PR, Celebrities, and the Inside Track for eCommerce Growth With Andrew Gerrie

Andrew Gerrie is the Founder of Mend, an independent public relations and communications agency for outdoor and active lifestyle brands. With nearly a decade of experience in PR and communications, he has built media strategies for brands, including Tecovas, Sims, Filson, and Costa Del Mar, helping them craft and amplify their unique brand stories. Before founding Mend, Andrew held several roles at Backbone Media, including Senior PR Account Manager and PR Account Coordinator.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:18] The problem with modern PR strategies — and how to improve them
[4:11] How the PR industry has evolved with social media and journalism
[12:59] PR tactics for scaling an e-commerce brand
[15:37] Andrew Gerrie shares how e-commerce brands can appear in holiday gift guides
[20:10] Celebrity examples showcasing products as the secret to effective PR
[24:57] Leveraging regional press for retail expansion
[32:56] The origin story of Mend and its mission
[35:03] Andrew’s collaboration with a musician
[39:57] How to measure results from PR efforts
[43:24] What was the turning point in Andrew’s career?

In this episode…

Modern PR methods have become inauthentic, making it challenging to maintain genuine brand narratives. As the influencer culture evolves and the digital landscape becomes oversaturated with sponsored content and poor storytelling, how can brands cut through the noise to tell their authentic stories?

According to media strategist Andrew Gerrie, building relationships with writers and journalists is the first step to improving storytelling quality. This may involve offering these media professionals free products as gifts, allowing them to understand your mission and product initiatives to craft authentic messages. When expanding locations or launching new products, you can partner with local media outlets to generate a regional community presence and stand out in the market. If you want to reach a broader audience, consider integrating current trends into your PR campaigns, ensuring they align with your brand voice and story.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris sits down with Andrew Gerrie, the Founder of Mend, to discuss PR strategies for e-commerce brands. Andrew shares why products are the secret to effective PR campaigns, how to measure results from your efforts, and how to appear in popular holiday gift guides.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

"My mind goes to lack of authenticity, which I would argue is the most important thing in PR and for brands."
"I think that consumers aren't really buying the headline story. Why? Igloo makes the best cooler. Sponsored by Igloo."
"Genuinely speaking your message, developing honest relationships with journalists and writers, and being transparent... would move the needle."
"Your product is your gold. I've seen brands that have been generous with their products... grow their brand."
"Developing a relationship with those journalists... they'll open up your holiday lookbook with the key products that you're trying to push."

Action Steps

Embrace authentic storytelling: Focus on sharing genuine brand stories and maintaining authenticity in your PR efforts. Authentic storytelling helps build trust and credibility with consumers, addressing skepticism toward paid and sponsored content.
Develop strong media relationships: Cultivate honest and transparent relationships with journalists and writers to secure earned media opportunities. This approach ensures that your brand is featured in a meaningful way, leveraging the integrity and reach of respected media professionals.
Leverage product gifting: Use your product as a key asset by generously gifting it to journalists, influencers, and other potential advocates. This strategy can create organic buzz and coverage to stand out in a crowded market.
Capitalize on timely trends: Align your PR campaigns with current trends and events to make your brand relevant and newsworthy. This tactic allows you to seize opportunities in the media landscape and connect with broader audiences interested in timely topics.
Utilize regional press opportunities: To generate localized buzz, engage with regional media outlets, especially when launching new products or opening new locations. This action helps build a strong community presence and can be a more accessible starting point for brands aiming to expand their PR reach.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:15

Hey everyone, I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 100 million and beyond as you up arrow your business and your personal life, joining me today is Andrew Gerrie. Andrew is the founder of Mend, a PR and earned media agency specializing in the active lifestyle, hunt, fish and outdoor industries. With a nearly a decade of experience, Andrew has successfully built Media Strategies for iconic brands like Tecovas, Tom Beckbe, Sims, Filson and Costa Del Mar, helping craft and amplify their unique brand stories. His expertise in securing top tier coverage for his clients across platforms like Men's Journal, Wall Street Journal and Esquire, sets him apart as a leader in the PR world. I am very excited to have you here, Andrew, thanks for joining.

Andrew Gerrie 1:02

Thanks for having me.

William Harris 1:04

Yeah, I got to give a shout out as well to Robert Gilbreath, the former CMO of ShipStation, friend of mine, previous guests on the Up Arrow Podcast as well. Episode number four. Check that out if you haven't already, but he's the one who put us in touch. And so Robert, thank you very much.

Andrew Gerrie 1:17

Robert's a great guy. He gave me my first internship at ShipStation, one that I did not deserve. But I wrote before, and I learned a lot from him for my few years of working under Robert in the marketing department.

William Harris 1:34

That's very cool. Ah, maybe we'll open that up here later in the in the episode, um, I want to get into the good stuff. We're gonna be talking about PR celebrities and the inside track for e-commerce growth. Before we do I want to announce our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that i pod recently. You can learn more on our website@Elumynt.com, which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, N, t.com, again, we're going to be talking about PR celebrities and the inside track for e-commerce growth with Andrew Gerrie, Andrew, I want to start with just what's wrong With PR.

Andrew Gerrie 2:18

That's a tough one. My mind goes to lack of authenticity, which I would argue is the most important thing in PR and for brands, and not genuinely telling your brand story and getting the word out on who you are. I think it kind of maybe is turning to, yeah, poor storytelling, and then relying on paid influencers and advertising. And it just has kind of shifted from, like, true earned media, PR storytelling, yeah.

William Harris 2:56

I feel like the early days of influencer, it felt almost as if that was a person who had used the product, love the product, and they were just now sharing about how much they enjoyed the product versus, you know, they're hocking something every day. You told me before that people are tired of sponsored content in what way? How are you seeing this?

Andrew Gerrie 3:15

I think it's, it's absolutely needed. It's a lever that you have to pull, but you need paid search, you need PR and earned media. You need all these different Lavers. I think that consumers aren't really buying the headline story. Why igloo makes the best cooler sponsored by igloo Sure, seeing something that's like, clearly paid and sponsored every other scroll on Instagram, again, you need to pull the lever, but it just it feels like it overwhelms the feed and the news stations. How do we

William Harris 3:58

let's, let's talk about, like, with the rise of, let's just say social media and journalism, citizen journalism, let's say specifically, how has the role of traditional PR evolved?

Andrew Gerrie 4:11

I think it's finding kind of to your point earlier of folks that really enjoy your products and brand and want to speak about it, because they're like, I get it, I love it, and I can talk about it honestly. I went on a press trip recently with an influencer that does go on paid trips, but she was like, I've been a fan of this brand for a really long time, and I want to come be a part of this, you know, essentially, essentially for free, and speak volumes to it, just because I love it. And I think the the more platforms that you could use, versus when it was just pitching newspapers, YouTubers, different content creators. You can reach all these folks in an earned way that will move the needle.

William Harris 5:03

Yeah, and we see this a lot, like, AG, one has done a great job with podcast influencers, if you would, right where it's like, I feel like they sponsor almost every really good, big podcast in the health space. And so there's a lot of people that are out there, you know, saying really great things, and you could take that sponsored message, and oftentimes, if you've negotiated the right fees and things like that with them, you can turn those into ADS down so you've got this really great dynamic ad that's being amplified even beyond whatever that podcast was. That's just one example. We've obviously talked about a couple of ways in which PR is maybe broken, or at least traditional PR and the way that things have been done. How do we fix it? What are some of the ways that we we can go about improving er now

Andrew Gerrie 5:48

think just genuinely speaking your message, developing honest relationships with journalists and writers and being transparent, I think are a couple different things that would move the needle. I was thinking about how Yeti has done a great job, like they'll do press trips, where they bring ambassadors, and they've really solid Ambassador list, and their PR folks and some of their paid folks and their creative team, and either have some sort of event where they can accomplish a lot of different things at once across all of their channels and then generate a little bit of buzz. Sure? How?

William Harris 6:32

How do you, how do you stay authentic when something is still sponsored?

Andrew Gerrie 6:41

That's a good question. I think, for instance, if you're going to run a paid story in a Men's Journal, you can work with a journalist that's writing it and make sure that it is on brand and on message through and through. I don't know if that's a great answer, but that's something that I've worked with brands in the past where, like, it is a paid, sponsored piece, but I worked with this journalist before we can insert these key messages from our brand or the product initiative and still get across what we're trying to say.

William Harris 7:11

Yeah, when you and I were talking earlier about this, I know you had mentioned that there are still some journalists that have really good integrity and they want to know that the product actually lives up to the height that is in there, and so they're putting it through their own version of tests and making sure that it is good before they go about this, which I really

Andrew Gerrie 7:29

appreciate, journalists are curious creatures, and yes, there's still a ton of honesty and integrity in the media field, and I see that day to day, some journalists that I've worked with over the past decade are some of my close friends, yeah, for sure. And to your point, I've set products too that I've been excited about, and they'd be like, you know, it didn't stand up or yeah, this wasn't the right fit. And fortunately, they weren't gonna slander it online, but they gave me honest feedback, like, Hey, I'm not going to genuinely give this a third party endorsement, which is what all we're you know, whatever your brand is looking for, because it didn't live up to the height. And then I can report that feedback to the brand and find

William Harris 8:13

ways to other. Are there examples that you could think of where somebody went ahead and published a third party review of something like this that was not necessarily the most positive, but the brand was able to use it to their benefits. Still, I'm

Andrew Gerrie 8:32

gonna have to get back to you on that. Nothing sure rings

William Harris 8:35

that's, that's out there my field, no, I mean, that'd

Andrew Gerrie 8:37

be, I wish I had a good answer. I've had journalists, I've working with them on a story, and then I see it get published, and it's has really not much to do with what we were talking about, just the angle that they took it. Sure I maybe this is an example, but there is a journalist I worked with at the manual, great guy. He wrote up something about one of my brands recently and compared it to, like, a James Bond style thing, which we never talked about. And I didn't necessarily, like initially see that comparison, but he did, and it was great, sure. I think that's

William Harris 9:14

the thing that's interesting about okay, let's say talking about staying authentic when you're talking about bigger pieces like this versus influencers as well. One of the things that we found to be the most helpful is to allow the influencer to speak their language, to use their phrases, to don't give put as little constraint as possible on there. There might be like this, one overarching thing that you're trying to get accomplished, but allowing them to say things in their language allows them to be more authentic. It feels more genuine to their listeners or readers, and we found that it's unlocked things that we didn't know about, maybe a particular product or brand. There was a I'm not a beauty expert, I'm not necessarily on this account, but. There was an account that we had that there was some type of a beauty device that I think, like, helps get rid of blackheads and stuff like that. You kind of like, I don't know, you kind of like, do this with it. Not the guy to know. But I will say that one of the things that was interesting is an influencer called it a face spatula. I don't remember what it was actually called. We had never called it that. Nobody at this company had ever called it that. And this was like, that. And this was like a $50 million company. This wasn't a small company. They were doing well. They never used the word face spatula. And we go, Huh, that's interesting. We start using that to see, well, what do people think about using that as a face special? Because it did well from an influencer perspective. Start running it in search ads. We start running it on social ads, and we're like people like calling in a face special, there you go. You wouldn't have known that sometimes. So if you put too much restrictions on whoever the influencer is, or whatever the PR contact is, trying to reach out

Andrew Gerrie 10:51

to in one to bring up one of your previous questions on, like, how things have evolved, like, and how to make maybe the job easier for a journalist on speaking to your brand's authenticity, this concept is nothing new, but I feel like has evolved a little bit, or maybe I'm just using it more often, and I've seen other professionals in the field use it, or press trips where it's not five to 10 journalists all coming to one thing, It might be just one or two or more, like one on one experiences, if you will. Because I think it's hard if a brand is launching a new product or initiative and there's 10 to 15 journalists there, it's hard to find angles for all 15 to 20 of them, right? And it kind of gives more creative direction for a journalist, if it's a more intimate or, yeah, just more of a one on one experience.

William Harris 11:47

I like that. What am I like? Go ahead.

Andrew Gerrie 11:50

Oh, I was just gonna say I did a press trip once with a journalist and his son, who's a fly fishing guide in Montana, and the three of us went to the back country and tested products and took photos and had this, like, amazing experience. And I like to say that I crashed like a father son trip, and turned it like a press trip, if you will. But it was meaningful,

William Harris 12:15

it was a lot of fun, and it probably, like you said, was more authentic as a result of that was, yeah, what about let's go into some of the tactics. What are some of the tactics that we have at our disposal from let's say you're a an e-commerce brand, you're you're at 20 million you're trying to cross into the 50 million, 100 million dollar range. What are some of the best tactics that they should be studied looking because I, I will say, we work with a lot of brands that are right in that spot, and the amount of that they spend on PR intentionally is $0 like they're they're not doing a lot at all. They're running a lot on ads. They're maybe doing SEO. They're not doing PR. What are the things we got to get them started on so they can really start to get the taste and understanding of this, and then where do we expand and grow from

Andrew Gerrie 12:59

there? Yes, a couple points on that. A I would say your product is your gold. I've seen brands that have been generous with their products, sending to content creators, journalists taking part in other brands, press trips, where their products might be like utilized in another way to get in front of more eyes, like brands that I've seen be like, Hey, we're going to dedicate, you know, this dollar amount to gifting the products that we think you know are our best, and these people would really appreciate it. Could grow our brand that that's probably number one. I also think that every brand needs, to some extent, a PR person, an earned media guy or gal that is on the ground, hungry and hustling to spread the word about your brand and products. I think basic steps is like you're writing press releases. You're pitching products where appropriate. You're looking at long lead opportunities. You're trying to pitch business CEO stories. You're trying to get your executive team on podcasts, like how I built this, or just everyday hustling to find earned opportunities to insert yourself racking up as many Holiday Gift Guide placements as you can, so that when someone Googles what to buy my girlfriend for Christmas this year, the North Face puffy shows up in Forbes. Right? Yep, those are some of the blocking and tackling aspects of it that I think are really important to for a brand, and I don't think you need that much to to push things forward and to start getting momentum.

William Harris 14:49

I think it's interesting you bring up, like holiday gift guides, for instance, you're not going to get on the list without reaching out to somebody the likelihood of your. Product ending up on that list is very, very, very low, because they're going to naturally gravitate towards the monstrosity companies already, and unless maybe you've got something that already went mega viral on Tiktok or something like that, you're just not going to end up there unless you reach out to somebody. If you reach out to somebody, you still might not end up on the list, but you at least have a chance, because the reality is, they don't know who you are. What are tricks? Let's say, if you are a smaller brand, 25 $50 million and you haven't, maybe reached that that status yet of being able to get onto the holiday gift guides,

Andrew Gerrie 15:37

I think the number one, my number one piece of advice would be developing relationships with those journalists. It's tough, but in treating them like they're your friends and they like I said before, like they certainly can be, it's a lot easier to get your product included, regardless of the size of your brand, if you've worked with that journalist before, at least in some capacity, like they'll open up your holiday lookbook with the key products that you're trying to push and be like, Oh, I've worked with Andrew before, and I've haven't really heard of this brand before, but I trust him, this looks cool. I'm gonna test it out and try to throw it in there for him. I think that that certainly won't happen ill.

William Harris 16:22

And I think that's key to your point where you could do this as a brand on your own, but if you have no relationship with these journalists, then you have to have some other way of making it very exciting for them, versus, you know, it's like, hey, will just reached out to me. I've never met Will before. He says, I gotta check this out. I've got 800 other messages that say I gotta check out their products. I'm passing up on will, unfortunately, but Andrew reached out to me. I know Andrew. We go way back. We've done a lot of other things together. Andrew sent me a lot of really good, interesting things. I'm at least gonna open the email. I'm at least gonna read through this email. I'm at least gonna consider it. And so that's, that's the the first piece into making sure that you actually get into this gift guide,

Andrew Gerrie 17:01

yeah, and other just small blocking and tackling details that can also really help is a catchy subject line and personalization. Like, if the journals is going to open up your email, there needs to be, Hey, I've been following your YouTube channel for a while. I really like what you wrote about this something honest and complimentary, and whatever you're pitching is applicable to them.

William Harris 17:30

Have you ever tried the like, antithetical subject line where it's like, do not include this product in your holiday gift guide? Like the opposite, right?

Andrew Gerrie 17:39

I think I told you, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I think I told you my most opened email a couple years ago. What was it? I worked with a non profit called the bone fish and Tarpon Trust, yes, and they were finding pharmaceutical contaminants in bone fish in southern Florida, and they came to us with this research project that was like, Hey, this is, like, pretty devastating research that's proven that, like, essentially, folks are flushing their drugs down the toilet and it's entering the waterways. And if bone fish are found with pharmaceutical contaminants. I bet that there's other fish out there that we're eating that potentially have the same so anyways, it was a bipartisan issue. It was really cool. They were like, We need to help spreading the news. So my headline, my subject line, was like, bone fish on crack. Question mark, and it exploded. It was cool because, like, Fox News was talking about it, CNN was talking about it, Axios, and it kind of blew up, which was really cool and generated a lot of momentum for that nonprofit and the study that they were working on. And for me, it was just kind

William Harris 18:55

of a blast to work on. Yeah, and I'm willing to bet that the brand itself, the nonprofit. They're not going to think of that. They're not going to they're not going to think of a subject line that says, you know, bone fish on crack. Or maybe they could. It's just unlikely that they have somebody on their team that's thinking about what's going to really catch the attention of these PR contacts.

Andrew Gerrie 19:16

So back to the catchy subject line. I feel like that one work, yep.

William Harris 19:22

You also mentioned product is gold, and I love that one, because this is a hint at an upcoming podcast that I haven't recorded yet, but I had a meeting yesterday with somebody, and I won't say his name for right now, but I'll give some hints. He was the founder of Sweet Leaf Tea, founder of Waterloo. So he's got a couple of really great beverages, CPG stuff, but he's got a really good take on product being gold that I really appreciate, that you just said here. And one of the things that he mentioned is you have to get your product in as many people's hands as you possibly can. Like that is the thing. If. They don't try it. They're, you know, you got to get them to try it. So when you talk about product is gold, from a PR standpoint, what are you doing with that? A

Andrew Gerrie 20:10

lot of different things. One example that comes to mind that I didn't work on, but a former colleague of mine did. Are you familiar with honey stinger? They're like gluten free, nutrient rich waffles, and a lot of ultra runners use them, and she sent she had some relationship with an NBA team. I'm already butchering this, and I think it was Dwight Howard, but they, like the whole team, was eating them on the bench during an NBA game, and it became a little bit of like a phenomenon for like, a weekend. And sure, the front page of like, I think it was the Wall Street Journal had, like, Dwight Howard eating a honey Stinger waffle. And back to the product is gold thing. Like, I doubt she knew that. There's no way that she knew that that was going to happen, but she established some sort of relationship with that team or convince somebody that, like, Hey, your players should try this, and whatever that box of gluten free waffles cost was certainly worth the buzz that they got, and that's something that you simply can't pay for

William Harris 21:14

right now. That reminds me of a company that I worked with that sold coats, and I won't say their name, yeah, people could probably find it out. But just because I'm sharing maybe some information here, um, $2,500 coats like these are not the cheapest coats that you can buy online. Very nice coats, and they had an entire person dedicated to celebrity seating. And so it's one thing, you know, getting it in the hands of every person that you possibly can. There's another thing with getting it in the hands of a few very select people, and that's hard to do, but they had somebody to your point, let's say having the right relationships is key there, and so getting in front of some people. But anyways, these coats were worn by Meg Markle. They were worn by JLo. They were worn by a lot of other really good celebrities. And whenever that would happen, they wouldn't have as a brand to do anything about it. Tabloids, anybody else would take pictures and say, like, Hey, here's the coat that she's wearing, by the way, or whatever that is, and sales would just absolutely go through the roof. But I will say that of all the celebrities, the one that had the biggest impact by far, by far was Meghan Markle. I mean, we're talking like 1020, 100x I don't remember how much, way more than any other celebrity that was there every single time. And they call it the Meghan Markle effect. Apparently, this is not just with them. This is like a thing online. I will say that my number one tweet that exists online, that I've ever done was talking about Meghan Markle, and it's just there is a raving fan community there that will just go after anything that she is involved in.

Andrew Gerrie 22:49

Yeah, that's awesome. I would almost say the same thing about Yellowstone. Sure, if your products were to be lucky enough to show up on their cast and crew, kind of this whole western lifestyle movement that has lasted multiple years, which I'm grateful for, because I'm from Texas and I live in western Colorado. I'm wearing cowboy boots every day. But I think that's probably not to the Meghan Markle effect, probably something similar, the amount of like how to dress like the Duttons. You know, this fall is a pretty common headline. So do

William Harris 23:27

you have any tips for celebrity seating that you can think of where, you know, again, smaller brand, they want to get out there, they want to do some celebrity seeing, and they don't have the first idea of how to go

Andrew Gerrie 23:40

about it. That one's tough, and I'm certainly super far from being an expert to talk about this. If there's a celebrity, PR guy or gal listening to this, they'll probably roll their eyes at my response, but I would say developing a relationship with their stylist,

William Harris 24:01

somebody close to them, sure, yeah

Andrew Gerrie 24:03

or Yeah. There's a lot of costume and stylist designers out there that are calling in trunks for different features, shoots, videos, and sometimes that can be pretty pricey, gifting from your brand, like they'll call in different color sizes. And I've seen it work and I've seen it not work, but I would say be to be able to even get there, you need to be in touch with whoever is styling these celebrities.

William Harris 24:36

So we've hit on a few topics, tactics, I should say, what are the ones that we're missing? We've talked about holiday to gift guides, celebrity seating, YouTubers and podcasts. What else am I missing that really should be in like, a part of the tool belt of anybody that's really starting to round out their PR game?

Andrew Gerrie 24:57

Yeah. Can we talk about regional. Press and sure, opening new retail locations like I worked with the DC brand tokovas For a long time, and they were aggressively opening up retail stores across the country. And we had a plan in place for each one. So if it was Birmingham, beforehand, we planned an event like a store opening or a ribbon cutting, and then we did, like, either gift cards or some sort of promo where, like a band would show up, and there'd be cocktails, and you could invite either the general public and or the regional press, broadcast crews, influencers all to this event, and like while the Birmingham Business Journal might have a smaller reach, I still think it's super important, regardless of your size, that the regional press are continuing to talk to you. And it just can't hurt if broadcast stations are showing up to your retail locations, or if somebody locally, if you know, visit Birmingham, wants to come by and do a whole Instagram reel on your new storefront, or quickly talk to your retail executive, there's just, there's a lot of different nitty gritty things that you can do, and I think that they all add up, and I think it's important for brands to be doing them.

William Harris 26:25

I love the idea of regional because there's a lot that you can do there without having to do something that's that newsworthy, or rather, it is newsworthy at the regional level, right? And an example that I would give there is it's like, Hey, if you're you just did this one little, small thing, and like you now you're the fastest growing in your city. It's like, well, that's newsworthy regionally. It's not newsworthy nationally, but it is newsworthy to your regional paper that you're the fastest growing business in your in your city. And so there are things you could do now that you you can at least start opening up that PR and develop those chops, but let's talk about getting that national press then. So you can't just do the same basic, tired things. You have to do something that is newsworthy. There's a I've always heard of the Seven Pillars of newsworthiness. Some of the ones that I had to google it real quick. So I'm like, I don't have these memorized p is not my thing. But you know, it's like proximity, timeliness, oddity, conflict, human interest, relevance, prominence, novelty, celebrity. There's a lot of ways in which you can, you can make sure that you have a story that is newsworthy. When brands come to you, how do you evaluate or what kind of ideas you're coming up with, to be able to help them come up with something that is newsworthy. Is it something that's already that they've already done. Or you oftentimes look at this saying, we need to craft something now that's newsworthy. You, existing is not enough.

Andrew Gerrie 27:49

It's a little bit of everything. I think a lot of times, sometimes brands will come to me with, like, we're coming out with this thing. It's going to be super cool. Here's, like, the initiatives that we're working on, and then they'll mention a few different things that they've already done that they kind of just mow over. I'm like, Wait, can we go back to that first thing? Like, I didn't know that you were doing that, that you had done that before, or that, yeah, that you were working on that initiative. Like, I think sometimes ideas spur for brands that have already done something that they don't think is newsworthy, when the thing that they're trying to push might not be that applicable. I also think that jumping on the current trends is an obvious answer, but if you're pretty in loop with the different styles and trends and what people are talking about, you can use your brand or products and like, enter yourself into that conversation, similar to the Yellowstone western lifestyle. Like, if we're talking about all these different, you know, wearing cowboy boots at the bar, like, we need to be pushing your pearl snaps and boots. Like, this is something going on right now. We need to capitalize on it immediately.

William Harris 29:06

Yeah, that'd be like, the timeliness, right? It's like, this is something that's happening right now. During COVID, we had a brand that was, they sell Christmas ornaments, like glassblown Christmas ornaments, and they came out with a couple of really interesting ones during that time, which was like, bottle of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, it was like these things that were very relevant at that time. Now, a toilet paper ornament, you know, in 2024 doesn't really hit the same way. Nobody's like, oh, that that, you know, signifies my life here in 2024 but it did during COVID. And so I think that to your point like there's an element of timeliness that that can really impact that

Andrew Gerrie 29:46

during COVID. I was working with a brand out of Bozeman called Sims. And they make cortex fishing waiters. They're pretty renowned in the outdoor fishing space, but they. They make all of their gore tex waders in house. And during COVID, the guy that I worked with over there was like, Hey, by the way, we're complete. Like, we've stopped making waders for the next month. This was peak COVID, and we got our designers to make hospital gowns for the surgeons and staff at the Bozeman hospital made with their Gore Tex and we're donating all of them. And I was like, that's amazing. And he didn't ask me to help spread the word. I was like, I'm gonna at least pitch this story to the regional press, because this is cool we got I think Fox ended up covering it. It went much broader than regional but to the example of, like, somebody bringing up something that they're doing that wasn't necessarily like, Hey, we're doing this because we want press FY doing this. It was like, Well, this is back to the timeliness thing. Like, we should definitely get the word out that this is happening.

William Harris 30:55

There are things that are done intentionally for press, though, right? Something that's done that's that's fun in hilarious, and it was just to drive the press. Do you have any good stories of anything that you did along those lines?

Andrew Gerrie 31:10

I don't, at least nothing comes to mind. But can we talk about the liquid death? AD,

William Harris 31:14

yes, you and I talked about this before you sent this over. Please.

Andrew Gerrie 31:20

Everything that they put out, I think is gold. Yes, I was not familiar with the brand. Maybe I'm too old my little brother, who's like, fresh out of college, I saw cases of this liquid death in his truck one day, and I was like, What is this? Like a new beer? And then from there, I've just seen it escalate. And so they ran a they put an eBay auction up saying that highest bidder gets 500,000 cases with the logo design of your choice on the side. I think Coinbase ended up being the highest bidder for like, half a million, half a million dollars. But brilliant. Like, who I even, I know eBay still exists, but what brands like that are thinking, like, you know what? We should take this to eBay. That's right. Like, good for their boardroom when they heard that idea that they're like, Wait, this is awesome. And yeah, they took over the headlines and social feeds for the day. In my opinion, at least it was all over my feeds.

William Harris 32:29

Well, like you said, the the return from that was far beyond the $500,000 that they got from that because they got so much press from that. Now that's a brilliant move. You're speaking from an experience here. Obviously, you've done this for a number of years, and you've you've launched your own PR agency called Mend. Tell me a little bit about Mend.

Andrew Gerrie 32:56

So I grew up a passionate angler. I love to fly fish, which is part of the reason why I love living in Colorado. But when you are when you cast your fly, the fly like you're casting your fly upstream, you have to Mend the line. You make subtle adjustments so that the fly naturally floats down the stream like it would, you know, a normal flywood, a caddis or grasshopper, or a green Drake. And if it looks funny, if you don't Mend it correctly, if you don't Mend it at all, it's it's not going to work. The trout won't be fooled by it, and it'll just kind of go along downstream. So it's cheesy, but my elevator pitch is, I see a lot of brands out there putting their product in the wrong places, or not putting it out there at all, and you want to position your brand and what you're about and your products at the right place, and Mend your line, if you will, so that it it doesn't just go downstream unnoticed.

William Harris 34:00

What's the goal? Who are you trying to serve with this?

Andrew Gerrie 34:05

I'm trying to trying to serve brands in the outdoor active lifestyle, men's interests, lifestyle and hunt and fish. So brand like consumer goods, brands that kind of, back to my point earlier, are looking for an agency that that can help them move the needle, that understands the current landscape that has deep media rolodexes and relationships, that is successfully run product launches and collaborations with celebrities or country musicians, and can kind of really own that earned and PR strategy and that can convey your message, and that's fun to work with. So hoping to be that guy.

William Harris 34:54

Yeah, you threw out that country musician one then. So I've got to jump on that. I. Uh, Thomas, what did you end up doing with him?

Andrew Gerrie 35:03

So Thomas Frette, awesome guy, a obviously a very talented musician. He I especially noticed it during COVID, when he would do a lot of, like, Instagram reels where he'd play a song in his studio, just, uh, unplugged and would post it. He always wears brands that he's like, genuinely stoked about, and goes out and buys because he seizes on his feet or his buddies are wearing one of those was with Tacomas. I can't take credit for him. I didn't put the pieces together like integrate the two, but eventually they established a relationship. And so I worked with his PR team on a launch plan. He came out with, I think, six different boots. They're all named after his family members, which is not which is cool, like his brother in law, his daughter, his wife, and we put together a plan to distribute a press release, I lined up some exclusives with him, with journalists at people and Esquire, and got a few folks on the hook that wanted to interview him and talk about this under embargo, and then once the launch day happened, they could post their stories and interviews so that we gained some traction there. There's a lot of fun. It's he designed the whole collection of boots, and it all stemmed from kind of that authenticity and like someone genuinely appreciating your products and wants to to speak to them. Yeah, can't say that. He was like, oh, I need to put this cowboy boot deal together so that I can make a bunch of money. That's not what he was doing at all, and that's why I think it turned out pretty meaningful.

William Harris 36:49

I think collaborations can be very impactful to everybody that's involved. Did an entire episode on brand collaborations earlier here, if anybody wants to check that out with Andy, who's over at Winnebago. Now, one of the things that I think that I really appreciate about collaborations is that it can be done very well, even with significantly disparate entities. So agree, massive shoe brand can work with, like, small mom and pop milk brand or whatever, right? Like, like, there are some ways in which you can blend things together very well. There are also some ways in which you can really screw up a collaboration. Can you think of any examples of a collaboration, brand collab, in celebrity collab, where it's like this, just it didn't hit. Maybe it did okay, but it just it wasn't well, man,

Andrew Gerrie 37:47

that's a good question. Do you remember the iPhone six bend gate? Yeah,

William Harris 37:54

I forgot, but I do remember that

Andrew Gerrie 37:57

that I don't know why that just came to mind, but, and that wasn't really a collapse, so that it's probably not a great example, but I just remember seeing that online a bunch, and that was like when the iPhone was, I mean, I guess it was six, so it was relatively, yeah, one

William Harris 38:20

that comes to mind for me, while you was Arby's and Warby Parker, like, they did a collaboration. And like, like, yeah, and it's like, almost because their names just were so similar, or something like, there was no other good reason for it. And I remember it did not, it did not perform very well, I think over across the board,

Andrew Gerrie 38:43

yeah, let me think on that. I should have a good answer for you, but I don't. I don't know why bend gate was what came to mind, but I know Kindle Jenner and Pepsi had that commercial that was ended up being controversial. That had to be no fun to be the part PR person for either party there. But I like your Warby Parker Arby's collaboration. It's

William Harris 39:08

kind of funny. Yeah, yeah. I think you have to, you have to be careful. Let's just go back to authentic. I think that's the theme that you had talked about earlier, right where it's like, it's got to be authentic. There's got to be something more here than just like Arby, Warby close. Let's do it like there's gotta be. There's gotta be a better reason. Um, what else I'm missing? Let's say that you're talking to a brand who, again, is in that 1020, 30, $40 million range, and they want to be over 100 million. They're they're starting to realize that there are some scaling inefficiencies. From an ad perspective, an SEO perspective, they're looking to PR to help come in and drive things for them. What else am I missing that we need to talk about? You know, analytics tools, whatever.

Andrew Gerrie 39:57

Yeah, I think if. Look at all of your marketing partners. If you can find a team that can really well, they can just do a solid job integrating with the rest of your partners, right? Like your PR guy or gal needs to be dialed with the affiliate team, the paid team needs to keep the PR folks in the loop with where they're spending, with who they're spending, so that you can leverage some of your titles and context wherever they're spending a bunch of money. I think having a super well integrated team that really understands your brand and wants to March to Success together and can just leverage the expertise of one another. It sounds simple, but I've worked with a lot of different brands where they bring on like one brand in particular had an influencer agency that just was so unfamiliar with their space, and it wasn't that agency's fault. I was just like, how do you all not see how they might not be the best fit? I'm sure they're super great at their lane. But as far as your brand and what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to do your job when you don't know the space really well. You're not integrated at it.

William Harris 41:22

That's fair. I feel like that's one area where advertising, for the most part, differentiates between PR. And I explain this to people all the time when they're like, Well, how many people do you have in XYZ vertical? It's like, I don't know. Let's just make up a thing. Like, it's like, sprinkles. We sell sprinkles, and it's like, oh, how many other sprinkle companies you have? We have zero sprinkle companies. But here's why that doesn't really matter in advertising, sure, because the tactics are mostly the same. I don't need to have the contacts and the relationships with sprinkle, company, PR, people, but to your point, knowing your lane, your vertical, your niche like makes a big difference, because the contacts you have that you can only develop so many relationships with people, and so you you are constantly making sure that, you know, what is that like? The forefront of your specific, you know, Lane, like you said,

Andrew Gerrie 42:07

Sure. Are you familiar with till monk cheese?

William Harris 42:10

Oh, yeah. Absolutely love their they make good cheese.

Andrew Gerrie 42:13

They make more than just cheese. But I think they're known for their cheese. Though they are known for the cheese, I think their marketing is gold. Everything, every campaign that they launch, everything on social, they did, like, the cheddar wheels of summer this past July, and like, the whole push on social behind it, I was like, This is amazing. There's marketing wizardry going on back there. I don't know where I was going with this, but oh yeah, if they had a paid team that didn't understand what that brand was about, like, sure you could see him spending in all the wrong places. That's

William Harris 42:54

fair. Yeah, there's always, there's always an element there. But I'd say to a point it's less relevant in the spec side, than it is in the PR world, you need somebody it sounds like in your world, who really knows the players in that specific area? I want to dig into a little bit about who is Andrew Gerrie then as well, because this is one of my favorite parts of the of the show. Tell me about your childhood and how that has helped shape you into who you are today.

Andrew Gerrie 43:24

Grew up in Austin, Texas, back when it wasn't the bachelorette capital of the world. Or sure is tech focused. But every time I see the skyline now, I kind of can't believe

William Harris 43:39

Still is a lot tech focused, right? But, oh

Andrew Gerrie 43:43

yeah, but I'm saying less so back then, sure it's now, yeah, yeah. Like South by South southwest was always a thing, but it wasn't like as big as now, yeah. So I grew up in Austin. I have three siblings. Are awesome, two wonderful parents who taught us to work hard and treated us really well. And my dad's a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch and his dad, my grandfather was in the biz for, like, 60 years long time, and that wasn't my path, but they were always they've encouraged all of us to chase what we're passionate about, which is a blessing, because that's not every child's experience, which is somehow how I ended up in PR. I think I just like to talk to people, and I like cool brands, and I like trying to tell their story. My brother works on the event marketing team at Yeti. My sister sells medical equipment for Boston Scientific and my youngest sister is in grad school and works at a private school in Austin. So we've all kind of done different things and are creative in our own ways, and grateful that my parents have supported us all through the process that. I went to UT and I helped start a T Shirt Company. My buddy's uncle owns a screen printing biz. So I would hustle and sell date party T shirts to the fraternities and sororities or just organizations on campus, selling in T shirts and running back and forth between the screen printing office, loading them in my truck and delivering them wherever. But that was when I first got the experience of what it's like to hustle, try to figure it out, do the accounting, the marketing, the sale, the all of it and the delivery. And I really valued that time so and that's

William Harris 45:45

when the turning point in your career happened as well, if I remember correctly, right, that's when they ended up over at ShipStation. Yes,

Andrew Gerrie 45:52

worked at ShipStation. I spent a quick stint in Hawaii in between starting my job, my prior agency, moving to Colorado. You asked me, when we first talked if I had any cool stories. I don't know if this qualifies as cool, but I feel like I should just bring it up. So I moved to Hawaii with like I had virtually no contact. So I was like, I just want to go out on my own and see what it's like.

William Harris 46:21

That's great. And

Andrew Gerrie 46:24

a friend of a friend found me an above garage apartment. The family's great, like, you know, it's right above Princeville in Kauai, 11. I was like, perfect. I'm in. So I showed up, moved in the first day. This gal knocks on my door, and she was missing an arm, and she was super sweet. And I was like, she looks so familiar. And her name was Bethany. It was Bethany Hamilton, I don't know if you're familiar. I got to know her family. I went to her wedding. Her brothers taught me how to surf. That's, I don't know why. I guess that was just, so bring that up because that was after ShipStation before I moved here. So that's kind of my growing up, if you will. Tied with cool story. I'm drawing a blank on the name of the movie.

William Harris 47:10

Do you remember what that was called? Soul

Andrew Gerrie 47:12

Surfer.

William Harris 47:13

Soul Surfer. That's It's a good movie. I know that all of my daughters have watched it and really loved it. It's just like, it's a very inspirational movie. That's

Andrew Gerrie 47:21

great family. Kauai is not a bad place to live either. Yeah?

William Harris 47:25

Well, Aloha, right? You know, Mahalo,

Andrew Gerrie 47:30

yeah. So now I live in Carbondale, Colorado. I've been here for eight plus years. At this point, I rarely run into somebody that's ever heard of it, but it's sure, far from Denver and down the road from Aspen, so on the western slope, very nice.

William Harris 47:47

What's a what's a quote that you live by?

Andrew Gerrie 47:49

Man, I don't have a great one. I Gosh, one of my colleagues, former colleagues, had a note on his desk that was like, always be pitching, whether that's yourself, your brand, your products. It's almost like a blocking and tackling always, always hustle. I've got a cheesy one that I think should have seen your yearbook quote, which is why I hesitated to answer this question. But should just,

William Harris 48:28

okay, that's, that's the answer I probably want then

Andrew Gerrie 48:32

I know. But I was like, This is embarrassing. Um, Jack Johnson.

William Harris 48:36

He's kind of love the musician. Okay, yes,

Andrew Gerrie 48:39

I think it's like, Don't let your dreams be dreams.

William Harris 48:44

Why are you cheesy? No, that's, I don't know.

Andrew Gerrie 48:49

There are a lot better quotes out there. That was my senior year, but quote and just felt like, yeah, don't like, quit wasting time. Go get it. Yeah,

William Harris 48:59

you could quote a whole bunch of things from Jack Johnson. And one of my favorite ones is always, you've got everything you need when everything you need is enough. And I don't know if he's original one to say it, but he's saying it at least, and it's like, oh, that's a good quote. Yeah,

Andrew Gerrie 49:12

the old I graduated from the University of Texas, and I'm a passionate football fan, although it's been tough over the past decade. One of their most legendary coaches who the stadium is named after, is a guy named Daryl royal, and he used to say, act like you've been there before, which I think is applicable to everybody. Don't get too cocky. Don't be too arrogant, even if it's your first time, you know, making it to the end zone, or whatever your project you're working on, like Be humble. And think he also said dance with who brung ya.

William Harris 49:48

That's good. I feel like we're gonna start getting into some real good sports quotes too. Here, what are some things that you are doing to improve your personal life? I talk. Talk about up arrowing your personal life. And up arrows mathematical notation for making numbers really, really big. And it's just definitely the idea it's like, bigger than exponentiation. Obviously there are things that you're doing in business to improve business on a very intentional basis. But what about personal life? Whether it's relationships, health, like, are there things that you're intentionally trying to improve.

Andrew Gerrie 50:23

Yes, I'm trying to spend as much time as I can outside every day, whether it's I try to go on a walk once a day with my wife and our dog, whether it's 30 minutes or an hour, it's challenging to do it every single every day. But like, and people might laugh, like, how can that dude not go on a walk for 30 minutes? But just challenge to do that every day. I've been golfing a bunch, which I feel like has been good for my overall mental health. I stink at golf, but for some reason, it's therapeutic. I like to get out on the river, put down my phone, I think if, which is a big challenge for me, because I always want to be connected. And I get that Apple is coming out with a way that you can communicate when you're camping and out of service. But I kind of hate that,

William Harris 51:11

yeah,

Andrew Gerrie 51:12

you know, like, there's something cool about going on a four day camping, yeah, float fish trip with, you know, a group of guys or whatever, and not who make we won't be able to text anybody for the next three or four days, and we'll take a garment in reach so that you know if something goes wrong, we can. But anyways, those those moments, for me, it's so much easier to just reflect and be more creative, less distraction, and then also building relationships with family, friends, like doing fun stuff. I think life is short. Seize the moment, is what my dad always says. So pay Diem, yeah, more quotes,

William Harris 52:00

more. Why? Why is getting outside so important to you? Like, what is it about it that you're like, This is something I have to do

Andrew Gerrie 52:12

something about being stuck inside is a little bit confining, which is why I brought up to you that I was dreading winter outside. It's you still, there's tons of opportunities to get outside in the winter, but when it's, you know, snowing and 20, the motivation to to go out there and, yeah, go ski, or whatever it is, is more challenging than when it's 75 and sunny. But yeah, something about the confinement of being outside, and then once you go and do it like skiing with all your friends, is really fun. I think my wife and I are going to pick up Nordic skiing this year. Could crash and burn, I have no idea, but just more opportunities for spend time together and be outside. I just can't hurt totally

William Harris 52:56

i We both obviously live in cold climates. I'm in Minnesota here as well. So winter is very cold and very long and not as much skiing. We do have some skiing. But aside from, let's say the obvious things, I always say the best way to enjoy winter is to actually just enjoy winter, right? Like you need to find some things that you enjoy doing during the winter, and whether this is skiing or snowboarding, this could be snowmobiling, but it's like, figure out what that is that you're like, I'm excited now to go outside. And one thing that we did, my wife and I as a date night, I think it was just last year that that was pretty cool. And I hadn't seen it before somebody else put this on. But you don't need to have it be through an event. Was moonlight snowshoeing. And what was so cool about this is, you know, because of the white of the snow all around you, the moon, it just, it lights up things so much that you really didn't need a flashlight or anything to kind of just go snow showing in the middle of the night. And it was just, it was just a really peaceful, calm, breathtaking moment. So something else exciting that people could do if they are not excited about all of the snow in winter? Yeah,

Andrew Gerrie 54:04

no, totally. We started cooking a bunch. Are you familiar with half baked harvest? If not, you should. You should check Teegan out. She's got a massive following.

William Harris 54:14

Okay,

Andrew Gerrie 54:15

all of her recipes are pretty good. It's fun to make good food. Yeah, my mom was always an amazing cook. My grandmother was amazing cook. It's, it's, that's something fun to do with friends and my wife and we can find healthy stuff to make, and it's another thing that we're cooking together outside of work.

William Harris 54:34

It's amazing. It's therapeutic. I enjoy cooking as well. It's one of my favorite things, actually, to do, and I try to do it as often as I can. What's, uh, what's a recipe that you've made recently that you're like this, this is good, and everybody should try this.

Andrew Gerrie 54:49

Yes, I have one that does not miss. It's a one pot skillet, creamy orzo chicken. It's got sun dried tomatoes in kind of the whole nine yards. It is a half baked harvest recipe. I'll text it to you after this, but we'll add, yeah, we'll do a deep dish mac and cheese for game days on Saturday, which is not healthy, but a ton of fun and super God, yep, we like steak and risotto. Yeah, that anything like anything in a cast iron. I'm a sucker for nice.

William Harris 55:28

Yeah, you gotta season it. Keep it seasoned. Don't, don't wash it with soap, right? Like this, a little bit of carrot. But once it, once you do it, right, it's good. It's fun. Andrew, it has been absolutely amazing getting to know you more, learning more about PR and what we can do to improve our brands. If people wanted to work with you, or they wanted to reach out follow you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Andrew Gerrie 55:53

Yeah, can I give you my Well, my website is Mendmedia.co, and then I can share my email address, and then we're on social, LinkedIn, Instagram, yeah, I

William Harris 56:06

think that's what's your handle there on what's the best handle? Think it's Mendmedia.co, okay, so,

Andrew Gerrie 56:13

yeah, I appreciate this is great connecting. Hopefully I didn't bore your listeners. Chat with anybody that just want to have a conversation about earned me or PR happy to make connections and chat.

William Harris 56:27

That's great. Well, again, I really appreciate you sharing your time, sharing your wisdom with us and everyone for tuning in. Appreciate you listening. Hope you had great rest today.

Outro 56:36

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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