For bread & Butter, Proactive PR Is A Core Offering
The hospitality agency specializes in public relations, social, and more, with offices across the country
Perfect For: Hotel and hospitality operators seeking a one stop comms shop
In the hospitality PR landscape, bread & Butter sets itself apart as an all-in-one communications collective for hotel and lifestyle operators. A multidisciplinary house founded in 2007 by CEO Rachel Mays Ayotte, the agency’s array of services range from public relations to digital and influencer marketing to brand partnerships and content creation and more. Across its offerings, its specialists prioritize recognizing and staying ahead of their client’s needs, as Chief Digital Officer Samantha Markiewicz explains.
“We're in our almost 20th year. We've had a lot of time to kind of figure it out, right?” Markiewicz tells A HOTEL PODCAST. “And we have really developed a way to work as one. So many of our clients are really busy. (Directors of Sales and Marketing.) They're understaffed GMs. They're chefs who, let's be honest, they'd rather be in the kitchen. They don't want to answer emails, right? And so, we've learned to kind of collaborate with them and their lifestyle. When you work with bread & Butter, you can send one quick note that says, ‘New happy hour launch.’ And all of a sudden you have a social media, PR, website, and e-blast plan that's being created, perfected, and finalized for you. And it's thinking cohesively about (how) all of those things play together, what the messaging is, what the timing is. Instead of having to go out to like five different agencies to create that. So we're really thinking big picture for our clients, bringing ideas to the table and saying, ‘I know you're so busy. Here's what else is out there. Here are other ways to get attention.’ And I think a lot of clients are really happy that we can bring that perspective.”
(Samantha Markiewicz, Chief Digital Officer at bread & Butter)
It’s a sentiment Sarah Jacober Spitzer, Vice President, Travel at bread & Butter confirms, adding that the firm has “the feel of a local agency with the reach of a national one.”
“We have teams of local boots on the ground in key markets across North America that really know their regions well and the way that we're structured allows us to give clients the best of both worlds,” Jacober Spitzer shares. “An agency that can truly bring that hyper-local insight, being there for big events, site tours, media and influencer hosting as well. Our ability to cross pollinate between different departments and regions gives us the ability to really deliver top tier results for our regional, national, and international campaigns. Currently, we have 80 team members sprinkled across 20 markets. So our fingers are really on the pulse of what's happening across the country, in our industry and beyond.”
(Sarah Jacober Spitzer, Vice President, Travel at bread & Butter)
bread & Butter clients include boutique lifestyle brand Drift Hotels, upscale Chicago standout The St. Regis, the iconic Wynn Las Vegas, and stunning Switzerland escape Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, as well as luxury hospitality operator Easton Porter Group, among many others.
Outside of the hotel sector, the firm’s portfolio includes F&B operators like the Texas Nobu locations, restaurant developer Parker Hospitality, and more. And in design and architecture, the firm works with brands like New York’s Celano Design Studio, international firm MHK Architecture, and others.
(The view from b&B client Badrutt's Palace Hotel)
In their respective roles, Markiewicz and Jacober Spitzer service the agency’s clients across digital and travel, respectively. But, as they explain, their positions encompass much more.
“I oversee PR strategy and execution across our agency's travel accounts,” Jacober Spitzer details. “So I work closely with Sam and our digital team to ensure we're presenting cohesive strategies that compliment and amplify one another. I also collaborate with our team leaders to develop PR plans and meaningful story angles, as well as looking for ways to tap into trends and ensuring our clients are staying relevant and ahead of the curve. More than ever, PR is really about maintaining and cultivating those genuine relationships with media and our clients. So, truly staying connected and keeping that communication open is paramount. As an agency, we're meeting and speaking with journalists and clients on a daily basis. I also collaborate closely with Sam and our new business development team on the proposal process from discovery conversations and (Requests For Proposals) all the way through the presentation and onboarding process. And, of course, naturally, working in hospitality, we're frequently presented with opportunities to travel and experience all the wonderful things our clients have to offer. So, I consider myself very lucky in that regard.”
(A guest room at b&B client Drift Santa Barbara)
Speaking on her role in the agency, Markiewicz agrees she is “really lucky to be able to do this and call it work every day.”
“I oversee our team coast to coast,” the Chief Digital Officer explains. “So New York to LA, everything in between. And while no two days are really the same, a lot of my time is spent on strategic planning on the social media side. So building out our social media plans for clients, developing social media briefs and email marketing briefs with our teams. I spend a lot of time speaking to clients about their goals. I think a lot of times people will say, ‘I want social media,’ and my job is to say, ‘Okay, what does that mean for your business and how can I distill that down and make it workable?’”
In addition to her social media responsibilities, Markiewicz is part of bread & Butter’s crisis communications team. She also, like Jacober Spitzer, works on the firm’s new business development team, handling data and proposals in order to dig “into brands’ websites and their past media coverage and their social landscape to help create a point of view for our agency on how we're going to pitch. And then also coming up with strategic ideas that kind of marry social, influencer, digital, and PR together. And presenting to brands, which I love.”
(b&B client The Caviar Bar at Zero George)
Beyond the agency’s established services, bread & Butter also launched a new initiative this year in the form of a trending topics vertical titled Late Checkout. Taking its name from “that extra hour (when) you want to lay in bed and read the news and have a moment to catch up with what's really happening,” as Markiewicz specifies, the series started out as a monthly LinkedIn newsletter. As the concept caught on, Late Checkout expanded to a standalone site overseen by Ayotte and a daily email blast, showcasing stories of interest across city guides, travel, culture, F&B, and more. Recent features have ranged from Dogwood Hill founder Jennifer Hunt's Guide to Birmingham, AL to a round up of Yellowstone-inspired hotels to the Resurgence of Retro Tech and more.
“So Late Checkout…really came from, from two different things that we discovered,” Markiewicz reveals. “First, that we were creating and sharing a lot of trends and trend reports internally, but we weren't necessarily sharing them externally. I have a thing called Trending Tuesday, where we pull everything happening in the social media space. And I send out an email to educate our team and a few of our clients who are interested in it. Kind of what's happening. And then we have other kind of quarterly reports that we do to keep our finger on the pulse of trends. And then the second piece that came into it is we realized we had, at the time, about 20,000 people who follow us on LinkedIn, and were hungry for content. And we're usually young professionals, or our clients, or people in the hospitality space that just could use more shareable content there. And so we kind of had this idea where we're like, ‘Why don't we marry these two things we're doing together?’”
For more from Jacober Spitzer and Markiewicz, including the PR professionals’ travel recommendations, insights into how the firm works with influencers, and more, check out their joint interview on A HOTEL PODCAST below.
Find more via bread & Butter. And subscribe for more from A Hotel Podcast on LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Words and media by Jaime Black.