Since winning the Grey Goose account back in April, Toronto-based Narrative PR hit the ground running on the premium vodka brand’s existing PR
campaigns.
First, there was the Pour Masters tour, a national bartending competition in its seventh year, then TIFF activities centred on Grey Goose’s partnership with Soho House, a top destination for A-list celebrities. When TIFF wraps up, the Bensimon Byrne-owned agency will execute a holiday campaign that focuses on cocktails and luxury home entertainment.
But as the agency moves into holiday planning, it will also evaluate what will be on the PR schedule for 2014. “With a new agency brings new creativity, so… our hope is to work with Grey Goose to maybe rethink what their whole year looks like, which are conversations that we’ll be getting into very soon,” said Laura Serra, director of lifestyle brands at Narrative PR. “We’re lucky enough that they put their creative trust in our hands and over the next two months, [we’ll evaluate]: is Pour Masters the best investment that Grey Goose should do in their spring/summer program or do we scrap it and come up with something completely new? The good news is we have the creative license to do that, so that will definitely be something we’ll be considering.”
Though the agency hasn’t developed its own campaigns yet, Serra said its approach to existing programs has been “a little more robust…and more proactive” than what’s been done in the past. Breakfast Television, for example, broadcast daily highlights from Grey Goose Soho House during TIFF, and the brand’s global ambassador, Joe McCanta, did the media rounds promoting TIFF-inspired cocktails. With Pour Masters, Narrative PR paired bartenders with social media influencers to garner some pre-event coverage. “We put our influencer strategy on top of the Pour Masters tour and we’ll continue to put on top of everything,” said Serra. “It’s key.”
