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Opportunity Statement: Strangelove’s lack of brand awareness amongst its publics stems from being a startup company with little reputation which has entered a saturated marketplace. The PR opportunity is to increase the brand awareness and customer-base of StrangeLove, whilst aligning the campaign with it’s self-aware, humourous tone. This will be achieved by employing an innovative social and digital media strategy, to target bartenders, venue owners and consumers. Situational Analysis: StrangeLove is an Australian owned company who has been selling premium, organic soft drinks in restaurants and cafes for the last 3 years. Launching a new 180-200ml product line for single bar use, they seek heightened brand awareness to gain organic account enquires in order to begin stocking venues with their mixers. For the launch of their new product line events are currently being planned in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne in order to capture industry attention. To increase general brand awareness and to perpetuate the hype that the events will create, a digital strategy will be put in place to lead community conversation, and to perpetuate StrangeLove’s distinct brand voice. Organisational Analysis: Internal Performance StrangeLove is a company that prides itself on the high quality of their products. The drinks are manufactured, but they are loved and known for their home-made taste and personality. StrangeLove’s pricing reflects their premium product. Niche Whilst StrangeLove exists this is a somewhat saturated market of soft drinks and mixers, it stands out for it’s premium, organic product and it’s authentic tone. The company thrives off it’s smart, irreverent humour and creative approach to branding. Structure The organisational resources that can be used to contribute to the success of this campaign include already existing personnel (need numbers - how many people do they employ) and a $10,000 budget for any potential costs. StrangeLove has already existing owned digital media channels such as their website, which includes their blog and their online store, which can be utilised for the campaign. They also already have owned social media channels with an increasing number of followers which will be beneficial in rolling out campaigns strategies. These are facebook, 11.6 K + followers (appendix 1.1), and instagram, 1.2K + followers (appendix 1.2).

Internal Impediments The internal impediments that have a potential to limit the effectiveness of the PR program revolve around the lack of resources. StrangeLove will find it hard to keep up with the tasks during and after the campaign with the low number of personnel they currently have on board. The company may also need to hire or buy equipment they don’t have, such as photography equipment, which will leave less room in the budget for more results-driven areas. Public Perception StrangeLove has a positive reputation within the public. This is evident through positive comments on its social media channels, the user generated content on instagram and blogs and it’s placement in trendy bars and venues. The issue surrounding StrangeLove is its lack of visibility. Whilst it has social media channels and has previously connected with bloggers, there is a lot of room to expand. Co-owner, James Bruce, acknowledges this: “the barrier for us is lack of brand awareness. Once people see what we do, taste our products, see our packaging, they often like us”. Through the use of effectors, such as social media influencers and online media publications involved in the food and drink industry, the company’s reach, brand awareness and follower count will increase. A potential social influencers that StrangeLove could reach out to would be Kat Nguyen-Thai, @katnt (appendix 2.1). Nguyen-Thai’s instagram (appendix 3) marries her passion of food and styling and has with 41,120 followers. She displays a professional and creative approach to promoting products through her minimal flatlays. With 1,284 likes on average, @katnt indicates a high level of user engagement. Jack Hawkins, @jackhawkins.psd (appendix 2.2), is a Melbourne based photographer, content creator, and director. Hawkins has 2,186 Instagram followers and doesn’t yet partake in paid posts, as all his content is photographic work for clients. A high percentage of posts include beverages, which shows Hawkins’ followers will relate to the StrangeLove product. Scott Naylor, @thebarmann (appendix 2.3), is a ‘part-time mixologist’ and ‘full-time taster’. His instagram features beverages and menswear. His aesthetically pleasing and minimally edited posts present products well. Naylor’s social content would appeal to StrangeLove’s target publics, bartenders. His 4,222 followers have earned him a love rating of 5.69%, highlighting extremely positive engagement. Features in popular online media publication would be beneficial for StrangeLove. One example is Broadsheet.com.au. The site receives 64,404 visits daily and of its readership, 93.5% dine out, and 79.5% drink at a bar, at least once a week. These are publics that

would connect with the StrangeLove product. The success rate of a feature in Broadsheet is extremely high as “94.4% of [their] audience have visited a shop, bar, cafe or restaurant after reading it on broadsheet” (Broadsheet Media Kit, 2016). Another potential online publication is TheThousands.com.au. The website posts culture and events catering to each capital city. It has 800,000 monthly visits, with 91.2% of their audience being bar-goers. Their voice is unique and satirical. The website “speaks to the top of the consumer pyramid by providing content that resonates with their independent spirit”, and would be a beneficial platform for StrangeLove to utilise (The Thousands Media Kit, 2016). External There is a thriving market for quirky and humourous beverage brands in the hospitality industry. Perpetuating self-awareness and producing locally are simply components of a formula used by many brands to achieve “uniqueness”. In a market where this method is repeated often, it’s difficult to identify the most genuine. The following brands are well-established, popular beverages that are competing with StrangeLove for loyal consumers and stockists. Australian owned Capi ’s (appendix 3.1) predominant intention is to “defy the norm” by producing organic, outstanding drinks using quality ingredients (Capi, 2016). In conjunction with having stockists in prominent Australian supermarkets and bottle shops including Coles and Dan Murphy’s, the company distributes internationally. Their social media presence is strong with 24.1k Instagram followers, 5,097 Facebook likes and 404 Twitter followers. Fentimans (appendix 3.2) have acquired 13k Instagram followers, 15.2k Twitter followers, and 82k likes on their Facebook page. They produce a range of beers, tonics, sodas and pre-mixed alcoholic beverages. They also distribute internationally and rely on their history and well-established reputation as a means of appeal. London-based company Fevertree (3.3) has been producing premium mixers since 2005. They have 14.6k Instagram followers, 13.7 Twitter followers and 21k likes on Facebook. Fevetree post frequently and maintaining an eye-catching Instagram layout reflective of their packaging and brand. Their well-known slogan is: “If ¾ of your drink is the mixer, use the best” (Fevertree, 2016). Schweppes’(Appendix 3.4) Australian branch has 946 Twitter followers, 2.3k Instagram followers, and 91k Facebook likes on their page. Despite not having the highest number of followers, it is the most distributed of all competitors.

Key Publics: Hospitality Staff The hospitality staff we aim to target are people who have a say in what gets stoked in venues including bartenders, restaurant and bar managers, chefs and owner-managers. We aim to influence this group to replace their current mixers with Strangelove’s high quality products. A lot of people working in this industry are young, with most bartenders aged around 20-35 and managers reasonably similar. Many work in hospitality part time and enjoy the innately social, high-pressure, fun nature of the industry. Many have also chosen it as a career and have a real passion for pleasing customers and the reputation of their venues. A lot of people in this group also eat and drink at their workplaces either after work or on their days off and are close with other staff. Many people within this group are very busy and have hectic workplaces. They want products that are easy to use and please customers. Many of them are also following tight-budgets and want products that represent good value for money. Bartenders and managers also want to stock products that align with the image and reputation of their venue. This often means they want high-quality, fresh products that are made locally and ethically. Consumers - Bar and cafe customers The general consumers we seek to target are young (18-30) and are either studying or are in the first stages of their professional careers. Most of them are in generation Y and spend a large amount of their disposable income drinking at bars, eating out and on cultural entertainment (McCrindle, 2014.) Most of them either have or are in the process of gaining a university degree and come from a middle-class home. Many of them still live with their parents or are in their first apartments or share-houses in inner-urban areas. This group do not just eat out to sustain themselves or drink to relax; they express their identities through their food and beverage choices. They want to keep up with trends but also express their ‘unique’ personalities. They aspire to be financially successful but also to have a comfortable balance between life and work. Other ways they express their identities and aspirations are through going to boutique festivals, wearing local designers or ‘cool’ brands, reading or listening to independent media and watching the latest big-budget TV series. Goals: StrangeLove’s digital campaign aims to raise awareness and generate action in order to build brand reputation and relationships, encouraging ROI. Reputation

● To portray StrangeLove’s new product line as a premium range of mixers popular amongst major Australian hospitality venues.

Relationship

● To generate brand awareness and foster relationships between consumers, popular venues, and hospitality staff.

Behaviour

● To convert fostered brand awareness into product enquires and sales. Objectives: Objectives must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound to ensure effective communication that is measurable and adaptable. StrangeLove’s social campaign has an emphasis on heightened brand awareness to convert consumer attention into product enquires from venues wishing to stock the new mixer range. Brand Awareness

1. 60% increase in UGC (user generated content) by the Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane product launch events.

2. An average 1.5% follower growth per month of StrangeLoves Facebook and Instagram profiles until January 2017.

3. 250 venues enquired about the mixer range by January 2017. Conversion

1. StrangeLove’s new mixer range is stocked by an additional 50 venues by January 2017.

2. 80% of StrangeLove’s initial stock is purchased two months after the mixer range product launches.

Key messaging: StrangeLove’s self-aware, humourous tone is a major contributor to its strong brand identity. Messaging throughout the digital strategy must align with this to ensure the campaign solicits a strong voice.

1. StrangeLove is an Australian owned premium, organic soft drink. It tastes the best because it is made from the best ingredients.

2. StrangeLove represents the creative innovation of the “high-flyers”. If Capi is the corporate south, StrangeLove is the creative north. No Armani suit, or home tennis court required!

3. StrangeLove is self-aware, humourous, and dry; not sober, there's a difference!

Keyword Strategy: Keyword strategy focuses on the flavours of mixers and the cocktails they are used to make. The keywords included ‘tonic’, bitter lemon, ginger beer and cola. We deliberately avoided using spirits (alcohol) to keep the focus on the products we are selling - the mixers, not the cocktail or the alcohol. Bearing in mind James Bruce (co-owner) had already told us searching ‘mixers’ in Google generated content on food processors and blenders we knew we had to take a different approach, so we decided to think like our target audience; industry professionals, bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts. Bingo! The best results for keyword searches included: cocktail mixers, best cocktail mixers, unique cocktail mixers, premium cocktail mixers, craft cocktail mixers. Google Trends search was interesting with many of these terms not generating enough data to analyse, however searching actual flavours was far more successful. Ginger Beer, Tonic, Lemon Bitter and Cola all provided data which we translated to the keywords or buzzwords in the post contents and hashtags. Hashtag Ideas: #lovestrangelove #SydneyFood #MixItHowYouLiveIt #artisan #SpicedRum #MixOneUp #CocktailPorn #bartender #MelbourneBars #BoldMixers #drinkporn #MelbourneFood#craftspirits #fancy #rum #SmallishBatch #friyay #soda#happyhour #mixology #InstaCocktail #organic #WorldClassDrinking #CocktailBlog #HandCrafted #gin #ginger

Strategies: StrangeLove Blog At the moment there are many posts on the blog that are very short and more suited to social media. It is currently titled News and the content reflects that; it is too short and too direct. We are going to tweak this strategy by moving these succinct, witty asides onto facebook to direct traffic back to the blog where consumers can find longer, more detailed content. The blog posts are going to be more lifestyle focussed, with cocktail recipes, articles about bars where consumers can find the products and coverage of Strangelove events. Instagram Instagram is an already owned media strategy with a healthy following which can be beneficial to influence the target market and introduce the new StrangeLove mixer products.

The instagram strategy is to create an account that speaks the StrangeLove tone in a more defined and purpose driven style to engage, excite and retain StrangeLove fans and followers. Facebook Facebook, another owned media channel, will be key to directing views back to the StrangeLove website and blog. The Facebook posts will reflect content from Instagram, however more targeted towards the ingredients, products and influence and events posts than Lifestyle. The Facebook posts will include cocktail recipes, locations to find/purchase the products and contact information and call to actions to lead all enquiries back to the website and blog. Posts will be promoted due to reach to further engage the growing StrangeLove community. Facebook and Instagram Advertising Facebook and Instagram Advertising is paid media which can appear natively through their respective feeds. They are a subtle and effective at directing traffic to the StrangeLove website and social media channels, creating a call of action through strategically targeting those that can be considered as publics of StrangeLove. To ensure we make the most of the paid media ads, we propose an A/B tested campaign to test the effectiveness and impact of two ads for Facebook and Instagram. After a week their impact will be evaluated through Ad Manager metrics. The ones with the highest click rate will have the rest of the Ad budget dedicated to them. Influencer Campaign To attract StrangeLove’s key publics to their own social media channels and increase brand awareness StrangeLove will utilise ‘social influencers’ on instagram to publicise their brand and product. Strange Love will pay popular instagrammers with a similar demographic to create content featuring their products, therefore increasing their reach. Online Media Coverage StrangeLove will use publicity as a proactive communication strategy to gain brand awareness and increase launch event attendees. Third-party endorsement from online media outlets will be utilised to give StrangeLove extra credibility within its publics and reach a larger audience.

Tactics: StrangeLove Blog For the past two years the blog has been neglected, with around ten posts from the same date in 2014 and only two posts last year. To change this, an intern will be contracted to write the posts and take good quality photos. It will be updated regularly, with new posts at least once a week (Appendix 4.1-4.2). Facebook

1. Set out and plan posts in advance using Facebook’s scheduling service. 2. Posts mirror Instagram channel, with additional venue shout outs and minus UGC. 3. Create call to actions for each post to drive viewers to the website 4. Regram User generated content 5. Active community management 6. Promote post’s that receive the highest organic interaction.

Find schedule in appendices (7). Instagram

1. Adopt an automatic scheduling system (Schedugram) to set out and plan posts in advance.

2. Posts hone in on the cheeky StrangeLove tone and attitude. Posts focus on product, ingredients, lifestyle and UGC.

3. Create call to actions for each post to drive viewers to the website 4. Regram User generated content 5. Active community management

Find schedule in appendices (7). Facebook and Instagram Advertising

1. Design and create two different ads for both Facebook (appendices 8.1) and Instagram (appendices 8.2)

2. Ensure they comprise of no more than 20% text, and abide by Facebook’s terms and conditions.

3. Target publics that align with StrangeLove. The keywords analysis allows for many popular hashtags to be targeted whilst, research highlights other targets such as online hospitality publications and competitors. Competitors threaten your ability the potential conversion of StrangeLoves consumer base, therefore targeting them ensures non of StrangeLove’s public sphere is missed.

Influencer Campaign

1. Collaborate with social influencers Kat Nguyen-Thai (@katnt), Jack Hawkins (@jackhawkins.psd) and Scott Naylor (@thebarmann) to create a series of instagram posts each with content featuring StrangeLove products on their instagram channel's. Each post will tag the StrangeLove instagram (@lovestrangelove) and hashtag #lovestrangelove to increase traffic to their owned media channel.

2. Offer exclusive StrangeLove product giveaways on the social influencers instagrams so that potential loyal consumers can get a taste of the StrangeLove products and feature them in their own posts, therefore also increasing traffic, user generated content and engagement.

Online Media Coverage:

1. StrangeLove will use the online media magazine thethousands.com.au to publicise their launch event. StrangeLove will pitch their event to the Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane sectors of the website with the aim of the website posting the event in their calendar section (Appendices 5.1). This external media will be uncontrolled, with the website posting their own write up, however the tone of The Thousands writers complements that of StrangeLove and a percentage of their target demographic will be reached.

2. To increase brand awareness Strange Love will pitch an editorial idea to online

media platform broadsheet.com.au. The editorial pitch will be a feature article titled “The best drink on the North side” and will nominate StrangeLove’s own ‘Strange Spicy Ass’ recipe made with their ginger beer (Appendices 5.2). This will cross-promote StrangeLove products and Dr.Morse (current stockist) as the bar that makes the drink. This form of indirect news material will position StrangeLove as a must have beverage to bar owners and customers.

Budget: This budget reflects expenditure up until the mixer events, and any costs incurred to maintain the social media strategies and tactics, outlined in this report, post product launch.

Sta?/Intern Cost

RMIT PR Student(s) $Free

Social Media Design Cost

iPhone 6S $1,079 - $1,229, or alternatively already owned

PC or Mac $500 - $3000, or alternatively already owned

Adobe Photoshop $500 - $3000, or alternatively already owned

Social Media Promotion Cost

Facebook Promoted Posts

$200 x 7 months = $1,400

Facebook Advertising A/B Testing Funds: (2x $100 + 1x $300 = $500) x 7 =$3,500

Instagram Advertising A/B Testing Funds: (2x $100 + 1x $300 = $500) x 7 =$3,500

Instagram Influencer Campaign

$300

Online Publications Cost

Broadsheet & The Thousands Pitch

$Free

Administration Cost

Schedugram Subscription

$20 x 7 months = $140

Facebook Scheduler $Free

Sample Products Cost

Package/Product for influencers and third party endorsements (includes postage)

$300

Total Expenses: $8,917 (not including iPhone or laptop/macbook)

Timeline: Strangelove Social Media Strategy Gantt Chart

Risk mitigation statement: In the event of a social media crisis, all communication comes directly from StrangeLove management. Communication responses need to immediate and honest whilst keeping key publics as a priority and acting in the best interests of the StrangeLove brand to preserve or recover Strangelove's reputation. Below we identified three potential risks, target audience mostly affected, recommended actions to resolve issue and recommended follow up.

Identified Risks

Target Audience Impacted

Action Required Follow Up

1. Offensive Content

● Industry Professionals

● Consumers

● Evaluate offensive post ● Make necessary changes or

remove post entirely ● Apologise for offending followers ● Respond to any negative

posts/comments on social media ● Be seen as making suggestions to

correct the situation

Yes. One month after incident, make contact with those who were mostly offended and find out how they are still feeling about StrangeLove.

2. Complaints ● Industry Professionals

● Consumers

● Immediately address/ respond to individual complaint/s

● Release apologies on all social media platforms

● Monitor enquiries and respond accordingly

Yes. One month after incident, make contact with those who were mostly offended and find out how they are still feeling about StrangeLove.

3. Failure to meet expected social media growth

● Industry Professionals

● Consumers

● Re evaluate expected growth in social media plan

● Conduct A/B Testing of current plan against modified plan

Yes. Evaluate effectiveness through platform insights and analytics

Evaluation Measures: StrangeLove Blog The success of the new blog strategy will be measured through the number of click-throughs to the blog and website. If the rate of click throughs increase by 60% after the roll out of the blogs, this part of the campaign will have been beneficial for StrangeLove. Instagram Evaluating the success of Instagram strategy can be done in two ways:

1. monitoring the growth of followers to meet predetermined 1.5% increase per month 2. 60% increase in the UGC post launch events

Measuring and evaluation can be done through the Instagram analytics and data collection on the account. Facebook The evaluation outcomes for Facebook are similar to Instagram with an added thrid to determine the amount of traffic to the website

1. monitoring the growth of followers to meet predetermined 1.5% increase per month 2. 60% increase in the UGC post launch events 3. Click through rate and conversion

Social Media Advertising Two weeks into the social media campaigns, StrangeLove will analyze advertising metrics to decide which ad is performing better. The remainder of the budget will be spent on the higher performing advertisement. Influencer Campaign The success of the Influencer campaign will be determined by analysing social media engagement. If the use of promoting through influencers on instagram has worked in gaining interest surrounding the product, the rate in which the StrangeLove instagram receives likes and followers will increase dramatically. This will benefit StrangeLove directly as the more people ‘follow’ and know about the product, the more it is requested by consumers and stockists. Online Media Coverage The success of using The Thousands to publicise the launch events will be evaluated through number of attendees at the events. This will be measured through ticket sales. If StrangeLove reaches the number of predicted attendees or more, this will have been successful. The success of the editorial on Broadsheet will be measured through increase in stockist requests for StrangeLove products. If StrangeLove notices a considerable incline in number of enquiries two weeks after the post, it will have been successful. This will be due to Broadsheet readers requesting the product at venues, or the bar/restaurant owners reading the article themselves. References:

1. Broadsheet 2016, Broadsheet Media Kit 2. Capi 2016, About Us, Capi, viewed 20 May 2016,

<http://www.capi.com.au/about-us/>. 3. Fever Tree 2016, Fever Tree, Premium Tonic Water, Mixer Drinks, Fever Tree,

viewed 20 May 2016, <http://www.fever-tree.com> 4. The Thousands 2016, The Thousands Media Kit

Appendices:

1. StrangeLove social media channels 1.1. Facebook

Source: https://www.facebook.com/lovestrangelove/?fref=ts 1.2. Instagram

Source: https://www.instagram.com/lovestrangelove/?hl=en

2. Social Influencers 2.1. @Katnt

2.2. @Jackhawkins.psd