J Barbour & Sons PR Student Placement
Blog 5- November
On the 2nd and 3rd of November, I got to attend the London Trip with the PR Team for the Barbour Christmas Launch event which was definitely my highlight of the placement so far. We set off early on November the 2nd on a train from Newcastle to London. The first half of the day we spent with Exposure PR agency, organising the goody bags we had sent them and prepping with the Exposure team for the next day. The Exposure Agency offices were really nice and I loved seeing their showroom stocking samples of all of the brands they work with. I then had the rest of the night free and I got to catch up with my friend Olivia who is doing a Computer Science degree in London. The PR team stayed in a hotel overnight and we all had to be up at 4 am on the 3rd of November to prepare the space for the event. It was held at Selfridges cinema on Duke Street. We decorated the space early morning with Paddington merchandise and Barbour accessories and had the goody bags ready by the Christmas tree. PR Team and Exposure agency had to wear Barbour products for the event. I used my Barbour discount to buy one of the Barbour x Alexachung collab jackets, which I am in love with and wear everywhere.
All of the guests arrived at 8 am and we chatted and mingled with guests before they went through to the cinema room to view the Christmas advert and view the Selfridges Barbour Wax For Life station. The key messaging that PR Team hoped the VIPs and Press would take away from the event was the importance of sustainability and how Barbour has sustainability at the forefront of the brand.
Barbour Christmas Press Trip at Selfridges Cinema London
After the trip, I helped collate coverage reports from the press event. This included gathering Press clippings and screen-grabbing all of the social coverage the attendees posted throughout the event. It was really interesting to me, to see the impact the event had on the amount of coverage the brand got for the Christmas advert. Which showed me just how important press events are for fashion brands and achieving press coverage.
Another big event which happened in November was Prince Charles's visit to Barbour Factory to open the ‘Wax For Life’ workshop to celebrate 100 years of Re-waxing. The visit took a lot of preparation and planning which I assisted on before the visit. Ahead of the visit, Prince Charles selected a Jacket and dog coat which we gifted him. I was tasked with gift wrapping the products and sending them directly to Highgrove house via dpd, which felt very special to do so!
During November another highlight of my placement was getting to do some photography for the PR and Digital Marketing Team. I took photos of the 5 Vogue x Barbour competition jackets which had been made in the factory. My photos were then kept for a record in the Barbour files, sent to the competition winners to show them how their jacket has been created as well as posted on the official Barbour Instagram which is something I am really proud of and will use for future in my portfolio!
My Photography of the Barbour x Vogue Competition Jackets used on the Barbour Instagram.
