The clue was the chocolate bar. HJ-PR had been hired to do something familiar: place Magno Chocolates in holiday gift guides. Advent calendars, glossy boxes, the reliable machinery of December. Then, midway through the campaign, a Knafeh Bar began attracting attention in the Middle East. It had texture, cultural specificity and momentum. The agency changed direction.
The result, by HJ-PR’s count, was 112 press hits in five months, more than 20 prominent gift-guide appearances, 4.86 million views and a short seasonal assignment that grew into a longer engagement. The numbers are the agency’s own, and reach figures in PR should always be read as potential audience rather than a head count. Still, the sequence is revealing. A plan was made. Reality produced a better idea. Someone noticed.
This is the practical proposition behind HJ-PR, a small agency founded in 2020 by Holly-Jade Page and Fernando Landeros. Its public headquarters is Los Angeles; it also lists London and works across the US and UK. The company says it has between two and ten employees. It serves fashion, food and beverage, hospitality, spirits, wellness and lifestyle brands - categories in which a product is often only half the purchase. The other half is the scene around it.
The married couple with different jobs
Page is the editorial half of the founding pair: co-founder, chief executive and head of PR. She began in London and worked through fashion, restaurants, drinks and hospitality before moving into the US market. Landeros, born in Mexico City, is the operator: co-founder, COO and head of business development, with responsibility for influencer campaigns, partnerships and client growth.
The distinction matters. Plenty of agencies can write a press release. HJ-PR is arranged around two separate questions: what is the story, and how does it travel? One founder shapes the narrative and media angle. The other builds the creator, sponsorship and commercial machinery around it. Their marriage is incidental to a client. Their complementary wiring is not.
“We don’t hide behind junior staff. You work directly with us, founders who care, move fast, and bring a sharp editorial eye and deep brand intuition.”Holly-Jade Page and Fernando Landeros
Six services, one underlying trade
HJ-PR’s menu covers traditional PR, affiliate-oriented performance PR, influencer services, brand partnerships, event production and social media management. That sounds broad until you see the common transaction. In every case, the agency is trying to move a brand into a conversation it did not own before.
For traditional PR, the currency is editorial attention. For performance PR, publisher relationships and affiliate incentives are added in hopes that attention converts. Influencer work trades on the fit between a creator and an audience. Partnerships package one brand’s access for another. Events manufacture a place and time worth discussing. Social keeps the resulting material in circulation.
Space Runners is a neat example. The client lived at the intersection of fashion, Web3 and AI, a neighborhood thick with jargon. HJ-PR says it translated the company’s launches and collaborations into accessible stories for fashion, business, technology and consumer editors, earning more than 190 features. The agency was not merely distributing the same pitch to four lists. It was changing the language so four kinds of editor could see an assignment.
A basketball court is a media strategy
The most revealing case study may be Sprayground’s 10-day Los Angeles pop-up. HJ-PR scouted locations and chose an open-air basketball court near Melrose and Fairfax. It arranged 12 rotating staff members and five activations with local brands. There was a lowrider show, food from Latino-owned businesses and a dunk contest with a $1,000 prize.
That last figure is the rare public cost attached to the work. HJ-PR publishes no fixed fee card; it sells bespoke scopes. But the prize illustrates how publicity budgets become details people repeat. “A retail activation occurred” is a report. “Local ballers competed for $1,000 on a fashion-painted court” is a picture.
The same logic shaped its two Hamptons restaurant launches. The agency invited writers to experience N’AMO Montauk and Village Bistro, managed openings and summer tastings, recruited relevant creators, then kept pitching around holidays and community dates after opening night. It reports 94 pieces of coverage in three months. A restaurant cannot be understood from a press release. Someone has to sit down, taste something and decide the room has a story.
What failed first - and what replaced it
HJ-PR’s origin story begins with a failure of agency culture. Page has described early work with punishing hours and little separation between job and life. When she raised the issue at one employer, she says she was dismissed. Later, at a London firm, she found a team that worked hard and still left on time. That changed her idea of what an agency could be.
The company that followed was remote, founder-led and candid about expectations. During the pandemic the founders moved to Mexico, and Page publicly connected the lower cost of living to more competitive client pricing. The current company identifies Los Angeles as headquarters and London as another location, but the operating lesson remains: lower overhead can fund senior attention, provided the communication is disciplined.
“I always say this is PR not ER!”Holly-Jade Page on work-life balance
The line is funny because PR often manufactures urgency. The inbox fills. A client sees a competitor’s mention and wants one today. An algorithm changes. A tariff complicates a launch. The founders’ stated response is to stay nimble and get ahead with a proactive strategy. Yet nimble is useful only when priorities are clear. Otherwise it is a flattering word for chaos.
The part worth copying
A brand can borrow HJ-PR’s method without borrowing its media list. Start with a calendar of genuine occasions: launches, collaborations, seasonal rituals, openings and moments when the founder has something specific to say. Give each audience its own translation. Put the product in the room when experience matters. Build images and facts a writer can carry away. Then watch for the unexpected angle that outperforms the plan.
The method needs raw material. It works best for visual, experiential consumer products with a credible founder, launch, collaboration or cultural hook. It is a poor fit when the product is undifferentiated, the client cannot provide samples or access, approvals take weeks, or leadership expects guaranteed headlines. Editors still decide what appears. Influencers still need a believable reason to care. Reach is not revenue, and a famous publication’s logo does not repair weak distribution.
HJ-PR’s more recent direction pushes closer to commerce. Performance PR adds affiliate economics. Brand-partnership work packages sponsorship inventory. In 2026 the agency announced that it would lead sponsorship partnerships for The Yacht Week, spanning events, creator programs, branded flotillas and full-week takeovers. That is a longer distance from the traditional press office, but the old instinct is still visible: find the place where culture is already gathering, then make a brand useful there.
Six years of finding the live angle
- Launched in a year when the launch plan disappearedPage and Landeros founded HJ-PR; the related UK company was incorporated in October.
- Remote work became part of the propositionThe founders described balance, mental health and lower overhead as design choices, not office perks.
- Campaigns moved into rooms and streetsSprayground projects joined editorial outreach with runway management and a 10-day Los Angeles pop-up.
- A chocolate campaign changed courseThe Magno assignment followed Knafeh Bar momentum and grew beyond its original holiday sprint.
- Sponsorship moved forwardA refreshed site, Formula 1 hospitality opportunities and The Yacht Week signaled a larger role for brand partnerships.
There is a temptation to describe every communications agency as a storyteller. It is so vague that it hides the actual job. HJ-PR’s best public work is more mechanical and more interesting. It finds an object, date, place or person around which attention can organize. Sometimes that object is a Knafeh Bar. Sometimes it is a runway. Sometimes it is a basketball rim and a thousand dollars.