Add Some Spice to Your PR Campaign

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Tickles the Taste Buds with effective public relations planning and story spotting

Scottish public relations agency Holyrood PR in Edinburgh helps add extra spice to the business stories of PR clientsWHEN promoting your businesses and services, what can you do to make sure your effort packs the kind of punch normally reserved for the tastiest of vindaloos?

Not just any vindaloo mind you, but the kind you pick up from a street food stall in the sweltering streets of Mumbai – unforgettable and spicy.

The “secret sauce” you are looking for could be a public relations campaign delivered by a team of proven PR experts.

Here’s a wee example to whet your appetite – when our client Sodexo Prestige held an Asian fusion food event for 200 specially invited guests, they made sure that every one of them had a finger-licking good experience they are likely to be talking about for weeks.

But what if that experience could be shared with hundreds of thousands of other people – those who couldn’t be there, but would still be interested in finding out more?

That’s exactly what our Edinburgh PR agency delivered for the catering and hospitality specialists, making sure their innovative food event was shared on air, on paper and online – with TV coverage, PR success in print and extensive social media activity.

Delivering an extra kick with the tastiest public relations

Edinburgh PR agency's guide on how to spice up your PR campaignThe Sodexo Prestige event was to celebrate the recent Lunar New Year – also known as Chinese New Year – and was an exotic blend of east and west.

It saw the culinary experts transform the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) – where Sodexo Prestige is already the exclusive catering and hospitality partner – into a virtual Chinatown, to celebrate the much loved Asian holiday.

Stalls offering a dizzying range of Asian and Oriental street food were dotted around the five star venue, RBGE’s John Hope Gateway, offering more than 200 corporate clients a memorable culinary experience.

It included dishes from Thailand, China, India and many more places across the orient, all made using only the best Scottish produce. Sodexo Prestige has long displayed a commitment to support local suppliers wherever possible, which is being celebrated in this year of Scotland’s Food and Drink.Edinburgh PR agency help catering client promote event

Many of those suppliers were at the event, to explain first hand where Sodexo’s top quality produce comes from while entertainment on the night included Bollywood dancers, Chinese Dragon Dancer and a Tai Chi demonstration.

How our Edinburgh PR agency spiced up the public relations campaign

Our team of PR experts didn’t just see a riot of colour and the chance of a great night out – we saw story potential and a menu of media opportunities galore.

THE STARTER – serving up an irresistible entree in the form of delicious ‘media invites’

Edinburgh PR agency help catering client promote eventHard working journalists and bloggers are just like anyone else and love the chance to attend a fabulous party and have a great time while meeting new people and savouring top notch food, wine and entertainment.

But they also lead incredibly busy work lives, so invitations have to be pitched just right, to make sure the writers know there is a story behind such an event – one that is likely to be useful, informative or entertaining to their audience.

Our carefully crafted media invite made it clear this was no pointless freebie – but a bona fide celebration of an important cultural calendar event; a showcase of Scotland’s larder during a crucial year for the food industry; and an important business milestone for a major employer.

There was no “spray and pray” mail out to random writers. Instead we carefully reached out to the Edinburgh-based media including newspapers, magazines and broadcasters, as well as to Scottish food and lifestyle writers and bloggers.

THE MAIN COURSE – The event itself, with silver service in terms of the public relations.

Our PR team ensured members of the media got access to who they needed – from the STV camera crew looking for the right interviewees to the Evening News photographer looking for the best shots and vantage points.

But it didn’t stop there – we also shot video, while sharing plenty of pictures and updates in real time across Twitter, Facebook and other social media, getting positive messages in front of a huge potential audience as the event unfolded.

DESSERT – rounding off the PR campaign with a sweet little finisher.

Food and Drink PR helps catering client promote eventEven after all the stalls has been packed up, the venue cleaned and the light switched off, the public relations activity was still rolling on.

The day after the event, we were busy preparing a follow-up media release, along with photographs, on the success of the occasion for Sodexo Prestige, suppliers and all the others involved, making sure the story could still be told, even to those who weren’t lucky enough to attend.

The results of this intensive public relations work were impressive. STV Edinburgh’s flagship programme The Fountainbridge Show reported from the event live, from which they showed the main proceedings of the evening and interviewed two key people from Sodexo Prestige. With the show airing to thousands of people every night this meant Sodexo’s key messages were broadcast to a large and varied audience.

Local newspapers and food publications also featured some great coverage of the event.

Find out how Food and Drink PR in Scotland could help your business to enjoy results like these

If your business or organisation could use this kind of media exposure to help increase sales, boost website traffic and recognise the efforts of your team, then we’d love to speak with you.

We’re a chatty bunch at our PR agency in Edinburgh and you can get hold of us on 0131 561 2244 or fill in the simple form below and we’ll get straight back to you.

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