Dave Karraker Email & Phone Number

Dave is the founder and President of San Francisco-based Raptor Communications, a PR consultancy providing communication services focused on the spirits industry. In his role, he assists both in-house and agency teams through brand comms strategy development, message creation, storytelling, media strategy, RFP support, crisis communications, executive/internal communications, brainstorm facilitation, and client rejuvenation, in addition to traditional public relations, digital marketing, and partnership marketing. Dave utilizes his experience on both sides of the fence to help companies and agencies develop the best possible communications plans, while also helping to build better working relationships to increase performance and ROI.Clients include: Molson Coors, Blue Run Spirits, Howler Head, Catalyst Spirits, Santo Spirits, Foley Family Wines, Milam & Green, Garrard County Distilling Co., Acronimo Sotol, Beam Suntory, Campari Group, Hotaling & Co., O'Neill Vinters and Distillers, Alpine Distilling, Coalition Spirits, Linden Leaf Gin, Bespoken Spirits, Cornershop by Uber, Mechanism Ventures, Happly.com, MX3 Fitness

San Francisco, California, Us

Chairman for the Public Affairs Committee at the Distilled Spirits Council, the U.S. spirits industry government lobbying organization.

Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, It

Dave was the North American communications leader for Campari Group, the world’s sixth-largest spirits company featuring brands such as Aperol, SKYY Vodka, Wild Turkey and Espolon Tequila. In his role in Campari’s biggest revenue generating market, he oversaw corporate communications strategies with a focus on the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica. His duties included business media strategy; crisis communications; executive communications; regional internal comms and employee events; and government/community affairs. A member of the executive team, reporting to the Managing Director of North America, he served as the corporate reputation lead for the region, working in full cooperation with public affairs, human resources, legal, investor relations, and supply chain on CSR strategy, planning, and execution. Dave was the brand communications leader for the region, coordinating with local PR teams in the development of annual PR brand plans, including budgeting and measurement. Most recently, Dave oversaw the communications around Campari America relocating the entire company from San Francisco to New York City, as well as the media strategy around #SpritzGate, following the New York Times negative article on the Aperol Spritz.

Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, It

Prior to stepping into his regional role, Dave oversaw corporate and brand engagement & advocacy for Campari Group in the U.S. This was an evolution of his previous role as Director of PR & Events which he grew to also include digital strategy, influencer relations, partnerships, sponsorships, entertainment marketing, and licensing. In this position, Dave managed a team of six, a roster of nine agencies, and budgets in excess of $6 million. Notable work during this period included the development of the communication around Wild Turkey’s partnership with Matthew McConaughey, securing Espolon Tequila as an official sponsor of Deadpool 2, and building the influencer and media strategy that made the Aperol Spritz the drink of the summer in 2018.

Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, It

Dave started his career at Campari 12 years ago establishing the U.S. PR department, moving that responsibility from the brand managers over to a dedicated communications team. He introduced PR disciplines including annual planning, strategic messaging frameworks, media relationship management, measurement, and crisis communications. His team also executed the company’s first bartender relations program. While in this role, Dave secured and executed SKYY’s global partnership with Sex and the City, created the communications strategy for Wild Turkey’s rebranding and launched SKYY Infusions. Also at this time, he was tapped by the company’s CEO to manage marketing in the U.S. for the company’s namesake brand. Under his supervision, the brand’s sales – formerly stagnant – grew 100% from 50,000 to 100,000 cases, fueled, in part, by Dave’s biggest achievement at the company, developing and globally managing Negroni Week, the largest charitable giving program in the history of the spirits industry with more than 10,000 bars participating around the world. To date, Negroni Week has garnered more than six major marketing awards.

San Mateo, California, Us

Following a disappointing E3 appearance that led to the exit of Sony’s PlayStation’s long-time PR chief, Dave was brought on board just four months before the launch of PlayStation 3 to build and execute the corporate and brand communications strategy for the most important product rollout in the company’s history. The successful launch of the PS3 was critical for the company as the console served as the Trojan horse for Sony’s nascent Blu-ray technology which was in a must-win fight against Toshiba’s HD-DVD format.Managing a 17 person team and a budget of $14 million, Dave worked to break down barriers at the notoriously siloed Sony division, reaching across the aisle to the motion pictures, music, television, and electronics departments to leverage their unique strengths to support the launch. Spokespeople from each division, including now Sony CEO Kaz Harai, were trained and utilized to provide media and analysts with a holistic view of the importance of the PlayStation 3 to the entertainment industry. Product supply issues, hardware problems, and other crisis situations were dealt with head on, as Dave initiated the first public-facing executive blog in Sony history to take back control of the news cycle. The rise of blogger culture led to near-daily media updates, led by Dave. Upon launch, his team executed elaborate rollout events across the country, including the Los Angeles event which Buzzfeed recently called “The Most 2000s Event That Ever Happened.” Media relations task forces covering hardware, first-party software, third-party software, and online gaming were developed to broaden reach into niche verticals and increase blogger story generation.In spite of the challenges the system faced, media impressions generated for the year totaled more than 2 billion and Blu-ray became the defacto standard for high-resolution DVD. Following his orchestration of a very successful E3 in 2007, Dave left Sony to return to the spirits industry.

Us

In 2003, Allied Domecq was the second-largest spirits company in the world, behind Diageo. Allied housed an impressive portfolio of products including Maker’s Mark, Stoli, Kahlua, Beefeater, Malibu, Laphroaig, and Midori. In his role with the company, Dave oversaw both corporate communications and brand communications in North America.First on Dave’s agenda upon his arrival to Allied was to establish a North American corporate identity for the London-based global company. Tapping into his experience as a reporter, he built a compelling image: where Diageo was the dictator, Allied was the true partner, working cooperatively with distributors and retailers to grow their business. Executive speaking engagements, company trade show appearances, and industry analyst relations reinforced this message, which was built even further through close relationships with top-tier business and trade media.Allied’s rich portfolio of more than 30 brands gave Dave the ammunition needed to build dynamic, far-reaching PR campaigns, such as the amplification of Busta Rhymes top-selling song, “Pass the Courvoisier,” to help broaden the general public appeal of both Courvoisier and the cognac category. Dave also worked closely with brand teams to position Maker’s Mark as the first “mass-craft bourbon,” securing coverage in such publications as GQ, Maxim, and Esquire that helped drive sales by more than +30% in a flat market. He led product placement for the company, in addition to entertainment partnerships with everyone from Eminem to Twisted Sister.As he did for Campari Group, Dave served as Allied’s community affairs representative for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the government lobbying organization for the spirits industry. Allied Domecq was purchased by Pernod Ricard/Beam in 2005 and the company was disbanded a year later. During the transition, Dave was summoned to London to help manage global employee communications until its close.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Dave’s tenure at Kmart is where he truly honed his crisis communications skills. As the Director of Marketing Communications, he oversaw media outreach and events for the company’s biggest in-house brands, including Martha Stewart Everyday, Jaclyn Smith, Kathy Ireland, and Joe Boxer.The surprise indictment of Martha Stewart on securities fraud presented him with the unique challenge of how to position the company when the namesake of your biggest brand, which generates $1 billion in sales a year, is going to jail. As the communications lead, Dave worked closely with Kmart legal and corporate affairs, as well Martha Stewart Omnimedia representatives, to develop consumer-driven communications strategies that helped deflect concerns about the viability of the brand.That work led to Dave being named to oversee Kmart’s Issue Management Response Team. What followed was a landslide of situations for him to manage, from the company’s bankruptcy, to store closings, to the CEO’s indictment, and, finally, the company being featured in Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine.”

BlueLight.com was a stand-alone e-commerce company formed by Kmart, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, and Japanese conglomerate Softbank. Dave was employee number 12 managing communications for the company, its in-house Kmart brands, and its free Internet service.A novelty at the time – 100 year old brick and mortar discount retailer goes online – Dave worked closely with executives to position the company for an IPO. This included extensive business media outreach, with coverage landing in such publications as Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company and the Wall Street Journal. Dave also managed executive presentation development for investor conferences, as well as industry/financial analyst meetings.BlueLight.com was folded back into Kmart after just over a year, where Dave assumed additional Marketing Communications duties.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Starting as an Account Executive and finishing as a Vice President, Dave was the video game and consumer electronics guru at San Francisco PR firm Access Communications (now a Ketchum agency) during his five-year tenure. He led both corporate and brand communications strategy and execution for multiple hardware and software clients – from Sega to 3DO to Ubisoft to Virgin - as well as several Internet startups during the dot com boom.Following the exit of the PR director at Sega, Dave became the in-house communications leader for the iconic game maker, managing the launch of Sega Dreamcast. Driven by extensive consumer and tech media coverage, as well as nationwide consumer activations executed by Dave and his team, the Sega Dreamcast unveiling became the largest 24-hour period in entertainment history at the time.

Los Angeles, Ca, Us

Having made the leap from journalism to public relations, Dave landed at Rogers & Cowan, one of the largest celebrity PR firms in the world. He worked in the Consumer Technologies practice concentrating on media outreach on such projects as the “BOB” Windows operating system with Melinda Gates, and Starsight Telecast, one of the first on-screen television display systems.Dave’s most recognized work at R&C was the launch of the genre-busting video game, Tomb Raider.

Reno, Nv, Us