Entrepreneur of the Year: Paris Hilton

Many people perceive Paris Hilton to be a self-absorbed, dumb bimbo who goes clubbing in skimpy outfits, squandering the Hiltons’ fortune. Some may even go further by saying that she is irrelevant now as she has been replaced by Kim Kardashian, her ex-personal assistant.

However, contrary to popular belief, I think that Paris Hilton is an extremely successful entrepreneur. She knew the power of the media and how to exploit it using it to her advantage by providing the paparazzi with what they wanted.

Today, Paris Hilton has over 50 stores in 40 countries in 15 years. Her fragrance collection is a $2 billion industry and she owns a resort “Paris Hilton Beach Club” in Manila, Philippines. Paris Hilton Entertainment, one of her many business ventures, has hundreds of employees.

To top it off, she has 16 licenses across the beauty, accessories, clothing and watches categories. That is a great accomplishment and as her sister Nicky puts it, “[Paris] didn’t get this far being dumb.”

Her Marketing Strategy: All publicity is good publicity.

Paris Hilton, Inc.: The Selling of Celebrity documentary showed how while other celebrities are intruded upon and harassed by citizen paparazzi, Paris used it to her advantage to promote her brand image and her products, gaining the exposure that she craved. She changed her outfits several times a day so that tabloid magazines had more content to post about her. She conveniently wore apparel from her own clothing line when she got released from jail.

There’s a saying that goes, “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” While it is very controversial and it depends on the situation, it worked well for Paris. Publicity leads to name recognition which then increases interest and creates a window of opportunity to promote yourself and your business.

Not long after her sex taped leaked, her reality TV show ‘The Simple Life” debuted. Whether or not it was intentional still leaves room for question.

As soon as Paris Hilton’s name seemed to be fading from the media scene, in 2015, the news popped up that she was the main victim of an airplane crash prank where she thought she was going to die. However, it later appeared that it was staged and she was aware of it.

Her brand image: Dumb and privileged blonde

Paris Hilton did not want to be known as the granddaughter of the Hiltons. She wanted to be known as Paris. In order to shake off the image associated with them, she created a notorious persona for herself – the glitzy blonde who loves to party and have a colourful love life.

She also speaks with a baby doll voice. In The Simple Life, one of her infamous quotes is, “If you don’t know what to say, just be like, ‘That’s hot.’” As Paris Hilton summarises in her sassy quote, “Your opinion of me doesn’t define who I am.”

She mentioned in one of her interviews that that she is merely playing a character that appeals to the wider audience. After all, nobody wants to watch a reality TV show where she does mundane things such as walking a dog. Sex sells and she knows how to play the game.

Paris Hilton only inherited $5 million, yet created a business empire valued around $1 billion by age 30. Paris Hilton could choose not to work and party all day if she wanted to but instead, she made a name for herself and does the things that she love.

What do you think of Paris? Let us know in the comments below.