Ania Macadam, chief executive of London-based Pommade Divine, explains why the business should win the marketing and PR category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
When I was first introduced to Pommade Divine, a multi-purpose skin balm made from natural ingredients, I was told it had originally been made during the Victorian period and was a staple household remedy in Britain and the British empire. I decided one of my first tasks had to be finding out just how old Pommade Divine really was. I sent a brief to the history departments of the top 10 UK universities, and immediately received a reply from a PhD history student from the University of Cambridge, who has a passion for beauty.
Several weeks later, a report landed in my email inbox tracing Pommade Divine’s history back to the Viking era, but revealing that our formula had in fact first been developed by Queen Victoria’s chemist.
Marie-Antoinette’s great-grandmother had also been a big fan, praising Pommade Divine in many of her letters to family in Germany. Using the wonderful images of old bottles and quotes from 18th century newspapers and letters, we pulled together a timeline for our website, and a presentation for our press event for the relaunch of Britain’s first skincare brand.
The journalists were amazed, and since the start of 2015, the website has received more than 2.1 million impressions thanks to hundreds of pieces of PR, blogs and social media postings. In fact, one piece of PR was so huge that our website crashed, and we sold out of products everywhere overnight. Since then, Pommade Divine has had interest from several UK national retailers and we are launching in the US next month.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
