The media landscape is experiencing seismic shifts. Traditional formats like print are in decline, making way for online and social media consumption. Nascent AI technologies are having a major impact on not just the type of coverage, but the trustworthiness of the content promoted by PR and comms teams.
At In.Comms' Corporate Comms Summit earlier this month, editor Claire Warren hosted a panel of comms and media relations experts from various sectors, to discuss media relations in a rapidly changing media landscape, and how comms can achieve wall-to-wall coverage.
The panel agreed that while the fundamental principles of media relations – being present, human, and useful – haven’t changed, the tactics and platforms have evolved dramatically.
The new media ecosystem
The first order of business was acknowledging that the old media silos are dead. In fact, Sinthu Satchi, country manager at Onclusive, said we must start thinking of platforms such as print media, social media and digital as “ecosystems”, and modern PR teams should be asking themselves in which of these ecosystems can they find their audience. Syeda Hasnain, head of communications at Merck Healthcare UKIE, agreed, noting that media coverage no longer consists of sending out a press release: “Everybody is doing an integrated campaign where they’re mostly thinking about social media coverage first,” she asserted. “We know that more than one third of young people are getting their news online, according to Ofcom. But less than half of them actually trust it.”
This makes a comms task a “much longer term job” that extends far beyond launch day, focusing on monitoring dialogue and verifying facts.
For Sophie Orbaum, director of communications and marketing at Harts Group, there is a new equilibrium. She referred to a piece in the Financial Times that collated booking data from three different restaurants to see where the spikes in spend and revenue had come from. For the first restaurant, an exclusive write-up in TimeOut had impacted booking data. Tracking neck-and-neck however, was a review in The Times, which she referred to as “traditional paywall media” and a TikTok post that the restaurant themselves had published and had gone viral. Success, therefore, requires a 360-degree comms plan that engages people at multiple digital and print touch points.
Despite the digital dominance, Isobel Bradshaw, director of media relations at Visa Europe, is rather “bullish” about the future of media relations. Most people are increasingly getting their news from social media and AI, but she asks the question: “Where does AI get its news from?” The answer is apparently “top-tier media” such as the Financial Times or New York Times.
“There is a synthesis between traditional media, new media and AI,” she says. “So actually, traditional media isn't dead yet.”
Orbaum adds that including inbound links from reputable sources, such as the FT or The Guardian to a website can significantly boost a business’s Google ranking. This means their own page’s SEO will rank higher compared to newer digital media outlets.
The trust crisis
Trust was a major theme of the summit. The prevalence of AI across every sector now means journalists are having a harder time trusting whether a pitch is real or not. Hasnain from Merck says AI is “muddying the waters”, with platforms scraping multiple sources from across the web without checking to see whether they’re trustworthy. Satchi from Onclusive adds that when it comes to building trust within that journalist-PR relationship, it all comes down to how a comms team can be a reliable resource.
Newsrooms are “under attack”, adds Fergus Campbell, director of corporate affairs for EMEA at Airwallex. The number of journalists in newsrooms has dramatically decreased in the last few years and with AI being used by comms teams, time-poor journalists now have an “avalanche” of content coming their way. To help combat this, many newsrooms are now using filters to prevent AI content from reaching their inboxes.
When engaging with influencers – a crucial tactic, as Hasnain cited a study showing more than 80 per cent of consumers bought something an influencer recommended in the past year – the panel advised teams to proceed with caution. Orbaum warned against being fooled by vanity metrics such as number of followers, preferring smaller influencers who demonstrate high engagement with their audience over macro-influencers who refuse to share their stats. Influencers are not siloed only to Instagram and TikTok. For some organisations, such as Onclusive, platforms like LinkedIn are going to provide the greatest impact, as that’s where their audience is more likely to be found.
Cutting through the noise
On the topic of achieving cut-through across multiple channels, the panel offered contrasting, yet complementary, strategies. While it’s not impossible to achieve complete wall-to-wall coverage, Hasnain advised teams not to strive towards an all-or-nothing outcome.
“When we’re dealing with a very hyper fragmented media landscape, I think we also have to be almost hyper fragmented in how we promote our stories and how we target outlets.” In her view, teams should be asking themselves where they want to grab their target audience, rather than casting their net far and wide.
Leveraging controversial tactics can be good if executed “in the right way”, says Campbell from Airwallex.
“You’ve got to be relatively brave,” he says, “but it doesn’t always come from the place you might anticipate. Currently our Australian colleagues are running an ATL [above the line] campaign which features creatives of banks being smashed. This is complicated because we don’t have a banking license in the UK and we've got a different license structure, but we’re playfully moving into banking territory. This campaign then becomes a reason for us to speak to media who cover transitional banks, but maybe wouldn’t usually speak to fintechs.”
When asked the fundamental question: “Do we still want wall-to-wall coverage?” Bradshaw “wouldn’t say no” despite it being increasingly difficult to achieve. From a corporate perspective, companies like Visa are targeting more meaningful one-on-one campaigns where executives can build a closer relationship with journalists.
The session concluded with advice on how in-house teams and external agencies can work in harmony to increase efficiency and scalability. Orbaum, who runs a hybrid team, stressed that harmony can be achieved when the agency feels “like an extension” of the in-house team, which requires a level of trust and respect that “everybody can do their job well”. When everyone is working toward a shared objective, she believes strong networks and relationships among individuals can be incredibly beneficial, as they help to unify efforts and drive progress in the same direction.