PR Insights, Trends
& Expert Advice

A feature on one of our clients ran on the local daily paper’s website. The reporting was accurate. The headline was not. Our team got it changed twice before the final version matched what the story actually said. Getting an outlet to revise a live headline once is unusual. Getting them to do it twice for the same story rarely happens, and it doesn’t happen by luck.

Boards have never spent much time on communications. Historically, PR showed up in a board deck as a slide near the back with a few logos on it, and the conversation moved on within ninety seconds. That is changing fast, and most CEOs are not ready for it.

A company spends eighteen months and seven figures on a rebrand. New name, new identity system, new positioning, new website. The internal launch meeting gets a standing ovation. Then the press release goes out on a Tuesday morning, picks up three syndicated placements in outlets nobody in the industry reads, and that is the end of it. Customers keep calling the old name. Sales keeps explaining what changed. The board asks what happened.

We learned this month that Uproar by Moburst made PRNEWS' 2027 Agency Elite Top 120, our second year in a row on the list. A hundred and twenty agencies made the cut, chosen across innovation, core offerings, client work, culture, and industry outlook, which is a wider bar than most industry lists set.

Every CMO has the same folder sitting in their inbox: awards program invitations. A "Top Innovator" list here, a “Best Places to Work” nomination there, a "Best in Class" digital banner from an organization you have never heard of and will never hear from again after you pay the entry fee. Somewhere in that folder is a legitimate opportunity worth chasing. The rest is a certificate and an invoice with your company's logo printed on it.

Every agency will tell you about the placement it landed. Almost none will tell you about the one it killed.

There's a moment every leader eventually notices. An analyst describes your category and reaches for a competitor's name to define it. A prospect explains what they're looking for using language your rival coined. A reporter writing the definitive piece on your vertical quotes three companies, and you're not one of them. None of this happened overnight. It built up quietly, one story at a time, while your competitor kept showing up in the conversation and you kept assuming the work would speak for itself.

You are sitting across from your third agency this month. The deck looks great. There is a slide with recognizable client logos, a screenshot of a New York Times headline, and a stat that says "300% increase in coverage." Everyone nods. You feel like you should be impressed.