Media Relations
Baker Public Relations was chosen to represent Eat, Drink, Saratoga – an event celebrating the culinary community of Saratoga Springs and the beer, wine, cider, and spirits producers from the region – to assist with media relations for its’ inaugural year.
The one-day-only food festival brought together 14 local restaurants and dozens of beverage sponsors from all over the Northeast.
Event founder Jillian Petercsak outlined goals such as informing the local press and public, and coordinating media opportunities to highlight the festival’s offerings.
The execution of this campaign began well before the event took place, 12 weeks in advance, to be exact. An initial press release was distributed to all local media as well as local food bloggers at the start of the campaign. This press release announced the festival and gave the media a general idea of what festival-goers could expect. The release also listed confirmed vendors participating and sponsoring the festival as well as ticket prices and purchasing details.
Baker Public Relations also cumulated 36 media hits that consisted of a conglomeration of different channels. Traditional press including television and print covered this event thoroughly. Local food bloggers and Instagram influencers also covered the event.
In addition, Yelp committed as the mobile app sponsor for the event. The company posted multiple times prior to its date, talking about different aspects of the festival including food, drinks, and even holding a contest to give away a pair of VIP tickets.
The media outreach strategy worked as media hits were published throughout the 12-week campaign. There were seven pieces of coverage published at least one month before the event, 23 pieces of coverage carried out within three weeks of the event, two pieces of coverage posted the day of, and four pieces of coverage published after the event.
The strategy of spacing out announcements was successful because Eat, Drink, Saratoga was covered in the media many times, keeping it in the mind of festival-goers well before and after the event.
The event drew a large crowd with much excitement. The efforts made to gain publicity were met with success as food bloggers and media covered it days after the event. Eat, Drink, Saratoga felt quite a success from the efforts made by Baker Public Relations.
