As PR professionals, we often see companies in the food and beverage industry resorting to grandiose stunts or events with the hopes that media outlets and social media channels will miraculously act as their PR agencies. However, the substantial investment of these tactics often doesn’t pay off; while they’re likely to deliver a handful of headlines at once, they can rarely carry press attention for the entire year — let alone beyond. Skip the risky stunts that only result in short-term brand recognition and instead focus on thoughtful, targeted press campaigns that center on pop culture events, valuable learning, insights, seasonal topics and creative story themes.
Without the leverage of multiple new product launches, many food and beverage companies struggle to stay relevant in the fast-paced digital landscape and competitive advertising space.
A better way to build a steady and impactful marketing strategy is to track the latest media trends within the industry, research case studies and then capitalize on the areas of opportunity that will work to boost your brand’s image. Here are proven PR strategies we’ve seen work, and a few we’ve already put to the test with our own clients. Learn how to leverage pop culture, seasonal trends and authentic storytelling to capture headlines year-round and build a lasting media presence for your food and beverage brand.

Boost Your Food and Beverage PR With Pop Culture Trends

Pop culture events, trending TV shows and popular celebrities present unique ways to add relevance to your brand with the media. For our client Harmless Harvest, an opportunity to tie in with television’s guiltiest pleasure – the E! show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” – presented itself when we spotted the brand’s iconic green bottle stocked in the family’s fridge on more than one occasion. We took this revelation straight to Refinery29 – a top target for Harmless Harvest’s millennial audience – and it became an instant news hook, resulting in a full feature placement on their coconut-water brand. Not to worry, though – even if your product isn’t a Kardashian staple, there are plenty of other ways to leverage celebrity trends or pop culture story angles for your brand.
Regular product sampling and gifting, as well as proactively pitching the media on your products as the “go-to” recommendation for a specific trend, is a terrific way for a brand to position itself for this type of mention.

Join the Conversations That Matter to Your Audience

Brands are about more than just their products; their corporate values and positioning on key issues can also be an important tool in helping to engage customers in a more meaningful way. So, it makes sense that a company’s PR program should also take those aspects into account. 
Consider Luna Bar*, who built an annual brand partnership program to address issues important to their core audience of women. Luna and E! News co-host Catt Sadler, who had been calling out the entertainment station on potential pay disparities, came together to provide helpful insights and tools to arm women with what they needed to negotiate fair pay. The relationship resonated with the media, with coverage in high-caliber outlets such as Mashable, Hello Giggles, In Style, and Refinery29.

Break Through Event Noise With Intimate Media Events

Smaller, intimate and more meaningful interactions with the media are a great – sometimes, even a better – alternative to large-scale events, enabling brands to build stronger, more personalized relationships with press contacts.
While large-scale events can be impactful, they aren’t the sole path to a strong media presence. These events come with challenges like high costs, unpredictable weather and competing news stories. There will always be a hurdle in securing media attendance. 
For our client Java House Cold Brew, for example, we bypassed the costly stunt approach in favor of on-site samplings with target media contacts to share the product with them firsthand, while also listening more closely to how we could provide them with useful content for their outlets. Beyond these meetings, we scheduled touchpoints with each contact by sending another shipment of samples, identifying new coverage opportunities from the planned editorial calendars or seasonal tie-ins, and sending additional updates from the brand on availability, sales, recipes and more. This set the brand up for additional coverage of their product in new ways, resulting in both immediate coverage on digital sites like Brit + Co, as well as longer-term coverage with print outlet Every Day with Rachael Ray.

Enhance Your PR by Lifting the Veil

When founders or executives lift the veil to show the inner workings of their business, how they make it successful, and where their priorities lie, it provides a captivating campaign to keep the brand in the press.
Many consumer audiences, especially millennials and Gen Z, want to know who’s behind the products they love.
For example, we’ve noticed that Health-Ade Kombucha’s Daina Trout* regularly speaks on the inner workings of running a business, letting fans of the brand and media get insights into how her passion project and side hustle grew into one of the most popular brands in that space. Recent stories with outlets such as Brit + Co and Well+Good put a face and a personal story to the company as well as to the product that their readers have come to love, while also providing them with a deeper connection to the brand.

Boost Your PR With Seasonal and Thematic Topics

When in doubt about which direction to take your PR campaign, getting creative to uncover a seasonal or thematic tie-in is the best way to keep your brand relevant. 
With a little foresight and creativity, you can fill a year’s worth of PR campaigns by looking more closely at the calendar and the themes that follow for that time of year.
  • Look at food holidays that line up with your product, as we did for Java House Cold Brew and National Coffee Day for Parade.
  • Find an event that gets media attention annually, such as Coachella Music Festival, which we utilized for Harmless Harvest in Us Weekly to talk festival essentials.
  • Look ahead to the activities and topics that are popular for that time of year. Tapping into the hydration of Harmless Harvest, we talked beach-bag essentials and healthy beach-snack options with PopSugar for another product mention leading into summer.
Our team looks at everything from holidays and recurring events to relatable themes around travel, parenting, fitness and more to keep your brand in the press. To discuss how Resound Marketing can increase brand awareness and reach your target audience throughout the year, please contact our team at Marni@resoundmarketing.com. * Not a Resound client, just a brand we love!