Luxury is and always will be a perception. With the economy decline it will be up to the luxury retailer to become familiar with market conditions to communicate better with target audiences. Those most at jeopardy are luxury lifestyle brands, as the media is constantly reminding consumers we are in a recession. Which consumers will put off luxury lifestyle purchases at the direction of the media influence.
So, how do you break through the media influence to reach out and connect with luxury consumers? Before you kill the media, remember you still need them. Without the media you will have no one to deliver messages to reach luxury consumers. Understand that media resources are vital and important for creditability for brand awareness.
The media is controlled by humans. Not a bad thing, actually a good strategy because you have an opportunity to pitch ideas. Also you must become strategic at pitching your ideas, study media profiles and learn which outlets best reach your target audience. Wasting the media’s time by pitching a subject unrelated to their audience can get you blackballed.
Stop searching for a PR firm that knows Oprah and start thinking in the direction of how to find a PR firm that knows how to pitch Oprah’s team. Hold up before you call Oprah’s staff and start pitching as that would be a BIG mistake, trust me! They actually like to hunt and search for their own stories in the media. So, again you really do need the media. Let me also point out that brand exposure should be the ultimate goal for luxury lifestyle brands over designing PR campaigns to land appearances targeted toward specific media outlets.
Most segments you see on Oprah, The View, and Good Morning America and so on usually start with a subject that was picked up in a smaller circulated media outlet first. Social media sites like YouTube, Stumbleupon, and Twitter etc. are popular resources for media outlets to find stories.
Always pitch a concept around a press release to start. Simply pitching a concept with no press release gives no insight to the story. Make sure that your press release is not written as fluff, which fluff is promotional advertising dressed up and presented as a press release. If you are wondering why your press releases are not getting picked up by media outlets it may be because they sound like advertising and marketing over real newsworthy coverage.
A press release is not advertising or marketing, it should help to enhance the creditability for the brand exposure to enhance advertising and marketing efforts.
The media runs on news, you can start influencing how you want to have a story about luxury lifestyle brands represented! So go start some influence…