“We approached Jill Kent to raise the profile of Prezola through our personalities and the story behind the brand. She delivered in spades, covering personal profiles across the women’s press, business profiles in the national press, and even interviews on BBC TV News. The results have been amazing and she is indeed a PR Superstar!”
Dom Beaven, co-founder & CEO, Prezola
Fortysomething couple Dom and Ali Beaven sold their beautiful family home in Bath and beloved car to bravely strike out on their own and start a business from their kitchen table.
In just six years, Prezola, based in Somerset and Wiltshire, has grown rapidly to become the UK’s favourite wedding gift list service – even bigger than the John Lewis gift list which has dominated the lucrative wedding gift market for decades. Prezola.com helps couples to create stylish, modern wedding gift lists, where family and friends can choose from more than 50,000 products by 500 premium brands, including the likes of The White Company, Graham & Green, Le Creuset, Jo Malone, and Habitat. The online wedding gift list service has impressively sold more than one million gifts to date.
The Beaven’s three-year plan is to grow the business from £15M in 2018 to £50M in 2021 and launch into Europe. The couple wanted high-profile PR to help support their ambitious business plans.
When they contacted me, Prezola’s founders had already had some PR in the national press, which could have posed a problem as journalists are always keen to write about people, products, and places that haven’t been featured elsewhere.
Never one to be deterred, I put together a press release using my journalistic ‘nose for news’ and set about contacting editors and producers in the national press. I stressed the enormity of what the middle-aged couple had achieved – overtaking arch-rival John Lewis in just a matter of years, an incredible feat that wowed journalists and had them queuing up to interview the entrepreneurial pair. I highlighted the fact the couple are life partners as well as business partners, another interesting angle and talked about the challenges this posed. I told the colourful story of how it all began…with Ali Beaven returning home from a PTA meeting to find her beloved black Land Rover, which she described as her “pride and joy”, washed and up for sale on their driveway, thanks to Dom, with the proceeds of the sale going towards three full-page adverts to promote Prezola in a leading bridal magazine.
PR coverage spanned print, broadcast and online, with backlinks to the Prezola website. Highlights included Ali being interviewed on BBC TV News, and half-page profile features on the couple and their remarkable entrepreneurial journey in The Times and The Telegraph. The women’s press, including iconic titles such as Marie Claire and Harper’s Bazaar, were keen to write about Ali as a successful and inspirational business woman.
Thrilled with the results of their initial PR, the couple contacted PR Superstar to request a second campaign in 2019.
