How to get in touch with Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey?

August 11, 2008 2:35 PM

How to get in touch with Richard Branson and/or Oprah Winfrey? (For a pretty good purpose)

I just did some web design for a client who wants to do a army-related USO tour of sorts focusing on inspiring the troops. I'm not sure of the specifics exactly, but her goal is to get in touch with Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey to get support for the project. Any ideas on how to contact these two folks? Six degrees of separation time, right? Or was that just proved to be seven...?

Thanks in advance for any help!

posted by razorfrog to grab bag (7 comments total)

I would imagine first would be to have a SET and FOCUSED plan. Having some experience contacting big names for PR reasons, they get a LOT of requests. The ones that are most solidly laid out and show the most work behind them to begin with get the most attention.

Second, have a track record of doing things like this in the past. Your first outing won't get Oprah (unless you have a million people already on your side and you're already a phenomenon). But if there's a track record of success then you get more respect.

Finally, if you have everything in order, contact their publicist and be persistent. I don't have either one's publicist's info, but it's out there... (IMDB Pro if nothing else has most info). Now you want the PUBLICIST, not the AGENT. There's a difference, the Agent will be asking how much you're paying for their help, the Publicist understands the benefit of good PR.

Good luck!
posted by arniec at 2:46 PM on August 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Have your people call their people.

Oh, you don't have people? You need a publicist - that's what they do.
posted by wfrgms at 2:52 PM on August 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

both winfrey and branson probably have public affairs people. find out who they are and send your pitch.
posted by thinkingwoman at 3:00 PM on August 11, 2008

MLAR.org put a message up on a billboard recently that prompted Oprah to respond by doing a show for their cause... although lighting might not strike twice on this one.
posted by pwally at 3:16 PM on August 11, 2008

http://www.oprah.com/contactus

Or send physical mail to her show address. Just send it to the station she's on care of her.

http://www.virgin.com/Contact/ContactACompany.aspx

Same here, send physical mail to Virgin care of R. Branson.

Believe me, if the idea isn't stupid, they will jump on it. They most likely will respond even if it is dumb.

One of my hobbies is writing celebrities and famous people stupid letters. And I mean stupid. If I get responses with mine, you should with something that actually matters.

This said, unless you have something to direct them to other than an idea, you might as well join me in writing stupid letters.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:30 PM on August 11, 2008

I NEARLY got to Richard Branson - or at least, I got his PA in Australia.

I read an article about how he was coming down to Brisbane to see the Virgin Blue offices (also, they were holding their charity ball). The article quoted Virgin Blue's PR person.

I called up Virgin Blue's office and asked to speak to the person quoted in the message. I asked him how I could get in touch with Richard Branson.

He gave me the name and number of Richard Branson's PA.

I got her - she was in the middle of some press event. She told me that he's very busy and usually you need to catch them way in advance, but if I sent an email he may respond.

No response, but I was personally surprised that I was about a degree away from him. So try calling the offices and see where they get you!

Also, if you have an idea for a product or service, mail it to them (someone's linked the address above) - they'll get back to you.
posted by divabat at 5:58 PM on August 11, 2008

I would recommend that for Virgin, you go through the chief of Virgin Unite, which is the charitable wing of Virgin, set up to bring all the disparate parts of Virgin together.

The reason this is relevant is that very few of the Virgin-branded companies are actually owned and operated by the core Virgin company that Branson still owns. So they set up Unite to coordinate charitable activities across all the companies. (Wikipedia entry; Virgin Unite brochure.)

The chief of Virgin Unite is called Jean Oelwang and she has worked directly with Richard Branson so she is your second degree of communication to him. The Virgin Unite office is in the same building as Ticketmaster (the Communications Building) in London, England. Phone number [phone]. Try phoning up, asking for Jean, and when challenged politely explain the situation and ask for two minutes of her time on the phone.
posted by skylar at 11:32 PM on August 11, 2008