What running a food account taught me about restaurant influencer marketing
· 1 min read
James Massey on what running a food account taught him about restaurant influencer marketing, and why one-off gifted visits fall short.
Years ago, I had a food account.
Free meals, press nights, paid campaigns with brands like Jack Daniel's. Without really realising it at the time, those visits and campaigns gave me my first proper look at how influencer marketing works from the inside.
What I saw from the other side
How outreach gets handled. How front of house behaves when a creator walks through the door. Whether a brand actually wants to build something, or just wants a post and a story and then nothing.
That perspective has stayed with me, and it shapes how we work with restaurants today.
What we do now
We work with restaurant clients across the UK and Ireland, and what we do looks nothing like a one-off gifted visit: repeat exposure, paid social content that scales, limited-edition launch moments, and long-term presence rather than a single post that's gone in 48 hours.
That approach has helped us reach a large audience, turn creators into genuine brand advocates, and build experiences that people actually want to talk about rather than ones that feel like an obligation.
Working with us
We're taking on a small number of new restaurant partners over the next few months. If you've been thinking about doing this properly rather than gifting a few creators and hoping for the best, let's have a conversation.
Learn more about how we build creator-led acquisition programmes through our influencer marketing service.