Author: Kyle Yeats

Developers are scaling renewable projects faster than governments can set the targets that justify them. Communities, meanwhile, are increasingly alert to the opportunities and impacts that major infrastructure brings. But amid this acceleration, one challenge continues to grow in complexity: stakeholder engagement.

From offshore wind and grid infrastructure to hydrogen and carbon capture projects, successful delivery no longer depends solely on engineering or finance. It depends on trust.

As someone working in stakeholder engagement within the energy sector, I’ve seen first-hand how expectations have changed. Communities, local authorities, supply chain partners, environmental groups and political stakeholders all want to be involved earlier, informed more clearly and listened to more meaningfully. Simply issuing project updates or holding a consultation event is no longer enough.

One of the biggest challenges is balancing urgency with transparency. Renewable projects are under pressure to move quickly to meet climate targets, energy demands and funding timelines, yet communities feel projects are happening to them rather than with them. If engagement is rushed or overly technical, trust can quickly erode, and rebuilding it is far more difficult than establishing it from the start.

While it may seem developers should engage communities as soon as a project receives internal approval, this is not always practical. In the early stages, key details such as project design, environmental assessments, grid connections and construction timelines may still be evolving. Engaging too soon can leave developers unable to answer important questions or make firm commitments. That creates uncertainty and risks setting expectations they can’t meet.

The challenge is finding the right balance: engaging early enough to build trust while ensuring sufficient information is available to support meaningful conversations. A phased engagement strategy, where developers are transparent about what is known, what is still being assessed and when further information will be available, can help manage expectations and maintain credibility.

Another challenge is countering misinformation and competing narratives. Social media has transformed how projects are discussed publicly, allowing concerns about visual impact, environmental issues or economic benefits to spread rapidly.

In many cases, silence from developers creates a vacuum that others are happy to fill. Proactive communication is therefore more important than ever. Working with local authorities, community groups and trusted organisations can help ensure information reaches residents through channels they already trust.

Identifying community ambassadors who understand the project’s benefits, monitoring social media discussions and developing tailored FAQs can help address concerns before they escalate. Presentations, project websites and local partnerships also help correct misinformation.

Even when there is little new information to share, regular communication reassures communities that they are being kept informed and helps prevent speculation.

There is also the challenge of translating complexity into clarity. Renewable energy projects involve technical language, policy frameworks and lengthy development timelines that can be difficult for non-specialist audiences to engage with. Stakeholders want information they can understand, relate to and respond to confidently.

Developers should work closely with communications teams to create clear, concise messaging, particularly for consultation materials. Sufficient time should be allocated to developing materials including visuals that explain complex details, such as cable routes, building heights and local impacts, in a way that is easy to understand.

At the same time, developers are managing multiple audiences with different priorities. Investors focus on delivery and risk, communities on local impacts and benefits, political stakeholders on jobs and economic growth, and environmental groups on biodiversity and sustainability. Effective engagement requires a strategy that speaks credibly to each audience while maintaining a consistent message.

This is where strategic PR and communications support becomes essential. Agencies with experience engaging different stakeholder groups can help tailor communications effectively. A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works.

Stakeholder engagement is not simply a box-ticking exercise. It means building relationships, creating understanding and maintaining confidence throughout a project’s lifecycle. A strong communications strategy helps developers engage earlier, communicate more clearly and respond proactively to emerging issues.

As a PR and communications agency working across the energy and infrastructure sectors, we support clients by developing engagement strategies that are proactive, transparent and audience led. From community consultation programmes and media relations to digital engagement, messaging development and crisis communications, we help organisations communicate with clarity and credibility.

The energy transition will only succeed if people feel part of it. Renewable energy projects succeed when developers maintain clear and transparent communication with stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement must sit at the heart of project delivery, not on the sidelines.

Britain has its seventh Prime Minister in ten years, and this one is arriving without a general election or a leadership contest. Nominations opened on 9 July for the race to succeed Keir Starmer as Labour leader. Andy Burnham was the only declared candidate.

He was confirmed as Labour leader on 17 July, unopposed, and takes office as Prime Minister today following his audience with the King.

Westminster is calling this a coronation. For anyone with a stake in government policy or funding decisions, it’s better understood as a change of management with almost no notice period.

How we got here

Starmer announced his resignation on 22 June, four days after Burnham won his seat as MP for Makerfield, having won a by-election engineered specifically to get him there. Sitting MP Josh Simons stood down in May so the then-Mayor of Greater Manchester could re-enter Parliament and mount a challenge. Wes Streeting, the one MP with the profile to make this a genuine contest, endorsed Burnham within hours and stood aside. That single decision shaped the timetable more than anything in the party’s rulebook.

Starmer stayed on until the process concluded. His net approval rating had fallen to around -46% by November 2025, and Labour’s losses in the May 2026 local elections triggered a run of resignations, including Streeting on 14 May and Defence Secretary John Healey on 11 June. Burnham, positioned to Starmer’s left and backed by a decade running Greater Manchester, absorbed that discontent faster than anyone else could organise against it.

What a coronation actually changes

A contested leadership race ordinarily forces a candidate to defend their positions in public, under pressure, for weeks. The coronation skips all of that. Burnham walks into Downing Street without ever having had to defend a manifesto, a fiscal plan or a foreign policy position against a Labour rival. That matters for anyone trying to plan around him, because a contest is usually where you find out what a Prime Minister actually believes once the questions get hard. This time, there was no dress rehearsal. The positions on record are the ones Burnham developed as a regional mayor, without a departmental Cabinet to run, a Treasury to negotiate with or a backbench to manage. All three land on day one.

What this means in practice

A reshuffle is coming, and it reaches further than the top job. New leaders bring new advisers and, usually, a reshaped Cabinet. Relationships built around a specific minister or department should be treated as provisional until appointments are confirmed.

The runway before recess is short. Anything meant to land on a new minister’s desk in their first fortnight, congratulations, requests for meetings, briefing material, is worth having ready now.

Burnham has pledged to stay within the current spending and borrowing plans, which should reassure anyone braced for a sharp fiscal shift. But his “Manchesterism”, a devolution-and-private-investment approach to growth, changes the tone even where the numbers don’t move. Expect a different pitch on regional investment, planning and business engagement from a government running the same fiscal rules.

Greater Manchester relationships carry new weight. A decade running that combined authority means Burnham arrives fluent in regional investment and transport policy and already known to the people who deliver it. Organisations with a footprint in the North West now have a more direct line into Downing Street than they had a month ago.

Scotland is not a bystander. A new UK government reshapes the Barnett conversation and the tone of UK-Scottish Government relations, whatever the devolution settlement says on paper. Holyrood-facing work should treat this as part of the same story, not a separate one.

What you should do next

Review which of your government contacts are reshuffle risks and have any correspondence for a new minister ready to send the moment appointments are confirmed.

If you’d like to talk through what this means for your organisation specifically and how we can assist, BIG Partnership’s public affairs team is happy to help.

Energy sits between infrastructure, politics and public anxiety in a way few sectors can match. Yet the people with the most power to shape a project’s fate – local communities, elected representatives and planning committees – are often the furthest removed from the technical detail. That gap is not a communications inconvenience. It is the central challenge of working in energy, and closing it is what determines whether a project moves forward or stalls.

Geopolitical tension, price volatility and net zero policy have pushed energy to the top of the public and investor agenda simultaneously. The detail, from grid infrastructure to hydrogen repurposing to planning policy, remains technical and difficult for non-specialists to grasp. Translating that complexity is not about diluting the facts. It is about making them meaningful to the person reading them.

Whether the goal is to secure planning consent, attract investment or build public trust, understanding is essential. It also requires the ability to adapt between highly technical, informed audiences and the wider public ensuring messaging is crafted specifically to the people it speaks to.

Start with what matters, not how it works

The most important question in energy communications is the ‘why’. Whether you’re connecting with engineers who want detailed case studies or local communities near a proposed battery storage facility, audiences want to know why it matters to them.

Technical audiences expect accuracy, depth and specificity. If you oversimplify, you lose credibility. Whether that’s methodology, compliance, or project outcomes the detail is the message. For wider audiences, the challenge is different. The same level of detail quickly becomes alienating. Relatability is key for audiences to understand the impact. This is where strategic communications is critical. Being able to adapt messaging while telling the same story is essential. 

Take a new offshore wind project. Industry stakeholders will look for installed capacity plans, turbine specifications, and grid integration. The local community, by contrast, will want to know about noise levels, the visual impact on the landscape and local job opportunities. The same project, two entirely different conversations.

The same principle applies across the sector. In a gas-to-hydrogen repurposing project, investors need commercial viability data and a clear regulatory pathway, while workers and local communities need reassurance about jobs and safety. Tailoring communication to each audience’s priorities is what keeps everyone informed and on side.

When we worked with Onyx – a global provider of services to wind asset owners – the challenge was exactly this. The same story needed to land with two very different audiences. We led with an accessible press release for a broad readership, before following up with in-depth thought leadership articles for industry specialists who needed the technical detail. Same message, two very different registers.

Read the full case study here.

Make the invisible visible

Most energy infrastructure is invisible to the public. Oil and gas platforms sit offshore, onshore wind turbines occupy remote hillsides and the mechanisms that balance supply and demand on the grid happen entirely out of sight. Storytelling brings those assets and processes to life through analogy, comparison, imagery and videography. For audiences who want to go deeper, data points and schematics provide the supporting layer.

Data builds credibility, but people create connections. One of the most effective ways to translate complexity is through human storytelling: putting the engineers, planners, and technicians behind a project front and centre. It doesn’t replace the technical detail. It makes it worth reading.

When communication fails, projects pay for it

The consequences of poor energy communications are rarely abstract. A planning inquiry derailed by local opposition, a judicial review triggered by communities who felt excluded from consultation, a political intervention prompted by media coverage that went unanswered. These are project risks, measured in months and in money.

The energy sector has no shortage of examples where technically sound projects ran into sustained, organised resistance, not because the project was wrong, but because the communication was too little, too late, or aimed at the wrong level. Getting ahead of that requires treating communications as part of project development, not something added on before a public exhibition.

The media is not just another audience

Journalists occupy a specific position in energy communications that differs from any other audience. They translate your messaging and transmit it further. A technically accurate briefing can become a misleading headline within a news cycle. That is not always bad faith, it is often the result of tight deadlines, sub-editors left to do the finishing touches, and limited specialist knowledge.

Managing that chain of interpretation, being available, plain-spoken and proactive with the media, is a distinct skill from briefing engineers or addressing a community meeting. It also means that what you do not say publicly is as consequential as what you do. Silence in a fast-moving story is rarely neutral.

A strategic advantage, not just a communications task

As the UK’s energy transition accelerates, the ability to communicate complex infrastructure effectively separates projects that build broad support from those that stall. Projects that are well understood, by both expert and non-expert audiences, are more likely to gain approval, overcome opposition and maintain momentum.

For communications professionals working across the energy sector, this requires collaboration, adaptability and the confidence to hold a complex story together across very different audiences. The question is never whether to simplify. It’s knowing how far to go, and when to stop.

In modern digital marketing, measuring performance accurately is fundamental to driving sustainable, profitable growth. While platforms such as Google Ads provide sophisticated attribution and reporting tools, these systems primarily measure correlation – the attribution and touch points between ads in the platform – not causation – which is whether the ad actually drove conversion. Incrementality testing addresses this gap by identifying the true business impact of advertising investment. 

What is incrementality testing? 

Incrementality testing evaluates whether marketing activity generates additional outcomes that would not have occurred without advertising exposure. As marketers, what we really want to know is whether these conversions would have happened anyway, without seeing the ad in the first place. For example, it’s a hot sunny day and a customer has bought an ice cream. Have they bought that ice cream because it’s a hot sunny day, or because they’ve seen an ad for it? 

It is a critical distinction as platform-reported conversions often include users who were already likely to purchase, inflating perceived performance and leading to inefficient budget allocation.  

Incrementality testing isolates advertising’s causal impact through controlled experimentation, typically through techniques such as geo holdouts, audience splits, conversion lift studies or budget pause tests. 

Why traditional attribution falls short 

Digital platforms optimise toward the signals available within their ecosystems. Both Google and Meta rely heavily on modelled attribution due to privacy restrictions, signal loss, and cross-device behaviour.  

This has consequences and could mean that: 

Retargeting campaigns often appear highly efficient but may capture existing demand rather than create new demand; 

Branded search frequently receives disproportionate credit for conversions that are already driven by upper-funnel channels;  

Automated bidding algorithms optimise driving conversions, not profit.  attributed conversions, not incremental profit.  

Without incrementality testing, marketers risk scaling spend that redistributes demand instead of generating growth. 

Incrementality in Google Ads 

Within Google Ads, incrementality testing is particularly important because search advertising sits close to purchase intent. 

Key challenges include: 

Brand search cannibalisation — users already intending to convert may click paid ads instead of organic listings; 

Performance max and automation opacity — machine learning blends channels and audiences, making causal impact harder to evaluate; 

Demand capture vs. demand creation — search excels at capturing intent but does not always generate new demand.  

Incrementality testing helps to determine: 

Whether branded search spend is truly additive;  

The marginal return of increased budget levels  

The real contribution of upper-funnel YouTube or Display investment to search demand.  

This enables advertisers to optimise for profitability, not just reported ROAS (return on ad spend). 

Incrementality across Meta 

On Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, incrementality testing is arguably even more critical. 

Meta’s strength lies in demand generation, but its attribution models can often reward campaigns that efficiently reach existing customers or high-intent users. 

Common risks include: 

Over-investment in retargeting audiences;  

Algorithmic bias toward users already likely to convert;  

Inflated attribution windows exaggerating performance.  

However, incrementality testing — through conversion lift experiments, audience holdouts, or geo testing — reveals: 

The true value of prospecting campaigns;  

The incremental contribution of creative and messaging;  

Optimal frequency and budget thresholds. 

All of this allows marketers to shift investment toward campaigns that grow the market, not simply harvest existing demand. 

The strategic value: From efficiency to growth 

Incrementality testing transforms marketing decision-making in three fundamental ways. First, it drives smarter budget allocation away from low-incremental channels towards high-impact demand creators that generate genuine growth.  

Second, it enables more accurate ROI measurement, allowing businesses to optimise toward incremental revenue and profit rather than the flattering but often misleading metrics reported by platforms themselves.  

And third, it fosters better collaboration between finance and marketing by anchoring performance to causal business outcomes. 

Beyond operational improvements, incrementality testing has become a source of durable competitive advantage. As privacy regulations erode tracking precision and platforms lean more heavily on modelling, it stands out as the most reliable measurement framework available.  

Organisations that embed experimentation into their operating model reap compounding benefits: faster learning cycles, less wasted spend, more confident scaling decisions, and stronger long-term profitability. To unlock profitable digital growth across Google Ads, Meta, and the broader marketing ecosystem, incrementality testing is now essential. 

Over the last decade, I’ve built websites in Dreamweaver, created GIFs that generated billions of views, learned Meta’s AR software and now use AI tools to help shape wireframes and content structures. 

Some of those skills are still useful, while others have all but disappeared. 

It’s taught me an important lesson: the most valuable skill in design isn’t mastering a particular tool, it’s being willing to adapt when the industry inevitably changes around you.

The tools never stop changing 

When I started my career, Dreamweaver was still a legitimate part of many designers’ workflows – it was considered cutting edge. 

Back then, building a website often meant designing and developing it yourself. Responsive design was still finding its feet; social media looked very different and nobody was talking about AI as a creative tool. 

Fast forward a decade and my workflow has changed completely. Most projects now start in Figma, collaboration happens in real time and tools like Claude and Relume are helping speed up everything from content structures to early-stage wireframing. 

The fundamentals of design haven’t changed much but the tools we use to get there certainly have. 

One of the biggest challenges for any designer is deciding what deserves your time. 

Throughout my working life, I’ve invested hours learning platforms and technologies that felt like the future. 

At one point, GIF creation became a major part of my work. Brands were embracing the format, audiences were sharing them everywhere and the opportunities felt endless. It was an exciting time, creating content that generated billions of views across social platforms. 

Fast forward a few years and GIFs feel increasingly tied to a specific era of internet culture. 

The same thing happened with Meta Spark Studio. I spent time learning how to create augmented reality experiences because it genuinely looked like a pivotal direction for social media. Then the platform was retired and much of that ecosystem disappeared. 

Looking purely at the software, that time might seem wasted but I don’t see it that way. 

The value wasn’t really in the tools themselves. Every new platform forced me to learn new ways of thinking, solve unfamiliar problems and become comfortable operating outside my comfort zone. Those skills transfer. 

The software may disappear, but the ability to pick up something new, understand it quickly and find creative ways to use it remains incredibly valuable. 

In many ways, learning how to learn has become one of the most important skills in modern design. 

AI is just the latest chapter 

Right now, AI dominates almost every conversation in the creative industry. Some people see it as a threat while others see it as the solution to everything. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. 

I use AI tools regularly, not because they replace design thinking, but because they help remove friction, speed up certain tasks and make it easier to move ideas forward. 

Five years from now, the tools we’re all talking about today might be gone. That’s not a criticism, it’s just the nature of technology. 

The challenge isn’t trying to learn everything, it’s figuring out what’s worth exploring, what’s worth ignoring and what genuinely makes you better at your job. 

Why this matters for brands 

The same principle applies beyond design. Businesses are navigating many of the same challenges. New platforms emerge, customer behaviours shift and technologies evolve at an increasingly rapid pace. Knowing which opportunities are worth pursuing and which are simply distractions has become more important than ever. 

That’s where experience matters. At BIG, we’re constantly exploring new tools, technologies and ways of working. Not because every trend deserves attention, but because understanding what’s changing helps us identify what will genuinely create value for our clients. 

The goal isn’t to chase every new platform or shiny new technology. It’s to combine proven creative thinking with an understanding of what’s next, helping brands adapt confidently without losing sight of what makes them effective in the first place. 

The tools will continue to change, they always do. For designers and brands alike, the challenge is knowing how to evolve with them. 

The Scotland men’s national football team are at their first World Cup in 28 years. To cheer the team on and celebrate their qualification, more than 30,000 party ready Scots have descended on Boston, watching John McGinn help secure a 1-0 win over Haiti with his goal in the country’s opening match of the tournament.  

While that victory may have been Scotland’s first in the tournament since 1990, another resounding success has unfolded elsewhere in the city. Ahead of the tournament, Travis Pollio, the Red Sox director of ticket strategy and promotions, noticed that Scotland’s opening match fell the day before a home game at Fenway Park, the baseball side’s historic stadium. He could have ignored it; instead, ‘Scotland Day’ was born.

Following Scotland’s win – with spirits still high – the Tartan Army marched from the city’s Evans Way Park to Fenway, led by a band of pipers. Fans were gifted special edition blue tartan Red Sox jerseys, and the mascots ‘Tessie and Wally’ appeared in traditional Scottish dress. During the match itself, a crowd that had, mostly, never watched a baseball game in their lives, created a huge atmosphere by belting their way through the classic tunes with ‘Flower of Scotland’, ‘I’m Gonna Be’ and ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ echoing through the stands.

Of the 32,000 people inside Fenway that night, BBC Sport’s reporter on the ground, Scott Mullen, estimated you could treble Pollio’s initial forecast of 4,000 Scottish fans and not be overstating it. The Red Sox lost 6-4 to the Texas Rangers, although almost nobody seemed to mind.

What made this work wasn’t a slick campaign concept with all the bells and whistles. Pollio spotted a simple opportunity: thousands of Scotland supporters were already in his city and looking for something to do between football matches, with Scotland set to play Morocco this coming Friday. Before the gates even opened, pipe bands were playing outside on Jersey Street, fans in kilts were spilling across the concourses and the kind of atmosphere that you can’t artificially manufacture was already building in the stands.

Scots who had never watched a baseball game in their lives were singing their hearts out by the end of the first inning. The audience overlap was almost perfect – Bostonians are renowned for their sporting spirit – and, because the activation was built around people who were already there, the cost relative to what it returned was negligible.

The magic of this activation lies in its raw, unfiltered delivery. The Red Sox created the occasion and then allowed the fans to create the atmosphere. Every one of those supporters likely had a phone in their pocket. Every photo posted, every story shared, every TikTok uploaded put the Red Sox brand in front of audiences the club would never have reached through paid media. The best user generated content usually isn’t manufactured through hashtag competitions or giveaways – it happens organically when you give people something genuinely worth sharing.

In another world, this is an activation where someone has added three approval layers, a brand safety review and a six-week lead time that would cause it to become a sanitised co-branding exercise that ultimately generates nothing. The version that happened was confident and trusting enough to let the crowd take it somewhere.

A lesson that every comms and marketing team should take from this event is, instead of asking ‘how can we attach ourselves to this event?’, rather, ‘how do we create a moment and a memory for fans?’

According to CreativeX, an analytics platform for marketers, the ultimate driver of buying decision is memory. Now, whenever one of those Scotland fans think of baseball, they will instantly think of the Red Sox and that incredible night they experienced at Fenway, ultimately making them more likely to visit again or purchase merchandise. You must also consider the millions of views that the atmosphere has generated on social media by people stunned that a regular season Major League Baseball match has been commandeered by rowdy Scots.

During a World Cup, every host city has a full schedule. Every match creates a temporary captive audience of supporters, journalists and curious locals who don’t vanish at the final whistle. The teams and brands earning attention right now aren’t always the official partners, it is the brands sensing an opportunity, spotted something the others missed and moved before the window closed.

Mounjaro. Wegovy. Ozempic. A year ago, these were whispered about in celebrity gossip columns. Now they are prescribed by GPs, discussed openly at dinner parties and advertised by private clinics on public transport. GLP-1 medications have entered the mainstream and with them has come a quiet but significant rewiring of how people think about food, bodies, and the marketing messages promoted by lifestyle, food and drink brands.

The opportunity for food brands

GLP-1 users are not disengaging from food, they are re-engaging with it differently.

Reduced appetite tends to sharpen preferences. Smaller portions mean people are less willing to waste their appetite on something they don’t genuinely want. Protein and nutrient density matter more. The incidental, grab-and-go eating that much food marketing has long been built around gives way to something more deliberate.

That presents an opportunity, not a threat, for food brands willing to think about it properly. UK retailers have been moving in this direction already. High-protein ranges have expanded across Aldi, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer, and the language around satiety and nutrition has become more prominent in product positioning. The next step for savvy brands is connecting that positioning explicitly to the mindset shift GLP-1 culture represents, without making the medication the story. Part of the audience has changed. The product brief can also change with it.

Wellness has a new register

The wellness sector is navigating this with particular energy. Brands that built their identity around weight loss, whether through clean eating plans, calorie-tracking apps or transformation-focused fitness content, are finding that the old language lands differently now. ‘Results’ used to mean a before-and-after. That framing feels thinner (so to speak) when a prescription can deliver a comparable outcome.

The smarter wellness brands are pivoting toward what medication cannot easily provide: the feel-good architecture around health. Energy, sleep quality, strength, gut health, mental clarity. These are genuine and growing consumer priorities and they are not displaced by GLP-1 use; in many cases they are amplified by it. Brands that can speak to this broader definition of feeling well, rather than anchoring everything in a dress size, are finding a receptive audience. Boots have launched a campaign for its ‘Summer Club’, which focuses on a plethora of different body types, races and abilities. This shift to showcase real people, instead of picture-perfect influencers works well and allows their demographic to broaden.

A growing audience that looks different

What many social media users are increasingly vocal about is specific: the gap between the bodies brands present as aspirational and the bodies their customers actually live in. That tension predates GLP-1 culture, but these medications have sharpened it. Whilst GLP-1s are becoming more popular, a significant portion of consumers are not interested in weight-loss or becoming smaller, so  brand activations cast entirely from narrow physical mould starts to look less like inspiration and more like a decision. Gone is the body-positive movement of the early 2020s, catapulting us straight back to the outdated ideation that skinny = better.

The backlash, when it comes, is swift and well-documented. UK audiences on TikTok and Instagram have become adept at calling out influencer lineups that feel homogeneous and the commentary travels fast. Critique of a recent campaign with M&S shows that users are paying attention to these ideals. They want to see diversity in content, despite many influencers and celebrities shrinking by the day. A 2024 Dove study found that only 3% of women in the UK feel represented in advertising. That figure has sat uncomfortably in the industry for a while. GLP-1 culture has given it new urgency. There are many creators who fit in diverse categories such as race, gender, disability and body type. In 2026, there is simply no excuse for brands to overlook this.

What this means for social strategy

Knowing your audience has shifted is one thing. Making sure your content reflects that is another. None of this requires brands to reference GLP-1s, take a position on weight loss medication or wade into contested health territory. It requires something simpler: paying attention to who your audience is now.

Casting decisions are the most visible place to start. A genuine audit of who appears in your brand content, what range of bodies and experiences is represented and whether that lineup bears any resemblance to your actual customer base.

Content briefs are less visible but equally important. Food content that only speaks to abundance, indulgence and effortless eating is addressing a narrower slice of the audience than it used to, especially with HFSS restrictions (UK laws designed to tackle obesity by restricting the promotion and visibility of foods and drinks High in Fat, Sugar, or Salt). Content that has considered choices, quality over quantity and honest nutrition sits alongside that rather than replacing it. The brands doing this well are not abandoning appetite; they are expanding what appetite looks like. A brand that has navigated HFSS changes well is Tunnocks, who’s recent ad focused on the lifecycle of their brand, whilst avoiding any mention of the biscuits whatsoever.

GLP-1 culture has exposed assumptions that were already under strain. The brands that treat this as a prompt to think more honestly about their audiences, their casting and their messaging will find themselves better positioned, not despite the shift, but because of it.

From newsroom to agency: What five years in PR has taught me.

This summer marks five years since I moved from journalism into PR. Given I’m close to reaching a decent landmark in my new – or not so new – career, I thought I’d reflect on a few things I’ve learned along the way.

Firstly, yes, I know I look too young to have had a 17-year media career – 12 years in journalism career, followed by almost five years in PR – but here we are. There are plenty of transferrable skills that have helped me along the way, such as having a strong feel for what a good news line is, being comfortable picking up the phone, as well as being a decent writer. Agency life has reinforced some points and made me learn a few lessons along the way.

The importance of the case study

My time in PR has reinforced just how powerful human stories are. The stories that perform the best are those where someone is named and pictured [or filmed] – and has an interesting story to tell. However journalism adapts in the months and years ahead, I’m confident that won’t change.  

In one recent example, we spoke to mum-of-four Yasmin Whittington as she was taking part in the Glasgow Kiltwalk to thank The Archie Foundation – a charity which supports babies, children and families across the North of Scotland who are experiencing a hospital stay or bereavement – for how they supported her family as they try to get a diagnosis for their daughter Elyza’s rare condition. The powerful nature of her family’s story led to strong media interest across the UK and beyond, and helped raise money for Yasmin’s charity challenge and shine a light on the great work carried out by the charity  

Relationships are important, but a good story will always win

Whether it’s with journalists or clients, being someone that people like and trust is a great starting point, especially in this new AI world. On the journalist point: One day on LinkedIn you’ll see a post from a PR arguing that relationships with journalists aren’t important, it’s all about the story and if the story is poor, you stand no chance. The next day you’ll see a counter post saying PR is all about relationships, and you need a good contact book to secure coverage. For me the truth is somewhere in between. Being friendly with a journalist improves the chances of them answering your call or reading your email, but ultimately story is king and determines the end result.

Be nice to people along the way

This can apply to any career, but I’ve always tried to be nice to people I work with whatever their role in the business. There’s never been a cynical motive to doing this but it’s interesting the way things pan out. Various younger journalists I became friendly with in my newsroom days are now senior in journalism or PR in similar roles to me, so simply being a considerate human being can be very helpful as you progress with your career.

Becoming a mini-expert in all sorts of subjects

One of the most enjoyable aspects of agency life is slowly building knowledge on a variety of topics -often in areas you knew very little about. I already had a decent grounding in sport but over the past five years I’ve also worked with an accountancy firm, renewable companies and a port operator, as well as clients in football, basketball and many others. One day you might be writing about how George Pig wearing a hearing aid can help removing stigma around hearing loss and the next explaining growth in the liquid bulks market. The variety has been really interesting, and it’s been great to visit clients in person and see first-hand the work they do.

Great coverage rarely happens by accident

As a journalist, especially at the start of my career, I wasn’t that clued into the PR work that goes on behind the scenes to help turn a good story into a great outcome. The best results rarely come from sending out a press release and hoping for the best. For companies, they come from working with people who take the time to really understand your business and its priorities. This is essential to identifying the best news angles and navigating a busy news landscape to secure meaningful coverage that supports the client’s business objectives.

Nearly five years in, I’m still learning all the time, but it’s been a great move for me both professionally and personally. I look forward to seeing what the next five years bring and writing my next blog in 2031.

Brands combining SEO and PR have always outperformed brands relying on just one. New 2026 research strengthens the case, especially for AI search visibility.  

Almost half of the brands ranking on Google’s first page are invisible to ChatGPT for the same queries. That gap has a structural cause and a familiar fix. Backlinks and referring domains have been measurable evidence of integration paying off for two decades. AI citations are the new layer, sitting alongside the long-running link signals as evidence the work pays. Both functions still work on their own, but they’ve always worked better together. AI search has made the combination matter more. 

Google rankings no longer guarantee AI citations 

EMGI’s SaaS AI Citation Gap Report, published April 2026, analysed 150 SaaS companies across 120 keywords. 44% of brands ranking in Google’s top 10 received zero ChatGPT citations for the same queries. Conversely, 81% of ChatGPT brand mentions came from companies outside Google’s top 10. 

The reason is structural. Google works from an index of pages it has crawled and stored. AI search systems pull sources when a user asks a question, then synthesise an answer from the places they trust. The two systems reward different signal mixes and brands captured in both are those running both functions. 

Your website is still the foundation 

Your website must do its job. If it doesn’t clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and how well you do it, the rest of the visibility stack has less to work with. Owned content is a baseline. AI models retrieve and read what’s there and so it follows that a thin website limits the impact of off-site efforts. 

Where AI citations actually come from 

The sources of AI citations beyond the website will feel familiar to digital PR teams: mentions, backlinks from credible publications, branded search demand and presence in trusted channels.  

Airops’ 2026 State of AI Search found that brands investing in off-site presence are 6.5× more likely to earn AI visibility with around 85% of those mentions living on external domains. 

LinkedIn is worth singling out. SEMrush’s analysis of 325,000 prompts found LinkedIn is now the second most-cited source in AI search behind Reddit, with around 11% of answers referencing a LinkedIn URL. ChatGPT and Google AI Mode pull most LinkedIn citations from individual posts rather than company pages, making employee thought-leadership the lever for B2B brands. We treat that as part of brand footprint anyway and the data confirms it. 

Where the combination outperforms 

The compound effect is critical. Brands that earn a Google ranking alongside an AI citation are 40% more likely to resurface in subsequent AI runs than brands cited only once. A B2B SaaS ranking #1 on Google can be invisible in ChatGPT for the same query if competitors have built more mention volume on review sites and trade press. The ranking still earns the click in traditional search. It just earns less from the AI answer. 

The dual-signal payoff also lifts traditional performance. Seer Interactive’s analysis of 25.1 million organic impressions across 42 organisations found that brands cited in AI Overviews earned 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks than uncited competitors. Earned coverage doesn’t only feed AI search – it tightens performance across the whole search ecosystem. 

We see the engagement signal in our own client data. For a UK housebuilder, ChatGPT referrals delivered 3.80 pages per session between October 2025 and February 2026, ahead of every other traffic source on the site (Bing 3.00, Google 2.77, direct 2.65, Rightmove 2.24, Facebook 1.67). Volume was modest at 230 sessions over five months, but ChatGPT was the clear leader among AI sources, well ahead of Gemini (13 sessions), Copilot (7) and Perplexity (3). These visitors viewed more pages per session, aligning with broader findings about AI-referred intent. 

AI citations are the latest measurable output of the same work that has earned the third-party coverage backlinks depend on. Brands consistently visible across Google and AI search are running them as one programme. 

AI models are getting more selective 

ChatGPT cites only 15% of the pages it retrieves. When GPT-5.3 Instant became the default earlier this year, it cited 20% fewer domains than its predecessor and subsequent updates have continued the trend. Brands that maintain visibility through those changes tend to run a steady earned-media programme. Whether any specific citation today survives the next model is uncertain – the programme that produces the citations is more stable. 

Three pieces of an integrated programme 

For brands already running SEO and PR as one programme, this argument is settled. For everyone else, the obstacles are familiar: separate teams, budgets, and reporting lines. The case for integration is now stronger. 

The work splits into three pieces. 

A shared brief between search and PR teams identifying which third-party publications, review platforms, and forums AI models retrieve from, mapped against the queries where the brand has thin authority.  

Reporting against AI citations alongside press coverage and link metrics, with tools like Profound and Ahrefs Brand Radar. 

Patience to let the curve develop. One B2B SaaS case study showed AI citation rates rising from 8% to 24% over 90 days, generating 47 qualified leads and $64,000 in closed revenue. The pattern resembles early-stage SEO. 

This isn’t about rebuilding marketing around AI search. AI search is still a small share of total traffic for most brands. The real value is that the same work improves both AI and traditional search performance, positioning brands ahead of future shifts.  

What this changes in the planning brief 

The argument for integrating SEO and PR isn’t new and the evidence isn’t either. What’s new is the type of evidence. AI citations have joined the long list of signals that earned coverage produces. For integrated teams, the data validates the model. For everyone else, it makes the business case for integration harder to ignore.