The Secrets Behind Kylie Jenner's Baby Reveal

Last month, in the best surprise-release since Lemonade, Kylie Jenner revealed she'd given birth to a baby girl, Stormi Webster.

It's to the Jenner's credit (as a family and as a savvy PR operation) that Kylie avoided the spotlight entirely throughout her pregnancy, stoking all kinds of fervent speculation—and ultimately, creating a masterclass in 21st-century promotion. Now that its arc is complete, anyone interested—celebrities, marketing specialists, expecting mothers who want more Instagram followers—can study its countless lessons. Here are some of the brilliant, but oft-overlooked PR tactics that Kylie and her family employed.

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Stage a Speculation Phase

This technique was used beautifully and gloriously by the Jenner-Kardashian clan over the (admittedly impressive) past nine months. Rather than just come out with the news “I’m pregnant!” and let the news cycle fade until the baby arrived, the Jenners sustained attention and consideration for almost a year by having their fans—and then their fan’s networks—increasingly speculate, debate, and discuss, over a continuous nine month stint.

During this stretch, they piqued curiosity from even the most kasual of Kardashian fans, in the same way that my Dad knows an Apple keynote is going to reveal a product and wonders what those zany folks will get up to this time, but has never actually downloaded anything from the App store.

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Kylie's pregnancy stands as a masterclass in 21st-century promotion—and anyone interested can learn from her lessons

Creating a speculation phase for a product announcement or brand unveil often involves leaking (but never outright claiming) one’s news, as well as controlling a drip of just-the-right-amount-of-information leading up to a concrete announcement. By letting consumers consider what might come next, as well as discuss (and share) amongst themselves for a period of time, you’re letting others do the work of building demand and creating hype for what’s to come. As people casually propose and debate theories of their own, it stokes curiosities so that a wider audience feels invested in, or at least curious about, the details of the news once it finally arrives.

In this case the news was a baby. I have personally watched no more than one episode of the Kardashians’ many TV franchises and yet I watched Kylie Jenner’s 11-minute baby debut in full. Bravo, Kylie, bravo.

Neither confirming nor denying news limits negative sentiment

Beyond the swirl of intrigue it drums up, audience speculation also works to divert attention away from negativity that might otherwise come along with an unveil, by both minimizing the impact of the news (since it’s not sudden but dripped over time, allowing fans to acclimate), as well as by building a larger conversation and imagination around the potential of what might be to come.

Small Girls PR employed this same tactic when we re-launched the popular dating app Hinge. We’d rolled out the app on a national level years earlier, but the founder was the first to admit the experience had devolved into the infinite swiping abyss of so many other apps in their competitor set. In order to deliver on the promise of creating meaningful relationships, they’d have to fundamentally change the product. And they’d have to start charging users in order to to deliver on that promise.

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♥️
A post shared by Kylie (@kyliejenner) on Feb 4, 2018 at 12:27pm PST

Whenever a free platform starts charging, it’s a surefire way to sink app store ratings. We worked for five months to leak our own news that something better was coming—but were careful not to disclose exactly what it would be. We neither confirmed nor denied that Hinge was relaunching, but stoked enough flames over several months for both journalists and users alike to share their own theories on what a new Hinge experience might look like. By the time we lifted our embargo, journalists cared much more about the app’s new functionality than the fact that it was now paid to experience.

Similarly, "teen pregnancy" is barely more than a footnote in the Kylie Jenner conversation, largely overshadowed by wondering if she’s pregnant at all (and if so, whether it’s hers or a surrogate for her sister who recently discussed difficulty with carrying to term). It would be much easier for a journalist (or random tweeter) to author negative opinions if the Jenners confirmed the pregnancy of the 20-year-old Kylie while there was still a lowercase ‘k’ in the womb, before being faced with the child’s humanity—anyone who slams a cute, innocent babe after its born is just a straight up monster. Timing impacts audience sentiment and the Kardashians played their timing just right.

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“Newsjack” a cultural moment for brand alignment

It’s not irrelevant that the Kardashian/Jenner/Scott camp waited several days after the baby was born to announce her arrival—timing the news with the Super Bowl allowed them to capitalize on that fact that people would be gathered together, talking about the events of the day during the in-between breaks in the game (if not over the commercials!). They fanned the flames of virality, and one-upped even the most showy Super Bowl ad, with Kylie Jenner’s short 11-minute film announcing her pregnancy and putting a period on her nearly nine months of social hibernation.

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This also worked to align Kardashian news with a national cultural moment. This is the same reason thousands of women's brands will launch products the week of March 8th in tandem with International Women’s Day. They will say they are supporting women everywhere but what they really mean is, “This is a great opportunity to ensure we are aligning ourselves with a national conversation people are already gathering for and talking about.”

Personal Statements not Press Releases

Kylie announced the news on her own Instagram, acting as her own exclusive. She referred to herself in lowercase i, as if it was a casual text to a friend. It is so seemingly “raw” and “personal” and “of the moment” that it is actually oozing in publicist approval.

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This reminds me of when Taylor Swift issued an apology on her Notes app, to seem the same, just like us, but a closer look revealed it was actually a “searched for” response she’d pre-written—and probably passed around for feedback—rather than a spur-of-the-moment or recently penned apology.

Like all great art, Jenner’s pregnancy simultaneously invented and destroyed a genre: No future lifestyle celebrity can refuse to acknowledge the fact that they’re expecting without bringing Jenner to mind. She’s pioneered a whole new way of being pregnant on the internet—but her strategy’s building blocks were tried and true PR.

Mallory Blair is the CEO and cofounder of Small Girls PR, a creative agency headquartered in NY and LA.

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