Marketing support for scotland's food drink & tourism sector

Driving Footfall to a Rural Destination

The Mission:

To turn a scenic cafe location into a busy destination during the critical trading periods of Summer and Christmas 2025.

The Strategy & Execution:

A destination cafe relies on visibility. I stepped in to act as the driving force behind their digital presence, ensuring that locals and tourists alike knew exactly where to go.

• Social Media Activation: I "woke up" the brand’s digital channels, moving from sporadic updates to a consistent, engaging strategy that showcases the food, the setting, and the experience.
• Seasonal Campaigns: I designed specific marketing pushes aligned with the calendar. We maximised the Summer 2025 season to capture tourist trade and are currently executing a targeted campaign for the Christmas 2025 menu.
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The Result:

• Tangible Growth: The social media activation directly correlated with increased footfall into the cafe throughout the summer months.
• Festive Bookings: The current marketing strategy for the Christmas 2025 menu has successfully positioned the cafe as a key venue for festive dining in the area.

Marketing a Premier Wedding & Dining Destination

The Mission:

The owner’s brief was clear: elevate the hotel’s profile as a leading wedding venue in Dundee and drive consistent local engagement for the on-site café and restaurant.

The Strategy & Execution:

I delivered a multi-tiered marketing strategy to address the different revenue streams of the business:

• Wedding Venue Showcase: I spearheaded the promotional campaign for a critical "Wedding Showcase Weekend." This involved targeting engaged couples and coordinating the marketing to ensure the venue was presented as an aspirational, must-book location.
• Experiential Events: To keep the hotel vibrant during non-wedding periods, I developed new marketing initiatives for "Guest Chef Nights," creating exclusive dining experiences that attracted foodies from across the region.
• Café Activation: I took control of the social media marketing for the café, shifting the focus to visual storytelling that highlighted the atmosphere and food to drive daily footfall.

The Result:

• Brand Positioning: Successfully re-positioned the hotel as a competitive wedding venue in the Dundee market.
• Event Success: The Wedding Showcase weekend received strong attendance, generating qualified leads for the sales team.
• Community Engagement: The Guest Chef nights and revitalised social media presence successfully engaged the local community, turning the hotel into a regular dining spot rather than just a place for special occasions.down.

Chef Graham Campbell was one of xpoh.co.uk's first clients. I was privileged to partner with a chef celebrated for his incredible talent and innovative approach to modern Scottish and British cuisine.

About the Chef

Graham Campbell made history by becoming the youngest person in Scotland to be awarded a Michelin star at the remarkably young age of twenty-five. His culinary philosophy centres on taking traditional Scottish and British ingredients and elevating them through innovative and creative flavour combinations, resulting in a truly unique dining experience.

My Role & Achievements

My objective was to execute a local PR campaign to significantly raise the profile of his Dundee-based establishment, Castlehill Restaurant, and to solidify Chef Campbell's reputation as a top culinary talent.

The campaign resulted in several high-impact placements and opportunities, demonstrating a powerful increase in brand awareness:

• Unprecedented Media Coverage: I secured a highly effective double-page spread in the Press & Journal newspaper. Furthermore, I achieved a newspaper group first by securing a Christmas reindeer recipe feature in the weekend magazine over the very same weekend.
• Prestigious Demo Slot: I successfully secured a high-profile demonstration spot for Chef Campbell at the esteemed Taste Angus food and drink festival, hosted at the iconic Glamis Castle.
• National Recognition: Building on the momentum of this brand awareness initiative, Graham Campbell was later selected to compete on the global stage in the Netflix culinary competition, The Final Table.

Chef Campbell is now bringing his unique Scottish-influenced, modern cuisine to American diners, focusing on his new restaurant ventures in Texas.

The Crieff Food Company approached me to assist with a significant shift in their business—moving beyond their traditional grocer identity to establish themselves as a premium, fine food deli. This required a coordinated effort focused on product launch and digital brand activation.

The Challenge

The core focus of my work was twofold:

1. To successfully launch their new line of fresh freezer food selections to their existing and new customer base.
2. To activate and transform their social media channels to reflect their new, more sophisticated positioning as a fine food deli.

Role & Achiecements

I developed and executed a strategy that aligned their product offering with their new brand identity, achieving key objectives:

• Product Launch Strategy: I managed the communications and promotional strategy for the new fresh freezer food selection, highlighting the quality, convenience, and superior ingredients of the meals.
• Social Media Transformation: I completely overhauled their social media presence, shifting the tone, visual style, and content calendar to reflect their new status as a fine food deli. This included featuring premium products, high-quality recipe ideas, and behind-the-scenes content that showcased the expertise and passion of their team.
• Enhanced Engagement: The social media activation helped to bridge the gap between their traditional customer base and the new image, successfully engaging their audience with their enhanced product selection.

Through focused promotion and strategic social media management, I helped The Crieff Food Company successfully introduce their new product line and cement their reputation as a leading fine food destination.

Case Study: Zippy D - Delivering with a Difference

The Mission

Zippy D launched with a bold ambition: to disrupt the local food delivery market by offering a sustainable, ethical alternative to the impersonal industry giants. The goal was to launch "Dundee’s Premier Delivery Service" with a unique promise: strictly 1-to-1 delivery (no multi-drop delays) ensuring food arrived hot, while committing to a 100% electric fleet to minimise environmental impact. We needed to communicate this "quality-first" ethos to both vendors and consumers in a crowded marketplace.

The Strategy & Execution

Our strategy hinged on a "Old Meets New" narrative, anchoring the high-tech startup within the local heritage.

• Strategic Partnership: We facilitated an exclusive partnership between Zippy D and Clark’s Bakery, a legendary 70-year-old local institution. This validated the new tech platform instantly through association with a trusted heritage brand.
• The "Green" Mobile Billboard: We utilised the fleet of branded BMW i3 electric cars not just as logistics, but as a marketing tool, creating a visual guarantee of the brand's sustainability pledge.
• Community PR: We executed a hyper-local PR campaign targeting Dundee press and business networks. We emphasised the "zero admin fees" for customers and the 5% revenue donation to local charities, positioning Zippy D as the "ethical choice" for the community.

The Result

The campaign generated immediate traction and brand loyalty that outpaced initial projections.

The "Old Meets New" angle was picked up enthusiastically by the local press, resulting in widespread coverage that celebrated the union of a historic bakery with cutting-edge green tech. This media blitz successfully established Zippy D as a serious contender in the food-tech space, drove a surge in app downloads upon launch, and secured the brand's reputation as the region's only premium, eco-conscious delivery partner.

 Case Study: The Natural Alternative

 The Mission

Zsweet, a pioneer in natural zero-calorie sweeteners, approached us with a clear objective: to successfully penetrate the competitive UK market. With consumers increasingly seeking "clean label" alternatives to processed sugar but remaining skeptical about the aftertaste of artificial sweeteners, the challenge was twofold. We needed to overcome the stigma of "chemical" tasting substitutes and position Zsweet as the definitive, natural successor to traditional refined sugar for the health-conscious home baker.

The Strategy & Execution

To cut through the noise, we bypassed standard advertising and targeted the gatekeepers of the UK kitchen: the editors of women’s glossy lifestyle and food magazines.

I  devised a high-touch PR campaign designed to create an immediate sensory comparison. I sent targeted journalists a bespoke "Challenge Box" containing:

• The Solution: A full packet of Zsweet.
• The Contrast: A bag of standard refined white sugar (visually establishing the old vs. the new).
• The Application: Custom recipe cards demonstrating Zsweet’s ability to bake, brown, and caramelise just like sugar.
• The Proof: A data sheet containing testimonials from two independent focus groups, preemptively answering questions regarding taste and texture.

This package allowed journalists to physically compare the products side-by-side and provided them with the third-party validation needed to write with confidence.

The Result:

The tactile nature of the campaign resonated immediately with the press. The strategy secured a high-profile editorial feature in Good Housekeeping—arguably the most trusted voice in the UK regarding domestic products.

The impact of this endorsement was immediate and quantifiable. The feature directly drove £10,000 in sales, proving that when consumers are educated by a trusted source, they are willing to switch from traditional commodities to sustainable, healthy alternatives.