Understanding what journalists are interested in is the key to building positive brand awareness and securing all-important coverage.
In this blog post, we’ll dive into the findings from The PR Insider’s 2024 report, which analyses data from 3,241 campaigns from January to November 2024. We’ll highlight the most popular PR campaign types and topics and explore how these insights can inform and elevate your brand’s future PR campaigns.
Why is it important to keep up with PR trends?
While the data in the new PR report only represents a snapshot of the industry, it still provides a good indication of what journalists are looking for and what they typically tend to cover. Firstly, let’s uncover why staying on top of trends is important:
- Audience relevance: Trends tell us what is top of mind for consumers and journalists. By leaning into popular campaign types and topics, you’re more likely to resonate with what people are discussing and wanting to consume.
- Media interest: This is obvious, but as mentioned above, journalists are more likely to cover timely stories and what their readers want to consume. Journalists also want clicks and engagement, so they will always follow trends.
- Increased visibility: Jumping on popular campaign types and topics at any one time is always more likely to generate more interest and, therefore, more conversation across platforms. If it’s more likely to be seen and talked about among your audience (for example, across social media), then a relevant journalist is likely to be interested in it for their audience, too.
- Competitive: Keeping on top of trends and developing relevant and innovative campaigns could put you ahead of the competition, especially those who aren’t as quick to leverage trends, ultimately strengthening your brand’s position in the market.
- Brand alignment: By tapping into trends (that align with what your audience is interested in), you prove to your target audience that you care about what they care about, positioning your brand as relevant and informed.
What are the most popular PR campaign types?
According to the new PR report, the most popular PR campaign types in 2023 include:
- Data-led PR (840): These campaigns are driven by data, which often uncovers unique statistics and insights through surveys or FOIs.
- Product PR (671): Product-focused campaigns often highlight new product launches, rebrands, or even ‘fake products’ as part of a PR stunt. These campaigns aim to showcase what’s unique or interesting about a brand’s offering. It’s worth noting that much of the media coverage for product campaigns tends to centre around well-known household brands that journalists are already familiar with.
- Thought leadership (606): To establish yourself or your brand as a thought leader within your industry or target audience, you must develop content that promotes unique, insightful discussions and highlights your expertise.
- Creative campaign (565): Sometimes backed by larger budgets and supported by various assets or activations, this campaign is designed to grab attention with bold, out-of-the-box ideas. For example, think ‘Cadbury World creates an edible pumpkin patch for Halloween’ or ‘Airbnb offers 32 people the chance to visit the Colosseum after hours to watch a Gladiator fight.’
- Reactive PR (546): Being reactive means jumping on a trending topic or story as it unfolds, quickly creating campaigns that respond to the moment. Typically, this involves experts offering unique opinions, tips, or commentary on a story gaining traction in the media. Journalists often look for this type of insight because it adds credibility to their story while simultaneously positioning you and your brand as an authority on the subject.
Industries across the board are utilising these types of campaigns, with some industries finding success in one or two campaign types than the others. Some examples include:
- Automotive: Thought leadership and data-led
- Food and drink: Product, creative and data-led
- Health and wellbeing: Data-led, thought leadership, and reactive
- Home, property and interiors: Thought leadership, data-led, and reactive
- Travel: Data-led and creative
- Finance and money: Data-led
Interestingly, industries that fall under the ‘your money or your life’ categories—such as health and wellbeing and finance—often create data-driven campaigns. This makes sense, as data-led campaigns allow brands to leverage trustworthy data, which is crucial in these sectors. When this data is turned into a campaign or featured content on your site, it supports E-E-A-T best practices (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), a key ranking factor in the eyes of Google.
What are the most popular PR campaign types and topics by month?
Interestingly, some campaign types are more popular in different months, too. This tells us a lot about what journalists want to cover and what consumers are interested in reading about throughout the year. Let’s break it down:
- Data-led campaigns remained popular throughout the year, mainly from January to May. They peaked again in August and November. This could be because businesses used 2024 data or conducted surveys to gather thoughts and opinions as the new year began.
- Product-led campaigns peaked near the end of the year, likely due to the number of product-driven holidays, including October, November, and December (although the report only covers November 2024 data).
- Creative campaigns peaked in April, possibly due to Spring/Easter, and in August, during the summer. This could be because brands feel there are more opportunities to engage with audiences during these times, whether through seasonal promotions or themed activations.
- Thought leadership peaked in January, likely because spokespeople shared their reflections on the past year and offered insights or predictions for 2024. This campaign continued to peak through the year.
- Reactive PR remained steady throughout the year, indicating that this tactic requires constant attention and timely action.
Understanding seasonal trends and identifying patterns in peaks and troughs is essential. This allows businesses to plan strategically, whether launching a product, initiating thought leadership, or developing a data-led campaign.
Journalists cover a wide range of topics throughout the year, which is to be expected given the diversity of journalists and their specialised verticals. To ensure relevance to your campaign, targeting the right journalists within these areas is important. However, some popular campaign topics that stood out included travel, food and drink, health and wellbeing, and home, property, and interiors. These topics are broad enough to allow many brands to find a way to connect their business, and they also resonate with a wide audience, as they are topics that almost everyone can relate to.
Sentiment of headlines by topic
Depending on the campaign topic, headlines change. Let’s take a look:
Informative headlines
Informative headlines focus on delivering facts, knowledge, or insights in a straightforward manner. They aim to educate or inform the reader without overly emotional language. Topics that typically tend to use this type of headline include:
- Science (100%)
- Pest Control (67%)
- Dentistry (60%)
- Students & Education (60%)
- Pets & Animals (56%)
Informative headline example: Brits are worried about the state of garden wildlife, survey reveals
Urgent headlines
Urgent headlines create a sense of immediacy or importance, urging readers to act or pay attention due to warnings, deadlines, or potential consequences. Topics that typically tend to use this type of headline include:
- Security (50%)
- Environment (30%)
- Wedding (26%)
- Automotive (25%)
- Space (25%)
Urgent headline example: England’s top ten flood risk areas: is your home or business at risk?
Fear-inducing headlines
Fear-inducing headlines create concern or anxiety by highlighting risks, threats, or negative outcomes, often appealing to the reader’s need to stay safe or prepared. However, we’d always recommend considering if this type of headline is necessary to the campaign’s success, as fear-mongering doesn’t always support brand reputation. Topics that typically tend to use this type of headline include:
- Dentistry (40%)
- Family & Children (24%)
- Environment (23%)
- Wedding (22%)
- Automotive (20%)
Fear-inducing headline example: Experts say condensation and mould makes you sick, here’s how to stop it
Aspirational headlines
Aspirational headlines inspire or encourage readers to improve their lifestyle, achieve success, or aspire to certain goals, often framed around tips, advice, or trends. Topics that typically tend to use this type of headline include:
- Jewellery (35%)
- Astrology & Psychics (30%)
- Showbiz & Celebrities (30%)
- Sports (27%)
- Law & Politics (25%)
Aspiration headline examples: Experts reveal how you can achieve maximum profit when building homes
Entertaining headlines
Entertaining headlines appeal to curiosity or provide amusement through surprising, quirky, or pop-culture-focused content, often designed to capture attention with humour or novelty. Topics that typically tend to use this type of headline include:
- Fashion & Shoes (37%)
- Creative (32%)
- Food & Drink (31%)
- TikTok (29%)
- Showbiz & Celebrities (27%)
Entertaining headline examples: Mince pies are UK’s favourite winter smell, survey reveals
It’s always good to switch your headlines up depending on how the journalist usually phrases theirs. However, you should always include the most interesting facts, figures, or statements so that when a journalist sees the subject line in their inbox, they know exactly what the story is about.
Aligning PR trends with your business goals
To align your PR goals with campaign types and topics, it’s important to identify which trends resonate most with your target audience and brand. Don’t just jump on a trend because it’s popular; always put your brand and audience first.
For example, if your goal is to establish brand awareness while also supporting SEO efforts, creating a data-led campaign where you have the ability to extract lots of insight and, therefore, have access to more hooks and angles would be beneficial as this can often support building a good volume of backlinks. However, if you’re more interested in positioning yourself as an expert and innovator in your industry or among your target audience, thought leadership PR might work for you. Often, a mixture of PR tactics will support various objectives.
If you align your specific goals with PR campaign types and topics relevant to your brand, you’re one step closer to developing a PR campaign that contributes to your brand’s positioning and growth.
If you’re looking for PR ideas to help you achieve your business ambitions, contact our team to learn more about how PR activity can support these goals. Thank you to the PR Insider for undertaking this report! Head over to their site for more details.