How to secure Christmas Gift Guide PR coverage for your DTC brand in the UK

In the lead up to the festive season, it’s always a competitive and busy time in the UK press. Brands are keen to have their products and services highlighted inChristmas gift guides and best product reviews so they can capitalise on people looking for gifts for her, gifts for him, gifts for them and even gifts for the dog!  

Here is a quick guide on how to secure Christmas Gift guide coverage for your food, drink, wellness or lifestyle brand this festive season.

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1. Know the media’s lead times and the media slots available.

UK online media works on a predictable cycle for Christmas gift guides and whilst a few guides are looking for product in early November, it’s mid-November that things hot up running all the way up to the week of Christmas and beyond.

It’s not just gift guides you shouldn’t forget product round ups and reviews of best products of the year as well as any product trend pieces catering for those people given gift cards and money and in need of inspiration on what to spend it on.

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2. Sharpen your gifting angle

When preparing your gift guide approach, you need a clear hook. UK lifestyle media love:

• Limited editions
• Bundled gift sets
• Stocking fillers under £20 and £50
• Wellness resets for January
• No/low alcohol for festive socialising and Dry January
• Sustainable swaps that avoid waste

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Frame your product with one of these angles to cut through the generic clutter of gifting to ensure your product is picked for the pages.

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3. Make your press assets frictionless

A lot of brands fall down on a lack of great imagery and clear information to the media and their products are overlooked, so make sure you have the following check list:

• High-res cut-outs of products and gift bundles
• Lifestyle shots and if possible include those with a festive or winter vibe
• Pricing, RRP, URLs as well as where the product is available
• Make sure your PR team is agile as media are moving fast this time of year so you need to show you can deliver quickly - make sure samples are sent out in a timely fashion for shoots and product reviews

4.      Utilise your affiliate links with target publications

Ensure your PR team is offering trackable links to reinforce your DTC product. Showing commercial savviness means media are most likely to feature your brand, and you can see the impact of that publication on your traffic to site.

Media titles heavily adopting aPerformance PR approach of affiliate and earned PR include:

-      The Guardian

-      The Independent

-      The Telegraph

-      The Sun

-      Evening Standard

-      Good Housekeeping UK

-      GQ UK

-      Men's Health UK

-      Women's Health UK

-      Cosmopolitan UK

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5. Don’t sleep on 2026 trend features

While you're securing Christmas coverage, titles are also planning, ‘What’s trending in 2026’ style pieces.

This is your moment to gain visibility particularly if you are a brand or product in one of these sectors:

• Wellness food and drink
• Plant-based for Veganuary pieces
• Low/no alcohol for Dry January
• Femtech
• Wellness products
• Ritual-led self-care
• Home comforts
• Sustainable living

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In addition to this, media are actively looking for insights, comments and data on Veganuary, Dry January and ‘New year, new you’ articles, if you have data, behaviour shifts, or founder-led opinions this can help position your brand as a leader for 2026, create a content strategy to leans into this.

6. Be reactive to the media landscape

Consumer PR agencies that are on their toes can help a brand react to quick media asks. These include being ready with the answer to:

-       last-minute gifting edits

-       panicky shopper content

-       best deals before Christmas roundups

-       new year, new routine” stories

-       best for Dry January

-       top Veganuary products

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Be prepared with content that can easily be shared and secure those pieces of coverage!

7. Capitalise on a PR Sprint

Sometimes committing to a PR retainer isn’t right so a focused 4-6 week PR sprint can deliver with bells on this time of year, it secures awareness and visibility for your brand and product when people are actively searching for:

• Gift guide placements
• Review features
• Gifting edits
• Trend commentary
• Founder-led profiles

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A great example of this was our work with functional drinks brand Three Spirit Drinks.

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The Brief

Three Spirit Drinks are a non-alcoholic botanical drinks brand, they approached us as they needed to create standout press coverage and sales pre-Christmas to capitalise on festive buying – with just weeks until Christmas and with a small budget they needed a PR sprint that delivered.

The Solution

We set to work on a fail-safe media relations strategy, focusing on the top tier, audience targeted media. Utilising our excellent media contacts and smart angles, we secured landmark, well messaged and back-linked media placements to help drive pre-Christmas sales across gifting, reviews and seasonal trend pieces.

The results? In a matter of weeks, over 20+ pieces of top tier coverage and a Financial Times alcohol free award to see Three Spirit into the new year.

“The Bound toProsper team hit the ground running, securing quality pieces of coverage in the right press against a tight turnaround. Simply put they delivered above and beyond and worked brilliantly as part of the team. I’d absolutely recommend them to any brand wanting to make an impact” - Founder, Three Spirit Drinks.

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8. Measure what matters

For Christmas PR coverage, track the following to enable you to measure the ROI.

• Increase in branded search
• Referral spikes from specific articles
• Conversions on gift sets
• Number of tier one targeted pieces
• Reach

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Some final thoughts

The brands that win customers at Christmas aren’t the biggest, they’re the ones that get organised with a clear media relations strategy, they have a pitch with strong angles and make life easy for journalists supplying great assets and commercial links.

The brands already thinking ahead to 2026 trends and the media cycle are also positioning themselves as category leaders, so what are you waiting for?

Consumer PR agency, Bound to Prosper are already securing top tier media coverage in Christmas gift guides, Veganuary coverage, Dry January and new year, new you style articles.We have a hit list of media looking for products and brands to feature for their readers so if you want to make your Christmas PR sprint or 2026 new year PR coverage happen, email lydia@boundtoprosper.com and let’s earn your brand the attention it deserves.

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