Revieve is a technology company that uses technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) to personalize the beauty experience online. The company originated from the founders’ frustration with not finding proper skincare products for men. This gap in the market led to the realization that it’s actually hard for anyone to find suitable skincare products online. Boosted by the pandemic and shift to online purchasing, Revieve has grown to employ over eighty people as of today.
PR always had a role to play in Revieve’s marketing and communications toolkit. However, the media work was sporadic and scattered until spring 2021 when Kim Oguilve, Communications Lead, joined the company to build a robust and scalable communications role that focused on consistency in PR work. PR has now shifted from reactive to proactive and from US centered to having more global coverage. Today, in addition to Kim, the in-house communications team includes internal Brand Communications Specialist, a PR agency in the US, one in Mexico to oversee the Latin American market, and communications freelancers in France and Japan.
With a more versatile communication team and ambitious PR goals, there is a need to manage media campaigns efficiently. Some of the global PR work is implemented by the external PR professionals but Revieve’s in-house communications team is responsible for the EMEA region PR activities themselves. Kim and her colleague are using the Valosan Media Relations Management tool to pitch the stories to journalists, build relationships, and have transparency on the PR process internally.
KPI
Helps to
Revieve’s share of voice in media
Assign resources across regions based on facts.
Revieve’s potential reach
Choose which media outlets to reach out to.
Two of the main challenges for international growth companies’ PR work is to understand how the local media in different markets operates as well as the country specific angle for your industry and the topic that you are interested in speaking about.
Working with the right partners – Communications & PR agencies – is one of the best ways to gain the understanding of the local media across the globe. “I had a very European approach to PR, but now doing PR in other countries like the US, Mexico and Japan has taught me a lot! For example, in Mexico, it is more common to take journalists out for lunch or dinner than in Finland where doing everything online suffices. Also, in Mexico the government finances the press and they’ve recently cut off spending. It’s a bit harder to get coverage because the media is much more selective. Moreover, in Latin American countries, people love radio and that’s where a lot of our spokespeople interviews are happening”, says Kim about her learnings. When it comes to internal PR work, Kim states that Revieve being a diverse company in regards of nationalities, it is a huge strength because it helps give a better understanding of different markets inside your own team. This sets a fruitful ground for tailoring the stories and semantics of the stories according to the specific market’s needs.
Where Valosan Media Relations Management tool comes into play in this mosaic field of media relationships on different markets, is that it offers a structure and transparency on the PR work. “We use Valosan for organizing PR campaigns since it offers a very orderly way to do pitching and see if and when journalists open my emails. This helps me to understand when is the right time to follow-up and with what kind of message. Valosan has saved a lot of our time,” says Kim. After the PR campaign is done, all the relevant publications are associated with the respective campaigns on Valosan, giving an easy way to track what activities yielded which kind of results.
Recently, Kim executed a global launch of their AI makeup advisor with Shiseido – a globally known Japanese cosmetics brand. PR partners were responsible for the launch in their respective regions and Revieve’s internal communications team pitched the story in the EMEA region. “Leading a small team, it’s important to have transparency. For example, for the communications specialist it is very useful to see how the PR campaigns are done and learn from the previous work. And let’s say that I’d go on holiday, it’s still easy for everyone to see the status of PR campaigns. For me, Valosan is really just what I needed; Having PR campaigns in one place and giving visibility,” Kim summarizes.
“We use Valosan for organizing PR campaigns since it offers a very orderly way to do pitching and see if and when journalists open my emails. For me, Valosan is really just what I need; Having PR campaigns in one place and giving visibility.” Kim Oguilve, Communications Lead
Revieve is on a promising growth trajectory and hiring new team members, building processes and structures to support the growth lay ahead in the future. Right now, the role of PR is mainly for building brand awareness in the desired markets and gaining a thought leadership position over the competition. Eventually, PR will also adopt a more broad scope of approaches adding e.g. reputation management and stakeholder management & engagement as important goals forbrand awareness.
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