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Monday February 4 2019 THE NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM, BIRMINGHAM
SARAH SELZER Managing Director of PR Direct at Chester in Cheshire On the road
How do you spend an average day? A cafetière of strong coffee and then straight onto the media. It’s an ongoing job to keep our consumer media contacts fresh as they’re always moving on. We supplement our press activity by subscribing to various databases where the media post what they’re working on and looking for. But there’s no substitute for keeping in touch, so much of the day is spent making contact with individual journalists or bloggers. Depending on the time of year, we’re often pulling together lists of samples for TV production companies and, from the end of June to December 25, pushing out potential Christmas Gift Guide goodies.
What’s your background? I joined a publishing company after graduating and that’s when my housewares journey started. I worked as a journalist on ‘DIY Week’ and ‘Housewares Magazine’ before leaving to be launch editor of ‘Gourmet Retailing’.
Tell us a bit about PR Direct. I set up PR Direct 20 years ago with Emma Boden- Lee. We worked out of her spare bedroom in London and spent a lot of time drinking coffee and laughing, as I remember. It was in the days when emails were just starting and I don’t think we checked our accounts for about the first six months! Everyone faxed everything. How things have changed… All communication is done on email and it’s a pain if you haven’t got a good WiFi connection. I run the business now with my partner Mark Chapman and we moved back to my old home town Chester in Cheshire with our 8-year-old daughter Evie nearly three years ago.
What brands do you represent? We have always been very active in housewares - we have dipped out on occasion to do PR for anything from artificial sports surfaces to a young people’s theatre company - but there is such synergy in working in one industry. We have found the media loves it too: a one-stop shop for housewares. Our longest-established clients are Rayware (with
Kilner, Mason Cash and Typhoon), The DRH Collection, GreenPan and the IHA [International Housewares Association, which runs the International Home + Housewares Show, held annually in Chicago]. We cover the show for the international trade press and we’ve run consumer media events for them. We also offer support to our wonderful industry charity the Rainy Day Trust, in a PR capacity.
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Best aspect of your job? Getting a response from that journalist you’ve been drip-feeding stuff too (patience really is a virtue!), as well as opening up a magazine, clicking on a website or switching on the TV and seeing your clients’ products there. It’s still a buzz!
“The debate about
single-use plastics will run and run, so the
industry has to really get behind that”
And the worst? Working your socks off to provide the right information, image or sample (especially to a journalist who specifically requested it) for a feature and then it doesn’t appear. Or worse, it appears - but you’re not in it. Fortunately that doesn’t happen very often.
What car do you drive and why? A Vauxhall Zafira, which is big enough to take all the family stuff (including grandparents!), as well as an easy pack for heading down to the NEC in Birmingham for trade shows or - our biggest logistical set up - the Christmas in July event in London, where we showcase clients’ products to the consumer media.
What do you do outside work? Enjoy as much of gorgeous North Wales as we can, now we’re so close in Chester. Anglesey is our favourite but also the Wirral and up to Liverpool. My
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HousewaresLive.net
secret passion is dancing and I go to a ChaSamba class every Thursday (I even went the day I returned from the International Home + Housewares show in Chicago and was jetlagged!).
Biggest issue facing the housewares industry? This has to be: staying fresh, innovative and relevant for today’s consumers. The debate about single-use plastics will run and run, so the industry has to really get behind that. But it isn’t just about products – it’s packaging, labelling and so on.
Biggest challenges facing retailers and suppliers? Again, being relevant - which can also be about how you sell to and communicate with your customers. You’ve got to totally embrace social media. The chances are your customers are active across different platforms, depending on their demographic. If you’re a bricks-and-mortar retailer and you’re playing around with the idea of a web presence, you need to get on with it. It’s really tough out there and the physical retail space is shrinking year-on-year.
And the biggest opportunities? Savvy consumers. There are enough of them who love experimenting with cooking and dining styles, like to try and follow a healthy lifestyle (at least some of the time), and are becoming increasingly eco-conscious. Make sure you cover the bases for them and they will reward you.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the housewares industry? Probably the dramatic fall in the number of retailers that have stayed the course - and the rise of online retail. Twenty years ago we were all stressing about what impact the Millennium would have on business. Remember the Bug that was going to shut our PCs down and bring life as we know it to a standstill? Now there’s another B – Brexit- that’s putting the
pressure on, and I don’t believe it will be anywhere near as pleasant as the Brexiteers make out. I’m certainly happy to be proved wrong.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in the housewares industry today? Enjoy. It’s a brilliant industry that’s friendly and vibrant and fun. Make sure you find time for that cup of coffee and a laugh with your workmates too.
• Sarah’s contact details are: Mobile: 07970 672707 Email:
sarah@prdirect.net Website:
www.prdirect.net
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twitter.com/Housewaresnews September/October 2018
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