Meet Phil Lobel | Founder and Chairman of Lobeline Communications

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

Hi Phil, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I liked the idea of being creatively in control and the final decision maker, so I could put my vision and stamp on the idea. So, I gave up the idea of becoming a newspaper editor because I didn’t want to share the three-way editorship. At the end of my freshman year at the University of Colorado, I decided I wanted to stick around and get in-state tuition. So many students graduated, and the person that was in charge of doing advertising was graduating and he saw that I was going to be sticking around. He asked me if I wanted to be the advertising and publicity director, but I had no idea what that meant. He told me it was $45 per week to lay out the ads and put out the press releases. I had never done any of that, but he said it was easy and that I should take the job.
Two years later, I became the Director of the whole organization, the CU Program Council. Boulder became like the hotspot for all the concerts in Colorado, and all this music was happening when I was living there. It was just one of those things where this fusion of everything was right for me and the universe aligned and that’s why I sidetracked my career as a journalism student and writing for the Colorado Daily newspaper. Also, it seemed like there was more money in being a concert promoter than there wasn’t being a journalist – though I had the utmost respect for journalists and their impact in steering public opinion.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
What set me and ultimately my work apart when growing up was never taking no for an answer from my parents, so I never really took no for an answer when I got turned down on story ideas. I would just work on uncovering an “out of the box” angle that would interest an editor – seeing an angle so compelling that others might not pitch them. With Lobeline Communications, from the very beginning 35 years ago to today, we have had a team assembled that is all about thinking out of the box. We leave no stone unturned and never take no for an answer. We believe in our clients passionately, and we will deliver.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In the past, I would take friends to The Pump Restaurant, Lisa Vanderpump’s eatery which we started doing PR on 10 years ago when it first opened. Then I would walk them around the corner to The Abbey Food Bar, which is the hotspot for everything LGBTQ and every celebrity that’s ever been in Los Angeles from Christina Aguilera to Elizabeth Taylor to Janet Jackson and Betty White would go there. We also did their PR for five or six years. Then I would drive them west on a winding Sunset Boulevard from West Hollywood through Bel Air, through Pacific Palisades, and to Gladstone’s on the Beach. We would then drive North up the coast on Pacific Coast Highway thru Malibu, and the cliffs of Point Dume near Johnny Carson’s estate. The water is so clear and pristine with incredible mansions overlooking Santa Monica Bay. Then we would grab a quick bite just north of that at Neptune’s Net on the Ventura County Line overlooking the Pacific. It has the best fresh shrimp, salmon, lobster, and crab legs. Then we would head back to Los Angeles, opposite traffic, as the sun is setting on our right to the West. That’s kind of what I’ve done in the past on many occasions with people and it gives guests an interesting and fun day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Just last night, I emailed my friend Rob Kahane, who was George Michael’s co-manager, a thank you email because it was the George Michael Faith Tour, and that call Rob made to me in the fall of 1987 was the turning point for my successful PR journey in L.A.
I remember when he called me saying Phil, “I’m leaving the agency, becoming a manager, and taking an artist that’s really big, and he’s going solo. He needs a publicist, and I want you to meet him.” And I was like, “That guy from WHAM!?” He responded with “YES, but solo now as just George Michael – let me send you his new album, FAITH, and tell me what you think.”

I loved the album and called Rob back and said, “Rob, you know there are 6-7 Number One HIT singles on this record!” And the rest is history.

So, I emailed Rob, thanking him for that fateful call inviting me to meet with George Michael. It was really the start of launching my successful PR career because, after that, I went from a life of being a concert promoter in college to being one professionally with my other mentor Barry Fey, the founder of Feyline Concerts, to starting Lobeline Communications in 1986. Barry was the one that supplied me with all my stadium concerts when I was a student at the University of Colorado, doing shows like The Eagles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Fleetwood Mac with 60,000 people sold out in Folsom Stadium. After this, I won the Billboard Magazine “College Talent Buyer of the Year” award.

So through that, Barry became my mentor. He was very tough and so I really honed in on my skills. That was a process that brought me from a student concert promoter to a professional concert promoter to wanting to start my own PR company, and they both really helped lead me there.

Website: https://lobeline.com/

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