Building an expert panel and PR strategy for a new oral care brand
Research-led strategy and planning for a launch-stage brand backed by a major CPG company
How it started
A large consumer goods company with a long history in oral care was preparing to launch a new brand, built around a toothbrush and aimed at people who don’t think about their mouths until something hurts. The brand was bold and a little irreverent. It had a product and a point of view. Now, it needed people with dental creds standing behind it, and the media to support it.
Wellness is a category we’re deeply familiar with: people take advice from their practitioners, and that advice is bolstered with media. The team wanted an advisory panel of five oral care experts who could lend credibility, weigh in on the product lineup, and bring their own audiences along.
They also needed a PR plan that would put those experts in front of the press when the brand went public.
What we did
We started with the content, because the experts needed something to be credible about. We built a content framework around four topics: ingredients, oral health and the oral microbiome, ritual, and product design. We gave the brand a no-BS voice that told people what to care about and why, then got out of the way so they could get on with their day. The framework covered foundational pieces (a visual walk-through of why the brush was designed the way it was, and a library of the ingredients the products used and the ones they left out), evergreen branded guides in place of a traditional blog, and a hub-and-spoke distribution plan so a single guide could turn into a dozen social posts.
Then we built the outreach toolkit. We defined who counts as an expert influencer, a five-step vetting process, four key messages for presenting the opportunity, an outreach email, and the promises each side would make. The brand would give experts real input on products and public-facing opportunities. Experts would give evidence-based guidance and represent the brand well.
Finally, we wrote a PR plan to go with the panel. It included a launch announcement, an expert-led media pitching plan, an events plan, and a press kit. The experts were built into each piece, so the people who had helped shape the products were also the ones talking about them.
How it went
The panel we secured looked like the customers they hoped to reach: different races, cultures, ages, religions, locations, and medical philosophies, from East to West.
The client loved the plans. The brand hasn’t made it to market, so the panel has not been seated and the PR plan hasn’t yet run.
The client now has a complete playbook for launching a credibility-led brand in a skeptical category: who to recruit and how to vet them, what to offer them, what to say, and how to put them in front of the press.
