When asking clients or prospective clients what their dream coverage looks like, we’re often met with brand features or profile pieces as the response. The likes of expert comment, broadcast and thought leadership are also seen as highbrow while product PR is regularly tossed aside as the poor relation, getting a bad name, and being assumed to be the easy-to-come-by coverage. For those who don’t eat, sleep and breathe PR, it can be assumed that product PR solely refers to shopping pages and listicles – still great but more on that in a moment. However, it also spans photoshoots, news pieces, reviews and product placements, to name a few.
Microsoft’s most recent research into the length of our attention span concluded that we are now distracted after just eight seconds whilst Social Science Research Network found 65% of society take in information visually. Whilst lengthy newspaper features may be perfect for a slow start to a Sunday morning, product PR is a dream for those who are time poor. And let’s face it, who isn’t in 2023? A quick scroll through GQ’s ‘10 coolest things of the week’ or a scan of what Grazia Daily’s daily ‘Lunchtime Shop’ are suited perfectly to today’s constantly on-the-go society. Team this with, when thinking about print, how many times a magazine is flicked through in a dentist’s waiting room or how long a newspaper supplement spends open on a kitchen table and product PR is an invaluable way to get eyes on, well, products.
When stripped back, the key marketing objective for any brand is to make sales. This may be via the means of brand awareness, changing brand perception or creating conversation but the end goal is always to drive sales. When making purchasing decisions, a product’s appearance, capabilities, quality and price are all top priorities – factors usually only communicated by product PR. Occasionally these can also be enhanced by shopping pages, styling and photoshoots shining a different light on products, providing inspiration, positioning brands and products differently to expectations and reaching a new audience.
Product PR doesn’t only benefit brands. As the world of media develops, particularly digital journalists are hungry to compile brand-fuelled content. “Best of” online round-ups bring in the big numbers SEO-wise for publications, seeing evergreen traffic from those searching for the likes of “best headphones” or “best toasters” when browsing the market. What does evergreen traffic result in? Evergreen sales for the brands featuring! Linking directly to brands’ sites, DTC sales continue to pour in for years following articles being published and updated. Not only does this benefit the brand featured but, as affiliate marketing rapidly becomes a beast, publications also see an income from those who purchase from their recommendations. Titles and journalists are becoming more and more target-driven and the introduction of affiliate-loaded content has made the product PR market more difficult to navigate and understand, adding a deeper level to PR agencies’ necessary knowledge.
With every brand having a product offering of some sort, but not all having an endearing story that can be pitched for a feature or an expert that can be put forward for comment, the competition is exceptional within product PR. An extraordinary press office is therefore required to navigate this. A “here’s a product, will it work for your slot?” approach is no longer enough and the levels to securing coverage are complex. Hitchhiking on the news to align with, and inspire, what the media will be writing and what will be searched is essential here as much as it is within features. A keen eye for trend spotting is also a must, jumping the gun before even a journalist knows what’s hot. Finally, product PR is nothing without inside out knowledge of products and media opportunities. Being able to reel off journalists, their preferences, and the media opportunities they pose is nothing without knowing the products to pitch them to within every inch of their life. Ever wondered how a 5* review occurs? Not simply a great product but by a journalist receiving every accurate piece of information they could possibly need or want and the things every good PR possesses – passion for the brand and a healthy dose of persuasion.
