The Big Pet Project: How a Six-Week PR Campaign Got a New RTÉ Show 38 Pieces of Coverage

A new TV show gets one chance to be noticed. The Big Pet Project, a brand-new family series made by HopSkip Studios for RTÉ Kids, launched on 15 November 2025, straight into the busiest TV weeks of the year and up against the Christmas favourites families already know.

HopSkip brought Vroom in for a short, fixed-fee PR campaign: under €4,000 for the whole six-week run. The plan was simple. One big national launch, then a fresh local story every week. The result was 38 pieces of coverage in six weeks, from Q102 and VIP Magazine to the Belfast Telegraph. If you have an event, a launch or a new service to promote, the same approach works.

At a glance

• Client: HopSkip Studios, for RTÉ Kids
• Show: The Big Pet Project, six episodes on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, filmed in Dublin, Wicklow, Tipperary, Galway, Donegal and Belfast
• Service: PR campaign: press release, national and regional media pitching, interviews and weekly coverage reporting
• Investment: a fixed fee, under €4,000, for the full campaign
• Results: 38 pieces of coverage, 24 million combined reach, €598,000 in advertising value

The challenge: a new show in a crowded Christmas schedule

New shows have no audience yet. RTÉ’s own press office announces every new series, but that mostly reaches people who already watch RTÉ.

HopSkip wanted the show talked about beyond RTÉ’s own channels: in local papers, on local radio, in the towns where episodes were filmed, and among parents deciding what to watch on a Saturday evening. And like most production companies, they had a set budget. A large paid campaign was not an option, so the campaign had to earn its attention.

The plan: one national story, then a local story every week

Before pitching anything, we planned the whole campaign around the show itself. Six episodes in six places meant six local news stories waiting to be told.

Prep week (3 to 7 November). We finalised the press release with HopSkip, built a target list of national entertainment, family and parenting media and of local outlets in every filming location, gathered photos, quotes and spokespeople, and started pre-pitching.

Launch week (10 to 14 November). We issued the launch release alongside the RTÉ Press Office, agreeing who would pitch which outlets so no journalist got the same story twice, and lined up national coverage and interviews.

Five weeks of local stories (17 November to 19 December). Every week brought a new regional story tied to that Saturday’s episode: three sisters and their pets in Convoy, Co Donegal; a wildlife centre in Loughrea; a Belfast family and their pygmy hedgehog; a Tipperary teenager and his turtle. Local families, local pets, local media.

All the way through. Radio interviews with the presenters and exotic-animal vet Dr Bobby Ortiz, timely story angles, and a coverage update to HopSkip every week, so they could share wins on their own channels as they landed.

Christmas week. A full coverage report, with Vroom’s results shown separately from RTÉ’s own, so HopSkip could see exactly what the campaign added.

Where The Big Pet Project appeared

A selection of the coverage, in print, online and on air:

• VIP Magazine: interview with presenter Demi Isaac about the show
• Belfast Telegraph, online and in print: a Belfast family’s pygmy hedgehog becomes a TV star
• Belfast Live: the Belfast episode’s most talented animals
• U105: the show heads to Belfast
• Donegal News and Donegal Live: the Donegal episode and the Convoy sisters
• Connacht Tribune and Galway Bay FM: Loughrea’s Slieve Aughty Centre on the show
• Tipperary Live and Nenagh Live: the Tipperary episode filmed in Nenagh and Cashel
• On air: a Q102 Dublin Today interview with Dr Bobby Ortiz, plus Highland Radio and Galway Bay FM news

Results

Across its six-week run, The Big Pet Project was in the news every week of the broadcast, with coverage in every filming location that has its own local media.

• 38 pieces of coverage in six weeks, across print, online, radio and social
• 24 million combined reach and €598,065 in advertising value equivalent, combining RTÉ’s own channels with the coverage Vroom secured
• Local coverage every week, in Donegal, Galway, Belfast and Tipperary

Vroom’s share on its own: 19 pieces of coverage beyond RTÉ’s platforms, reaching 1.76 million people and worth €44,055 in advertising value, more than 13 times the campaign fee.

The show has since gone into production on a second series, filming in Laois, Fermanagh, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford and Meath.

Why press release planning matters, for any business

You do not need to be launching a TV show to use this approach. The same planning works for promoting an event, a launch, a new service, a seasonal offer or a new location.

1. Plan before you pitch. Most of the work happens before the press release goes out: the story, the target list, the photos, the spokespeople and the approved quotes. Journalists move fast. If you cannot send a photo the same day, the story goes to someone who can.

2. One announcement is not a campaign. A single press release gets one day of attention. Breaking the story into weekly moments gave journalists a new reason to write about the show every week.

3. Local is your advantage. National media is crowded. Local papers and radio stations want local people and local stories, and they often give them more space. Every location, customer or community you work with is a potential story.

4. Make it about people. The coverage that landed was about real families and their pets, not the show’s announcement. People get coverage. Products and announcements on their own rarely do.

5. Agree who pitches what. We coordinated with the RTÉ Press Office so no journalist was pitched twice. If you work with a supplier, franchisor, venue or partner, agree who contacts which media before you start.

6. Report every week. Weekly coverage updates meant HopSkip could share each piece as it landed, while it was still news.

What we would add today: authority and AI search

Since this campaign ran, the way people find things has changed. More and more questions are answered by Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT and other AI tools before anyone clicks a link. Optimising for those answers is often called AEO (answer engine optimisation) or GEO (generative engine optimisation), and PR now plays a big part in it.

Coverage on trusted Irish news sites does two jobs. Links and mentions from established publishers build the authority of your website, often measured as Domain Rating, which helps it rank in Google. And AI tools lean on trusted, widely published sources when they decide which businesses to mention and what to say about them. A business that keeps appearing in reputable local and national media is far more likely to be named in an AI answer.

If we ran this campaign today, we would also:

• Ask for a link to the client’s website in every piece of online coverage, not just a mention
• Keep the key facts (who, what, where and when) worded the same way across every press release, so AI tools repeat them accurately
• Track which coverage is cited in AI answers, alongside reach and advertising value

The result is PR that keeps working long after the news cycle moves on: every time someone asks Google or an AI tool for a recommendation in your area.

What a PR campaign for an event or launch costs

This was a fixed fee, under €4,000, for the full six weeks. That covered press release writing, media pitching, journalist liaison, interview management, weekly coverage updates and an end-of-campaign report. No retainer and no ongoing commitment.

For an event, a launch or a new service, a fixed-fee PR campaign gives you a clear cost up front and a clear finish date. If you have something coming up and are wondering whether PR is worth it, talk to our PR team in Dublin.

A new show doesn’t need one big announcement. It needs a reason to be in the news every week. We built the PR around the episodes themselves, so every filming location had its own local story, and the coverage kept coming right up to Christmas.

Niamh Waters, Head of PR, Vroom Digital