Gildings Auctioneers

The Challenge

Gildings were selling a vast single-owner collection of high-quality miniature whisky and were keen to publicise the online auction in advance of the sale and following it, both to raise awareness of the auction and to encourage similar business in the future.

The Ideal Solution

The Ideal Marketing Company created a targeted PR campaign to publicise the story locally, nationally and internationally.

We interviewed the vendor of the whisky and then created a press release which was adapted for local, niche and national press. Bespoke media lists were then created to target journalists who would be likely to cover the story.

What was achieved

The pre-sale press release resulted in 40 pieces of media coverage across online, radio, print and social media, including:

• BBC Online
• BBC Radio – Leicester, Northampton and Three Counties
• Whisky Magazine
• The Daily Express
• The Daily Mirror
• Metro
• The Yorkshire Post
• Scottish Field
• The Leicester Mercury
• Whiskey Raiders (USA)
• The Whisky Club (Australia)

After the auction, a second press release was issued following the successful sale of the whisky. This press release resulted in 33 pieces of coverage across online, TV, print and social media. The BBC covered the story extensively as follows:

• The Nine (BBC Scotland flagship TV news show)
• Instagram stories – BBC News
• Twitter – BBC News (World), BBC News (UK), BBC Look East, BBC Northampton
• BBC Online (the story appeared on the BBC homepage the day it was published)

Other coverage included

• ITV Online
• The Sun
• Whisky Experts (Germany)
• Fox Business (USA)
• The Birmingham Post
• Cask & Still
• The Daily Mirror
• El Confidencial (Spain)

Follower/readership numbers for the coverage included:

• BBC Instagram – 19.9 million followers
• BBC News (World) Twitter – 33.8 million followers
• BBC News (UK) Twitter – 12.9 million followers
• The Sun – 24.7 million monthly website visitors
• ITV.com – 34.3 million monthly website visitors
• Fox Business – 44.2 million monthly website visitors

Achieving national and international coverage benefits Gildings as thanks to the shift to online bidding, the auction house now has a global audience of buyers.

The pre-sale story raised awareness among whisky lovers and the general public about the auction. Both stories also publicised Gildings to a vast audience as experts in whisky auctions. Following the publicity, Gildings received a number of enquiries from potential vendors interested in selling similar collections.