From the Diary of Elise Hamer

Why the brands people talk about bring PR in before the launch plan is set, from a global brand communications leader who now runs her own consultancy.

She has watched it happen. A team realises a product could be relevant for Earth Day, and brings it to PR the week before. “That leaves little time to speak to the people in design, buying and marketing, gather the details that make the story credible, or pitch journalists while they’re planning coverage,” Elise Hamer says. “A press release on its own won’t give them a reason to care.”

It’s the pattern she sees under most communications strategies that go wrong: PR brought in too late, after the product and the launch plan are already set, and asked for coverage of a story that hasn’t been fully developed.

The cost of that has gone up. A report published in June by the branding agency JKR and Kantar puts paid media at 28 per cent of brand equity. The rest is built by what people experience for themselves and what they hear from others. Elise reads the market the same way. “Earned media still matters,” she wrote, a year into running her own business. “In an increasingly paid, sponsored and AI-generated world, there’s real power in having an independent journalist or publication choose to tell your story.”

Elise is the founder of Louder Than Words, a PR and communications consultancy for consumer and lifestyle brands. The work spans PR strategy, media relations, events, influencer strategy, founder storytelling and live content. Before founding Louder Than Words, Elise spent sixteen years in-house across global retail and consumer brands, including Juicy Couture, Aquascutum and Clarks shoes. Her eight years at Clarks included leading global PR for Clarks, Clarks Originals and Clarks Kids across the UK, US, Europe, Japan, China and South East Asia. Her line for the business is one sentence: “Louder Than Words turns the right moment into a story people talk about.”

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Which Moment It Is

The fix, in her account, is a question asked early. “The strongest stories start with asking what makes this relevant now and bringing the right people together early enough to act,” she says. Sometimes that means moving quickly to join a cultural conversation. Other times it means spending months finding and building the right story. “PR needs to be involved early enough to know which moment it is.”

She has been saying a version of this for years. After MAD//FEST and a Cannes debrief this summer, she wrote up five takeaways, and one of them was that PR is not a bolt-on: the best campaigns bring PR and earned teams into the creative process from day one, not just at launch. Another was that small, consistent moments are beating one big campaign, and that in a fragmented media landscape brands need a steady drumbeat of culturally relevant activity. A third: “Pace beats perfection at the moment.”

“The strongest stories start with asking what makes this relevant now and bringing the right people together early enough to act.”

Elise Hamer, founder, Louder Than Words

The evidence she offers for it comes from a boat.

Monaco, Then Jeddah

For Team Monaco’s entry into the E1 Series and its first race, Elise was the team’s Communications Director, working through Louder Than Words directly across the launch event in Monaco and the team’s first race in Jeddah, alongside the production company Opposite Land Productions Ltd., which captured all the content on the ground. The Monaco launch generated 11 media placements and two interviews, with 73 guests attending and editorial distributed across 140 territories. In Jeddah, she says, “we built stories around the pilots and worked with media as the race unfolded,” securing coverage that included Le Figaro, Arab News, Nice-Matin and several Monaco titles. The Jeddah coverage was estimated at 28 to 45 million in cumulative reach. “It shows what can happen when the story is built in advance, then actively managed on the ground.”

Then there is the rosé. GTN Consultancy secured the partnership between Casillero del Diablo and comedian Joanne McNally. As a freelance consultant working with 29 London and GTN Consultancy, Elise led the PR for the new rosé launch. “With celebrity partnerships: it’s not about securing the biggest name, it’s about finding the right one,” she wrote afterwards of the pairing. “Rather than feeling like a traditional endorsement, we turned a conversation about serving a good value rosé over ice into something people genuinely wanted to engage with, ‘Legends Like It Cold.’” The event was a pink-themed rooftop brunch with comedians, ice sculptures, an ice luge, journalists, content creators and a DJ. Coverage followed across the Daily Mail, HELLO!, The Standard, Yahoo, The Grocer, AOL and VIP Magazine, an estimated potential reach of more than 39 million monthly users, based on the outlets’ combined monthly audiences.

“Sometimes the most memorable campaigns are the ones that simply create joy and silliness,” she wrote. “Behind every event like this are weeks of planning, contracts, calls, logistics and problem solving.” That second half is where she describes most of the work happening.

An Extension of the Team

“I start by understanding what the business needs the launch to achieve, who it needs to reach and what the team can actually deliver,” she says. Having spent most of her career in-house, she knows a good PR idea has to work within the brand’s identity, budgets, distribution and approval process. “I get close to the product and the people behind it, find the strongest story, then work with the team to make it happen. That might mean shaping the angle, securing the right voices, coordinating assets or changing course quickly when plans shift.”

The in-house years also taught her where the best stories often hide: “in a conversation with a designer, a product decision, an archive or someone whose work rarely makes it into a press brief.” She is curious about those details, she says, because they can lead to a much stronger story than the obvious launch announcement. And they taught her how quickly a client’s priorities can change.

“When a budget moves or a product plan shifts, my job is to understand why, adapt and keep working towards the outcome we agreed. That’s what being an extension of the team means to me.”

Elise, founder, Louder Than Words

The habit underneath it, in her words: “I’m always joining the dots: spotting a conversation a brand could be part of, then finding the right people, connecting them and helping find the right moment to make it happen.” In Louder Than Words’ first year that has meant client projects for PenCarrie, an apparel distributor, for the insurtech businesses Deck2 Capital and thecove.ai, for the not-for-profit PropUp and for Opposite Land Productions, and, through Lucky 8 PR, for jewellery brand Nimmisha and luxury accessories brand LIAVELLA, where the work spanned product placements, founder profiling including Forbes interviews, events, celebrity seeding and affiliate strategy.

She learned where the stories hide somewhere specific.

Sixteen Years In-House

Elise started at Relish Research, a marketing research agency, as Digital Manager and New Business Assistant. From there she went to Juicy Couture as Marketing Executive for Europe and the Middle East, a role that ran from media planning and new store openings to brand partnerships and press days, then to Aquascutum as Senior Marketing and PR Executive and later Marketing and PR Manager, handling brand collaborations, celebrity seeding, designer profiling, fashion week shows and PR strategy across markets, alongside major brand campaigns shot by photographers including Tim Walker and Alasdair McLellan.

Clarks came in 2017. She joined as Senior Global PR Manager, became Acting Global Head of PR in 2020, reporting to the CMO, and from 2022 was Global Head of PR, part of the senior leadership team, managing internal teams and external agencies across several markets. Her profile records global campaigns that drove 500 per cent audience growth and work on collaborations with Netflix, Disney, Supreme, Martine Rose and Land Rover, amongst others.

Esther Lopez Riva was her boss at two different brands. “She taught me to think bigger and bolder, and to hear ‘no’ as ‘not yet’,” Elise says. “Together we ran several global campaigns involving private jets, models on Vespas, flash mobs on ice rinks and many more. She showed me how far a good idea can go when you refuse to give up on it.”

Over her career, Elise has encountered senior leaders whose approach differed from her own. Those experiences helped clarify her belief in trusting her expertise, championing communications and supporting the people doing the work. “I believe you can deliver strong business results while treating people fairly and with respect,” she says.

The First Invoice

“A year ago, I sent my first invoice under Louder Than Words,” she wrote. “And what a year it’s been.” Multiple clients, projects, launches, events, work trips, pitches, partnerships, new sectors, new countries and a lot of coverage. “The first time being self-employed in 17 years has taught me so much my brain could explode!” Seeing the titles she had secured coverage in laid out together, she wrote, made her proud of what she had achieved in a pretty challenging market, while juggling family life too.

The argument she keeps returning to is the one she opened with. Earlier in the year she pointed her followers to Muck Rack data showing that most AI citations come from earned media, and asked: “Are you telling your story or your company’s story properly?” The latest edition of that study, published in May, analysed more than 25 million links from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and found earned media accounts for 84 per cent of AI citations. Her caveat is her own: the work she has done with clients is about “having a real mix of all your marketing disciplines work together harmoniously in a rapidly changing market.”

Two days at Ideas Fest this month left her with a reminder she wrote down for herself: “I’m great at putting my clients out there, so need to keep showing up and do the same for myself,” even when it feels uncomfortable. Consistency, she added, is key.

Where Elise Is Now

Elise continues with her retainers across lifestyle brands for the rest of this year and into 2027. Asked who she most wants reading this, she is specific: founders and comms leaders at ambitious consumer brands “who know they have a good story but want help turning it into recognition and engagement across markets.” Over the next year she wants to build more substantial consultancy partnerships with consumer and lifestyle brands, “where I can get close to the business and help shape the story from the start.”

She is a mum of two boys and has run both the London and Paris marathons. “Training for the Paris Marathon while building Louder Than Words taught me a lot about keeping going when there’s no perfect moment to start.” She and her husband love hosting friends with excellent food, wine and cocktails, and travelling with their two boys. “Oman is particularly special to us: we visit every year, have family there and have made so many happy memories together.” Her answers to the magazine arrived on a Friday night, with a note that after finishing them she would go and make herself a fresh tomato martini.

What she wants next is stated in one sentence, and it reads like the brief she would like to be handed early: “I want to build Louder Than Words into the kind of communications partner that gets involved early, thinks boldly and makes brands matter in the moments people are already talking about.”

The Elise Hamer Playbook: getting the story in early

Ask what makes this relevant now. The strongest stories start with that question, and with knowing whether the answer is a week or several months.

Bring PR into the creative process from day one, not at launch. A press release on its own won’t give anyone a reason to care.

Go and talk to the people whose work never reaches the press brief. A designer, a product decision, an archive: that is where the stronger story usually is.

Build the story in advance, then manage it on the ground. Monaco was built before the event. Jeddah was worked as the race unfolded.

When the budget moves, find out why and keep going. Adapt and keep working towards the outcome you agreed.