PR for a Japanese gourmet product: SAKEGIRL

SAKEGIRL was founded in Vienna in 2018/19 by Naoko Walter and her husband, out of a shared passion for good food and wine. The vision: to bring a high-quality, dry and yet easily approachable sake to Austria. SAKEGIRL is produced at the Takeno Tsuyu brewery in Yamagata, Japan, following the principle “Made in Japan with love for Austria”. The sake is a versatile accompaniment to food and can be enjoyed cold, at room temperature or warm.

In Austria, wine is the obvious choice with a meal. Sake, by contrast, is barely present and is often misunderstood. Many consumers know sake only as “rice wine” or associate it exclusively with Japanese cuisine. The challenge was to establish sake as a serious, everyday alternative to classic wine pairings, including with staple dishes such as pasta or schnitzel.

The PR strategy focused on well-founded educational work and tangible product experiences. The aim was to anchor SAKEGIRL as a versatile gourmet product in everyday Austrian dining and to lower the barrier to trying sake. To this end, easy-to-understand content on the brewing process and the uses of sake was developed and prepared for the media.

A key part of the strategy was translating the product into familiar eating situations. Food-pairing stories and concrete recipe ideas showed how versatile sake is. In addition, journalists received product samples so they could experience the product themselves and report on it knowledgeably.

To deepen the dialogue with the media, Fullstop PR also organised a media dinner at a Viennese corner grocery. In a personal setting, journalists could taste SAKEGIRL, ask questions and experience the product in a direct culinary context – a format that combined education, experience and relationship-building in a meaningful way.

The PR activities led to broad, high-quality coverage in Austrian mainstream and food and lifestyle media. SAKEGIRL was featured in outlets including Der Standard, Kurier Freizeit, Falstaff, Gastro and the Wiener Bezirksblatt.

Through the combination of explanatory PR, a personal product experience and seasonal topics such as summer recipe ideas, we succeeded in making sake visible as a modern food pairing and in establishing SAKEGIRL as a relevant brand in the Austrian food and gourmet context.