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AAPRC Weekly: Patti Webster

Patti Webster
Founder & President
W&W Public Relations and T.H.G. Advertising
Middlesex NJ


In 1991, one life ended for Patti Webster and another began. For six years, the New Jersey-born publicist had worked for major agencies and entertainment companies, including BET, Jive Records, Hills & Knowlton Public Relations, and Rogers & Cowen Public Relations. In mid-1991, though, Rogers & Cowen let Webster go, and she found herself at a career crossroads.

Webster says she had no interest in starting her own agency. She planned to find another publicist's position, this time at a record label. Before she could start her job search, though, she got a call from the actress Robin Givens. Givens had just been cast in the movie "Boomerang," opposite Eddie Murphy, and wanted Webster to represent her. The publicist decided she'd take on this one client and then find her label job.

Things didn't go as planned. Webster received input from friends and family, who, as she puts it, were very vocal about her starting an agency. Webster was less sure but said, "let's see."

For Webster, a career upheaval wasn't the only change in her life. She'd also had a spiritual and religious shift. Webster grew up in a religious household. Her family's New Jersey church had been founded by her greatgrandmother in 1929. Webster's grandfather was the church's next pastor; her grandmother followed, and now her mother is continuing the family lineage by serving as pastor. By the time the preacher's daughter left for college, though, she wanted to find God on her own terms and largely turned away from church. It would be many years before she returned, but her rededication came at a critical time. Webster credits her spiritual rebirth with providing the inner strength and direction she needed to launch the next phase of her career––especially in the early days. "At that point I had rededicated my life to Christ and I was just really trying to seek His direction as it related to the business," says Webster, who is now an ordained deaconess at her church. "I dedicated the business completely to Him and I had Him start to direct my path."

At first, the path wasn't an easy one. Webster had no business plan and no start-up money. She worked out of her mother's home near New Brunswick, New Jersey, making phone calls all day and then going to her mother's office at night to do faxing, copying and computer work. Her day tended to end in the wee hours of the morning. So infrastructure was a challenge, but it wasn't the biggest obstacle she faced. Webster had to reestablish her reputation. "When I was at Rogers & Cowen, I represented a huge clientele," says Webster. "I think the challenge was initially that people felt that they knew my reputation, but they didn't know whether it was me or the fact that I was at Rogers & Cowen."

Webster turned to a publicist's most important resource––relationships. She went to every friend and contact she'd made and let them know she was opening her own shop and looking for work––and she'd work for cheap. This approach netted her first client, MCA Records, who put Webster to work for R&B singer Stephanie Mills. Webster's success with Mills reassured the record giant and, in 1992, MCA took Webster to lunch. The label offered her a deal, a group rate to handle a select roster of MCA artists on an on-going basis. The artist group included Silas Records, then home to Chante Moore and Aaron Hall, among others. "I think that was the turning point," says Webster. "They said, 'She's done a great job with Stephanie. We trust her enough to give her three or four accounts and set up a package with her.' They were a client for years."

Even with the MCA contract, Webster knew she had to be cautious about overhead. She operated her new agency, W&W Public Relations, out of her mother's home for two more years and tapped family members and interns from nearby Rutgers University for staff. It would be another two years before she actually hired a fulltime assistant.

Webster's careful approach to growth has paid off. Today, W&W Public Relations is a thriving, full service PR and special event firm with offices in New Jersey and Los Angeles. The staff of 12 –– ten in New Jersey and two in Los Angeles––has directed campaigns for performers, athletes and entertainment companies such as Halle Berry, Holly Robinson Peete, Patti Labelle, TNT, OutKast, Bow Wow, Jermaine Dupri, Warner Brothers Records, Queen Latifah's Ghettoworks Records, NFL star Cris Carter of the Minnesota Vikings, New York Knicks star Allan Houston, and many others.

Now, capitalizing on her acquired business acumen, Webster is branching out. In 2003, she launched T.H.G. Advertising Agency, a full-service niche marketing company. She'd been interested in advertising for years and toyed with the idea of starting an agency that focused on women. Webster pushed the concept to the back of her mind, but one day a close friend posed the question: "Have you ever thought about starting an ad agency directed towards women?" Another friend sent her a story from Advertising Age about women being a $700 billion industry that advertisers largely ignore. "That's when I said, okay, we've got to do this." For the past couple of years T.H.G. has been largely in development and planning, though the new agency did take on its first client, Bow Wow's clothing line. "We're really in the structural phases," says Webster. "One thing I can do now that I know about running a business is make sure all the ducks are in a row before we launch into the deep. We have an excellent core structure, a good team, a creative team and I know we do good work."

Webster's success in entertainment public relations and marketing sits on a road that took a dramatic turn in the mid-1980s. As a college student at Virginia Tech, Webster had been headed for a very different career. She majored in industrial engineering and operations research, but her summer internships revealed a working life that Webster realized was not for her. In 1985, she took a job as an assistant in the PR/affiliate marketing department at a fledgling Black Entertainment Television (BET). At the time the network was just a small unit operating out of a rented studio in Northern Virginia, but Webster found herself learning something different everyday and fell in love with the entertainment industry. "At that time I didn't really understand the process of PR," she recalls. "I just knew I wanted to do something in entertainment."

Webster moved back to New York and took a series of jobs in entertainment––as a publicity assistant at Jive Records and an event coordinator at Festival Productions (the company that produces the Newport Jazz Festival), before ending up at Hill & Knowlton Public Relations as a publicity coordinator. "That's when I really learned PR…What to do, what the process was, the whole thing," says Webster. "But I knew I couldn't do corporate PR. I was working on clients like Puritan Oil, and it wasn't for me."

Webster still yearned for entertainment and a colleague told her about Rogers & Cowen–-with the caveat that it was nearly impossible to get in. A few months later, Webster saw an ad in the paper for an assistant's position at an entertainment PR firm. That firm turned out to be Rogers & Cowen. Webster applied and got the job.

For three years, Webster worked her way up from assistant to publicist, along the way coordinating projects for some of the biggest names in entertainment––from Quincy Jones and B.B. King to Celine Dion and Stevie Wonder. "I love the fact that you are the protector of the gift. That's how I see myself," says Webster of her yen for publicity. "I love that you're able to watch careers bloom and blossom. Bow Wow is a great example of that. I remember this 11-year-old kid with braces who is now this 18-year-old wonder kid with a record, a movie and a possible new TV show on the WB.

Even after countless campaigns and accolades, Webster still bubbles over when she talks about her clients' upcoming projects. There's Holly Robinson Peete's new football book for women due out in the fall (titled Get Your Own Beer, I'm Watching the Game!); R&B legend Patti Labelle has a new album ("She's so deep, so gifted I believe people really haven't tapped into her artistry," says Webster); and music's super producer, Jermaine Dupri, has been named president of urban music at Virgin Records ("He's bringing in some new and different kinds of artists that I think will set the music world on its edge," Webster enthuses).

Outside of her growing media enterprises, Webster devotes time to church (she serves as the Church Administrator and oversees a very active Youth Ministry) and family. The professed basketball junkie also makes room on her schedule for NBA games, as well as reading and international travel. She is active on the boards of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund in New York, Hip Hop for Humanity in Atlanta, and the TREACH Foundation (Therapies Reaching & Educating Autistic Children) in Los Angeles. She is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, recently serving as a member of the Philadelphia Chapter's Board of Governors. Currently, Webster is cowriting two books, one of humorous stories and another on the power of faith.

There is a long list of accomplishments and triumphs, but Webster will tell you, she is foremost a woman of faith. "What's most important to me is that everyone I meet sees God in my life," says Webster. "No matter what you do or who you know, a relationship with God is the most important relationship you'll ever have."

AAPRC's Mission
The African-American Public Relations Collective (AAPRC) is an assemblage of professionals who provide communication conduits among clients, journalists, media and our communities. We come together as a collective because we recognize the importance of building those same conduits amongst ourselves.

A great deal of what we do is professional development––updating our skills, keeping pace with technology, refining and streamlining processes, providing a forum to tackle the issues that impact our work environment––but we believe our professional lives benefit most from the forging of effective alliances. Connected to one another, we possess the power of a nationwide body of committed, knowledgeable practitioners with an eye on the future.

As we move into the 21st century at lightning speed, mass media and its potent messages occupy an ever-larger part of our daily lives and our collective psyche. The AAPRC is focused on helping our members gain a deeper understanding of media's force and supporting their growth as powerful participants in the global communications network.

AAPRC's Contact
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1212 765 7910
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