Max Clifford Interview

NAME: Max Clifford

DOB: 6 April 1943

Intro: Maxwell Frank Clifford was born in April 1943 in Surrey.  Max Clifford has been in the business of public relations protecting and promoting a wide variety of clients for well over 40 years.  He has in the past worked with the likes of Mohamed Al-Fayed, David Copperfield and today continues to work with the likes of Simon Cowell, Peter Jones, and Pimlico Plumbers.

Businesses: Public Relations: In 1970 Max Clifford created MCA,   (Max Clifford Associates Limited).

Business Achievements:

Max Clifford Associates has been responsible for over 170 front page exclusives within the last 18 months.

Columnist with ‘Surrey Life’

Things that interest me: A life-long fan of Jaguar cars, he now drives a Bentley Arnage T.

Your motto would be: “Got a lot out and put an awful lot back”- that would be my epitaph.

How do you define PR?

I suppose promotion and protection, when I started out in the early sixties, with the Beatles and Motown and all of those people it was mainly promotion, now it’s more and more about protection. And we have a wide range of clients from stars, to property companies, to banks, health and beauty, you name it. But because of the changing media particularly in this country, because they are more savage it is more and more about protection than it is about promotion.

What’s the importance of PR to a business?

Well you are known by your image. We are the people that create those images. So if your PR campaign is successful it’s a very economical way of achieving an awful lot. Compared to advertising you could spend a million pounds on advertising and £100,000 on PR. And if the PR campaign is successful because it’s editorial it’s far more influential and has far more impact. Then you can achieve a lot more than spending ten times more on advertising. We have demonstrated over the years in lots of different areas.

Is there a particular time you fell when a business should implement PR?

It just depends on the circumstances and also your financial position. In a perfect world you would employ PR from the very beginning. The PR people assuming they know what they are doing would help you prepare to put the foundations in place which are going to help you months and years ahead. You might make mistakes; you may not understand the way it works, the way the media works, the way it would be best to protect yourself. So the earlier the PR person gets involved the better.

Does PR and marketing go hand in hand?

There is a difference but they tend to go hand in hand in my experience. What we do is use the media to get a message across, and obviously marketing is about understanding what the best message is across. In other words for your particular company, business, and product, this paper, this television, this radio whatever is best for you. Working together in PR and marketing, hopefully you understand the right market, the best market and the best way to get that message across.

 

Do ethics have a place in PR?

Not really no, because it is all about success. ‘Did Freddie Starr eat a hamster?’ “No”, But, ‘Did he sell out theatre tour and make him millions of pounds?’ “Yes”. ‘Was it Ethical?’ “No”, ‘Was it Successful?’ You take every situation on its own merit of cause; this is light relief, its entertainment. I would not be so flippant if I was dealing with a couple things; I’m involved in children hospices and things like that, different thing all together. But sometimes you got to look at every situation on its own merit.

What advice would you give an entrepreneur who wanted to set up their own PR Company?

I suppose it’s really what it is you are going to try and achieve. ‘Is it something that you’re good at?’ ‘Is it something that you’re better at than other people?’ ‘Is it an area that you understand?’  ‘Do you have the practical knowledge to be able to make it work?’  You could for example have a great idea for a television program. But if you got no contacts in television and got no way of getting in, it is not pointless but it will be a struggle. So you try and realistically assess the potential of the individual and give them guidelines accordingly.

Have you ever implemented a PR campaign that a client has not been happy with?

Yes, I mean in forty odd years of course. Freddie Starr wasn’t happy about that and he didn’t want me to do it but I ignored him. As I do all my clients, I do what I think. Simon Cowell didn’t think him ‘being him’ would work in America, I disagreed and when we went to America to launch American Idol I told him you better stick to the person you are because you start watering it down it doesn’t work. Fortunately for us it’s now the biggest show in the world.

What motivated you to set up Max Clifford Associates Limited and who were your first clients?

It came about because I was a local journalist, started a record column just to get free records which I use to review in the papers. Head Hunted by EMI records. Joined EMI in 1962, joined the press office. Was giving an unknown band to launch called the Beatles that did quite well. And then we launched Motown with Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and all of those people. And it was just the right place, right time. There was no PR industry in this country. So when the chief press office at EMI went out formed his own company and asked me to go with him it was a natural thing. And again we were working with some of the Motown acts again individually as personal clients and then a lot of other people came along.  It was just the right place, right time.

Do you feel your childhood made you what you are today?

Obviously your mum and dad have a huge influence. My Dad was very musical he was a classical pianist. Mum was just very warm and took care of us all. But I think they both taught me, my brothers and sister to just be yourself. You are as good as anybody, your not better than anybody else, but you are as good as anybody and that was their kind of attitude and it has always been mine. Back your judgment. I played a lot of sport as a youngster, football, water polo and things like that. I think that gave me a lot of confidence as well, because sports is one of the few areas that you cannot hyper yourself to winning Wimbledon  or World Heavy Weight Champion you got to be good.

How do you give back?

I’ve been involved in the ‘Royal Marsden children Leukemia Unit’ for about 35 years, taking stars up there raising funds and raising awareness. I patron one of 4 children charities one called ‘The Chain Switches of Children Hospice’ near Guilford, ‘The White Lodge’ which is a disabled centre for kids. ‘The Oasis’ which is a centre that looks after children from broken down families and drug related problems and I help to raise them money. And ‘Why?’ “Because I like to and I can, and I suppose, because I want to”.

How would you describe your self in 5 words?

Gets a lot out and puts a lot back.

If you did want to get in to the PR industry where would you recommend going to socialize and network?

I’m not a very good person to ask because I’m isolated; I don’t mix and mingle with them. I’ve got no interest in them. They kind of take themselves too seriously for me. I’ve never pitched for an account in my life. Probably you would get PR Week and I don’t know.

Do you meet people randomly and do business with them?

Yes, people come up to me all the time all over the world. I’ve just come back from Spain. I was part of a big charity golf weekend down there and during the course of that time two or three different people came up to me with this company and asked ‘Will you do PR for me?’

How do you select the clients you work with?

Just if I like them really.

 

Could you pick a random person from the streets and make them a star?

Yes, it gets easier all the time because of the people you know. And also because of the system and the way the media is.

Why do you feel people crave fame?

Fame equates to being successful rich and happy to most people, plus people like to be looked at like to stand.

 

Do riches equal happiness?

I think it is highly overrated. The happiest ones are the ones that see it for what it is. Whenever anybody comes I let them know there’s a lot of down side to fame. Try and make sure people that have been your friends for years, stay your friends. Because you get a lot of new ones that come along that are not interested in you but just your money.

 

Do you feel that you have left certain friends behind and can you still be friends with them?

Most of my mates are lads that I was at school with, or lads I played football with, or I played tennis with. One of them is a plumber, another is a local builder, one is retired etc. They are the real people. I don’t spend time with the people in this world (his work industry).

 

What is the biggest struggle you faced?

No, I’ve been very lucky. I mean everyone has dramas. My wife dying suddenly of cancer about 5 years ago, we been together 40 years and suddenly she wasn’t there. To kind of continue running whatever that was, probably the most difficult months of my life. In terms of clients, when you spend a lot of time as I do with kids that are dying that are 2 and 3. You can’t take all this seriously, you can’t worry too much because someone has got a huge ego, because they are worried, because someone didn’t applaud them or the ratings of their TV show are dying. Get a life.

How has the PR industry changed from when you first started till now?

It didn’t exist when I first started, but it is obviously a huge thing world wide now. It is far more sophisticated, far more complicated. You got the internet all these areas. But I think it’s a much bigger sea. When I started out, you knew 20 people and you had the country covered. Now there are thousands of people doing all kinds of things to do with the media. And of course we work on a worldwide basis as well, so it got far bigger than it was, far more complex, far more fast moving. There are so many more aspects to it. So I suppose it’s just a lot more complicated than it used to be.

You manage many people image’s how do you cope?

In an ever changing scenario, it’s like a game of chess; you are in the middle of a dozen chess board at any time, playing different games, because of all the different accounts, and different people you represent. But it is never boring.

How do you cope with knowing so much information?

It’s easy I forget most of it. It kind of pans out and works out. I’ve been lucky and I love it.