The Original Black Garlic – increasing brand awareness through PR
Background
The Original Black Garlic is a UK based food retailer and wholesaler. As the name implies (!), they sell black garlic, the must-have ingredient of the decade. The business is led by food importer Katy Heath, who came to love black garlic for both its flavour and its health benefits.
Challenges
Katy knew that strong PR could play an important part in her marketing strategy. But she also knew her business didn’t have the skills in-house to deliver a targeted PR campaign. So, she approached Get Ahead and the PR campaign started in July 2024, with a view to increasing brand awareness in time for Christmas.
Solutions
We introduced Katy to our PR expert Louise. Not only does Louise have extensive PR experience; she also has a keen interest in food and has delivered several PR campaigns for food businesses in the past.
Get Ahead worked with The Original Black Garlic to produce a detailed strategy for the PR campaigns. The strategy identified the unique selling points of black garlic, as well as the key demographics to help Louise decide which media to target.
Louise delivered a number of targeted campaigns for The Original Black Garlic. Utilising her PR expertise and contacts, she sent out samples of their products to journalists and influencers. She gained many column inches through coverage and features in national publications including the Daily Mail, the Times, the Guardian and Good Housekeeping.
The Original Black Garlic already use their own in-house marketing team for day-to-day social media posts. Get Ahead became an extension of this team and delivered additional specific campaigns alongside the work of their regular social media and marketing, complementing their posts and creating a fully integrated marketing effort.
Louise created Instagram competitions to build brand awareness, increase engagement and encourage The Original Black Garlic to trend over the Halloween and Christmas period. The competition in Good Housekeeping attracted an impressive 38,494 entries. Our social media manager Mel repurposed content from previous years to create Christmas reels for Instagram. And our graphic designer Kate created new packaging designs which can be seen in Sainsbury’s and visuals for a full-page advert in the Guardian – her designs have popped up in social media posts too. With so much going on, it’s been important to keep Katy up to date without putting her under more time pressure. Get Ahead created monthly reports to share with Katy, so she can clearly see where her budget is going and how effective it is.
Outcomes
Katy is delighted with the results! Her mission is to move The Original Black Garlic from being a niche ingredient into the mainstream and the PR has helped her achieve it.
We’ve loved working with Katy – she gave us great input at the beginning of the project then trusted us to get on with it. And The Original Black Garlic is gaining fans among the Get Ahead team too!
Katy says: “Get Ahead’s PR support has been invaluable. I’ve been able to concentrate on my business while Louise has delivered the PR. I love being able to use Get Ahead on an ad hoc basis – whether I need ongoing support or a one-off project, they can deliver what I need without tying me into a restrictive contract. Louise’s work has had fantastic results – I’m really proud of The Original Black Garlic and now everyone knows why!”
