It's Dotty!

We love the super cute Primrose Hill set in lemon with black polka dots and there are nine other signature sets to choose from. Each is priced at £35 and the paisties and side-tie knickers can also be purchased separately. Dotty Drawers has also created a collection of sequin nipple tassels. All lingerie can be purchased through the online store, dottydrawers.co.uk – go check it out!

Primrose Hill set

We have been appointed to handle the consumer press for the brand, so look out for them in the media soon.

It is a piece of Jewellery that not only looks beautiful to wear, but carries a perfume inside. The pendant opens up to reveal a tiny refillable roller ball pod that can easily be filled by spraying perfume into the funnel provided and holds approximately 0.5ml of perfume. It’s a simple idea, fun to use but most importantly convenient and ready to use whenever a touch up of perfume is needed.

The Esme Jewellery Perfume Pendant

The Esme Jewellery Perfume Pendant is available in six striking enamelled designs adorned with Swarovski crystals and is suspended on a 30 inch silver plated chain. Prices start from £19.99 and available from the online store www.esmejewellery.co.uk.

Louise enjoying a margarita!

According to diffordsguide cocktail 7 “The Margarita can be considered a Tequila Sour, or a Tequila Sidecar, and two variations of this classic cocktail date back to the 1930s: the Tequila Daisy and the Picador. Both, however, lack the distinctive salt rim. There are many people who claim to have invented the Margarita, which, as Spanish for ‘daisy’ and a popular woman’s name, would have been a very common name for a drink.”

cocktail pr asked Mark Pope, General Manager of 12a, Cambridge’s exclusive private members’ club for his perfect margarita recipe…

Ingredients:

* 35ml good quality 100% agave Tequila (we recommend Tapatio reposado, Corralejo reposado or El Tesoro reposado)

* 15ml Cointreau

* 25ml lime juice

* Maldon sea salt

Method:

1. Pre-prepare salt rimmed glass by running a lime wedge around the outside of a margarita glass, cocktail glass or coupette, roll the rim in a dish of sea salt and set to one side.

2. Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker, add ice and shake HARD until the outside of the shaker is frosty.

3. Strain into your salt rimmed glass and garnish with a lime wedge.

For a ‘frozen’ margarita, strain into a crushed ice filled rocks glass and insert a straw.

Important points:

* Always use fresh lime instead of bottled juice.

* Use Maldon sea salt as opposed to table salt as it has a much nicer texture and slightly sweet element to the taste – make sure to wipe any salt out of the inside of the glass: the salt is for the lips, not for the drink.

* Be sure to use as much as ice as you can when shaking to avoid over diluting / under chilling the drink.

Remember:

As long as your method is sound, a drink is only as good as the ingredients it contains, so use a decent tequila!

Thanks Mark – we will be making it like the pros in no time!!

You can visit the 12a Club online at www.12aclub.com

This is fashion PR product placement at its best – one piece of jewellery commanding a full editorial page.

The necklace is “bang on trend and, will add a little chirpiness to any outfit”. Get yours here.

The new! style page opener

Our first new client is Samina Pure Makeup, Europe’s first Halal approved makeup brand. Samina Pure Makeup’s radiance boosting formula uses pure, natural ingredients that are actually healthy for your skin. Created using traditional and natural ingredients and using modern science to develop a high performance collection of natural makeup with staying power! The range includes Instant Glow Mineral Foundation, Setting Powder and Blush, Crushed Mineral Eye Shadow, Lasting Shine Hydra Lipgloss and Nourishing Long Lasting Hydra Lipstick (we love the Sugar Plum shade) starting from £11.

With the party season approaching (yes, it will be here before you know it!) we are delighted to be working with tipsyfeet. When heels get too much these foldable flat shoes are a god send. Each pair comes in a unique colour matched pouch which fits in your handbag and turns into a bag to carry your heels home in. Fab or what?! They come in an array of colours including my fav leopard print, nautical, black, bronze, brown, burgundy, yellow, grey, pink and zebra and are £24.99 per pair. A definite must-have!

Finally, we have been appointed to represent funkyhoney.co.uk, a cool online store specialising in funky home wares and gifts. They have everything from shower caps to cufflinks, LEGO lunch boxes which are fab for back to school and kitchen accessories. The press have already shown are interest in the store’s products and they will be appearing in the weekly press very soon.

We will now work our magic to create some fabulous media moment for them, so keep an eye out for them in the press!

I am not saying that press releases are redundant but for some routes they are just not needed. Obviously, if you have something newsworthy to say then a press release will be needed but it MUST be newsworthy and not just an overview of your business and/or product range.

The majority of businesses that approach cocktail pr want product placement PR – their products on the editorial pages of the press. For this journalists just want to see the images – they have planned their stories and it’s just a matter of finding the right product shots to feature. So, whether they are looking for red lipsticks, metallic shoes or colour pop bags – it’s the images they want not a press release.

I have had journalists contact me and ask for peach coloured products, sheer sleeve dresses and soaps containing tea. They don’t want a press release just the image, price and stockist – though in some cases it is good to add a sentence or two in the email about the actual product. For example with the soap I added that it was handmade from natural ingredients and contained Roobis tea this was then featured in the Daily Express – result!

Take a look at the coverage below – none of this needed a press release.

product placement coverage

The first month bought lovely web reviews and local features and also my first BIG hit! For those of you that don’t work in PR – the monthly magazines work about three month in advance. It was in October/November that I secured a fabulous piece of coverage in Woman & Home for Cottons to be published in the February 2009 issue. Getting a full page, with an interview and images in glossy monthly gave me a huge confidence boost – I knew that I was going to be ok and cocktail was going to be a success!

On the day the magazine came out, I rushed to the local shop heart pounding and feverishly flicking through the pages to find it and there it was a fabulous piece of PR, if ever I had seen one!

The excitement of seeing a client in print is still there today – just like the clients I am elated to see them in their ‘wish list’ magazine and am just as gutted if something gets pulled or doesn’t make the cut. I think it is really important that a PR shares the passion for the clients business and has these feelings. It really matters to me that I do good job and I think it shows in the way I work, the length of time client stay with cocktail and the relationship I have with them.

yum! Strawberry Daiquiri

Right from the off I knew I wanted to call my agency cocktail – wasn’t sure if it was going to be communications or PR, but that was just a minor detail, but definitely cocktail. I love cocktails so the name was a reflection of me but also PR which is about a mix of things – just like a cocktail. Hence our tag line, we get the mix right.

I was loving the name, Laura was loving the name and then thanks to Simon (you know who you are!) a little seed of doubt was planted in my mind. “So,” he says “When you call up, you are going to say Hi – its Louise Cox calling from cocktail pr?” Err, well yeah! “Don’t you think there are too many cox/cocks, in that?!”

I didn’t want people to think I was having a laugh, so I went back to the drawing board. Laura and I sat up late into the night thinking of names and then crossing them of the list as we discovered another PR agency called it or because fudge gave out the wrong signal!

After days of not hitting the right note – I took the plunge and decided on cocktail – I had my heart set on it from the start. I hoped that my emails wouldn’t be caught in spam filters and it makes me giggle when an invoice comes through and our account number is cock! But it’s a little price to pay for the perfect name. Oh and I know what you are wondering…what do I say when I call people – “Hi – it’s Louise from cocktail!”

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