Our work with the Independent Retailers’ Confederation in promoting the annual Best Small Shops competition extends from securing media coverage from the moment entries open through the announcement of the shortlist to coverage of the winners at the awards ceremony at the Houses of Parliament. This means a broad spread of media is targeted, from national and regional to sector-specific according to the business of the shortlisted shops.

Rosamund De La Hey of Mainstreet Trading, which was named Best Small Shop of 2018, said this had had “by far the biggest impact of anything we had been involved with before in terms of sheer publicity. The marketing and PR job done was absolutely outstanding.”

Coverage for the Best Small Shops Competition has been placed by the Astute team in publications including The Times, The Daily Mail and a number of trade and regional news titles.

Our team placed coverage of the 2020 competition winners, Cornucopia on page three of one of Britain’s biggest selling newspapers, The i (and online), Huffington Post and BBC West Midlands TV.