Chris Clark
with Michael Louis Gutiérrez Vice President of Marketing GRAPEVINE PR
Chris: What can you tell us about your company and how did you get started?
Michael: Grapevine pr + consulting was founded in 2006 by Steven Le Vine, who originally launched our agency in New York and Los Angeles. Grapevine is a full-service public relations and strategy consulting firm with strong and long-lasting relationships with media outlets across the globe.
After many years working within the luxury hospitality industry, helping to open various high-end four- and five-star hotels in Los Angeles and Miami, such as the Mondrian, The London West Hollywood and The Betsy, I decided to take all the knowledge and experience I had amassed and partner with Steven to launch grapevine pr Austin, our company’s second office. As Vice President of Marketing for grapevine pr, I get to leverage this wealth of experience having marketed various luxury hotels, producing and managing high profile celebrity events and organizing brand partnerships, and expand upon that knowledge to benefit our clients. And just this year, we expanded once again with a third office in Nashville, led by our fabulous VP of Social Media Laura Heckman, who heads up that office, as a native of Music City. It’s been very exciting being part of this company, especially during such a time of explosive growth, and I’m truly honored to be a part of it. Just last year, in fact, we were presented with the Gold Award for “PR Agency of the Year” in the PR World Awards; truly an honor to be recognized.
Chris: What does your PR company specialize in?
Michael: Grapevine pr is a lifestyle and entertainment public relations firm. We represent a select group of lifestyle and entertainment clients ranging from more established and high profile brands and individuals to more independent creative folks and business professionals. Our clients include television and film stars such as William Shatner and Austin’s own Daniel Pintauro, who is best known for playing Judith Light’s on-screen son Jonathan on all seasons of ABC’s hit 80s sitcom “Who’s The Boss” to renowned surgeons, chefs, restaurants, gyms and spas, fashion designers and beauty brands, Emmy and Oscar-nominated producers, arts organizations like Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, major national and international organizations like Caesars Entertainment or P.F. Chang’s, venerable musicians like Madonna’s longtime guitarist Monte Pittman, and others. We specialize in garnering them visibility through a spectrum of relevant media outlets. We have worked with outlets ranging from hyperlocal blogs all the way up to exclusive sit-downs with Oprah and The View, as well as myriad press outlets across the globe, in United Arab Emirates, Israel, Germany, The Netherlands, Australia and Portugal, just to name a few.
Chris: What does PR mean to you?
Michael: For me, Public Relations means
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