Behind the Win: Inside our Award-Winning Public Relations Strategy for Gulfood 2025

Our first-ever award and a powerful testament to strategic, insight-led public relations. 

We’re proud to celebrate a major milestone: winning the PRCA MENA Award for “Best Media Relations Campaign” for our work on Gulfood 2025, the world’s largest F&B sourcing event. 

As our first-ever award since POP Communications was founded in 2017, this recognition marks a defining moment in our agency’s story, proof that an independent, agile communications agency can deliver world-class media relations outcomes for one of the world’s most influential global trade shows.  

We focused on building a good relationship with the client based on transparency from the start, which led to their continued trust. Consequently, for the first time ever, DWTC appointed an independent agency by choosing POP Communications for our strategic vision and proactive content and positioning recommendations. 

Let’s explore what we did, how we did it, and the impact achieved through our integrated public relations approach for Gulfood 2025 that led to us winning this award.  

About Gulfood 2025 

Hosted by Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), Gulfood is the world’s largest annual F&B sourcing event, attracting approximately 5,500+ exhibitors from 130+ countries annually. As the largest edition to date, the 30th edition of Gulfood in 2025 centred on creating actionable solutions for the global food trade industry alongside specific brand positioning in the global F&B sector, covering trade influence, innovation, culinary expertise and event prestige. The event also saw attendance from the world’s culinary superstars, including chefs who had contributed a total of 50 Michelin Stars, and a future focused FOOD500 CEO Summit. 

Project Overview (What we did) 

Over five months, our roles and scope of work spanned every stage of the communications cycle, from pre-event hype to daily event recaps, to post-event momentum-building for Gulfood 2026. Overall, we were involved in: 

Strategic Approach 

To support the 30th anniversary edition of Gulfood, we built media positioning around the following pillars, which helped guide every press release, interview angle, talking point, and content strategy: 

Execution (How we did it) 

Given the scale of such an event, we tackled each communications element in alignment with our overall objectives to build awareness about the event and continue highlighting its essential role in driving the global F&B industry forward. 

1. Content Creation & Press Office Management 

We drafted 10 press releases and distributed 8 of them, covering both B2B and B2C angles while ensuring that all releases were aligned with media consumption patterns to maximise earned coverage opportunities. This also included us attending key sessions and exploring the event on the ground to secure quotes from exhibitors and industry experts to include in press releases. 

4 Pre-Event Press Releases focused on hype-building, new edition positioning, chef activations, exclusive dining collaborations, and show expectations. Additionally, 4 During-Event Press Releases focused on issuing daily recap updates highlighting: 

2. Paid Media Partnerships 

We also worked within given budgets to negotiate competitive rates for paid media opportunities, manage messaging, and deliver high-impact placements across the region’s most influential lifestyle publications including: Time Out Dubai, Lovin Dubai and What’s On Dubai. These partnerships enhanced Gulfood’s visibility among consumer audiences and helped amplify its presence across Dubai.  

3. Media Accreditation & Vetting 

As this was a high-value ticketed event, we even undertook a rigorous accreditation process by screening 600+ media applications over 4 months to maintain event integrity and ensure only qualified media accessed the media passes. Media vetting was also conducted on-the-ground at the event itself.   

4. Influencer & Editorial Hosting 

Given the importance of highlighting various initiatives within Gulfood, we invited media and influencers to key Gulfood activations, including: 

This generated social coverage, dining reviews, and multimedia content extending beyond traditional PR.  

5. Earned Media & Interview Facilitation 

With the heavy influx of media, we were in charge of liaising and guiding key media to facilitate interviews with DWTC spokespersons and major event exhibitors. This was actioned pre, post and during the event. We also navigated last-minute spokesperson availability challenges, ensuring sponsors and aligned stakeholders still received exposure.   

Results-

Our efforts reaped huge rewards in every communications element. 

1. High-Impact Media Relations 

We successfully: 

2. Earned Media Success 

We secured: 

3. Influencer & Editorial Experiences 

We secured: 

4. Challenges Navigated 

While some high-value opportunities (e.g., Other potential features on Dubai TV, Dubai One and  Dubai Eye 103.8 radio) could not be finalised due to spokesperson availability and venue capacity constraints, we protected media relationships by rerouting opportunities to key sponsors and exhibitors where possible, ensuring continuity in earned media output.  

Why this Campaign Won 

The PRCA MENA Award recognised our Gulfood 2025 campaign for its: 

Most importantly, Gulfood entrusted us at POP Communications (a boutique but high-performing agency) with one of the region’s most complex PR ecosystems, and the results delivered above expectations.   

A Landmark Achievement  

Winning the PRCA MENA’s Best Media Relations Campaign Award is not just a recognition of one project, it symbolises our commitment to strategic, high-impact, and insight-driven public relations that cuts through the noise.

As our first award, it marks the beginning of a powerful new chapter for the agency. We remain committed to helping brands across the UAE and GCC stand out and truly POP.