At Aspen- and Fort Lauderdale-based public relations agency Durée & Company, we have over 20 years of experience promoting the best restaurants, liquor brands and consumer packaged goods in the food and beverage space. Utilizing recipes is an essential ingredient to any marketing strategy in this ever-changing industry. Food and beverage brands can earn great PR by creating recipes that help showcase brands to journalists, influencers & potential consumers.
Recipes can be a great introduction to a brand and provide opportunities for consumers to taste products firsthand. The Dynamos have even blogged about some of our own favorite recipes! Here’s the dish on using recipes to secure PR coverage for your food and beverage brand.
The first step to a successful food and beverage PR campaign is crafting the recipe for the product. A brief, well-crafted description of the brand’s dish will entice journalists and other cooks to give the recipe a go. The recipe should include prep methods, ingredients, serving details, prep and cook times, measurements and detailed steps. Once the recipe is drafted, it can be shared across a number of communication channels. This includes the brand’s own social media, blog, eblasts and marketing materials. Our client Eat Me Guilt Free has an entire cookbook of recipes made with its protein-packed brownies, bread and tortillas and they also feature select recipes on their blog!
Imagery is also key in the food and beverage industry. Work with a professional food stylist and photographer. They can accurately capture the recipe, ingredients and lifestyle shots of the finished product.
Once the recipe and imagery are ready, it’s time to mix up the PR strategy. Use these three tactics to use recipes to generate PR coverage for your food and beverage brand.
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Traditional Media –
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First thing’s first: determine the angle and create the recipe. Then draft a press release or pitch letter. The press release should include key marketing messaging and all of the assets a journalist requires to tell the concept’s story and showcase the recipe. The goal is to secure media coverage by pitching the recipe to a targeted media list of food-focused journalists, critics and influencers. The pitch should include a Dropbox link of the images for the recipe and any additional marketing materials such as fact sheets, bios, brochures, etc. This is the chance to offer a key brand spokesperson or the chef as a resource. This person can demonstrate the recipe and participate in an interview.
This tactic could result in TV cooking demonstrations where a chef or a brand representative showcases a recipe on air. For TV opportunities, the company spokesperson should be properly media trained to best represent the brand on camera. They should be prepared with talking points beforehand and should speak loudly and clearly. Also ensure they dress the part by wearing a branded chef’s coat or shirt.
For our client UMG Hospitality Group – which includes the restaurants Kuba Cabana and Heaven Mykonos located at CityPlace Doral – we have secured cooking demonstrations for the chef on numerous TV channels. The chef showcased Kuba Cabana’s tasty Tuna Tartare on Telemundo 51 and NBC 6 in the Mix with Roberto “Kiko” Suarez and Heaven Mykonos’ mouth-watering moussaka on Inside South Florida’s Foodie Fix. We have also worked with Cosmopolitan to include Toast Vodka’s Espresso Martini in a recipe round-up of fall cocktails. And, WPLG’s SoFlo Health got a behind the scenes look at how to make the Eat Me Guilt Free cotton candy brownie in the brand’s kitchen.
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Social Media Takeovers –
Social media is an important component of many consumers’ lives. It should be a key communication channel in any brand strategy. Influencers have sizable social media followings and are viewed as experts within their niche. Influencers are pros at capturing content, keeping up with and creating trends, and are critical in telling brands’ stories. F&B brands can engage with influencers to keep their content fresh and engaging.
Brands should work with influencers who are reputable, have followers that fit their target demographics, and have an authentic engagement. First, identify an influencer who fits the brand identity. Invite them to recreate a recipe on their own social media channels. That way, their followers get a behind-the-scenes look at the recipe and can invite their followers to join in. Or to invite them to “takeover” your brand’s social media platforms.
For our client Toast Distillers, Inc., a Miami-based spirits conglomerate best known for its ultra-premium vodka, Toast™, we’ve worked with their mixologist to develop recipes to share with media and influencers for potential media coverage. The company includes The Miami Distilling Company, where it produces all of its products. Here it also facilitates the branding and distribution needs of other specialty spirits companies. We recently worked with POPSUGAR Home to create a custom-themed cocktail using Toast™ Vodka for an Instagram Takeover for National Vodka Day. The Toast™ Vodka mixologist demonstrated how to make the POPSUGAR Pumpkin Punch on the @POPSUGARHome Instagram page. This helped build recognition and Instagram followers for both brands. Learn how to make the POPSUGAR Pumpkin Punch – here!
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Hashtag Holidays –
You better believe we love a fun #hashtagholiday! From traditional holidays, pop culture events, and out-of-the-box observances, there is a unique hashtag holiday dedicated to almost everything these days and more holidays are being added to the calendar daily. Leveraging hashtag holidays such as National Sushi Day, Hispanic Heritage Month, National Selfie Day, National Rosé Day, etc. is another great way to secure media coverage for a recipe and create brand awareness. Use hashtag holidays to plan social media and marketing calendars for the year. This will help bring awareness to the F&B brand by creating special recipes, limited-time offers or relevant events. Hashtag holidays help a brand align with trendy topics, classify its content with other brands to make it more searchable, increase engagement with consumers and expand its reach.
If you’re interested in the PR recipe to promote your food and beverage concept, contact the professionals at Durée & Company. Check out our Dynamo Diary or Instagram page for more insights and #behindthescenes action!
About Durée & Company:
Durée & Company, Inc. is an award-winning, full-service public relations, marketing and special events firm founded in 1999. The firm has offices in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Aspen, Colorado. Durée & Company serves the corporate, agency and nonprofit arenas for local, national and international clients. Services include public relations, social media, marketing, digital marketing, content development, advertising, special events, branding, radio promotions, affiliate marketing and more. Durée & Company clients include well-known names in yachting, business, real estate, hospitality, travel, cannabis and hemp, wellness and CBD, art and culture, fashion, nonprofit organizations, cryptocurrency and technology, legal and professional services. Durée & Company is a member of PR Boutiques International™ (PRBI), an international network of boutique PR firms. To learn more, call 954-723-9350; go to dureeandcompany.com; or visit its new, specialized cannabis- and CBD-specific site at cannabismarketingpr.com. Join the social conversation and follow Durée & Company on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn at @DureeCoPR.
