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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.

Great marketing usually comes down to one simple thing: get your brand right, then tell people about it.

Obviously, there’s a lot that sits underneath that. Research, positioning, audience insight, messaging, creative development, media planning, measurement, all the useful grown-up stuff. But as a basic principle, it stands up.

Before you start thinking about media plans, TV ads, billboards, social campaigns or anything else, you need to be clear on who you are, what you stand for, why people should care and what you actually want them to remember.

Because before a brand becomes a billboard, it has to become a clear idea. And by “brand”, I don’t just mean a logo, a colour palette or a nice line on a presentation slide. Those things matter, but they are not the whole brand. They are the visible parts of it.

A brand is the thing people come to understand, feel and remember about you. It is your reputation, your role in people’s lives, your point of difference and the promise you keep making, whether you mean to or not.

Building a brand starts with a few simple but important questions: Who are we? Who are we for? What do we stand for? Why should people choose us? What should we be known for? And how do we want people to recognise us every time they come across us?

Once that is clear, everything else has something to work from. The identity makes the brand recognisable. The tone gives it personality. The message gives it clarity. The campaign gives it reach.

That is the job of brand building: to create a clear thread from what you stand for to how people experience you.

The trouble is a lot of brands lose that thread. They either get stuck in strategy, endlessly refining the thinking until it becomes a polished deck that never properly leaves the boardroom, or they jump straight to execution before the bigger brand idea has really been nailed.

That’s when the work starts to feel disconnected, because the most important bit is often the journey in the middle: turning the brand strategy into identity, messaging and communications that people can actually see, hear and remember.

Before you buy the media space, build the thing you want people to remember

A good brand strategy should create a clear path for everything that follows. It should define the core idea, shape the identity, sharpen the message and guide how the brand behaves across creative, media, channels and the customer journey.

The order matters, because if you start with the channel, the work often becomes about filling space: We need an outdoor campaign. We need a TV ad. We need something for social. We need a banner ad.

But without a joined-up idea behind it, that activity can quickly become random. Different messages, different executions and different bits of budget all pulling in different directions.

That doesn’t just make the campaign weaker. It makes it harder for people to understand what you actually want them to remember.

That’s where one clear idea becomes so important.

And that’s the difference between a genuinely integrated campaign and a media plan with matching assets. I noticed a really good example of this recently with the 7UP Pink Lemonade activity I spotted in Manchester, which felt like a really smart bit of joined-up brand activity.

On the bus into work, the free paper had a front-page wrap. Then across town, the digital and static out-of-home screens were full of that distinctive pink, with simple messaging around refreshment and mood-boosting. As I walked through the city, there were samples being handed out, bits of experiential activity and merch giveaways. Then when I opened my phone, I was served digital banner ads.

None of it felt complicated. But it all made sense and felt connected. That was the point.

It was pink. It was refreshing. It was everywhere. And it all felt like part of the same moment.

That’s what happens when clear brand thinking meets good channel thinking. It doesn’t just repeat the same advert in different sizes. It builds a world around the idea, and a quick burst of activity can suddenly feel much bigger than the media spend because people experience it in different places, in different ways, across the same day.

A paper wrap gives it visibility. Out-of-home gives it scale. Sampling puts the product in your hand.

Experiential makes it feel active. Digital picks it back up when you’re on your phone.

Each channel has a job. But brand holds it together.

Make every channel do the right job

In my opinion, that’s why out-of-home, TV and even print still have such an important role, especially in a digital-first world. They are not competing with digital. They complement it.

In a world of endless scroll, anything physical or public can have disproportionate impact. A billboard interrupts differently to a banner ad. A TV spot lands differently to a paid social post. A print wrap feels more deliberate than another thing disappearing up a feed. Experiential can turn the idea into something people actually touch, taste or do.

That doesn’t make one channel better than the other. It just means they do different things. The mistake is expecting every channel to do the same job.

The better way to think is to ask: what role does this channel play in the journey?

Because people don’t experience brands in neat media plan columns. They don’t think, “That was my awareness touchpoint, now I’m entering consideration”. They just notice things. Remember things. Click things. Talk about things. Walk past things. Try things.

So, the job is to make those moments feel connected.

That’s where brand strategy earns its keep. Not by making everything more complicated, but by making it easier to understand what every piece of activity is there to do.

If your brand is clear, your message gets sharper. If your message is sharper, your creative gets stronger. If your creative is stronger, your media works harder. And if your media works harder, your campaign has a much better chance of being remembered.

Make it easy to recognise, wherever it appears

This is also why the basic building blocks matter. The proposition. The positioning. The message. The tone of voice. The logo. The line. The colours. The visual world.

Some of those are strategic. Some are verbal. Some are visual. But together, they create a system people can recognise. They help people join the dots quickly. They make the brand easier to spot, easier to understand and easier to recall.

In the 7UP example, the pink did a lot of the heavy lifting. You didn’t need to stand there decoding the campaign. You just got it. The colour, the message, the product and the media all worked together.

That’s the sweet spot: simple enough to recognise, strong enough to stretch and distinctive enough to remember.

Because the billboard is not the brand or the strategy, nor is the TV ad or the social post.  They are where it becomes visible.

So yes, get your brand right, then tell people about it. But don’t skip the bit in between: defining what the brand is, building the system around it, turning that strategy into a clear message, and then creating a connected set of moments that work together across channels.

That’s when “telling people about it” becomes more than buying media space. It becomes something people actually notice. Or better still, something they actually remember.

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.  

We’ve all seen it. Brands invest heavily in experiential, get a single social post out of it and then it disappears.

No pickup. No sharing. No second life.

That’s not a budget problem, it’s a thinking problem as the idea was never designed to travel beyond that moment.

If your concept only works in real life, it was never built to go anywhere. The best campaigns aren’t just experienced, they’re designed to catch on and spread.

A stunt is a moment. Social makes it scale.

Working with Aldi Scotland, we develop creative ideas to travel, rather than just land.

A stunt might reach a few hundred people in the flesh, but amplification on social turns that into thousands, sometimes millions, but only if the premise translates.

Taps Aff and AL-Date worked because they were instantly clear. You got them in a second.

Taps Aff started as an April Fools’ product then became something people could actually get their hands on through influencer packs.

AL-Date moved from hijacking Hinge with voice notes into a microsite, in-store vox pops and a stream of content.

If you need to explain it, it won’t take hold and carry.

The post matters more than the moment

When it comes to landing ideas, it’ not about how it looks in person, it’s how it registers  on a screen.

What’s the hero frame?
Does it make sense instantly?
Would you stop scrolling?

If it doesn’t work as a post, it doesn’t work – full stop.

Most people won’t see your activation. They’ll see a single image on their phone, which means you’ve designed for the feed, not to increase footfall.

Keep it simple. Make it read fast.

Build the headline in from the start

If you want PR, build the story in.

The best ideas come with their own headline:

Aldi launches a dating service for Scots
Scotland’s own canned tap water

If a journalist has to figure it out, you’ve already lost them.

One idea, multiple outputs

With Aldi, every idea is built to connect and stretch.

If it can’t break through , it’s not strong enough yet

.

One idea should flex across:

Social
Motion
Press
Influencers
Interactive

Taps Aff and AL-Date became full content ecosystems.

If you’ve only got one asset in your playbook, it’s under delivery.

Our AR filters for Aldi at the Royal Highland Show turned a physical activation into something people could use and share long after the event.

The difference between a stunt and a story

A stunt happens once; a story keeps moving.

A stunt is an act; a story resonates and people pass on.

The value of experiential isn’t the moment, it’s what happens after.

So instead of asking “how do we make this big?”, ask: “Would anyone share this if they weren’t there?”

If the answer’s no, it’s not a story – it’s a one-off.

As attention spans shrink in a world of constant content, audiences are becoming far more selective about what they stop for. Polished brand messaging on its own rarely cuts through as it used to. What people respond to now is something more human, more grounded and ultimately more believable. That is where the people behind the brand really matter. 

When you hear directly from the people who live and breathe an organisation, the narrative shifts. Whether it is a founder reflecting on the early days of their vision, a leadership team candidly navigating the ups and downs of their industry, or a customer sharing how a service has truly made a difference to their life, the story becomes real. These voices turn brand values from something written on a page into something lived and experienced. They build credibility, create emotional connection and make stories stick. 

For journalists, this shift is just as important. Real stories are easier to pitch and far more engaging for audiences. For brands, it can create compelling storytelling that helps drives awareness and action. 

Three ways we have put people at the heart of the brands we work with:  

Championing men through emotive storytelling 

Male suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under 50. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a call to action. When we began work on Rock Face’s Father’s Day campaign, we knew we had to move beyond the typical gifting narratives and say something that actually mattered.

We built a campaign around honest insight, the things men often do not say and what they rarely hear in return. At the centre was an emotive film encouraging people to speak openly to father figures, mentors and friends. Survey data reinforced the message, with almost a third of men saying they want to hear they are a great dad, partner or friend. 

By putting those human truths front and centre, the work moved beyond product into purpose. The film generated more than 150k views and gained traction on LinkedIn, positioning Rock Face as a brand contributing to a wider conversation around men’s wellbeing, not just marketing around it.   

Building trust through patient-led narratives 

For Pall Mall Cosmetics, storytelling is the foundation of the brand’s strategy. In a sector where trust is everything, the challenge was how to communicate sensitive experiences in a way that felt honest, relatable and educational.  

So, we decided to step back and let patients speak for themselves. 

We worked with Grandma June, who chose to invest in herself after years of prioritising others, and Carlita, a mum of three who documented her journey from consultation through to recovery. These examples brought a level of openness that goes against the outdated stereotype of surgery. They were personal, emotional stories. 

Shared across national media and social channels, these first-person accounts helped secure high-profile coverage and built a growing sense of community around the brand. That momentum was strengthened further through an International Women’s Day event, where patients spoke alongside surgeons in front of key media. What has followed is an engaged community where patients continue to support and speak to one another, extending the impact far beyond the initial campaign. 

Positioning expertise through leadership and customer voices 

For The Cumberland Building Society, the focus was on raising its profile within the hospitality sector while making its relationship-led approach to lending feel tangible, not theoretical. Instead of relying on corporate messaging, we built the story around both customers and senior leaders – the people at the centre of the company. 

Working with organisations across the North-West and Scotland, including Carlowrie Castle and Brooklands Guest House, we developed in-depth case studies that focused on the real people behind the businesses and the role The Cumberland played in helping them grow. Brooklands Guest House, recent winners of Channel 4’s Four in a Bed, provided a timely hook that we are now building on to maximise visibility. 

Alongside this, leadership commentary and partnerships with Cumbria Tourism helped bolster credibility and sector expertise, grounding the storytelling in real industry context. Together, this approach secured coverage across national, regional and trade media, strengthening both awareness and reputation. 

Why human voices are driving modern PR 

Putting people at the centre of communications is keeping brands relevant. Whether it is an emotional campaign, a patient journey or a leadership perspective, real voices bring depth and meaning that traditional messaging struggles to achieve.

They build connection, strengthen trust and ultimately drive results, from initial media coverage and traffic to long-term brand loyalty and advocacy. 

For brands looking to grow, the question is no longer whether to use the people behind the business but how to use them in a way that feels genuine and meaningful. 

The stories are already there. The opportunity is simply in how you tell them.

In the creative industry, feedback is our most powerful tool for collaboration with your clients. Handle it poorly, and you end up with a demoralised team and a “Frankensteined” final product. Handle it with mastery, you transform your project into a market-shifting brand.

In an effort for time saving and efficiency, many are turning to AI to “grade” creative work. While AI is great at checking technical boxes, creative direction is a human-to-human sport. When we outsource the critique to an algorithm, we trade the “soul” of a project for a sanitised, safe and ultimately forgettable result.

One of the roles of a creative director is to work with clients, the team, and the parameters of creativity within a project. For me, feedback is always better in-person or talking through on a face-to-face call. The reason being is tone.

The internal critique: focus on the “why,” not the “what”

The biggest mistake creative leaders make is giving “prescriptive” feedback. When you tell a designer to “move that logo 20 pixels to the left,” you aren’t leading; you’re micro-managing. We have to give designers the freedom to express themselves but within time and budget.

The “kind critique” framework: A kind critique is objective, not personal. It’s about the work’s ability to perform a task. Use the 3-P method:

Purpose: Remind them of the goal. “Our goal was to feel ‘premium’ and ‘minimalist’…”
Problem: Identify the friction. “…but the heavy use of secondary colours is making the layout feel cluttered.”
Possibility: Open a door. “How can we use whitespace to bring that premium feel back?”

Finding the “Sweet Spot”: The Art of Strategic Range

You cannot find the centre of a target if you don’t know where the edges are. Early in a project, a creative director’s job is to define the parameters.

I advocate for showing “the three pillars” early in the process to find the sweet spot:

The safe bet: Hits the brief exactly as expected.
Evolution: Pushes the brand voice into new, slightly uncomfortable territory.
Revolution: Tests the absolute limits of the brand’s identity.

This isn’t about guessing the right answer; it’s about collaborative discovery. Once you find the “too far” line, the “sweet spot” becomes crystal clear.

The external critique: follow the process

Client feedback is often the most feared part of the process for any designer because you have put your heart and soul into the work.

As a creative, you might need tough skin. Every project will go through iterations, and that’s part of the process. Feedback isn’t a setback, it’s an opportunity to refine and elevate the work. Clients will always have perspectives to share, and that’s okay. By staying open to critique, you can strike the right balance between their vision and creative excellence, ultimately producing something stronger and more considered.

Solution feedback: “I don’t like the blue. Can we try orange?” (This is a solution, and usually a bad one).
Creative feedback: “I’m worried the blue feels too cold for a hospitality brand.” (This is a problem that we, as creatives, are paid to solve).

When you bridge the gap between client concerns and creative solutions, you stop being a “vendor” and start being a strategic partner.

The Bottom Line

A great critique isn’t about having the loudest voice in the room; it’s about having the clearest vision. Whether you’re guiding a junior designer, testing the project’s boundaries or managing a CEO’s expectations, your goal is the same: protect the integrity of the work while collaborating everyone within the project.

p.s All feedback welcome 

If you work in a sector where M&A is part of the rhythm of business, you’ll know this already – deals don’t just happen in boardrooms. They play out in the market, in the media and, critically, inside your organisation.

From a strategic PR perspective, the companies that navigate repeat transactions successfully aren’t just financially prepared, they also have their narrative in place. They’ve done the work to make sure every acquisition, divestment or merger builds towards something bigger.

You can see it in real time. Activity around leading organisations such as Paramount and Warner Bros or Marmite maker Unilever remind us that markets are constantly fluid and deals are rarely straightforward. But what’s less visible – and far more powerful – is the groundwork happening behind the scenes to make M&A transitions land successfully. That’s where a good PR and internal comms strategy becomes a commercial lever, not a support function.

It starts earlier than most people think

One of the biggest misconceptions is that communications switch on at the announcement stage. The reality is that most effective programmes start months, sometimes years, before a deal is on the table.

At this stage, the work is about shaping the story you want the market to already believe about you. That means working with leadership to define a clear, long-term narrative, one that goes beyond the next transaction. It also involves creating a consistent drumbeat of proof – project wins, innovation milestones and thought leadership articles – that reinforce credibility over time.

By the time a deal is announced, your value proposition has already been tested, refined and understood by the audiences that matter. At that point, your growth story isn’t trying to keep up, it’s simply about connecting the dots.

Internal comms is your first deal success metric

If there’s one thing that can derail even the best-structured deal, it’s uncertainty inside the business. Employees experience M&A as change, risk and often silence. Internal comms must be a core workstream, not an afterthought.

That means preparing leaders to communicate confidently and consistently throughout the deal lifecycle, and ensuring employees hear news from senior leadership first, with clear context on what it means for them and the business. Equally, it’s about dialogue – town halls, manager briefings and feedback channels to understand concerns early. Done well, this maintains trust, protects retention and keeps the business moving forward.

Tactically, every deal should build your market story

In repeat M&A cycles, buyers look beyond current performance to assess established patterns. They want to see a business that grows with intent, integrates effectively and delivers consistently. That doesn’t happen by accident, it’s built through a deliberate comms approach over time.

In practical terms, that means treating every deal as a campaign, not a moment. Each transaction should be anchored in a clear strategic arc, whether that’s expansion into new markets, strengthening capabilities or accelerating a shift into new sectors, geographies or technologies – and then consistently reinforced across all channels.

The role of PR is to make that strategy visible and credible. This starts with how deals are announced and framed, ensuring media coverage, executive commentary and stakeholder messaging all reinforce the same strategic story. Beyond the announcement, the work continues with technical articles, case studies and speaking opportunities that evidence strengths and showcase innovation, client relationships and future revenue visibility. Owned channels, such as LinkedIn, provide a steady drumbeat of insight, reinforcing positioning and humanising the business.

Financial performance will always open the door, but it’s this combination of transparency, consistency and proof that helps buyers understand what comes next. It turns a set of numbers into a clear picture of momentum and scalability.

Done well, this approach compounds. Each deal adds another layer of credibility, each campaign reinforces the same strategic direction, and each piece of content builds a more complete picture of the business. The result is that by the time the next M&A transaction comes around, the market already understands your trajectory.

That’s where the real advantage lies. When your positioning is clear and your track record is visible, stakeholders don’t need to be convinced from scratch. Employees stay engaged, clients remain confident and investors can more easily see the value ahead.

Being “sale ready” isn’t just about financial performance or operational efficiency. It’s about having a disciplined, repeatable way of showing who you are, where you’re going and why it matters.

Get that right, and you’re not just ready for the next deal – you’re already shaping it.

When people talk about challenger brands, the same names tend to come up. Monzo. Oatly. Airbnb. Gymshark. Surreal. Rock Face. Booking.com. Peloton. Uber. 

Brands that entered established categories and disrupted them. Not always by inventing something entirely new, but by questioning how things had always been done and choosing to do them differently. 

Because of that, the term “challenger brand” often gets associated with size or stage. A small, startup taking on big incumbents. But that framing misses the real point. 

Being a challenger isn’t about how big you are or how long you’ve been around. It’s about how you think and behave as a brand. 

At its simplest, a challenger brand questions the norms of its category and does things differently. Not necessarily louder or bigger. Just braver. 

And the reality is that you don’t need to be a challenger brand to have challenger energy. In fact, some of the most successful established brands today are the ones that have kept that mindset long after they stopped being small. 

The trap established brands can fall into 

As brands grow and become market leaders, their instinct can slowly start to change. 

Often without anyone consciously deciding that it should. 

Instead of challenging the category, they start protecting their position within it: protecting market share. Protecting legacy thinking and processes that have worked well in the past. 

Over time, this can gradually shift a brand from being progressive to being defensive. 

The irony is that the very things that helped them become successful in the first place can also make them slower and more cautious as they scale. More layers of approval. More complexity. More pressure not to get things wrong. 

But categories don’t stand still. Consumer expectations change. Culture evolves. New competitors enter the market with fresh ideas and fewer constraints. 

If established brands don’t evolve with those shifts, they can start to look dated surprisingly quickly. 

Which is why challenger energy matters, even when you’re already the market leader. 

In many ways, challenger thinking shouldn’t disappear when a brand becomes successful. That’s exactly when it matters most. 

Sometimes you see this in the categories you least expect 

Some of the clearest examples of challenger influence have appeared in sectors where you might least expect it.  

Banking is a good example. 

Over the past decade, challenger banks like Monzo, Starling and Revolut have helped shift the tone of the entire category. They moved banking away from corporate, product-led communication towards something more human and relatable. Less about accounts, rates and financial jargon. More about everyday life and helping people manage their money in a way that fits how they actually live. 

They didn’t just launch new products. They changed the conversation. 

What’s interesting now is how established banks are responding. 

Lloyds’ recent brand evolution is a good example. The bank isn’t suddenly trying to position itself as a disruptive fintech or pretending to be a challenger brand. Instead, it’s evolving how it communicates and shows up in ways that reflect what clearly resonates with audiences today. Less corporate and product-first, more human and customer-focused. Less about transactions, more about the life ambitions that money supports. 

It’s a smart response to how the category has changed. And importantly, it’s done in a way that still feels authentic to Lloyds as a brand. In other words, it’s not imitation. It’s adaptation. 

What established brands can learn from challengers 

None of this means established brands should try to behave exactly like challenger brands. But there are a few lessons that are worth paying attention to. 

1. Know what you stand for. Commit to it. 

Many large brands often try to say everything to everyone, which can lead to diluted or overly complicated messaging. Challengers tend to do the opposite. They define a clear point of view and commit to it. Clarity and conviction cut through better than complexity. 

2. Move faster. Remove unnecessary friction. 

Big organisations can slow themselves down with layers of approval and risk aversion. Challenger brands show the advantage of speed – testing ideas, learning quickly and adapting when something works. Acting faster than the rest of the category can be a competitive advantage in itself. 

3. Sound human. Not institutional. 

One of the biggest shifts challengers have brought is tone. Less corporate language. Less jargon. More relatable, conversational communication that reflects how people actually speak and think. Brands that sound human tend to connect more easily. 

4. Fix what the category has learned to tolerate.

Great challengers often identify frustrations the rest of the category has simply learned to accept. Airbnb simplified travel booking. Monzo brought transparency to banking. Often the biggest opportunity comes from solving everyday friction. 

5. Question the ‘rules’ of your category. Regularly.

The moment a brand stops questioning how things are done, it risks becoming stuck. The brands that continue to evolve are the ones that regularly challenge category norms and ask whether those rules still make sense. 

Challenger energy doesn’t mean trying to be cool 

It’s worth clarifying one thing: thinking like a challenger doesn’t mean ripping everything up and starting again.  

It doesn’t mean suddenly becoming bold, divisive or controversial for the sake of it.  

And it definitely doesn’t mean putting on a sideways baseball cap and trying too hard to look “down with the kids”. 

Challenger energy isn’t about being rebellious. It’s about being aware. 

Aware of where your category is heading, what your audience actually cares about and having the confidence to evolve when needed. 

Sometimes that evolution can be significant. Other times it is surprisingly simple – changing the tone of your messaging, how your brand shows up visually, or rethinking parts of the customer experience that feel outdated. 

The point is not to copy challenger brands. It’s to stay curious, proactive and willing to question the norms of your category. 

The brands that last never stop challenging 

Challenger isn’t a stage of business. It’s a stance. 

The brands that win long term never stop questioning their category, evolving with the world around them and finding new ways to stay relevant. 

Because the moment a brand becomes comfortable defending its position, it usually starts to lose it. 

You don’t need to be a challenger brand to think like one. But the brands that last are the ones that never stop challenging. 

Healthcare marketing often lives under immediate pressure. Appointment slots need filling, new services require promotion and campaigns must generate measurable returns quickly. Paid search, promotional offers and tactical campaigns can absolutely drive immediate results. However, for healthcare providers, sustainable growth rarely comes from quick wins alone. 

In a sector where trust is paramount, long-term brand building is what ultimately drives patient loyalty, advocacy and reputation. 

Patients don’t choose healthcare providers the same way they choose consumer products. Whether selecting a dentist, hearing specialist or private medical provider, people are making decisions about their health and often their finances. This means credibility, consistency and reassurance play a far greater role than a single promotional message or paid campaign. 

Channels such as PPC and targeted digital advertising are powerful tools for capturing demand when patients are actively searching for treatment. They can generate immediate enquiries and support revenue targets. But on their own, these tactics rarely build the deeper trust required for long-term patient relationships. 

That’s where brand building comes in. 

Strong healthcare brands are built through consistent visibility, authoritative expertise and a clear narrative about what the organisation stands for. PR, thought leadership, organic search, content marketing and brand storytelling all play an essential role in reinforcing credibility over time. 

For example, healthcare brands that already have strong public trust can use creative campaigns to reinforce their role in everyday health decisions. When new research from Boots revealed that nearly a third of UK adults report falling ill after the summer holidays as children return to school, the retailer used the insight to highlight the support available through its pharmacy services. 

To bring the message to life, a Boots pharmacist swapped the high street for the school gates, acting as a “lollipop pharmacist” for the day – helping children cross the road while sharing healthcare advice with parents and reminding them that pharmacists can diagnose and treat a range of common conditions. The campaign also highlighted the accessibility of services such as the NHS Pharmacy First Service, reinforcing the role of pharmacists as a convenient first point of care. 

The campaign worked not because it pushed a promotion, but because it reinforced an existing brand truth: Boots pharmacists are trusted, accessible healthcare professionals embedded within local communities. By combining research, community engagement and expert advice, the activity strengthened credibility while gently encouraging people to consider pharmacies as an alternative to GP appointments for common conditions. 

When brand awareness and credibility are already established, paid campaigns perform more effectively. Patients are more likely to click, enquire and convert because they recognise the name behind the advert. Trust reduces friction in the decision-making process. 

Importantly, long-term brand investment also protects reputation. Healthcare organisations operate in an environment where reviews, patient experience and public perception can significantly influence growth. A strong brand built on consistent messaging, transparency and expertise provides resilience when challenges arise. 

Some healthcare brands show how long-term trust-building pays off through authentic storytelling. Bupa, for instance, highlights real patient journeys and outcomes in its campaigns, focusing on the human impact of care rather than just promoting services. By consistently sharing these stories, Bupa reinforces its reputation as a trusted, patient-centered provider, demonstrating that credibility and empathy are more powerful for long-term engagement than short-term tactics alone. 

The clinics and healthcare brands that succeed over time are rarely those chasing the latest marketing tactic. Instead, they are the organisations that invest consistently in trust: showing up in the right places, sharing expertise, telling their story and building meaningful relationships with patients and communities. 

In healthcare, reputation isn’t built overnight. But when marketing strategies prioritise both demand capture and long-term brand credibility, the results are far more powerful than either approach alone.