Meet Jessica Bradford | President, 2BPR Public Relations & Marketing

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jessica Bradford and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jessica, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I started my business, 2BPR Public Relations & Marketing, out of necessity. In 2007, my (now ex) husband relocated our family to Los Angeles from New York City for a job opportunity. My son was just 8 months old, and I knew absolutely no one in LA. At the time, remote work was not as common as it is now, so staying with the agency I worked for in NYC was not an option, but I still needed to work. Everyone said I should try to get into entertainment PR, but I knew in my heart of hearts that celebrity culture was not for me– I love travel.

Miraculously, right after we relocated to LA, a former colleague who was based in NYC reached out to me. She also had recently given birth to her first child, and she was planning to work from home as an independent PR contractor for her former employer, Micato Safaris. Being a new mom though, she only wanted to work part time, and proposed that we share the job. That also worked perfectly for me. For three years, we worked as a team solely with Micato, balancing work and new parenthood.

In 2010, our children now in preschool, we were presented with the opportunity to take on another client, so we decided to incorporate and start 2BPR. (Both of our last names started with “B”, hence the “2B’s” in 2BPR.) We very quickly took on several other clients, including The Natural Gourmet Institute (now part of the Institute of Culinary Education), Minor Hotels (parent company of Anantara Hotels & Resorts, NH Collection Hotels & Resorts, and many other hotel brands) and more businesses in the luxury hospitality, food, wellness and fashion sectors. In 2018, my business partner (who by now had two more children) decided to move to New Hampshire get her real estate license, so she sold her shares in the company to me. Today, 2BPR has a team of 10 people, based mostly in NYC and LA, and we’re thriving.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
While I never consciously aimed to become a travel & tourism PR professional, looking back on my life it makes perfect sense that I would end up on this career path.

I grew up in Maine, where my father was the General Manager of a big resort that looked very much like the big white resort on a hill that was in Stephen King’s “The Shining.” Throughout my high school years, I held almost every imaginable hotel job there– I manned the front desk, waitressed and even worked as a bell hop for a while. This gave me a very strong understanding of everything that goes into creating a 5-star guest experience, and a lot of compassion for hotel employees, who are often very overworked and under-appreciated.

In college, I studied English Literature and Art History. Around this time, my father left the hotel business to pursue his passion: fly fishing. He and a friend decided to publish a magazine called “Fly Fish America”. While I knew very little- and cared even less- about the sport, during my college breaks I helped my dad out (and earned much-needed spending money) by selling ads to fishing gear suppliers. I also learned a lot about magazine production during this time, from how to design ads to laying out the magazine to getting it printed and distributed.

After graduation I had NO idea what I wanted to do for a career. For a while I worked at an environmental consulting firm editing reports written by geologists and engineers, which I found painfully boring. Then I considered teaching– I taught high school English for a few years while working on a teaching degree, but my heart wasn’t into it. I couldn’t see myself being stuck in one place for my entire life.

It wasn’t until age 26 that I fell into what would eventually become my career. I answered an ad for a job at the Convention and Visitors Bureau in Portland, Maine. The position was “Assistant to the President.” It was not an attractive job- my duties involved typing up correspondence, managing the President’s schedule, taking minutes at meetings and other administrative tasks- but it did get me in the door. After 5 years there I became the Director of PR & Marketing, overseeing all media relations & communications activities, advertising programs and the visitor centers (and their staff) at the city’s airport, cruise ship terminal and downtown.

The 9/11 tragedy happened while I was living in Portland. The day after the American Airlines planes crashed into the World Trade Center buildings, FBI personnel were in my office, questioning my employees at our downtown visitor center. Apparently, the Al-Qaeda operatives who flew the planes spent the night in Portland, Maine (and found a hotel with the assistance of my friendly staff!) before flying to Boston and then onward to NYC, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon. The incident deeply affected me- as it did everyone at that time.

A short while after 9/11, I became engaged and moved to New York City to live with my fiancé, and I was hired as Director of Communications for New York City’s tourism bureau. There was a huge effort then to bring tourism back to the city. It was an intense time and an intense job—one I was not fully prepared for as a small-town girl newly arrived in the city, to be honest—but I learned so much. I spent my first day on the job opening the Westin Times Square with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. During my time at the tourism bureau I experienced just about everything one can experience in the city- from holding press conferences in Times Square to championing Broadway shows to working with the artist Christo to promote “The Gates” installation in Central Park to attending planning sessions with city leaders about the fate of the former World Trade Center site. It was an invaluable education.

Following the tourism bureau, I worked for a couple of small, NYC-based boutique PR firms focused on hospitality clients including The Bermuda Department of Tourism, Princess Cruises, Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts, Affinia Hotels and Leading Residences of the World, which was a residence club founded by the Leading Hotels of the World.

Getting to where I am today has not been a straight path, nor has it been easy. PR is not (usually) a job that will make you rich, and it is not at all as glamorous as it seems on “Sex and the City” or Instagram. More time and effort than most people can possibly imagine goes into getting just one story published, and once a big story comes out it is usually forgotten by the client the next day. You always, always must be thinking about what’s next.

That said, I am so grateful for what it has afforded me. I’ve been able to travel all over the world. I’ve been on hot-air balloon safaris in Kenya, flown over Victoria Falls on a microlight in Zambia, fed & bathed elephants in Thailand, gone “wild swimming” in the Irish Sea in Ireland, learned to cook Vietnamese food in Hoi An, rode a float in the Carnaval de Nice parade in France, and have met so many wonderful people along the way.

When I think about what has made me successful in this career, and what makes 2BPR stand out among travel PR firms, it comes down to two things: my deep knowledge of the industry, which I’ve been steeped in my entire life, and my willingness to work hard. I could not possibly have known that working as a hotel bell hop and selling ads to fishing rod makers would lead to working with the Anantara hotels recently featured in “The White Lotus” Season 3. My younger self would be astonished at all I’ve been able to experience.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oooh.. fun question. I actually just did this as my son’s girlfriend was visiting us in LA during their college spring break. She’s from Sao Paolo, Brazil, so we really had to show her the town. Here’s what we did, and a few other things I would have liked to have done if we had enough time!

Shopping:

Rose Bowl Flea Market
Rodeo Drive
Highland Park’s thrift stores (Wasteland is a favorite.)
Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena

Dining:

Cara Cara at The LA Proper Hotel downtown- amazing rooftop views and delicious food from Suzanne Goin
Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura- ridiculously overpriced beef ribeye burgers but OMG are they good
In ‘n Out Burger – pretty much the opposite of Gucci Osteria, lol, but also SO good and essential!
Jones Coffee Roasters – the best coffee ever, IMHO
Afters Ice Cream

Sightseeing/Activities:

The Huntington Library & Gardens
Day trip to Joshua Tree
Little Tokyo
Zuma Beach, Malibu
Highland Park Bowl
The Broad

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would not be where I am today without the support of my mom, my son, and my team members at 2BPR– Jennifer Oberstein, Maddie Austin, Trina Hendry, Mariela Amaya, Kevin Hughes, Lauren Flores, Brooke Roe, Chris Baccus, Alyssa Sullivan and Kristen Levesque. They are the best of the best, making me (and our clients) look good!

Website: https://www.2bprinc.com

Instagram: @2bprinc

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicabradford2/

Twitter: @2bprInc

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2BPRInc

Image Credits
All images were taken by Jessica Bradford except for the one with the group in Bali (getting a water blessing)- that credit is Jonas Jungblut.