December 1, 2011

Londre Company Founder and Blogger Branches Into Consulting

The Londre Company LLC, a 30-year food PR agency, is now a solo practice for semi-retired owner, Patti Londre. Yet, Londre has another fire building, as social media guru to agencies as well as bloggers. Having published her lifestyle blog, Worth The Whisk, since 2009, she is on the receiving end of pitches and is considered a leader in the blogging community. She is a co-founder of the Food Bloggers LA group and produces Camp Blogaway Bootcamp for Food and Recipe Bloggers each spring. Camp is the place where Londre connects brands and agencies with bloggers. She also publishes YumGallery, an online food photography showcase designed to open access between bloggers and brands.

Londre has parlayed her decades of food company contacts into a two-way highway between brands and ever-hungry food bloggers. "Corporations and agencies ask my advice on how to target, pitch and work with food bloggers," says Londre. "Bloggers are quite the influencers, but getting into their heads takes a heck of a lot more time than marketers can invest. Bloggers certainly aren't your j-school editors; working with them can be a train-wreck for the inexperienced as well as the big egos."

Londre helps agency teams become go-to contacts for food bloggers. "Bloggers crave personal relationships with agency folks. They know they are the gatekeepers to budgets, junkets and cool stuff. Bloggers hope that this blogging thing will be their springboard to a fabulous future somehow in food. And they recognize that being connected to brands helps move that along. Agencies, on the other hand, are thrilled with this humongous ocean of potential publicity for their clients. Yet, thanks to horror stories of stupid stunts and pitches, they and their clients can definitely use insider knowledge to achieve their goals."