A brief introduction to hospitality public relations and what it means to build a press kit.
When I set out at my HOD internship this semester I knew nothing about Public Relations. I was excited to learn about this profession, especially about how it can be applied to the hospitality clients in particular. Almost immediately on site I realized a large part of PR work would be working on the elements of press kits or groups of documents used to send to outside organizations such as local and national media to represent a client. These kits could contain many documents for restaurant clients, but almost always included recipes, boilerplates, biographies, pitches and press recaps. Therefore I set a semester goal. I would learn how to make a press kit by understanding how to make the documents that compose it. In order to reach this goal I used multiple strategies including taking field notes, talking to colleagues at work, researching press kits online, consulting online blogging guides, researching multiple blogging platforms and finally getting feedback on my evidence from my supervisor at my site
For the purpose of this blog I have used a “client” that is not a client at my site in order to protect proprietary information. The client I chose to make a mock press kit for is local Nashville staple, Hattie B’s Hot Chicken.
“I set a semester goal. I would learn how to make a press kit by understanding how to make the documents that compose it.”
Before starting the documents in question, I realized I would need to choose some formatting that I could carry throughout the press kit to make it look polished and consistent. I chose Bookman Old Style as my font and chose a name for my mock PR firm, Rose Public Relations. Next I made a logo for my firm using Word, which can be seen below. This logo was to be used in all press kit documents to ensure that external parties, such as the media or social influencers would know what PR firm represented the client.
Recipe Reformatting
After choosing my company format and creating a simple and clean logo, I moved on to learning how to created my first press kit document. I decided to start off slow and pick the easiest document to create: a recipe. Recipes are sent out by publicists for multiple reasons such as with a pitch (which will be covered in a later blog post) or when a client is set to appear on a TV segment where they will demo their dish. I used Hattie B’s classic dish, Hot Chicken because I knew that this recipe would be most sought after by the press. From speaking to colleagues I learned the following elements are essential to recipe reformating.
Elements:
Client Logo
PR firm logo
Font: Bookman Old Style
Recipe title
Client name
Client location
Recipe yield
Ingredients
Method
These elements had to be included in all recipes so that the press and whomever they published the recipe to would have the full information about the dish. Additionally, it was extremely important that the format chosen for the recipe be used on all client recipes in a press kit so that the PR firm comes across as consistent and polished. Below is an example of the formated Hattie B’s Hot Chicken recipe by Rose Public Relations.
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