introduced to new types of people and being exposed to new cultures and new foods you might not have otherwise tried. I’ve become so adventurous in my eating since starting this job.
With all the chefs at your firm, you probably eat all kinds of food. What cuisine is your favorite?
Oh yeah, I eat everything from Italian and Peruvian to Indian. The President of my firm and the VP (they’re both sisters) are actually part Brazilian, so they have a really strong connection to Brazil and to doing business there and because of that, I actually got to go to Brazil and try all the traditional dishes they have there—they were amazing!
Lately I’ve been working with a lot of talented Indian chefs and restaurateurs, so I’d have to say that’s probably my favorite cuisine right now. They really opened my eyes to the authentic dishes and flavors of the country and they’re incredible. And this is coming from someone who really never liked Indian cuisine at all, but it really is such a different and pleasurable experience when you have a chef who is cooking from tradition, using authentic ingredients and recipes.
What fun food experiences have you had trying food? Anything in particular you just love?
I had some really great experiences in Brazil. Our firm works with a prominent coffee roaster in New York, which owns a 12,000-acre proprietary coffee farm in Brazil, and as part of my role as an Associate Publicist at Benvenuti PR, I organized a press trip down there. It was really fun being an unofficial coffee farmer for the days we were there. They took us out to the fields and had us pick coffee cherries (where coffee beans come from) off the trees. They made a competition out of it, so we were picking like crazy trying to beat the other team. We also had to use these giant screens that helped remove leaves and twigs from the coffee cherries. You toss everything in the air and catch the cherries in the screens while the wind blows away the rest (see picture). It sounds easy, but it’s really hard and let’s just say being a coffee farmer is not in my future. As part of the experience, they also had a group of women cook amazing traditional Brazilian meals for us, like delicious stews and savory pastries. But definitely the most fun experience was the pig roast they had for us on our last night. They had a whole pig slowly cooking on an open flame all day and at the end we gathered around as they cut the ropes and the skin started crackling all over. It was so delicious!
Chefs really don’t say anything “bad” regarding PR standards. That’s the good thing! Food is a very positive environment, and really, any honesty may be viewed as a positive if it is something like dos and don’ts in the kitchen. When you are coaching chefs though, and I know people already have cooking show camera coaches too, what do you have to do to prep them when PR opportunities arise?
The great thing about working with chefs is that many times you have chefs who are very experienced with being on TV and other PR opportunities, so they are really helpful when an opportunity arises and they get it right away. Some chefs definitely need a little coaching though and given my President’s background in the industry, she’s a pro at prepping chefs for TV appearances, interviews, and whatever and she taught me everything I know. Mostly chefs just need a bit of encouragement and we’ll remind them to be enthusiastic, or they may look to us for advice on how to answer a question. Whenever we have a TV shoot, we always make sure the chef knows beforehand what he or she needs to do, and we’re always there during the shoot to jump in when we need to.
Out of your lifestyle clients, who, past or present, has had the greatest influence on getting you to try something new?
Well, we worked with a talented celebrity trainer who taught us the rights and wrongs to proper exercise, so I definitely learned something new from him. He opened an academy for personal training that’s board certified and it’s a really important touch, especially since he told us there’s a lot of trainers out there who get certified online and don’t get the proper training, which can lead to serious health problems and injuries.
What have you learned from your physician clients that you didn’t know about health?
We worked with an established periodontist who debunked some common misconceptions about proper oral care. We learned that proper oral hygiene could lead to increased heart health, for instance.
When working with hotels, or at least having a co-worker do so, do you get to tour the hotel rooms and venues? How is PR for a hotel different than a chef?
Yes, definitely! It’s like working with a restaurant; you have to experience it first-hand in order to properly pitch it to press. It’s a real treat to tour the hotels, especially if it’s a luxury hotel. We were recently working with a new luxury hotel in Manhattan, the Trump SoHo, and the rooms, the suites and the private party spaces were all gorgeous. I wish I lived there! The views of Manhattan were stunning too.
Working with a hotel isn’t too different from working with a chef or restaurant, especially if you’re handling publicity and marketing for all of the food and beverage operations. You’re also exposed to working with so many different sides and especially with the Trump SoHo; we were able to handle everything from the restaurant and lounges to the private dining spaces, the spas and the rooms. Sometimes though, especially with a prestigious hotel, you have a lot more people to coordinate with and there’s more of a rigid, corporate structure to it. Also, when you’re dealing with the media there are going to be certain publications that’ll apply to a hotel but wouldn’t be appropriate for a restaurant or a chef, and vice versa. But there’s also a lot of overlap.
What events have you put on last year/this year or plan to soon, and what goes on when you run PR for a food or lifestyle event?
One major event we coordinated last year was the “Brasil: A Magical Journey” event at Macy’s Herald Square. It was a huge celebration to launch a new Brazilian campaign nationwide and given Benvenuti PR’s connections to Brazil, we were able to handle the food and beverage for the event. We flew one of our celebrity chefs in from Brazil to do a demo and showcase Brazilian cuisine, and our coffee client showcased their Brazilian coffee. It was a really amazing event with many Brazilian celebrities, including Sergio Mendez and Calvin Klein’s designer Francisco Costa, and the event was a huge success.
Generally, we handle everything from giant events like the Brazil event to smaller events that our clients hold at their restaurants. We’ve done everything from a wine/coffee/food pairing dinner to an Ostrich dinner. Working with such diverse clients really opens the door to so many possibilities. Depending on what the event is, we’ll do everything from consulting on the menus for the event to coordinating sponsors, creating guest lists and sending out invitations to media and VIP contacts, and pitching for media coverage pre and post-event, etc. People don’t realize how much work goes into pulling off an event, regardless of how large or small it is. There are so many things to stay on top of!
Which has been your favorite food festival and why?
I love the NYC Wine & Food Festival. There are so many fun food events and competitions that take place during the festival and it’s a great opportunity for our clients to showcase their food to thousands of hungry people. Plus you’re always seeing big celebrity chefs and food personalities. But there are so many other food festivals that come about each year and I love the diversity of them—there are some devoted to wine and beer, others that mix in music and some that are BBQ-centric, which I’m a huge fan of! We always work to get our clients involved with these festivals.
What is the funniest thing in recent memory that happened on the job?
Ok, this is going to sound horrible but hands down it was when my President and I were in Brazil. After the farm, we flew to Sao Paolo where our client had some food-related sightseeing activities planned for the journalists who were with us. We were checking out of our hotel, which was 40 minutes outside of the city, and one of our group members wandered off in the hotel as we were boarding the bus. We totally didn’t realize and drove off without her! We were 20 minutes into our drive when we got a call that she was left behind. We felt terrible, but at the same time we had to laugh about it. Let’s just be thankful it didn’t happen at the airport!
