Radhika Seth is British Vogue's film and culture editor.
During the episode, Radhika discusses the beauty of advocacy through fashion journalism, why simplicity is an underrated PR strategy, her dream sources, and more!
Follow Radhika on LinkedIn.
Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:
[00:06:57] BB: Yes, yes. Okay. What then stands out for you with a pitch? Specifically, let's start with just the subject line because you first got to get past the subject line.
[00:07:07] RS: Yes. I think, especially for publicist PR pitches, I think clarity. Simplicity is quite underrated sometimes. I'm very happy with if you're pitching a new talent to me, name – then the projects they have coming up or things I might know them from. That immediate recognition is great and super useful to me.
I know you asked us to look at pitches. Pitched subject lines are less useful. I would say, sometimes, I've received emails and pitches that have been like subject line is, “Have you seen,” and then it's the name of a TV show. Then the email body is blank.
[00:07:45] BB: What? There’s nothing in the email?
[00:07:47] RS: No. It’s just a subject line.
[00:07:49] BB: Are you – and you're supposed to respond to that?
[00:07:52] RS: Yes.
[00:07:53] BB: This is a first. I've never heard this before. Never.
[00:07:56] RS: Yes. It's been multiple times and I don't – I think maybe people are working at speed. Or maybe it's an intriguing thing, and you reply because you don't know what it's about. But I just would prefer to know.
[00:08:11] BB: I have never heard that, subject line with nothing in the – wow, wow. Okay. Well, let's switch, if we may, to then what is then – if you get the body of a pitch, what is in there that is enticing where you go, “Yes. Oh, I need to respond to that right now,” or whatnot?
[00:08:35] RS: Yes. I think I have alert set up for all the trade publications and stuff. I try to keep on top of what's coming out and what to know about. If it's a release that I recognize straight away, that's really, really helpful to me. If you have something like it's won some prizes.
Say it's won something at Cannes or Venice or something that I would recognize. If it's a talent that I've seen in something else maybe but not featured, I think to have things that are recognizable in that way and just have it be quite concise. There may be some images, quite useful, links, anything that can give me that information as quickly as possible.
[00:09:10] BB: So you do like links, not necessarily attachments and all that crap.
[00:09:39] RS: Yes. I like links. I also say from a film perspective, if you can also send me a screener with it, it's way so helpful. Sometimes, people do do that, and it's, obviously, password protected, et cetera.
But it's just great to be able to watch something. Then I can flag it. I can star it. Put it into my screener’s folder. Then I can watch it. I can respond in terms of if we want to feature that talent or cover something.
I think, sometimes, the screener processing, particularly for film journalists, it can be a little bit convoluted. There are Netflix, Apple. You have very straightforward systems.
But for some other places, I think sometimes you have multifactorial authentication. All my passwords have expired. It’s so much fast to arrange it that sometimes I'm just – it’s like I can't do this today because it's just so time-consuming.
I think if you send me a link, you send me a password, and I can watch it without it expiring. It's so useful, and I'm much more likely to do it.
[00:10:34] BB: Yes, yes. That is something – I think, increasingly, I'm hearing on this show is, yes, the damn link inspiring. Or I got to now sign up for this to get to the box file and this and that. It's like, “Ah.” It’s just – no, no.
[00:10:48] RS: It’s like an obstacle course sometimes, isn’t it?
[00:10:49] BB: It is a little bit. Yes. I get – I'm like, “What's the tech solution here?” Of course, it's security, and that's oriented [inaudible 00:10:55]. But, man, I don't know. We'll see.
Okay. Now, how much time are you spending consuming films, like actually watching the TV series and so forth that you do? I think that's a little distinct from other journalists we have on here who are like, “Oh, let me review the product. Or let me think about that topic. Let me do my seven interviews.” Okay, boom. Yours is quite different I imagine.
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[00:12:21] BB: Okay. How may, Radhika, publicists make your job easier if there is such a thing?
[00:12:28] RS: Yes. We also spoke about simplicity. No mysterious emails for a start.
[00:12:33] BB: God, no.
[00:12:34] RS: It’d be great. I think one of the things that we've been talking about increasingly on our desk that's super useful is because we work in the UK, but also we work very closely with our American colleagues in the US. They do syndicate our stories.
Something I write for vogue.co.uk will then appear on vogue.com often quite shortly afterwards. I think, sometimes, publicists are working in quite a regional specific way. If a TV show comes out, say, months after in the UK, months after it's coming out in the US.
They're difficult for us because I feel like the Internet is this place where conversations happen quite early. Then they're quite quickly over. I feel like we like to cover things as soon as possible as when they're out in their first region, if that makes sense.
[00:13:21] BB: Yes. That’s the other thing for your turn of things is a hot movie is maybe not hot two, three weeks from now. It’s not like an ongoing topic where you're reporting on, okay, AI regulation.
Well, you're going to be talking about that forever. I just – I feel for you basically. I feel for you.
[00:13:38] RS: Yes. I think it's been – we've spoken to a few publicists about it, and I think it is we are kind of finding solutions to it now. We’re just trying to cover things as early as possible and in line with US release dates.
I think if we just weigh, it's difficult. But, also, I understand that publicists are working in very regional-specific ways, and they have things they need to deliver and embargos that need to be held.
But there are shows that come out so much later here, and they're forgotten because people have – not me but people have maybe watched them illegally or they’ve consumed them already.
[00:14:08] BB: I have not thought about that, just with –
[00:14:11] RS: I feel like it happens more than we acknowledge it.
[00:14:14] BB: Yes. Unlike a breaking piece of legislation or something, it's not like it’s –
[00:14:18] RS: Exactly.
[00:14:18] BB: You could watch it five weeks ago. Oh, what an interesting twist for your job.
[00:14:23] RS: Yes. I feel like – yes. It’s been – we're trying to do things earlier now, and I think it's working really well.
But I think it's an ongoing conversation with publicists because I feel like it's difficult to explain sometimes. But it's hard to start that conversation months after it's already happened elsewhere.
[00:14:38] BB: Yes. Wow. Okay. Is there anything, Radhika, that you find grounds you, let's just say, with all this pitch frenziness and all these elements that you need to be dancing around, constant beat?
Do you have like a hack for how you manage this, besides inbox zero, which you try to get to, but just a thought?
[00:14:58] RS: I think it's to enjoy the process of it, if that makes sense. I think –
[00:15:02] BB: Yes, enjoy the chaos.
[00:15:04] RS: Yes. I think I love writing, and I'm so happy that I get to do it and particularly to cover stuff that I really love. I think, sometimes, you can get obsessed.
I definitely do with getting to that place where everything is off your list, and you've done everything. But it's kind of impossible, and it's never going to happen because it's an ongoing process. Yes.
[00:16:01] BB: Oh, God. Okay. Radhika, I have a short little fire round of questions for you. Are you ready?
[00:16:08] RS: Yes, let's go.
[00:16:09] BB: Let's do it. Let's do it. Video or phone interview?
[00:16:12] RS: I love video.
[00:16:14] BB: Of course. You're visually inclined. Okay. Bullet points or paragraphs in a pitch, assuming you get one?
[00:16:21] RS: Yes. I think short paragraph is great.
[00:16:22] BB: Short paragraphs. Good. Okay. That covers our long or short pitches. Okay. We talked a little bit about this, but ever do you wish to have just attached images? Or do you want the Dropbox file with no password, of course?
[00:16:35] RS: Yes. I think my Dropbox is perpetually full, so attached is great.
[00:16:39] BB: Attached if you can get it. Good. Do you wish to have pitches just email? Or do you ever want any DM of any sort?
[00:16:45] RS: Love DMs if you want to talk about a piece. But anything sort of work-related that requires me responding, email is great.
[00:16:52] BB: Yes. There you go. Okay. How about one follow-up or multiple?
[00:16:56] RS: I think one is good.
[00:16:57] BB: One and done. That's it. Direct or creative subject lines?
[00:17:02] RS: Very happy with direct.
[00:17:05] BB: Yes. Despite the super creative space you're in, right? You want to talk about the creative stuff, not [inaudible 00:17:11] subject line. Yes. Okay. How about press release or media kit?
[00:17:16] RS: Press release. I think if it's concise in one place, not lots of different links. I don't want to worry about missing something, so press release is good.
[00:17:22] BB: Okay. Good. Is there a time of the day that's your like peak pitch reading time? I know you're doing the zero inbox. So is it just all the time? We already kind of talked about it's all the time.
[00:17:32] RS: It’s all the time, but in the morning is a good time generally I think.
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