As discussed in our last blog post, entertainment PR is not solely about the arts, but comprises an array of entertainment in many forms. One of the most popular forms of entertainment PR is food and restaurant venue launches, which receive media attention more than ever before in the age of social media.
As such a big part of leisure and entertainment, restaurant launches and dining experiences have the ability to be as much of a media conversation as any other form of entertainment, but to do so, PR needs to be involved.
As with any other form of PR, restaurant launches are all about storytelling, building brand awareness and finding a way for the story of your restaurant to resonate with its customers. As masters of storytelling, a PR agency can find media angles and unique selling points within the business and the people behind it or find ways to craft a story that helps your restaurant stand out.
As hospitality is such a competitive space to be in, entertainment PR can drastically impact the way your restaurant competes within its industry. While word of mouth and foot traffic is always instrumental in the success of food related businesses, many restaurant-goers look for recommendations online for the best dining experience. This is where entertainment PR becomes fundamental in ensuring your business has a strong online presence and lands on all the pages that prospective customers would be looking.
Even if you have a great story, a brilliant selling-point, or newsworthy angle, without working alongside an entertainment PR agency you can only generate a limited amount of media attention. Instead, working with a PR partner can allow your restaurant’s story to be told to a wide range of outlets, contacts and influencers that would otherwise be unreached.
The beauty of Google, is that there is an audience and answer for everything, and entertainment PR agencies know how to navigate this. The new generation of communication means we have the convenience of searching for the exact thing we’re looking for through Google, and being presented with multiple options that fit that search. From Googling ‘Best Mexican restaurants in South Sydney’ to ‘Romantic venues with live music’, there is a cuisine, theme and environment for every mood and craving.
With this in mind, entertainment PR can help place your business in all of the relevant google searches and outlets that consumers would find it.
At Agent99, we’ve helped a number of successful restaurants around Australia launch their new business by telling captivating brand stories to generate hype. In 2021, we worked with the team behind the award-winning cocktail and spirits venue, Burrow Bar, to launch their authentic Vietnamese Restaurant, Cash Only Diner in the heart of Sydney CBD. While delicious food made from authentic Vietnamese recipes is certainly enough to appeal to consumers, we focused on the story and people behind the diner to create a media buzz and ultimately pull off a very successful launch event that got people talking.
We told the story of Cash Only Diner being an ode to the owner’s family heritage and the regional dishes from Hue, Vietnam, and how the menu was inspired by her mother’s traditional home cooking. With this unique selling point, top tier media as well as major food and entertainment publications from around Sydney were thrilled to attend the launch and experience the authentic food for themselves.
We then helped the Cash Only team by drafting and sending out press releases, find the best food and lifestyle writers and influencers with incredible food recommendations, invited the guests and coordinated the media relations for the evening, as well as following up all media coverage post-event. Most entertainment PR agencies assist with coordinating events as well as achieving press for the launch, to help ensure your event is smooth-sailing from start to finish, giving you more time to focus on the star of the day, the cuisine.
Launching a new restaurant is an equally exciting and stressful time, so employing an entertainment PR agency to be your middleman can be the best way to grow your business success while minimising the stress around its launch. Working with a PR team to tell your story and find your best selling points in the lead up to the launch can allow for peace of mind, knowing that before you’ve even opened the doors people are lining up to get in.
To find out more about how entertainment PR can assist with launching your food related entertainment venue, please get in touch via info@agent99pr.com!
Agent Emma
