PR Best Practice: The Fundamentals of Brand Storytelling

About the session:

How can you make sure your brand is seen and heard?

Part of an ongoing digital series launched in 2021 to reveal the major trends within the category, the latest chapter – The Fundamentals of Brand Storytelling: PR Best Practice – is the second of three.

OurWhisky Founder, Becky Paskin, and a panel of expert speakers revealed the best ways to maximise the power of PR to supercharge your drinks brand.

"If it tastes delicious, looks good AND has an interesting story... that's the holy trinity."

Top 5 takeaways:

1. Be able to answer this question for your brand - why do you need PR? If it’s just sales, think again. 
2. PR is a long-term investment, so treat this like a long-term relationship - with transparency, openness and regular communication.
   
3. Be PR-ready with stock to sample and sell, great visual assets that are clearly labelled, a spokesperson ready to talk to a journalist, and a well-written bullet point list with the key points to the story you think journalists will find interesting. 
4. Treat finding a PR agency like any other recruitment, interview them first to make sure they understand your brand and know how to help you reach your goals.
5. The perfect storm for PR is to have a solid in-house team that can be reactive and create excellent assets, who have a great relationship with a publicist (agency or freelance) that can inject big ideas, connect you to the right journalists for your audience, and find the best hook for your storytelling. 

Topics discussed: 

• What PR is for, and what it can do for your brand.
• How PRs communicate with journalists, and how journalists decide what to write.
• The importance of PR in a brand comms strategy.
• The difference between handling PR in-house and an agency.
• Beyond the budget, what to look for in a PR agency.
• What makes a good PR agency.
• The difference between a freelance journalist and an in-house journalist.
• Where influencers sit in the world of PR.
• What makes a good story worth telling.

Meet the panel

A big thanks to our host, Becky Paskin, Founder of OurWhisky Foundation, and to our speakers:

• Alexandra Clough, Founder of Gather PR
• Millie Milliken, Award-winning drinks journalist
• Alice Lascelles, Contributing Editor on The Financial Times and drinks writer
• Rochelle White, Co-founder and Creative Director of Rochelle White Agency