Saint Sauveur 1972 · Launch PR, go-to-market support, social strategy · February to July 2025
We launched the story before the bottle.
Saint Sauveur 1972 is a Haitian heritage rum from Grammy-nominated singer Melky Jean. It is named for the Saint Sauveur, the ship that landed 65 Haitian refugees at Pompano Beach in 1972. We ran the Florida launch, timed to Haitian Heritage Month, and told the story of the ship before we pitched the rum.
- Client
- Supreme Spirits LLC, Saint Sauveur 1972
- Principal
- Melky Jean, founder and CEO
- Role
- Launch PR, go-to-market support, social strategy
- Period
- February to July 2025
Saint Sauveur 1972, in a bottle shaped like the ship it is named for.
The problem
A new rum competes on shelf space, and shelf space follows attention.
A new spirits brand has to win over distributors, retail buyers, bartenders and customers at once, and a distributor won’t take a bottle nobody has heard of. The founder is famous, but a famous name alone doesn’t sell a new rum.
What the brand had that no other rum had was the ship. The Saint Sauveur landed Haitian refugees on a Florida beach in 1972. That’s a Haitian American story with a real place and date, in the exact market where the rum would launch.
So we built the launch around the story of the ship, timed it to Haitian Heritage Month in May, and let the bottle follow.
Your product might be ordinary. Your story shouldn’t be.
The launch
Four phases, one month to land them.
The proposal set out four phases: owned media and social, a stakeholder map covering distributors, bartenders and hospitality partners, founder thought leadership, and a Miami launch. The heaviest press work fell in April and May.
The go-to-market plan
An NDA, then a four-phase proposal: a social and owned-media system, a stakeholder map for distributors and hospitality partners, and a Miami-first media target list.
The founder session and the release
A working session with Melky Jean set the angles, then a press release datelined Miami and a Haitian Heritage Month rollout plan.
Diaspora press first
Caribbean Life, Caribbean Times and Caribbean National Weekly carried the launch story, which built credibility in Haitian and Caribbean media before the mainstream pitches.
Black Enterprise
Two interview sessions we set up became a Black Enterprise feature on the rum and Haitian heritage.
Miami radio
K.Foxx on 99 JAMZ and Papa Keith on The Beat Miami, both booked by our team in launch week.
The distributor announcement
Community Craft Spirits & Wine announced the Florida launch, with Playbook MG as media contact on the release.
WSVN Deco Drive
We coordinated a shoot in Fort Lauderdale, and the segment aired on Deco Drive on FOX Miami that evening.
A digital cover
DisrupshionMag put Melky Jean on its digital cover, from an interview we pitched in April.
Heritage Month gave the launch a date that journalists already cover.
The placements
Diaspora press, business press, then Miami TV.
Each row below is backed by a pitch, an interview or booking email, or a credit to Playbook MG in the piece itself.
| When | Outlet | Placement | Our role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2025 | Caribbean Life | Launch feature, photo credited to Playbook MG | Placed |
| Apr 2025 | Caribbean Times | Founder profile | Placed |
| Apr 2025 | Caribbean National Weekly | Launch story built from our release | Placed from release |
| May 2025 | Black Enterprise | Feature on the rum and Haitian heritage | Interviews arranged |
| May 2025 | 99 JAMZ Miami | K.Foxx interview | Booked |
| May 2025 | The Beat Miami | Papa Keith interview | Booked |
| Jun 2025 | WSVN, FOX Miami | Deco Drive segment | Booked, shoot coordinated |
| Aug 2025 | DisrupshionMag | Digital cover | Pitched and placed |
The distributor’s launch release, which named Playbook MG as media contact, is listed above as a milestone rather than counted as coverage.
The brand’s wider coverage, not claimed
The launch also ran in the Miami Herald, Bossip, MadameNoire and South Florida Caribbean News, which we tracked for the client but have no record of pitching. Later coverage in The Spirits Business, the brand’s double bronze at the Miami Global Spirits Awards, and the December proclamation of Saint Sauveur 1972 Haitian Heritage Rum Day by North Miami Beach and Pompano Beach all came after the engagement. They belong to the brand.
The number
2.17 million impressions, counted conservatively.
We count only placements with a stated audience. WSVN is counted at the Miami market’s TV households, and Black Enterprise at its own published monthly digital audience. The other outlets don’t publish figures, so they aren’t counted.
| Placement | Basis | Impressions |
|---|---|---|
| WSVN Deco Drive | Miami-Fort Lauderdale market, 1,756,920 TV homes, Nielsen 2024-25 | 1,756,920 |
| Black Enterprise | 414,047 average monthly digital users, per its 2019 media kit, the latest it has published | 414,047 |
| 99 JAMZ and The Beat Miami | Station weekly audience not published | Not counted |
| Diaspora press and DisrupshionMag | No stated audience | Not counted |
| Total | Two counted placements | 2,170,967 |
Earned media value, by format
| Format | Impressions | CPM | EMV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broadcast television | 1,756,920 | $25 | $43,923 |
| Digital editorial | 414,047 | $12 | $4,969 |
| Total | 2,170,967 | $22.52 blended | $48,892 |
This is the floor. Two Miami radio interviews in launch week and four print and digital features count as zero here because the outlets don’t publish an audience, not because nobody saw them.
What it cost
The honest part.
- Product has to ship with the pitch
- At least one national feature stalled because the magazine never received a bottle. A spirits launch can’t run seeding and press as separate jobs.
- Search wasn’t ready for the press
- Months into the launch, searching the brand name still didn’t bring up its own website on the first page. Readers who heard about the rum on the radio had a hard time finding where to buy it.
- The national tier didn’t land
- The proposal aimed at the New York Times, Forbes and Bon Appetit. None of them ran anything before the client paused the engagement in July.
When the press lands, the product and the website have to be ready for readers to find.
What transfers
Three rules for any heritage spirits launch.
- Launch the history first
- A bottle is a commodity. A ship that landed on a Florida beach in 1972 is a news story. Find the fact only your brand can claim and build the launch around it.
- Time it to the community’s calendar
- Haitian Heritage Month gave every editor a reason to run the story in May. A cultural calendar date turns a product launch into a feature.
- Build credibility in community press first
- Caribbean and Haitian outlets carried the story first, and that coverage gave the business and TV pitches something to point to.
Heritage brands don’t need a bigger budget. They need their own history told first.
Playbook MG is a boutique public relations and influencer agency in Brooklyn, working with Caribbean heritage and culture-rooted brands across food and beverage, spirits, beauty, fashion, music, entertainment, arts and nonprofits. This engagement ran from February to July 2025 and covered launch PR, go-to-market planning and social strategy.
All case studiesPlaybook MG · Industry City, Brooklyn · Reach per Nielsen and publisher figures · EMV at the CPMs printed above · As of September 2026