We pitched the scientist, not the supplement brand

We pitched the scientist, not the supplement brand
The client sold sleep supplements. Every pitch we'd sent led with the product, and every journalist heard "advertorial" and deleted it. The brand was the problem.
The angle was to disappear it. We had an in-house sleep researcher with real credentials and a genuinely interesting finding about screen-time and cortisol. So we built her a standalone expert profile, got her two podcast appearances, and started pitching her as a source — not the company as an advertiser. The product got a single line in her bio, nothing more.
The pitch was a source offer, not a story: "Dr. [Name] can speak to why your sleep tips aren't working — she has unpublished data on evening cortisol." Reporters love an expert who arrives with fresh numbers and no obvious agenda.
Result: 14 expert quotes across health and lifestyle outlets in four months, three of which linked to her data page (and the brand by one degree of separation). A wellness editor at a major site added her to their permanent source list.
Lesson: When the brand kills the pitch, promote a human. Journalists quote credible people; they decline credible logos. Build the expert, and the links follow the expertise.