COLOURS.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company runs hotels in Japan, and I’m working as the PR and marketing executive at one of our properties. 

What challenge were you trying to address with COLOURS.?

Our hotel was brand new and nobody knew about it, so we needed COLOURS’ help to let people know that we were open. We also wanted to let people know about the value we could deliver. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

COLOURS has been helping us in the field of PR consulting and media relations, and they help us draft press releases and Q&As. In terms of PR consulting, they provide us the latest hotel and PR trends. We give them information about what’s going on inside our hotel, telling them what we’re trying to achieve. Then, they tell us industry trends and what our competitors are doing. 

For media relations, they introduce us to radio stations and key lifestyle and fashion media entities that might be interested in us. They also introduce us to influencers that can help us develop our brand. They’ve also helped us build relationships with influential writers and journalists by introducing them directly to us and inviting them to our hotel for lunch or dinner. 

We’ve slightly updated our contract with COLOURS. At the moment, they’re focused on international PR activities for our brand.

What is the team composition?

We work with three people from COLOURS, including their founder, who mainly takes care of our media relations. One person is in charge of drafting press releases, and another is in charge of our international PR activities. 

How did you come to work with COLOURS.?

I knew their founder even before we worked with COLOURS. We had a contract with another PR agency, and COLOURS’ founder was helping them do PR for hotels because she had more experience in the hotel PR and marketing industry. 

Since the other PR agency wasn’t very good, we decided to work directly with her, and it turned out that she had COLOURS as her own company. She was energetic and a good person, so we went ahead and worked with her and her company. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent around ¥5 million JPY (approximately $46,000 USD) in the engagement. We pay them around ¥400,000 JPY (approximately $4,000 USD) per month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

They started working with us in April 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We measure success by the quantity and quality of the press coverage we get. We also look at the number of media relations that COLOURS introduce to us. The results have been great, and we’ve managed to open the hotel despite the COVID-19 pandemic and state of emergency. Overall, everything has been good. It’s not the best situation because of the pandemic, but the results have been better than we’ve expected.  

How did COLOURS. perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re performing pretty well. The COLOURS team works as if they’re true members of our staff; they behave like true in-house PR specialists. We have a monthly meeting, and we communicate once a week via phone calls and emails, depending on how busy we are. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re responsible and very good, but what we truly like about them is their energy and passion, which are the same as what we have. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I sometimes hope they can respond a bit quicker. They’re not doing bad when it comes to responsiveness, but sometimes we need them to work faster, especially when drafting press releases. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for a company that has strong connections with lifestyle and fashion media, I highly recommend COLOURS. They’ve been investing a lot of time in HR and global PR, so if you want great PR, especially in the Asian market, I recommend their services.