Wherever there’s a publicity stunt in D.C., there’s a good chance Winter — president of Brotman-Winter-Fried Communications — has something to do with it. Winter promotes one of D.C’s biggest social events of the year — Fight Night, which is scheduled for Thursday. Fight Night was founded in 1990 and has raised millions for children’s charities. The event hearkens back to a time when men wore tuxedos and smoked cigars, and boxing was king.
Tell me a little about Fight Night.
Fight Night started out as a way for Washington’s good-ol’-boy network to mix and mingle and schmooze. … It starts out with a silent auction and a huge cocktail reception. Then everyone goes into the ballrooms and has dinner. And it’s just what you’d expect — steaks, baked potato, cheesecake, top-shelf cocktails. … About 2,500 people attend every year. Last year we raised $2.2 million for FightForChildren.org.
What other stunts has your company done?
Publicity stunts or media events have kind of been a staple of ours. We represented the circus for over a decade and came up with the idea of drive-by pie-ings. We also had the elephant Easter egg roll and did it with watermelons. We had clowns come into the supermarket to buy food for the circus.
Speaking of stunts, I’ve heard you’ve had some dealings with the infamous, White House state dinner Salahis?
We were hired by [Michaele and Tareq] Salahi to do PR for their America’s Cup event. … After the 2008 event, the Salahis fell into financial disarray and rather than talk to their vendors and suppliers, they went on the offensive and decided to countersue. … We had to take them to court … and did it in a rather high-profile way: We served them their papers during their launch party for [Bravo’s] “Real Housewives of D.C.”
– Liz Farmer
