Now in its third year, Rachel Harrison Communications (RHC) has rolled out a range of new service offerings catering to their clientele across the travel, hospitality, culinary, luxury lifestyle, and spirits industries. Helmed by Nick Papa, the agency’s new strategy team is using data to inform and unify the agency’s traditional and digital practices – the latter of which has expanded, too. RHC expanded its digital services by implementing SEO as a core focus area that helps merge the agency’s PR and social media efforts. Further, RHC made strategic personnel changes, appointing Christie Owen to VIP & Influencer Relations Specialist and shifting Cass Lovett and Sacha Bell to new roles as VP of media relations for travel and spirits. To keep the fast-growing business running smoothly, RHC also brought on Amber Appelbaum as Managing Director of Operations and Business Development, with the role of leading new biz efforts, developing clear scopes of work and ensuring that teams are set up for success.
Leadership team:
Rachel Harrison, Founder
Lauren Webster, Managing Partner – UK
Nick Papa, SVP – Strategy & Content
Amanda Watenberg, Managing Director – Spirits
Lucy Ballantyne, Managing Director – Lifestyle
Lauren Ryback Hurth, Managing Director – Travel
Sarah Hermalyn, Managing Director – Culinary
Amber Appelbaum, Managing Director – Operations & Business Development
Cass Lovett, VP – Media Relations
Sacha Bell, VP – Media Relations
Notable long-term clients:
Absolut Elyx; Apotheke Co; Black Tomato; Blackened American Whiskey; Breville; Cocktail Kingdom; Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve; Eastwind Hotels; elNico at The Penny; Everleaf; Fairmont Pacific Rim; Fandi Mata; Finnish Long Drink; Fonico Mexico City; Greydon House; Groupe Barroco; Gordon Ramsay’s Fish & Chips; Gruppo Montenegro; Hôtel Barrière Le Fouquet's; Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes; IIchiko Shochu; Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association; Le Jardinier; Makeready Hotels; Milady’s; Museum of Ice Cream; NoMad London; Outbound Hotels; Park Lane New York; Pernod Ricard; Principe; Rayo Mexico City; Select Aperitivo; Selvarey Rum; Slane Irish Whiskey; Spearhead Spirits; Spiegelworld; St. Theo’s; Superbueno; Tales of the Cocktail x Singapore Tourism Board; Teremana Tequila; The Pinnacle Guide; Three Dots and a Dash; Tourism Authority of Thailand; Turtle Bay Resort; Viceroy Bali; Wall Street Hotel
New client wins:
Breville; elNico at The Penny; Fandi Mata; Fonico Mexico City; Museum of Ice Cream; Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve; Groupe Barroco; Makready Hotels; Outbound Hotels; Pernod Ricard; Rayo Mexico City, Slane Irish Whiskey; Spearhead Spirits; Superbueno; Tales of the Cocktail x Singapore Tourism Board; The Pinnacle Guide; Three Dots and a Dash; Viceroy Bali
Explain how your agency is pushing the boundaries of PR and communications by integrating innovative strategies, tools, or technologies to enhance your offerings and benefit your clients.
“RHC has broken down the silos between its traditional PR and digital marketing teams. Instead of taking various approaches to client services, we have synthesized our earned, owned, and paid media efforts under the umbrella of creative communications. Even when clients engage RHC for traditional PR-only services, we’re incorporating SEO, content marketing (blogs, newsletters), influencer marketing (utilizing leading-edge analytics tools), and paid media recommendations (partnering with trusted media buying experts like Sojern) as important ways of increasing reach, generating awareness, engaging target audiences, and compelling them to take actions that fuel our clients’ bottom lines. As the media landscape continues to evolve, RHC has prioritized cultivating in-house digital strategists, content creators, and video editors to ensure we can enhance earned media with the myriad of owned and paid media opportunities available to our clients. While earned media will always be a core focus area at RHC, the elevation of owned media (blogs, newsletters, social) and paid media (Meta, Google) has made us one of the few agencies that are boutique in scale yet can genuinely offer the ability to own a client’s entire communications ecosystem – from pitching the media to creating content in the client’s tone/voice and amplifying that content among target audiences with advertising.”
