How we achieved 42 pieces of coverage
for a new gin brand in just 6 months!
THE BRIEF
Exmoor Distillery, a young and native brand to Exmoor in the South West run by husband and wife team John and Nicola Smith, tasked SBPR with raising the profile of the brand and introducing their first products to press; the Northmoor Classic Gin and the Northmoor Navy Strength Gin.
THE CHALLENGE
Being a relatively new brand to the spirit marketplace with several local stockists based in the South-West, Exmoor Distillery faced the problem of needing to stand out in what is already a crowded and overpopulated part of the food and drink market. So how did we go about spreading the word of this new brand in a way that sets it aside from competitors?
THE SOLUTION
The Sunny Bird PR team built several media lists focusing on short-lead, mid-lead, long-lead, specialist, regional, national and business publications which acted as Exmoor Distillery’s target press. We took advantage of our pre-existing relationships with the media and booked Exmoor Distillery’s co-founder, John Smith, in to meet key journalists face-to-face, to introduce the brand, share samples and discuss the future in terms of possible press opportunities for Exmoor Distillery.
In addition to putting Exmoor Distillery in front of journalists, we made use of our connections and sent gin samples out for celebrity endorsement which not only saw Northmoor Gin appear on the celebrity’s social channels but also appeared organically on the Mail Online. Ahead of Christmas, SBPR pitched Exmoor Distillery’s unique cottage getaway for press trips and issued samples to national press for inclusion in their Christmas gift guides.
John and Nicola gave us the advantage of being experts in the field enabling us to also offer the founders’ expertise (and product of course) for any topical opportunity we could find within the media landscape building key relationships with regional and specialist press.
On the social side of things, we conducted a social media audit to ensure Exmoor was maximising engagement on all their channels and worked with them on their Instagram engagement, following and un-following other accounts in order to increase Exmoor’s followers.
We also created targeted social media adverts to promote voting for their involvement in the Food Reader Awards 2020 for which Northmoor Gin was nominated, plus we organised a collaboration with Dorset Cruises for Exmoor’s first ever ‘Gin Cruise’!
THE OUTCOME
In just one day of 121 media meetings we were able to spread the word of Exmoor Distillery to key journalists at titles including The Sun, Daily Mirror, The Times, Notebook, Woman’s Own, Good Housekeeping, The Daily Express and The Daily Star.
Through a mixture of product features, Q&As, reactive and comment pieces, SBPR achieved 42 pieces of coverage for the distillery that varied through national, business, regional and specialist press.
By using our expertise in syndicated content, SBPR were able to secure coverage for Northmoor Gin in regional papers across the UK, thus raising the profile of the localised gin brand. In total, the coverage achieved over the 6-month project reached over 3.2 million people with an advertising equivalent of over £101,000!