Fitting PR Firm To a Tea

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Ben Cooke remembers seeing a list that ranked public relations executives as having one of the 10 most stressful jobs, along with active-duty soldiers and emergency room physicians. He knew what led to that perception.

“Some of my senior executives and I came from environments that were kind of toxic,” he said, “very high stress, lots of egos in the room.”

The founder of Mar Vista PR firm Lucid Public Relations thought it was time to loosen up the industry, starting with his own company.

One of the first things he tried was serving more tea at the office. Some of Lucid’s clients commented that the firm seemed “less jumpy, more Zen.” So the company started making its own tea and sending it to clients and media contacts, raising awareness of the firm in a creative and relaxing way.

“We wanted to get the message out there that everyone needs to chill out a little bit,” said Cooke.

Cooke and his team set out to find a manufacturer and quickly came across a Monterey Park company called Art of Tea. Lucid and Art of Tea worked together to create a custom blend. The firm sent out about 100 packages of the product, which it named LucidiTea, to select clients and colleagues.

“They loved it,” said Cooke.

After that positive reception to the first batch, Cooke is already thinking about developing new blends. The plan remains to give the tea away for promotional purposes, but he’s not ruling out making a business of it.

“Who knows?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll have to close the PR doors and become a tea distributor.”

– Matt Pressberg

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