As you say, Flecc, the Harris Tweed people are mounting a good operation and their press spokesman is good.
Having been in the newspaper and magazine business all my working life, I have a wide experience of trade association pr people and most of it is very poor. The associations give the pr to anyone who is willing to do it, often it's a chore.
The danger is that coming from inside the business, they see their role as simply a spokesman for the industry, a bit like a trade union rep, so first of all they gain little publicity because their case is boring to non professionals and secondly people just see them as someone with an axe to grind. Thus they damage their product's public face.
The spokeman needs to understand and like the media, accepting that they know their job and public. If they report or slant things in a way he doesn't agree with, he must illustrate that they are misguided, not rail at them.
For example, the biggest public perception about e-bikes that I gather is that they are for the old or the infirm. This is a rotten image for any industry, especially a 'new tech' one but has some truth contained in it.
The only way round that is for people to see young people on these machines, using them not necessarily for exercise or shows of macho-ness like regular cycle firms do but as a highly convenient means of short to medium range transport.
A pic of Kylie Minogue or Robbie Williams tethering their e-bike right outside the Knightbridge Armani store would do wonders for the e-bike image among the 20 and thirty somethings. A good pap picture (the e-bike would raise a lot of interest - "aren't they for old folk, Kylie?) and a few quotes about how convenient they were, how green they were....
Doing it is another matter but the current image among the young(ish) is quite dowdy. The industry will come alive in the UK when e-bikes and zimmer frames do not share a common public perception. You don't need to pull such stunts on the continent because mostly they are willing to look at transport in a pragmatic fashion.
But in the UK, with the emphasis on image, looks and 'cool' over function, it will have to be tackled at some point or remain a niche product.