Podcast

Dan Wakeford: Celebrities and mental health and the psychology of parasocial relationships

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Dan Wakeford is one of the world’s leading experts in celebrity and entertainment. He has worked in the field for nearly three decades and been the editor in chief of many top brands including People magazine and Us Weekly. He has worked with the biggest names in the world from J.Lo to Jennifer Aniston and from Prince William to President Obama. He is the founder of the new Celebrity Intelligence newsletter and platform that provides smart takeaways from the escapism of the entertainment world. Dan is a globally recognized and award-winning editor and multi-platform brand builder with an outstanding track record of innovation and in creating zeitgeist-defining brands. He is the founder of Celebrity Intelligence, a newsletter and platform that provides smart takeaways from the escapism of the entertainment world.

He has led and grown some of the world’s biggest media brands by increasing audience engagement and revenue, most recently the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly and oversaw a brand refresh modernizing the iconic brand making it the authority in celebrity reporting and expanding its audience and diversifying its revenue. Before this he was the editor-in-chief of PEOPLE and Editorial Director of Entertainment Weekly. In this role he oversaw editorial direction and operations of the two iconic brands and its 250 staff, and oversaw revenue of $700M.He transformed and modernized the PEOPLE umbrella by adding depth and purpose to storytelling and elevating the design aesthetic. Dan’s vision for compelling storytelling generated four billion press impressions a week. He grew the digital footprint to 76M unique visitors and the entire brand footprint to 118 million consumers a month.

Dan led America’s most profitable magazine brand PEOPLE, during its innovative period in its history, extending the brand into TV, creating and executive producing five hit series and two documentaries; pushing the brand into podcasts, video, new social platforms and establishing PEOPLE as the most successful brand on Apple News+. He is renowned in the industry for leveraging brands into new revenue streams and new tent poles including franchises, accolades, licensing and new niche spin-off brands. His commercial focus resulted in stabilizing newsstand revenue for the first time in a decade and increasing renewals 20% and new online orders by 60%.

Dan is not only a dynamic commercial content expert but also focuses his work on giving back to benefit society. He reinforced the brand’s purposeful ethos and expanded reporting on subjects ranging from Covid vaccinations, domestic abuse to racism and climate change. Dan has a strong passion for advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community and has excelled in this area, developing award winning special projects. Diversity and representation are core focuses to Dan and he more than doubled racial diversity on weekly covers, increased representation across all platforms and diversity within his staff. He recruited the new editor-in-chief of Entertainment Weekly, who was the first woman of color to helm the brand in its history.

Awards for Dan’s work include, the 2021 Folio Award for The Best Magazine Issue, the 2021 GLAADD Award for Outstanding Magazine Coverage, a Didi Hirsch Award and three consecutive Adweek Hot List Awards for Best Entertainment Brand.

Dan is deeply connected in the entertainment industry and has a trusted network of contacts that have helped him set America’s cultural conversation for decades. He has facilitated unprecedented access to the world’s leading figures, including Prince William on his Earthshot Initiative, President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s first interview post-inauguration and George Clooney on his humanitarian work.

Dan joins us on The Vault to discuss why we are so impacted by celebrities, influencers and public figures. We discuss parasocial relationships and how celebrities and influencers can use their status and position for selfish or selfless agendas. Dan also discusses how mental health issues in celebrities, influencers and public figures can influence policy and public opinion about important mental health topics. Dan’s new platform, Celebrity Intelligence blends celebrity news and current events discourse in a unique way to provide edu-tainment.