Lisa Springsteel Dupré owns Launch Your Collection LLC, a one-stop apparel launch company for emerging, established, and celebrity fashion brands.
One of the most basic PR essentials for any emerging fashion brand is the media or press kit. The media kit is usually the first time the media will discover your brand, so it is important that you not only deliver all the key components of a media kit, but that you present your brand identity authentically and with the ever-important wow-factor! Your media kit can be used for both outreach to the media for press, as well as to retailers, when building your wholesale business.
WHAT TO INCLUDE:
- ✅ Striking cover page with brand imagery, brand logo and the words, “MEDIA KIT”
- ✅ Brand story page: description of how the brand got started, unique attributes about the collection, and what inspires the designs (include the how, what, where, when, and why)
- ✅ A note from the founder, including his/her background, and his/her design philosophy
- ✅ Mini Lookbook: a scaled-down version of a Lookbook, listing product images, style names and descriptions, fiber content, fabrication, and any other similar details about each style (size scale offering, where it was manufactured, etc.).
- ✅ Press: press sources, type of press, and links to press
- ✅ Press release: a traditional press release or articles about the collection, including designer or brand interviews (see “Press” above).
- ✅ Quotes from the designer: Quotes from the designer that can be easily inserted into features or articles. These quotes can include such topics as what inspired the designs and who the collection is made for (target market).
- ✅ FAQ: frequently asked questions about the founder, the brand, product offering, target market, where the line can be purchased, wash instructions, etc.
- ✅ Social Media links: be sure to include links to all social media channels
- ✅ Contact Info: include an email address and/or phone number for the media to contact your company directly
- ✅ Imagery: be sure to include striking brand images (preferably by a professional photographer) that tell a visual story about your brand, including high resolution (at least 300 dpi) images of your logo
KEEP IN MIND!
Media Kit Format: It is rare to create printed copies of media kits these days as most are digital. Create your media kit as a word document and then save it as a PDF so you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues for the people opening your document.
Sharing your Media Kit: email it directly to your media or retailer contact, provide a download link to a file sharing resource like Dropbox, or upload it to a digital platform like Issuu (https://issuu.com/). You may also want to upload your Media Kit on your official brand website on a Media Kit dropdown tab on your navigation bar.
Photography: Whether including images in your media kit that were professionally photographed or photographed by you or a friend, include images that are either taken on a model in a landscape setting (focus on backgrounds that are pertinent to your brand identity: if you produce a swimwear collection, take the images at a local beach or lake), shot on a white background, or placed on a mannequin, and of course all images should be in high resolution.
Editors and journalists are super busy people, so do whatever you can to make it easier for them to review your media kit, thereby giving you a leg up on the competition and helping you to achieve your end goal, which is to get press or wholesale accounts.
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