Paris Hilton. Even the mention of her name elicits some kind of response in most everyone. You either like her or hate her. But either way, as a graphic design and developer of brands, I’ve gotta hand it to the girl - she’s a brand powerhouse.
I recently read a blog post by the folks over at Strategic Name Development about Paris Hilton launching a new Heiress brand fragrance which prompted me to write this post. I got curious about the brand “Paris Hilton” versus the hotel chain her grandfather started. So I headed on over to Google Trends and entered Paris Hilton vs. Hilton. Since the search term “Paris Hilton” contained “Hilton” the search wasn’t as dramatic as I’d liked. So I thought of one of Hilton’s (the hotel) biggest competitors and entered them. Paris Hilton versus Marriott.
It’s interesting to see how one individual’s popularity (in searches anyhow) nearly equals and sometimes surpasses the popularity of an entire hotel chain with over 499,165 rooms world wide in almost 3,000 properties. The large spike in the graph reflects one of the many scandals that have either been caused by or put upon the hotel heiress. This one happened to be when her cell phone was hacked and all her famous friend’s personal emails and phone numbers were exposed.
Okay, so she was born an heiress, so have a lot of girls. But what has Paris done with it? Wikipedia has a good layout of the career of Paris Hilton who According to Forbes, in 2003–2004 earned approximately US $2 million for her television and movie roles, but in 2004–2005 her earnings from television, movies, modeling, and personal appearances have earned her an additional $6.5 million.
Model: Hilton has signed with top modeling agencies: Ford Models Management in New York, Models 1 Agency in London, Nous Model Management in Los Angeles, and Premier Model Management in London. One commercial alone netted her $400,000 according to Forbes Magazine. (and if you’re curious that commercial was the controversial Carls Jr. commercial - caution, it’s pretty darn sexy.)
Actress: Many know her from the Simple Life, but this girl has a list of cameos that won’t quit. The Simple Life, The Simple Life 2: Road Trip, The Simple Life 3, The Simple Life 4: ‘ Til Death Do Us Part, QIK2JDG, L.A. Knights, House of Wax, The Hillz, Raising Helen, and Nine Lives, National Lampoon’s Pledge This!, Bottom’s Up, Zoolander, The Cat in the Hat, Wonderland, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, 1 Night in Paris (unauthorized), and she’ll lend her name and also star in a cartoon series which follows the animated life of herself, her sister Nicky, and her dog Tinkerbell are in production. Hilton has also guest starred in episodes of The OC, The George Lopez Show, Las Vegas, American Dreams and Veronica Mars. And the list goes on and on. One of my favorites was her appearance on Saturday Night Live’s news skit with Jimmy Fallon.
Recording Artist: Hilton is the founder of Heiress Records, a sub-label of Warner Brothers Records, which she created in 2004. Though Heiress Records’ only release as of yet has been Paris, Hilton has said that she plans to sign new artists in the future. I watched one of her videos the other day on YouTube and thought it was pretty cute. It’s about a teenage geek’s fantasies about Paris and called Nothing in this World. It’s got a catchy little bubble-gum-like appeal.
Author: In the fall of 2004, Hilton released a book, Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose co-written by Merle Ginsberg, which has full color photographs of her and gives her tips on the do’s and don’ts of living as an heiress. She has plans to release another book in 2007.
Fashionista: Hilton has helped design a collection of purses for Tokyo label Samantha Thavasa and has also been involved in the design of a jewelry line, The Paris Hilton Collection, for Amazon.com. Hilton launched the Paris Hilton Limited Edition Watch Collection brand during a news conference at the Tourneau store in New York November 30, 2005 and also has plans to launch a fashion line.
Perfumer: Hilton was involved in the creation of a fragrance line by Parlux Fragrances, aptly named Paris Hilton. The launch was followed by a 47% increase in sales for Parlux, which was predominantly due to sales of the Hilton-branded perfume. Parlux Fragrances released Paris Hilton for Men, a cologne for Hilton’s male admirers, as well as another fragrance called Just Me by Paris Hilton, which is available for both women and men. (I have this Just Me fragrance - I first got a sample and liked it.) Another perfume titled Heiress by Paris Hilton was released in October 2006 followed by a counterpart for men, Heir by Paris Hilton. A line of cosmetics is also in the works.
Gamer?: Gameloft, a developer and publisher of mobile games, previewed a Paris Hilton-branded mobile game called Paris Hilton’s Diamond Quest at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). As of May 26, 2006, Gameloft’s press release states that “…the company decided on a title to reflect the fresh, dynamic and sexy appeal of the heiress extraordinaire.”
Not too shabby for a 25 year old. For a very thorough sum-up of Paris Hilton, see the Wikipedia page written about her. (That’s where much of this info came from) If anyone knows about parlaying her image into a brand, it’s Paris. (If only she could keep some of the shenanigans on the down low). I’ll file this one under “Self-Promotion” and “Branding”.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Branding, Self-Promotion.
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