Becoming Buzz : Personal Assistants Create the Next Big Thing

With companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year trying to make their new product into the Next Big Thing, it seems ludicrous that a handful of stylish late twenty/early thirty-somethings are not getting paid for turning a select few items into overnight sensations during a quick coffee session at the local Starbucks. It's at these small gatherings, where products are anointed 'PA worthy'.

(PRWEB) February 12, 2005 -- Every month in L.A. and New York, with smaller upstarts now in West Palm Beach, personal assistants (PA) are continually getting together at round-table discussions to trade secrets about the hippest, latest and greatest in restaurants, fashion, and gifts. Indirectly charged with knowing what's going to be hot before it strikes, PA's are not only increasing their own value to their CEO's and celebrity bosses, but they have become an unstoppable marketing machine for a few lucky products which catch their eye. PA's bring these new discoveries to their employers, whose spotlight then brings it to the mainstream.

It happened to one small company this past fall. TreasureKnit, a service which takes people's photographs and knits them into personalized blankets, was discovered by the personal assistant of a major television star. Searching on the internet for something new, the company was asked by the PA to customize gifts for attendees at a private event in New York. In less than sixty days, word-of-mouth spread throughout Manhattan and Malibu about the small company, and turned TreasureKnit into a secret celebrity gift sensation.

"Going from single orders from people in small cities like Decorah, Iowa to an order of 600 for a producer's Christmas gifts just illustrates the marketing power these wonderful people (PA's) have," says Richard Nadel, TreasureKnit's Senior Account Manager. "We were used to hearing of referrals from Mrs. Smith to Mrs. Johnson, but referrals through the celebrity assistant community has had PA's of movie and TV stars, basketball players, music company management, even celebrity hairdressers calling us to buy our TreasureKnits. The attention and purchasing volume from these people have been amazing."

Personal Assistants are no longer considered personal servants. The new PA is a powerful and networked style general with an ear to the street. Consistently caught in celeb rag photo frames alongside the famous faces they work for, companies are beginning to take notice that PA's are the major decision makers for creating the Next Big Thing.

"We really have to know ahead of time what's coming around the corner, so we have these meetings to share new ideas with one another," says Doug Rago, former Personal Assistant to Dayna Devon of TV's Extra fame, and now a Publicist at Image Management Public Relations, a public relations firm in Los Angeles, CA. "It's a PA's responsibility to ensure that the personality is seen as being in fashion before it happens and gifting out the latest and greatest gadgets."

Sometimes having a "PA Worthy" product can cause counter-intuitive results for a company's marketing strategy. For TreasureKnit, the perceived benefit of publicizing its client's list contradicts its own policy of protecting its well-known customers' confidentiality, so the company has yet to make use of its new found status as gift maker to the stars. TreasureKnit's Nadel still thinks that the benefits of marketing to PA's far outweigh this concern. "Word-of-mouth marketing will always win in the end," he says. "If you have a good product or service, and treat your customers with respect, people will share their pleasant experience....it's human nature to tell a friend or ten."

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