09 Sep Design PR Is More Than Sharing A Pretty Picture. We Are Creating Thought Leaders
While images are clearly integral to a design PR campaign’s success, with so much gorgeous work out there, images are just the starting point. From working closely with design publications such as Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Wallpaper, Interior Design, Dwell and many more over the past 15 years; personally escorting top national design media to Paris for Maison&Objet design fair while handling the account during my time as partner at Zakarin Martinez Public Relations (ZMPR);touring them through Miami’s design highlights during Art Basel and Design Miami; and sharing news with design media on top architects and designers including Marcel Wanders, Philippe Starck, David Rockwell, OMA/Koolhaas, Herzog &DeMeuron, Zaha Hadid, Meyer Davis, and dozens more; we know what design editors are looking for. As a boutique PR firm, we work with our clients to draw out or develop the factors in their work that offer new perspectives on issues and trends or challenge an old idea with innovative solutions.
Some things we might ask:
- What about this project is presenting a new solution or challenging an established idea?
- What design element(s) do you see is trending, why, and is it good or bad and why?
- Do you have a position on a current issue for which you can offer a new solution through design?
- Where have you traveled recently that inspired new ideas?
For example, Power Collective’s design PR work with leading global architecture firm Perkins and Will’s Miami Studio, we handle campaigns around their projects for schools, hospitals, mixed-use, offices and more. We were recently were charged with announcing the arrival of celebrated landscape designer Christopher Counts to the firm. We worked closely with him and the team to draw out his bigger-picture intentions for work with the firm, and leveraged his experience and thought process – how having come from a boutique New York-based landscape architecture agency to a larger firm with a wealth of assets and being based in Miami, gave him the opportunity to look at this new position as the opportunity to design a blueprint for resilient urban landscapes from the ground zero of resilience issues in Miami. With that positioning, Power Collective secured a feature on Architectural
For another of our innovative architectural design clients, Touzet Studio, we positioned the principal architects as thought leaders behind more resilient, innovative solutions for transit-oriented, co-living, commercial, retail, residential, hospitality and other developments, that have a strong respect for sense of place and history. We’ve secured placements in media from Wall Street Journal to Dwell and more.
In Power Collective’s PR Campaign for Miami Design District’s new design showroom and workspace, Work|Room Miami, which is marketing to both consumers as well as design trade, we had a variety of messages to share and with different audiences. To establish them in the market with a local Miami PR push, we secured a local profile in The Miami Herald’s INDULGE. To create broader awareness and establish them for their grander concept, we worked with editors at Architectural Digest on a story that paired them with the other design/work rooms globally that inspired the concept and highlighted what they brought to Miami. To showcase new products they sourced from Morocco, we pitched a trend piece with them as an expert from their recent trip on rugs. Power Collective ongoingly has them and other interior designers sourced as experts on trends or tied to design product launches with consumer home and design press from Associated Press to Wall Street Journal, The Miami Herald and more.
With Ornare, which works with Miami’s top real estate and condominium developers from Fortune International Group to Faena, Oceana, Terra Group and more and interior designers such as Avant Design, Fanny Haim, Eolo Design, StyleHaus and more on some of the most glamorous homes, closets, kitchens baths and more; we have a wealth of opportunities to leverage. Power Collective’s interior design PR and luxury residential PR campaigns for the brand work to highlight everything from new collections, like the one we secured in The New York Times, to interior designer and developer installations in residences like Faena, Fendi, Jade Signature and dozens more.
The challenge we all face is the words the image alone can’t share, and how the work is truly unique and how the brand or designer is offering something new to the world. We need to challenge both ourselves and our clients to find these elements.