Based in New Orleans, Smoothie King, the premiere smoothie and lifestyle brand, had recently changed hands in ownership. With a new and expanded leadership team, the franchise brand was poised to grow from its 600 stores in a few short years. But Smoothie King had a few hurdles to get through first. A new store design, menu overhaul and partnerships with key brands like Chobani, Sunwarrior and Ghirardelli paved the way to a new and improved Smoothie King product offering to its guests.

Given the intense growth goals of Smoothie King, we needed an aggressive media relations approach that included both national media as well as local/regional. National media, most of which is based in New York City, was not familiar with the Smoothie King brand because of lack of presence. Desk-side visits were key in introducing the brand in addition to a partnership with a nationally known nutritionist coupled with traditional and non-traditional PR efforts.

In year one, placements secured total more than 500 million (and that’s without multipliers) spanning a wide variety of media outlets throughout the country on both a local and national basis. Key placements have included Essence Magazine, SHAPE magazine, Yahoo!, Livestrong and ABC Online.

Our relationship continues to grow with Smoothie King and so does the media coverage. In 2017, Smoothie King achieved its 900th store in the world and also launched its Cleaner Blending initiative. Snackbox has been responsible for hundreds of millions of audience numbers on a national and local scale within the 35 local markets we cover. We’ve employed a variety of tactics from creatively-named spokespeople to unique methods to secure press and the numbers keep growing. But it’s not just about numbers … we aren’t after quantity. Instead, these quality placements we aim to secure focus on Smoothie King key messages and aren’t considered “just a blurb”.