Now that we know the impact of PR on Food and Beverage (both alcohol and non-alcoholic) products has, and the benefit of product placement and influencer partnerships, we’re going to delve into another key element to a successful food and beverage PR campaign: events.
Hosting any events, whether they be product launches or tastings, can be expensive and often leave brand managers asking ‘Is it worth the spend?’. At Agent99, we host many events every year as part of our PR offering, and if there is one sector we recommend events for the most it’s food and beverage.
With more and more brands launching every day, people – whether it be media, influencers, or consumers – want to try before they buy. Plus, hosting an event means dozens or hundreds of people can engage on a deeper level with the Food & Beverage product (especially if there’s a brand spokespeople giving brand insights, mingling with guests, etc), and they can enjoy the products in numerous ways (various cocktails to highlight the versatility, infused into different dishes, etc) all in the space of a few hours.
But don’t just take our word for it, take a look at the impact some of our events have had for brands within the Food and Beverage PR space:
Buderim Ginger
Buderim Ginger’s rebrand targeted the Gen-Y demographic and the company wanted to host an event to connect with this audience in a unique and meaningful way. From researching the target audience we found that bullying was the number one issue for this demographic, so from there the Buderim Ginger Pride Rally was born.
The event called for Gingers to march through the streets of Melbourne CBD, alongside a festival featuring live music, sampling of all Buderim Ginger food and beverage products, merchandise, and signage. Given the demographic’s interest in giving back, we partnered with two charities – RANGA (Red and Nearly Ginger Association) and Bully Zero.
This event secured over 1,000 attendees at the Rally (against a KPI of 100), generated 210+ pieces of coverage in traditional/online/influencer and youth oriented outlets, including Daily Mail, Pedestrian.TV, and The Project, was covered by all major TV stations and news outlets, and reached over 25 million Australians.
Not only did the campaign win PRIA’s Consumer PR Campaign of the Year, it also assisted to secure Buderim Ginger’s range in Coles and Woolworths, highlighting the huge business impact the PR campaign had.
Hendrick’s Gin
Hendrick’s Gin appointed a customer experience agency that saw an opportunity to create national buzz by growing a world-first ‘Unusually Australian Cucumber’ to be served with the most unusual gin, with the public voting on elements to put into the earth to grow the cucumber hosted on the Hendrick’s Facebook page to drive the campaign.
To bring this concept to life, we organised a 130-guest ‘cucumber reveal party’ at Elizabeth Bay House for media/influencers and VIPs who were treated to signature cucumber cocktails, cucumber tealeaf readings, cucumber Messina and cucumber hand massages.
The event generated 200 posts in 2 hours for #HenrdicksCucumber, helped to secure 170+ pieces of earned-coverage in outlets including Sydney Morning Herald, news.com.au and KIIS FM, reaching 23 million+ against a KPI of 50 pieces and 400k reach. On top of that, the social media channels reached 850k+, a 26% growth of HG’s Facebook community.
Westward Whiskey
Westward Whiskey is the highest rated American Single Malt. The brand regularly releases new varietals, and events are a key driver to launching these. In 2021 alone we hosted 4 events for Westward Whiskey, which were attended by 80+ media and influencers, and helped secure 65+ pieces of media coverage and 35+ social media posts. These reached over 28 million people in outlets such as The Australian Newspaper, GQ Magazine, Men’s Fitness, CEO Magazine, and TimeOut.
For our final event of the year we also replicated a media event for consumers, selling over 100 tickets, with 60% of attendees further purchasing a full-sized product post the sample tasting event.
The above tactics assisted the Australian market to be the highest selling region outside of the US for the brand.
At Agent99, we manage events from start to finish – from the initial concept, through to finding the perfect venue, styling, AV, taking care of media invitations and RSVPs, and securing attendance – we’ve got you covered. If you are interested in exploring this for your brands, please get in touch with us at https://agent99pr.com/contact/.
Agent Nic
