Cannabis Industry Marketing Firm Needed a Public Relations Agency for Exposure
The Client: Cannabrand
Cannabrand was the world’s first Cannabis-only marketing agency. Based in Colorado, the agency notes “We disrupt the norm with brands, companies and campaigns that break the news. Our energy behind a brand produces inevitable prosperity.” But they needed a little spotlight and a public relations agency.
The Ask
We were introduced to and approached by Cannabrand to help them secure press for the company’s CEO and get some traction for a client of theirs, Pebble. Cannabrand had some good industry press written by their founder in professional marketing and advertising publications, but simultaneously, they pinged Oyster to help them secure coverage with broader, mainstream press targeted at a female-skewed demographic.
Results
As a result of their desire to get more consumer-focused publicity, Oyster secured a 7-minute live interview with Buzzfeed on the topic of sexism in the cannabis industry – and did it within just a few weeks. Buzzfeed draws 107 million average monthly visitors and because we secured a video and not a written piece, the average time-on-site per viewer was 2x the average visit duration. Cannabrand CEO Olivia Mannix discussed the industry and challenges it faced in the fledgling frontier. The story got thousands of views.
Cannabrand’s client, Pebble, was also having a difficult time attracting any press. Oyster did a deep dive session with Cannabrand on Pebble’s roadblocks around its CBD products and ran a discovery exercise around public perception and CBD usage.
The CBD Educational Component
The hurdle for Pebble’s failure to gain media attention was that it lacked an educational component around its products wellness benefits and needed a public relations agency like Oyster. We went to work detailing the CBD benefits and pitched ABC news (for starters) on one of Pebble’s CBD products that had a reported positive impact on child autism. The piece aired and was seen by a national audience of 1.2 million viewers.
Airfare Deal Site Sought Expert Positioning in Crowded Consumer Travel News Footprint
The Client: Airfarewatchdog
Airfarewatchdog (AWD) is a world-leading airfare deal and fare-alert website that was founded by George Hobica. Toby ran PR and media for AWD (an internal PR client when he worked for Tripadvisor) and was integral in growing its subscriber base into the millions. Part of the Smartertravel Media Group, AWD was emailing its daily fare alerts and building a library of insightful airfare, airline and general consumer travel editorial to help readers make sound travel decisions.
The Ask
International news organizations are constantly reporting on travel. Smartertravel tapped Oyster chief Toby Streett to develop an in-house system that monitored breaking travel news and industry trends. Streett established Hobica as the airline travel expert on Smartertravels roster of travel experts. Topics ranged from airline mergers to price shopping – to a Passenger’s Bill of Rights. Oyster’s media trainer, Chris Hansen was brought in to work with Hobica on messaging and presentation for all types of media interviews.
Results
AWD’s Hobica became the go-to airline travel expert on several major national media outlets – ABC News, MSNBC, Fox & Friends, CNN, Kiplinger, The New York Times, and more. Streett not only pitched Hobica for breaking news on topics like severe weather’s travel impact or legacy airline mergers, but also his insights on travel polls and annual surveys. They also created and produced an 8-part video series to increase AWD’s exposure. With the creation of a weekly alert newsletter, the team helped to grow subscribers by several hundred thousand and annual media impressions jumped an average of 60+% year-over-year. The end result was a whopping 1 Billion annual impressions in back-to-back years with 150+ broadcast TV hits.
Job Applicant Software Company Asked for Public Relations Internal Mentoring
The Client: JazzHR
JazzHR is a job applicant tracking software company that “enables HR officers to hunt and recruit the best talent for their company.” Their platform provides human resource professionals and hiring managers with tools used to make the recruitment process smooth and organized. Their business streamlines candidate sourcing, interviews and assessments, and provides a collaborative hiring process.
The Ask
JazzHR needed expertise and assistance developing a media strategy for their PR group that would help to serve as a foundation for ongoing communications. Their PR team was small but nimble and needed some PR building blocks and a blueprint for media relations.
The Result
Oyster chief Toby Streett guided the JazzHR pr team with the tools needed for building tier-1 and regional media target lists of editors, writers, producers and decision-makers. We developed a suite that included release templates, boilerplates, media lists and FAQ’s, and a polling strategy designed to secure press for this top hr-solutions company.
Luxury Site: “Give Us a Marketing Push,” | Spokesperson Training for Launch
The Client: Jetsetter
Jetsetter began as a private travel sale site for luxury brands with vetted editorial reviews of all featured properties. It was a disruptive platform in the industry and absorbed the travel inventory from sister site Sniqueaway at its height, making it the largest online private travel sale site.
The Ask
Streett and team at Smartertravel were first asked to design a strategy that would expose the fledgling Sniqueaway to a new audience for online and TV consumers as part of the initial site product launch. After the company merged its inventory with Jetsetter, they helped build and launch the first annual Jetsetter Best-Of-the-Best Awards campaign and were asked to media train and develop key messaging for its new executive editor.
The Results
Part of the initial media outreach goal was to secure inclusion for Sniqueaway with a major national morning show. Good Morning America was pitched and included a multiple stay offering with a Sniqueaway luxury resort as part of its popular Deals & Steals segment (GMA Deals on Spring Vacation Getaways). It resulted in several hundred room bookings and sold out within a 48-hour period. GMA promo codes from the segment were shared by social media writers and bloggers who generated significant traffic to Sniqueaway.
For Jetsetter, Yahoo! News covered the results of the Best-of-the Best awards on its home page. For a few hours, the award image and leading text drew thousands of new, unique visitors to the site and added valuable subscribers to Jetsetter’s prized weekly private sales newsletter. With the addition of new Jetsetter executive editor, Clara Sedlik, the team further established the site as a go-to resource for expert luxury travel expertise, and landed Sedlik a multi-segment interview series on NECN after some texpert training with media trainer Chris Hansen. Combined with further media outreach and campaigns, Jetsetter’s Y.O.Y. percentage increases in media impressions of 42+% kept them at the forefront of major national news and industry outlets.
Expert Travel Advice Site Stretches Its Legs – Tapped for National TV Appearances
The Client: Smartertravel
SmarterTravel is known for its expert reporting on “everything travel” and is a leading online resource for consumer travel planning, deal comparison and insider advice. The site offers fresh travel news, daily deal newsletters, a robust destination library for travel planning and travel gear testing.
The Ask
While Smartertravel did an outstanding job of creating travel expertise, the site needed to rely heavily upon earned-media efforts. They asked the internal public relations agency (our chief’s team) to design a plan that would proactively seek TV media on their reporting and recurring annual editorial efforts.
The Results
The team created ongoing Smartertravel reader polls, co-designed their Reader’s Choice Awards, created an annual readers survey and made in-roads establishing their executive editor and several writers on their roster as noted experts on consumer travel.
Toby’s team generated substantial press coverage around their engaging polls (covered nationally and locally), consumer-facing events that impacted travel (bird flu, acts of nature), and their annual Editors’ Choice Awards. Digital media impressions for the Editor’s Choice Awards exceeded 18 million. The team also secured national appearances that included a spot on CBS’ The Early Show and recurring live interviews and commentary on FOX News, MSNBC and CNN. Toby also secured a recurring in-person, bi-monthly travel segment for executive editor Anne Banas with Boston’s regional NBC affiliate, NECN. The average air time for each segment was 4 minutes.
Health/Wellness Wholesaler Got Site, Catalog, & Email Design Makeover
The Client: Regalabs
Regalabs is a b-2-b health and wellness company that distributes products to retailers throughout the U.S. The company sells established and first-to-market natural products, and offers private label solutions to both wholesalers and retailers. The company’s product lines are offered in the form of liquids, pills, tablets, capsules, oils, gummies and powders.
The Ask
Oyster was contracted to take the company’s outdated site and modernize its look and feel while simultaneously redesigning an online and downloadable product catalog and creating two fresh newsletter designs and offerings.
The Result
Oyster created a new 42-page catalog organized into new intuitive categories that is now downloadable and viewable on the company’s site. Our team also worked in tandem with a top designer to produce and launch an entirely new site that emphasized and encouraged new retail client contacts. We also redesigned the company’s monthly client sales newsletter and one-off communication plan designed to retain existing clients and sign new ones. The numbers were not shared with our team. As their public relations agency, Oyster also wrote, partially shot and produced Regalab’s 2022 National SENPA Soho Expo video shown at the health and wellness industry’s annual multi-day event in Orlando.