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MEDIA RELATIONS2016 – 2025

Tier 1 Media

Nine years of coverage. NYT, FT, Forbes, The Economist.

The press relationships that turned DV and its portfolio brands into a through-line in the drinks trade. Cultivated reporters, data-led briefings, and the repeat coverage that compounds.

NYT · FT · Forbes · Economist
Tier-1 outlets
Drinks Business · Drinks Int'l · The Spirits Business
Trade press
Media relationsPress strategyData-led briefings
THE REMIT

Get drinks founders covered where their customers, their buyers, and their next investor actually read.

The drinks trade has strong verticals. It also has a ceiling. A brand that only ever shows up in Drinks Business or The Spirits Business isn't reaching the consumer who buys it, the retailer who stocks it, or the venture partner who could write the next cheque.

The tier-1 press, from the New York Times to the Financial Times to Forbes to the Economist, is where the category conversations travel. Getting brands into those pages repeatedly, credibly, and on their own terms was the nine-year project.

THE APPROACH

Cultivate the reporters, not the placements.

Tier-1 press isn't a publicist's to-do list. It's a relationship game played over years. The work was learning who covers drinks and consumer categories with real depth, what they care about, what they're sick of being pitched, and how to land a story in their inbox that's actually worth their time.

In-person briefings, not press releases. Data first. The Non-Alc white paper, New World Whiskey research, category trend reports. Founder access when the founder was the story. Exclusives timed to moments that mattered.

The best press hits aren't the ones you pitched. They're the ones a reporter called you for, because you'd given them something worth quoting six times already.
THE OUTCOME

Repeat coverage across the portfolio, on the terms that mattered.

Seedlip's acquisition covered in NYT and FT in the same week. Mr. Black landing as a category-defining exit. Ritual covered as the US non-alc bellwether. The DV category white papers referenced in Economist trend pieces. Founders from the portfolio interviewed on their own categories, not as PR subjects.

The relationships outlast the placements. That's the asset. The next founder I work with inherits a list of reporters who'll take the briefing, because the last one was worth their time.

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