What's the biggest reason behind Green & Black’s success? It's all about the PR, says marketing director Carol Welch.

Green & Black’s organic chocolate product firm was founded in 1991 by Craig Sams. It was bought by serial entrepreneur William Kendall and later sold to Cadbury Schweppes for a rumoured £20m. Today, it operates as a stand-alone business and Sams remains chairman.

Public relations has been key to this success, says Welch. “Some people think PR is just spin, but it is certainly as important as advertising or any other part of the overall marketing of the business.

“It is a mistake to think otherwise.”

The big difference, she says, is that PR generates word-of-mouth marketing, something much more effective than straight advertising.

“We use a firm called Metrica to track the coverage we get. It works out how much the coverage is worth financially and whether or not we are getting the messages across, which, in the case of Green & Black’s, is the ethical sourcing of cocas beans.”

One thing to bear in mind, she says, is context. “If you’re selling something medical, the best publication to be featured in isn’t going to be Good Housekeeping.

“Green & Black’s has worked with Phipps PR since the very beginning and they understand the brand inside out. They understand what we are trying to do and are effective in their efforts.

“For example, we target the style pages of magazines, stress the ‘taste’ message in the consumer press, the ethical dimension in the mainstream newspapers and get the products into goody bags at the right sorts of functions.”

One thing is for certain: it works. In five years, the Green & Black’s brand has gone from being worth £5m to today being worth £40m.

Jamie Oliver runs The Star Entrepreneur, a series of events on PR and the media aimed at entrepreneurs and SME owners. For more details go to www.candoevents.co.uk/thestarentrepreneur or call 020 7274 8648.

Related tags: phipps pr, craig sams, ethical sourcing, cadbury schweppes, good housekeeping, word of mouth marketing, william kendall, organic chocolate, metrica, green and blacks,