FAQ
About PR & brand strategy
What does a PR agency do?
A PR agency builds and protects the reputation of a brand through earned media, such as press coverage, creator partnerships, events and strategic communications. Unlike paid advertising, earned media is coverage you get because your story, product or campaign is genuinely worth talking about.
In practice, that means pitching your brand to journalists, managing relationships with media titles, running creator and influencer programmes, and building the kind of visibility that actually shifts perception. The best PR agencies don’t just generate coverage, they connect it to commercial outcomes.
What is brand communications?
Most people think PR is about getting press coverage – and it is, but that’s a tool, not a strategy. Brand communications works upstream: it’s the positioning, messaging, and narrative that makes PR, content, and every other channel land harder and mean more. Without that foundation, you can earn a double-page spread in a national title and still leave readers with no real sense of what you stand for. The briefs that generate the best work aren’t the ones asking for “20 pieces of coverage”, they’re the ones sharing business goals, commercial targets and what success actually looks like beyond a press clipping. If your marketing feels reactive, your channels feel disconnected, or your campaigns generate noise but not traction, that’s a signal you need more than a PR agency.
What is digital PR?
Digital PR is PR built for online visibility. Where traditional PR focuses on print and broadcast coverage, digital PR targets online publications, blogs, podcasts, and content platforms that generate backlinks and drive search traffic — which is why it sits at the intersection of PR and SEO.
That said, the best digital PR campaigns are still rooted in good storytelling. A piece of data, a bold opinion, a genuinely newsworthy hook — those are what earn coverage and links, not just keyword stuffing.
What is a communications strategy?
A communications strategy is the overarching plan that defines what you want to say, who you’re saying it to, through which channels, and why. It’s the difference between reactive marketing (responding to things as they happen) and building a brand people actually recognise and trust over time.
A good comms strategy covers your core messaging, your audience priorities, your channel mix, and how you’ll measure success. Without it, even brilliant creative work can feel inconsistent.
What is brand strategy?
Brand strategy is the thinking behind how a brand positions itself in the world — its values, its voice, how it wants to be perceived, and how it differentiates from competitors. It’s not your logo or your colour palette. It’s the stuff that makes all of those decisions feel coherent.
For growing businesses, brand strategy is often the missing piece. You can have great products, a brilliant team, and real momentum — but without clear positioning, it’s hard to scale because nobody knows quite what you stand for.
It isn’t just about metrics, it’s about meaning. It’s loud out there, and so while everyone else is following a trend and mimicking each other, we’re busy building brands to last.
We work with brands at the point where they’ve outgrown their current positioning and need to level up.
What is brand management?
Brand strategy is the thinking behind how a brand positions itself in the world — its values, its voice, how it wants to be perceived, and how it differentiates from competitors. It’s not your logo or your colour palette. It’s the stuff that makes all of those decisions feel coherent.
For growing businesses, brand strategy is often the missing piece. You can have great products, a brilliant team, and real momentum — but without clear positioning, it’s hard to scale because nobody knows quite what you stand for.
It isn’t just about metrics, it’s about meaning. It’s loud out there, and so while everyone else is following a trend and mimicking each other, we’re busy building brands to last.
We work with brands at the point where they’ve outgrown their current positioning and need to level up.
What is crisis communication?
Crisis communication is how a business responds when something goes wrong — publicly, quickly, and in a way that protects long-term reputation. It covers everything from product recalls and negative press to social media pile-ons and leadership controversies.
The brands that come out of a crisis strongest are usually the ones that had a plan before anything happened. That means knowing who speaks, what they say, how fast, and through which channels. Silence or a clumsy response almost always makes things worse.
What is consumer PR?
Consumer PR focuses on building brand awareness and positive reputation directly with the end consumer — through lifestyle press, food and drink media, creator campaigns, events, and cultural moments. It’s most common in hospitality, F&B, retail, leisure, and lifestyle sectors.
The goal is usually to make the brand feel culturally relevant and talked-about, not just seen. That’s why consumer PR works best when it’s connected to a genuine brand story.
What is FMCG PR?
FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) PR is the work of building visibility and desirability for products that live on shelves and in people’s daily lives — food, drink, health, beauty, household. It typically involves trade press, retail relationships, consumer media, and increasingly, creator and social strategies.
FMCG PR has a specific challenge: the market is crowded, margins are tight, and differentiation is hard. The brands that cut through tend to be the ones with a clear point of view, not just a product.
Working with an agency
How do you work with clients - retainer, campaign, or something else?
Most of our clients work with us on a retainer basis, which means an ongoing monthly fee in exchange for a defined scope of work. Retainers work well when you need sustained brand presence, such as consistent media coverage, creator activity, content and strategic thinking that builds over time.
We also take on project and campaign work: launches, brand activations, one-off events and short-term campaigns with a clear brief and timeline. These tend to work best when there’s already a strong brand foundation in place and you need focused execution around a specific moment.
For brands at an earlier stage, or those who need strategic clarity before jumping into delivery, we offer bespoke consultancy. That might mean a brand positioning project, a communications audit or a strategy sprint before a longer relationship begins.
If you’re not sure which is right for you, we’ll tell you honestly. A discovery call usually makes it clear.
I've worked with PR agencies before. What makes Scoop different?
Most agencies will tell you they’re strategic partners. Fewer actually behave like one. The difference tends to show up in a few specific ways.
First, senior involvement. At a lot of agencies, a senior person wins the business and then hands it to a junior team. At Scoop, the people you meet at pitch are the people working on your account. That matters for the quality of thinking, the speed of decision-making and the relationship itself.
Second, commercial accountability. We don’t measure success by column inches. We care about whether the work is actually moving your business forward through metrics like bookings, footfall, brand search, social growth or leads. We build that into how we report from day one.
Third, we only work in sectors we genuinely understand. We’re not a generalist agency that will figure out your industry as we go. If we don’t know your world well enough to add real value, we’ll tell you.
What’s more, our pitch win rate is 78% – and the clients who stay with us, stay for years.
Why should I work with Scoop specifically?
Because we’re serious about results, honest about what we can and can’t do and genuinely good to work with. Those three things are rarer than they should be.
We work with ambitious brands who need more than execution – clients who want a team that understands their business, challenges their thinking and builds communications that actually land with the right people. If that’s what you’re looking for, we’re probably a good fit.
If you’re looking for the cheapest option, the biggest team, or an agency that will just say yes to everything, we’re probably not the right fit.
How big is the team, and who will actually work on my account?
We’re a focused team of senior specialists. We’ve built Scoop to be big enough to handle ambitious, multi-workstream briefs, and small enough that every client gets genuine senior attention throughout the relationship.
You won’t be handed off to a junior team after the pitch. The people who lead your account are experienced practitioners who have worked across PR, brand strategy, content and creator campaigns, and who understand the commercial context behind what they’re doing.
Day-to-day, you’ll have a named account lead and direct access to senior thinking whenever you need it. No layers, no account management bureaucracy.
Where are you based?
Our team is based in Manchester, and we work with clients across the UK. We don’t think of ourselves as a regional agency – our client work spans London, the North, and beyond – but Manchester is home, and it gives us a genuine connection to one of the UK’s most vibrant hospitality, culture, and property markets.
We meet clients in person wherever it makes sense to. For ongoing retainer relationships, a mix of in-person and remote works well, but what matters most is that the communication is good and the work is better.
What do you look for in a client?
We work best with brands that are ambitious, have something genuinely interesting to say, and are ready to invest properly in communications – not just dip a toe in. Our strongest client relationships are with businesses that see us as a strategic partner, not a supplier.
In practice, that usually means: a brand with real growth plans, a team that’s engaged and responsive, a budget that reflects the ambition and an openness to being challenged as well as supported.
The clients we tend not to be a good fit for are those who want PR as a box-ticking exercise, have no appetite for bold ideas or aren’t sure what they’re trying to achieve. Not because they’re bad clients, but just because we won’t be able to do our best work for them.
We work primarily with hospitality groups, F&B (food and beverage) brands, cultural and leisure attractions, BTR and property, and shopping centres. We’re also growing our work in travel and tourism.
Our Sectors & Clients
What sectors do you work in?
Our core sectors are multi-site hospitality groups, food and drink brands, cultural and leisure attractions, build-to-rent and residential property, and shopping centres. We’re also building our portfolio in travel and tourism.
We focus here deliberately. These are sectors we understand from the inside — the commercial pressures, the media landscape, the culture, and what actually makes campaigns land. We’re not trying to be everything to everyone.
Within those sectors, we work at different stages — from early-stage brands finding their positioning, to established groups managing national expansion, to international names launching in the UK.
What hospitality clients have you worked with?
Our hospitality client base includes some of the UK’s most recognised names in fast food, casual dining, and the wider food and drink space.
Across these clients, our work has spanned brand launches, PR strategy, creator campaigns, media relations, event management, and content. We’ve supported brands at the point of UK entry, through rapid multi-site expansion, and into sustained brand-building at scale.
What about travel, leisure, and other sectors?
In the cultural and leisure space, we’ve worked with a number of venues and attractions for which we delivered a full PR strategy, VIP event management, creator liaison, and launch night execution.
In property and BTR, we work with residential brands at the intersection of place-making and lifestyle – where the communications challenge is about building community and desirability, not just shifting units.