The Ideal Home Show is well and truly underway with 600 exhibitors all fighting to stand out from the rest. It’s not easy to gain trust, cut-through, and exposure to a new audience, and that’s where PR can help. In the second part of our three-part series, we explore how you can utilise celebrities and surveys to reach your ideal audience.
APPOINT A CELEBRITY AMBASSADOR
Where to start: Carefully research which celebrities influence your target demographic the most. When it works, having a celebrity photographed with one of your products or services can be the best form of exposure and in many cases can be much more cost effective than an expensive advertising campaign.
Choosing an ambassador: Social Media is a powerful tool to identify the most influential celebrities for your audience. These are a few key things to consider:
- The size of their social following
- Interaction on their feed
- The demographic of those who are commenting on their posts
Celebrity Brand Ambassadors in action: JML ‘Everyday Easier’
JML came to us with a clear goal in mind: to become the ‘go-to’ brand for household products to make “everyday easy”’. With a wide variety of products under their roof, they wanted to synergise their PR efforts with their in-house marketing for individual product launches.
We planned and implemented a series of events to launch the Nutri Blitzer, Lotus Wok and Simply Straight Brush to a UK market. These events were a perfect opportunity to educate the media on the functionality and superiority of the products and build relationships with key journalists and influencers. We worked with celebrities such as James Cracknell, who was the face of Nutri Blitzer and Ching-He Huang, who was the face of Lotus Wok to support the launches and provide commentary to the media.
We generated 165 pieces of coverage across the 3 product launches. The events attracted 150 journalists in total and the subsequent coverage saw the products featured in publications such as Metro, Daily Express, OK, Style at Home, New!, Best and many more. With a total reach of over 700 million, our work ensured JML took prime-position as the number one household brand in the UK.
EXPLORE SURVEYS
Asking the right question: Surveys and statistics are a great way of generating widespread coverage and brand awareness in different segments of the media. Not only can you tap into a wider audience, but you can also present yourself as a credible thought-leader.
Creating your survey: Think about the topics your desired audience would be interested in and appoint a reputable survey company to target your new demographic.
Survey Stories in action: Purplebricks survey story
Purplebricks, the Hybrid estate agent, were looking to raise awareness of their new London Lettings service. The brand wanted to attract a younger London-based consumer looking to rent as their ideal demographic for this service.
We created a ‘Top Celebrity Housemate’ survey where we asked men and women between the ages of 20-35 which celebrities would be their ideal housemates. This survey gained Purplebricks coverage in sections of newspapers that they were not accustomed to gaining coverage in. They were also featured on celebrity sites like Reveal.co.uk that had the young demographic they were looking to target which then created conversation amongst that audience about Purplebricks.
The tips and advice given above provide an outline of some of the key elements a successful PR strategy will incorporate to engage a new audience… but stay tuned for Part 3. If you would like to speak to experts regarding a campaign you are looking to launch or ways in which you can engage with a new audience, please get in touch with our Consumer PR team.