As we’ve learned in previous articles in our Food & Beverage PR series, PR is an essential marketing tool that can be highly beneficial to your overall brand awareness, growth and sales. By utilising the right assets, channels and influencers, you can use PR to help get your FMCG products in front of the right audiences. However, one question we frequently are asked as a PR Agency that specialises in Food & Beverage PR, is ‘should I be marketing every new product?’
If you are an FMCG brand, it’s very likely that you have many product Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) and new varietals coming to market frequently, and without proper guidance, it can be very easy to miss critical opportunities to get maximum exposure. However today, we will explore how you can best time and facilitate your food and beverage marketing to ensure the biggest impact amongst audiences.
PRODUCT LAUNCHES & RE-LAUNCHES
Product launches are one of the best ways to tell people about your brand – having some new, exciting, or innovative products to share will always bode well for you and gives you a great opportunity to really achieve maximum PR cut-through.
Similarly, with a product re-launch, while it’s not as exciting, there is still a wonderful opportunity to talk about what is new to the brand, whether that is more sustainable packaging, less harmful chemicals/ingredients, or even a celebrity endorsement.
When it comes to doing Food & Beverage PR for a new product, it is important to understand that it may not always be newsworthy, particularly if similar products already exist in market. So, if you want to do a launch, really think hard about what sets your product apart from others and what makes it better, more unique, or more sustainable/affordable for the consumer.
LAUNCHING MULTIPLE PRODUCTS
Having multiple products or SKUs available is great from a variety perspective, however, can be very tricky from a Food & Beverage PR perspective. If all varietals are available at the same time, it is recommended that you do group them together and give them a wholistic focus, otherwise if you try and stagger the launches, it can create confusion for audiences and also have journalists feel like the content is highly repetitive.
However, if you do have some time between launching new SKUs or varietals, take this as a wonderful opportunity to speak directly to what is unique about each product and what the new offering can provide. For example, Agent99 recently launched Silent Pool Gin in Australia, which is the UK’s leading super-premium gin. For launch, we focussed on the original product and gave that a strong push in order to help build brand awareness in Australia. Now that we have been in market for over 6 months and consumers are more familiar with the brand, now is when we will consider bringing another SKU to market, either the rose or orange flavoured Gin.
CRITICAL TIMINGS
There is no hard and fast rule about how long you should wait before putting another product into market through PR. There are a lot of considerations including your R&D, production, supply chain management and retailer management, all of which can easily hold up timelines. It is strongly advised that you do not market an FMCG product until you are certain that audiences can actually find and access the product – otherwise it can lead to negative associations with the brand.
Always start Food & Beverage PR campaigns when your products are on shelves, and ensure you stick to the various local marketing guidelines to abide by the latest regulations.
BUDGET GUIDELINES
If you’re unsure about timeframes or best products to put forward for Food & Beverage PR, always start by considering the budget you have available and don’t try and make it stretch too far. If you have a small budget, don’t use it to try and cover all products as you will find that you don’t see the biggest return on investment. Instead, if you have a small budget, start with your hero product and then you can build on it from there.
If you do have the budget to cover many products, make sure you think critically about what each product requires and give it the right PR strategy based on its offerings.
Overall, knowing the best way to start a Food & Beverage PR campaign can be tricky, particularly if it’s an unfamiliar territory. Speak to a specialised PR agency that can help you pick the right products to launch and help you get the most bang for your buck.
Contact the Agent99 team today to discuss your options!
Agent Emilie
