"She Goes Way, Way Beyond": Charlie Le Rougetel on 30+ Years in PR, Why She Measures Attention Earned Instead of Vanity Metrics, and Building Big Top After More Than 25 Years Creating Campaigns

Charlie Le Rougetel founded Big Top in 2014 after two decades creating campaigns for major consumer and B2B brands. With more than 30 years of experience in communications, she has worked across consumer and B2B sectors helping brands, organisations, and events grow their reach and reputation.

Today, Big Top is an independent communications agency working with award-winning events like New Scientist Live, Brand Licensing Europe, and Business Travel Show Europe, as well as organisations including The Retail Trust, CTM, SilverDoor, and Borough Broth.

Her clients consistently describe her in the same way: “Charlie goes way, way beyond.” “Charlie isn’t fluffy where PR can be.” “Charlie does what she says she will.” “Charlie genuinely cares about the businesses she works with and treats them with the same level of commitment and focus as her own.”

One client testimonial sums it up: “I’ve worked with Charlie and her team for 8 years and she’s not only a wonderful PR specialist, she’s also now a good friend. Our shows and media cover more than 19 vertical sectors and multiple geographies, which is an extremely tall order for any comms strategy. Charlie navigates this with ease. We’ve definitely seen a positive impact on commercial revenues and attendance as well as reputation.”

What makes Charlie’s approach different? She doesn’t do “fluffy” PR. She measures real business results. Big Top invests in Releasd for all clients to measure Attention Earned (hours readers engaged with PR content) and Advertising Cost Estimates (how much it would cost to buy the same attention online). They track backlinks, keywords, quotes, prominence, sentiment, and recall. This allows them to optimize PR the way digital marketers continually refine campaigns for maximum performance and ROI.

Charlie is also known for award writing that wins. Her clients specifically credit her work with helping them secure major industry recognition. She offers free LinkedIn optimization consultations to help businesses turn their LinkedIn into a growth tool.

As she puts it: “Everything starts with objectives. Agree clear, measurable objectives with your PR agency and establish KPIs together. Be specific about the baseline against which to measure your achievements and at what frequency. Your objectives can be anything you decide is going to drive your business forward.”

Going Independent in 2014 - Why You Built Big Top  and What "Going Way, Way Beyond" Actually Means 

Q: You founded Big Top in 2014 after two decades in PR. Your clients say you "go way, way beyond" and "care about their business more than your own." For women founders considering going independent, what made you launch Big Top rather than stay at larger agencies? What does "going way, way beyond" actually look like in practice? 

A: Like a lot of entrepreneurs – especially agency (and women) entrepreneurs – the impetus and confidence to set up my own agency was ignited by redundancy after 16 years working for a London agency. I’m naturally an introvert and worked with very confident men with big personalities, which could leave me feeling intimidated and questioning my talent, expertise and potential. It was awful at the time, but redundancy turned out to be a really positive experience for me.  

The agency I left wasn’t large. Quite the opposite, when I left, it was a carcass of just four or five people (they are doing very well now, I’m happy to point out – a real Phoenix revival). So, it wasn’t a case of stay at a large agency or set up on my own. It was more a case of, I don’t have a job anymore, let’s see what comes first – a new job, or a client – and take things from there.  Thankfully, it was the client – Business Travel Show Europe – who we still work with today after 23 years and have helped to launch in North America and Asia Pacific - and that cemented my decision to go freelance.  

As I won more clients, I started employing freelance PRs and things grew organically. I always knew Big Top would be a ‘virtual’ agency because our first clients were B2B trade show organisers, which is almost always project based work and doesn’t need a year-round team. We still do a lot of work in the events industry, but we have retainer clients, too. Despite, that, I wouldn’t change our business model. I get to work with amazingly, senior PR talent who care about our clients and deliver incredible results for them.  

Our ‘virtual’ team is a network of remote consultants specialising in a variety of sectors (retail, tech, brand/marketing, not for profit, food and beverage, corporate travel, start-ups, kids’ entertainment, and more) across all comms disciplines (consumer, national and trade media, social, content, thought leadership, strategy). It gives us flexibility, means we avoid being under or over resourced, and gives our clients access to tailored, scalable teams of top talent at competitive rates.  

For us, going way, way beyond means never limiting ourselves to our KPIs – we always aim to exceed them (but smartly, I am anti-overservicing) and are incredibly proactive at finding ways to do that. We’re always looking for ways to add value, and often that comes through mining our collective experience (well over 100 years!) and networks.  

As for caring for our clients’ businesses more than our own, I love that our clients think that, but it’s more accurate to say we care about them equally. Valuing our business and the team, values and culture that drive it, is critical to being able to deliver incredible service and results for our clients’ businesses.  

When PR Actually Drives Business Results vs. Just Media Mentions 

Q: You helped Borough Broth, a women-founded business, achieve coverage that directly resulted in traffic shooting up by 85%. For other women founders navigating their first PR campaigns, what are the biggest mistakes you see them make? What should they focus on to ensure PR drives real business impact rather than just vanity metrics? 

A: It’s a good question. One thing that can work in women’s favour is the push for and interest in diverse stories from the media, and that can give women (especially those working in traditionally male-dominated industries like science, tech, engineering, etc) an edge when pitching to journalists.  

The biggest mistakes are being too close to your own story / product to be objective about its potential coverage wise and how interesting it really is to journalists, which can lead to unrealistic expectations. There is also often a lack of understanding around what is fair to expect from budgets, how long it will take to see a business impact as a result of media coverage/social media campaign, and the link between PR and sales.  

When it comes to this ‘mistake’, in my opinion, it’s more likely to come from men than women. Men are often (definitely not always) pushier, louder and more confident - they expect and demand more and their expectations can be harder to manage. Women typically have a quieter self-belief. The ideal is probably somewhere in the middle.  

Final tip - before even picking up the phone to talk to a PR agency, ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve from the PR campaign? Who is our audience? What does our product/business do for that audience that is new? How will it change their lives/businesses?” And, campaign wise, “What does success look to me and can I afford it?” 

Q: How do you measure whether PR is driving real business results versus just vanity metrics? 

Vanity PR can relate to two things – 1) activity that’s ego driven and with a very thin, or even invisible, line back to business growth, and 2) metrics. We still see agencies share coverage reports with media reaches of ‘billions’ and an AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) of millions. These aren’t realistic, accurate or useful. Especially if you have a board and shareholders. They are much more interested in how many people in your target universe actually engaged with a piece of coverage and will potentially buy from or into you.  

This is why we invest in Releasd for all our clients. It measures actual ‘views’ on online and social media coverage (not UMUs) and lets us give our clients Attention Earned and Advertising Cost Estimates. The first is the number of hours readers engaged with our PR content. The second is how much it would cost our clients to buy the same attention online. It also measures backlinks, keywords, quotes, prominence, sentiment and recall. This allows us to optimise PR in the way digital marketers continually refine campaigns for maximum performance and ROI.  

Once again, everything starts with objectives – agree clear, measurable objectives with your PR agency and establish KPIs together. Be specific about the baseline/s against which to measure your achievements and at what frequency – monthly, quarterly, annually? Your objectives can be anything you decide is going to drive your business forward and on paper some of those may look like vanity PR. For example, if you have a consumer product and one of your KPIs is to appear in the business pages of The Times. But founder profiling can be crucial in building awareness among the business community – retailers, manufacturers, investors and more.  

LinkedIn and Award Writing - Building Visibility Without a Full PR Agency 

Q: You offer free LinkedIn optimisation and you're known for award writing that helps your clients win. For women entrepreneurs who can't afford a full agency, what's your advice on using LinkedIn for business development?  

A: If you want to use LinkedIn for business development, our advice is frequency and consistency. The LinkedIn algorithm values regular posting. Use your own page if you already have a strong following rather than post through your company page. As the founder, it’s your face and name that peers, industry leaders, customers and investors either already know, or you want them to know. So, lead from the front. Be authentic. Write about what you care about whether that’s entrepreneur and business related, industry specific, gender issues, even politics and very personal topics. People are blending home and work life on LinkedIn a lot more, and people are open to that. Think about the image – and ideally use video. Video increases engagement dramatically. A great image will grab people’s attention.  And make sure you are following and interacting with the people you want to do business with.  

Q: How should founders think about awards - which are worth entering versus which are vanity plays? 

A: Like everything PR-related, think strategic and consider these questions:  

• What do we want to achieve from entering any award programme? Peer recognition? Brand awareness? New business? Employee appreciation?   
• Do we have a chance of winning? If the answer is no, then why waste valuable time (and sometimes money) entering? If you’re happy being on the shortlist, though, then go for it.  
• Will a finalist place/winning change your business? If not, don’t waste time entering.  
• Do you have time to invest in producing a decent entry, proof points and testimonial? Also check if can you afford to enter and attend to celebration night.  

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