SARAH HALL
President, Sarah Hall Productions, Inc.
With close to 20 years of experience in the entertainment business working with models, celebrities and brands, Sarah Hall represents high profile entertainment and lifestyle clients.
Known for her unswerving dedication to clients and meticulous attention to detail, Sarah represents high profile clients in the entertainment and lifestyle categories. Clients include athletes, authors, chefs, designers, doctors, fitness experts, television personalities and more. Sarah has an excellent track record of building brands through strategic media placements.
Since founding SHP in 1994, Sarah has built a reputation for her ability to take personalities or products from niche industries and cross them over into more mainstream press. For example, upon signing underground skateboarder Tony Hawk in 1998, Sarah designed a strategic, national media campaign, which included feature stories in select, high-end media as well as an introduction to a talent agent. This winning combination of publicity and a steady stream of new projects propelled Hawk and his talents to become a pop culture icon in record time.
"The kind of publicity we secure for our clients is the hardest type of PR because there is usually no editor for clients or products in those fields,” says Sarah. “My agency is very pro-active in securing media placements. Once a number of feature stories are secured, you can actually see the client’s career leap to a higher level. And, once on target with our PR, we end up branding the client as well. It’s incredibly rewarding.”
Prior to founding SHP, Sarah worked in the Contemporary Music Department of the New York offices of the William Morris Agency. Before that, Sarah worked as an agent at Ford Models, Inc. for seven years. Her roster included some of the most beautiful women in the world such as celebrity models Jerry Hall and Christie Brinkley as well as Christy Turlington and Jennifer Connelly, who she helped transition from newly discovered models to stars.
Sarah earned an Associates degree in Advertising Communication with a minor in Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Sarah is also proud to work with the Children’s Craniofacial Association. Although she travels for business, Sarah resides in Manhattan with her husband and three children.
STARS IN HER EYESWHAT does a sleep doctor, an author and a celebrity skate-boarder all have in common? They share the same fairy god-mother, publicist Sarah Hall. Hall adores the offbeat talents her boutique firm handles. And, like them, she has an unusual gift: She dreams up PR campaigns that can propel dormant careers into multifaceted marketing juggernauts.
SARAH HALL PRODUCTIONS, INC. —“the little company that does big things” occupies a sky-lit loft on lower Broadway
in Manhattan. The firm counts premiere lifestyle brands and entertainment personalities among its clients. Sarah Hall represents just 25 brands at a time, enabling her to “sit down and blue-sky a creative strategy, an entire campaign for each client.” She lives near the office with her husband, an entertainment attorney at William Morris Endeavor, and their three young children.
her first job at Ford Models. “For years people would ask me, “How did you get that job?” she says. After a stint at William Morris, Hall toured the world as a personal tour assistant to a pop star before hitting on public relations as the perfect fit. Says client Brook Siler: “Sarah’s personal touch is evident in every aspect of her business. Her company has the contacts and know-how of any twice its size, but the magic is in the respect and intimacy she conveys not only to her media relations, but to all those around her.”
WHEN ASKED about the future she’s dreaming up for herself, Hall says: “I just hope I can continue to recognize talent other people are not necessarily seeing.”
DESCRIBE YOUR COMPANY: Sarah Hall Productions, Inc. is an award-winning, full-service PR firm in New York’s Noho. Our client roster includes authors, athletes, designers, TV personalities and more. What do you do? I started SHP about 17 years ago. I’m still very hands-on, signing business, attending photo shoots, events and traveling to London and Los Angeles constantly to meet with clients, managers and agents.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO PR? My career in the entertainment world included stints at Ford Models, the William Morris Agency, and as a personal tour assistant to a pop star. Eventually, I wanted to work on the personal and professional aspects of a client’s career. PR felt like a good fit for me.
WHAT WAS YOUR BEST PITCH? After being rebuffed by every East Coast media outlet I pitched Tony Hawk to back in 1998, I targeted the (more difficult) business press. The pitch was, “Here’s a guy who wakes up in the morning, but instead of driving to the office, this clean-cut, soft-spoken dad drives to the half-pipe to support his family.” It worked. It was interesting and eventually led to bigger features in mainstream outlets.
WHAT’S THE MOST DARING THING YOU’VE EVER DONE? Starting an arm of my business in the UK during the recession. Sometimes a strategic move during an uncertain time can yield great results. The other most daring thing might be walking through Shoreditch
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST ITEM YOU’VE EVER PUT ON EXPENSES? As I am the boss, everything is approved, or so my accountant tells me.
WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU HADN’T SAID TO THE MEDIA? “My client is never late.” Of course, I said it on the one day his car service got lost.
WHO WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO WORK WITH? I love a challenge. Trying to turn around the career of a celebrity who’s gotten a bad rap.
WHICH HISTORICAL FIGURE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO REPRESENT? Most historical figures didn’t seem to need publicists. However, being a publicist in the old days of Hollywood would have been very exciting as you were literally “building” an image and a career. It must have been a very glamorous time.
NAME ONE THING ABOUT YOU MOST PEOPLE ARE SURPRISED TO LEARN: When Eileen Ford threw dinner parties at her townhouse, I would occasionally have to baby-sit the teenage models who lived there at the time. Looking back, babysitting teenage models seems an unlikely part of someone’s job description.
WHAT IS YOUR SECRET TO SUCCESS? I really love what I do and I find my clients fascinating. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.