Opinion: Why I love working with disruptive brands
Emily Keogh, managing director of Palm PR, talks about working with disruptors and why having a disruptive approach to PR is a necessity for communicators.
Uber, Tesla, Airbnb, Amazon, Netflix – what do these tech brands have in common?
Over the past few years, we’ve seen all of them take consumer experience in their categories and turn it on its head, subverting the expectations and preconceived norms. They’re playing the game not as we know it, but by entirely new rules. They are some of the most famous “disruptors”.
In an increasingly saturated marketplace, where new brands are ten to the dozen and are no longer only launched by global powerhouses but by individuals in co-working spaces, on Instagram, on LinkedIn and in their living rooms, the fight to stand out from the crowd and cut through the noise is more difficult than ever before.
At Palm PR & Digital, we have been privileged to work with brands that have revolutionised established markets in the food and drink sphere.
In 2012, we launched Hello Fresh, the UK’s first recipe kit delivery service, and since then we’ve established a reputation for bringing disruptive food and drink brands and products to market. This year, we launched Moving Mountains, the UK’s first vegan ‘bleeding’ burger in an integrated communications campaign across PR and digital platforms.
How to work with disruptors
Disruptor brands are extremely exciting to work with. For a start, they are incredibly ambitious. These businesses set out with bold goals to reshape the consumer experience, which makes for a dynamic working relationship.
They provide unique solutions to historic or ingrained challenges, which often means implementing a highly innovative comms campaign to educate or even ‘re-educate’ consumers. Finally, disruptor brands are open to our new methodologies to keep one step ahead of the curve.
As a brand, your comms team should be an extension of your internal one. Every single member of our team at Palm is a disruptor. It’s a mindset and it’s instilled in the very DNA of the agency.
Having a “disruptive” mindset
Having a disruptive approach to comms delivers extremely impactful campaigns in the current media landscape. The early adopters and millennial decision makers that many businesses are targeting are disruptors themselves.
They’re highly creative, innovative individuals who demand the same kind of qualities from the brands that they invest in. As such, brands need educational and inspirational campaigns that deliver messages in the most innovative and authentic way possible to tap into and connect with this key, influential demographic.
The media and digital landscape is of course in a constant state of evolution. Unless an agency has a mindset that welcomes change and is flexible enough to transform its challenges into opportunities, then its campaigns will never flourish in this exciting, but demanding, environment.
That’s why, in my ‘ABC’ of comms, ‘D’ will always stand for ‘disruption’!
To learn more about PRing a disruptive brand, download our white paper examine how to launch and promote disruptors by filling in the form below.
