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A single misstep can cost years of carefully built trust. That’s the reality brands face in 2025, where reputation moves at the speed of a tweet and crisis management isn’t optional anymore. The PR market reached $106.63 billion in 2025, growing at 7.51% annually, and there’s a clear reason why companies are investing heavily in strategic communication.

The stakes have never been higher.

Consider this: 69% of brand executives have already faced a PR crisis in the last five years. That’s no longer a hypothetical risk. It’s an operational certainty.

What separates thriving brands from those fighting for survival often comes down to how they communicate, how they position themselves, and how they respond when things go sideways.

Public relations isn’t just about press releases and media coverage. It’s the engine that shapes perception, builds credibility, and protects value when everything else is on the line.

What Is Public Relations?

Public relations is a strategic communication process companies, individuals, and organisations use to build mutually beneficial relationships with the public.

A public relations specialist drafts a specialised communication plan and uses media and other direct and indirect mediums to create and maintain a positive brand image and a strong relationship with the target audience.

In simple terms, public relations is a strategised process of managing the release and spread of organisation-related information to the public to maintain a favourable reputation of the organisation and its brands. This process focuses on –

• What information should be released,
• How it should be drafted,
• How it should be released, and
• What media should be used to release the information (usually earned or free media is used for the same).

The Objectives Of Public Relations

The main objective of public relations is to maintain a positive reputation for the brand and maintain a strategic relationship with the public, prospective customers, partners, investors, employees, and other stakeholders. This leads to a positive image of the brand and makes it seem honest, successful, important, and relevant.

Besides this, other objectives of public relations include –

Crisis Management

Public relations play a crucial role in spreading information to shape public perception and maintain an organisation’s reputation, especially during a crisis. For example, in 2018, KFC had a chicken shortage that led to the closure of more than half of its UK outlets (because it shifted its food distribution company to DHL). The customers were furious and bombarded the social media. To manage this, the company’s PR team responded with humour, acknowledging the irony of a chicken restaurant running out of chicken. The company issued a public apology through a clever ad campaign that rearranged the letters of its name to spell out “FCK” on a chicken bucket, alongside a message that humorously acknowledged the situation and apologised to customers.

Building Brand Awareness

One of the biggest responsibilities of a PR team in any company is to express the company’s expertise, build relationships with customers and stakeholders, achieve global recognition, and combine all these to build a favourable brand awareness. It does the same using strategies like –

• Shaping Public Perceptions: PR works in synergy with the overall marketing objective in creating narratives highlighting a brand’s principles, goals, and uniqueness. For example, Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign challenged conventional beauty standards and promoted body positivity, significantly strengthening Dove’s brand image as socially responsible and inclusive.

• Building Credibility: PR aims to boost a brand’s credibility by gaining media coverage in reputable publications and endorsements from influential figures. Always’s ‘#LikeAGirl’ campaign aimed to challenge stereotypes and successfully build awareness of the brand by gaining media coverage and influencers’ attention.

Building Media Relations

Media relations refer to strategic efforts to build and maintain strategic relationships with media outlets, journalists, influencers, and other media professionals to secure favorable media coverage, increase brand visibility, and manage public perception.

The PR team ensures that the organisation’s marketing message is amplified using media relations and earned media. This works in both at the times of positive and negative publicity.

For example, Johnson & Johnson faced a major crisis with reports of asbestos in their baby powder. The company’s PR team responded by launching a website providing detailed information, documents, and updates on the issue. This transparency helped them maintain relationships with media outlets and control the narrative in their favour.

Importance Of Public Relations

The PR industry grew 1.7% in the US in 2025, and that’s not just a random stat. Brands are dealing with faster news cycles, more vocal audiences, and crises that can blow up overnight. That’s exactly why companies are pouring resources into PR—because reputation isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s the foundation that holds everything else together.

• Builds brand image through third-party validation. When a journalist covers your story or an influencer mentions your brand, it carries more weight than any ad you could run. PR creates credibility that paid campaigns can’t buy. Think about how Tesla rarely advertises but dominates headlines—that’s strategic PR at work. Third-party voices turn your brand into something people trust rather than something they scroll past.
• Capitalizes on timely opportunities. The best PR teams don’t just respond—they anticipate. When Google engineers worked on Ebola treatment tech, they didn’t wait for someone to notice. They pushed the story forward. Same goes for brands that jump on cultural moments or industry shifts before competitors catch on. Timing transforms a decent story into front-page coverage.
• Promotes brand values authentically. Consumers in 2025 can smell fake activism from a mile away. PR helps brands show what they stand for without sounding preachy. When Facebook celebrated LGBTQ equality, it wasn’t just a rainbow logo—it was consistent messaging backed by policy changes. Values need proof, and PR provides the narrative that connects both.
• Strengthens community connections. Local relationships still matter, even in a digital world. Coca-Cola’s community initiatives work because they’re visible and consistent. PR turns corporate actions into stories that resonate with the people who actually interact with your brand. Those connections create loyalty that survives bad quarters and market shifts.

Functions Of Public Relations

Public relations is different from advertising. Public relations agencies don’t buy ads, write stories for reporters, or focus on attractive paid promotions. The primary role of public relations is to promote the brand through editorial content in magazines, newspapers, news channels, websites, blogs, and TV programs.

Using earned or free media for promotion has its own benefits as information on these media isn’t bought. It has a third-party validation and hence isn’t viewed with scepticism by the public.

The functions of public relations managers and public relations agencies include:

1. Anticipating, analysing, and interpreting the public opinion and attitudes towards the brand and drafting strategies using free or earned media to influence them.
2. Drafting strategies to support the brand’s every campaign and new move through editorial content.
3. Writing and distributing press releases.
4. Speechwriting.
5. Planning and executing special public outreach and media relations events.
6. Writing content for the web (internal and external websites).
7. Developing a crisis public relations strategy.
8. Handling the brand’s social media presence and responding to public reviews on social media websites.
9. Counselling the organisation’s employees regarding policies, courses of action, the organisation’s responsibility, and their responsibilities.
10. Dealing with government and legislative agencies on behalf of the organisation.
11. Dealing with public groups and other organisations about social and other policies of the organisation and legislation of the government.
12. Handling investor relations.

Types Of Public Relations

According to the functions of the public relations department/agencies, public relations can be divided into 7 types. These are:

• Media Relations: Establishing a good relationship with the media organisations and acting as their content source.
• Investor Relations: Handling investors’ events, releasing financial reports and regulatory filings, and handling investors, analysts and media queries and complaints.
• Government Relations: Representing the brand to the government regarding fulfilling policies like corporate social responsibility, fair competition, consumer protection, employee protection, etc.
• Community Relations: Handling the social aspect of the brand and establishing a positive reputation in the social niche, such as environmental protection, education, etc.
• Internal Relations: Counselling the organisation’s employees regarding policies, courses of action, the organisation’s responsibility, and their responsibilities. Cooperating with them during special product launches and events.
• Customer Relations: Manage relationships with the target market and lead consumers. Conduct market research to learn more about customers’ interests, attitudes, and priorities and craft strategies to influence them using earned media.
• Marketing Communications: Supporting marketing efforts relating to product launches, special campaigns, brand awareness, image, and positioning.

Public Relations Examples

PR stunts or strategies range from donating to an affected community to running a brand activation stunt in a mall. Some of the examples of successful public relations campaigns are:

Google’s Fight Ebola Campaign

The outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 was critical as it spread among many countries and took many lives. Google, to help people in need and to build up a positive brand image, started a donation campaign where it pledged to give $2 for every $1 donated to the cause through its website.

The public relations strategy attracted media attention and resulted in a huge success as Google raised $7.5 million.

Paramount Pictures The Ring Publicity Stunt

Paramount Pictures, to promote its new horror franchise, The Ring, and to get more user attention, took a step forward and planned a publicity stunt where the protagonist haunted the people in a real-life scenario.

The film’s most iconic scene of Samara crawling out of the TV set was recreated in a TV showroom where the protagonist came crawling out of the hidden compartment behind a TV screen and scared people.

The stunt went viral, and the video received over 10 million views on Facebook.

Just Eat & A Sick Customer

Just Eat is an online food ordering application that lets users add comments to their orders to inform the delivery person about the right address or to leave the order to the neighbour etc.

One unwell customer tried her luck to see if she could get the delivery person to stop en route and get her some medicines. She wrote:

Will you please stop in the Spar on the way and get me some Benylin cold and flu tablets and I’ll give you the money. Only ordering food so I can get the tablets. I’m sick xx.

The delivery person delivered both and this public relations stunt went viral over the media.

Facebook Paris Support Profile Pictures

In response to the tragic shooting in Paris in 2015, where at least 129 people died, Facebook added a France flag filter that users could apply to their profile pictures to support France. Millions of people applied this filter and appreciated this effort by Facebook.

Advantages Of Public Relations

Just like the other mediums of promotion, public relations comes with its set of advantages. These are –

• Credibility: The public trusts the message coming from a trusted third party more than the advertised content. For example, they trust when a news outlets tell them that a brand has come up with no-sugar drink over an advertisement for the same.
• Reach: A good public relations strategy can attract many news outlets, exposing the content to a large audience. Moreover, this medium can help the company utilise certain organic touchpoints that are hard to capitalise on otherwise.
• Cost-effectiveness: Public relations is a cost-effective technique to reach a large audience as compared to paid promotion. News spread like wildfire sometimes.
• Better Communication: Unlike advertisements, public relations help the company to communicate more information to the public than other forms of communication media. This is because people are more interested in hearing out their opinion leaders over watching advertisements.

Disadvantages Of Public Relations

PR also has its own set of disadvantages which can be costly for the business. These are:

• No Direct Control: Unlike paid media, there isn’t direct control over the content distributed through the earned media. This is the biggest risk of investing in public relations. What if an information which was not to be disclosed get disclosed to the public in the form of news?
• Hard To Measure Success: It is really hard to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of a PR campaign.
• No Guaranteed Results: Publishing of a press release isn’t guaranteed as the brand doesn’t pay for it. The media outlet publishes it only if it feels that it’ll attract its target audience.

Public Relations vs Marketing vs Advertising

Public relations involves communicating expertly drafted messages using non-paid/earned media to build mutually beneficial relationships with the public.

Advertising, on the other hand, is a paid communication message intended to inform people about something or to influence them to buy or try something.

Marketing is the umbrella under which all the divisions dealing with creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging dwell. That is, PR is the subset of marketing. Everything a PR department does is determined by the marketing goals set by the organisation.

How AI Is Transforming PR in 2025

According to recent industry data, 75-80% of PR professionals are expected to use AI tools by the end of 2025. That’s not some distant prediction. It’s happening right now.

The most common use? Content creation and press release drafting. Teams are using AI to handle first drafts of press releases, blog posts, and social media content. It speeds up the writing process, though most PR pros still edit what AI generates. Think of it as a writing assistant, not a replacement writer.

AI also changed how teams track what people are saying. Media monitoring and sentiment analysis tools scan thousands of mentions across news sites, social platforms, and blogs in real time. Instead of manually checking every mention, PR professionals get alerts when sentiment shifts or a potential issue pops up. This means they can respond faster when something needs attention.

Then there’s campaign analytics and performance tracking. AI tools analyze which messages resonate, which channels perform best, and what timing works. This data helps teams adjust strategies mid-campaign instead of waiting until the end to see what worked.

Some teams are integrating AI into their relationship management systems, too. These tools help track journalist interactions, pitch success rates, and media preferences. It’s basically a smarter CRM that learns which reporters care about which topics.

But here’s the thing. AI handles the repetitive stuff and data crunching. It doesn’t build relationships with journalists. It doesn’t understand the nuance of a crisis situation. It doesn’t create a strategy based on years of experience. That’s still on the humans. What AI does is free up time so PR professionals can focus on the parts of their job that actually require human judgment.

Did you check your phone before you started reading this article? Did you browse through your social media feed? Did you enquire about the score? Did you visit the new café everyone was talking about? Did you try the new camera app which makes your face look like a dog’s?

Do you know about the fear of missing out?

Because even if you don’t, there is a possibility that you might suffer from it in one form or another.

Spoiler alert: even your target audience suffers from it. You just need to use the right trigger to capitalize on it.

What is Fear Of Missing Out (FoMO)?

Fear of missing out is a fear or anxiety that something interesting or exciting may be happening somewhere which leads to a compulsive desire to experience it or be there, motivated not by what you’ll gain but by what you’ll probably lose.

FoMO is a social anxiety characterized by a want to know and stay connected with what others are doing and what’s happening around you.

The term was coined in 2004 by Patrick J. McGinnis in an article in an Harvard Business School’s magazine, The Harbus. However, the phenomenon is as old as the word of mouth marketing. Just like today, the fear of missing out was earlier triggered by word of mouth, newspapers and other media outlets. Social media is just a catalyst today.

What Causes Fear Of Missing Out?

People who suffer from the fear of missing out doesn’t always know what exactly they might be missing, but it’s the apprehension that they might miss out something important, interesting, or exciting and will be left out or out of touch with experiences and interactions.

It isn’t what you’ll gain, it’s the fear of loss, sadness, anxiety, inferiority, etc. which you’ll have to suffer in future that causes the fear of missing out.

Haven’t you tried the new app yet? Now you can’t be a part of your friends’ conversations.

Were you late to buy the phone during a flash sale? Your friends who bought it got a chance to flaunt.

You don’t know about Facebook? Are you a caveman?

FoMO Based Marketing

Your target market is as prone to the fear of missing out as you are. They check their phones when they get a notification, check their social media feed regularly, read newspaper, watch movies, and try new applications not to get left behind.

This fear of missing out can turn out to be a game changer for your business.

Not many years ago, there was an application which used artificial intelligence to turn your photos into works of art.

Prisma.

The application indeed used a innovating technology, but its success hugely depended on the fear of missing out capitalization strategies used by the company.

It had an inbuilt social sharing feature, used social sharing hashtags to get the followership, influencer marketing to borrow influencers’ followership, and got a lot of (paid and free) press coverage. The application was also initially released only for IOS users which resulted in a capitalization on the scarcity principle and helped in the word of mouth marketing.

Fear Of Missing Out (FoMO) Marketing Strategies

Around 69% of the millennials experience the fear of missing out. 60% of them make reactive purchases because of the FoMO. More than half of the people using social media experience FoMO. This makes FoMO an important topic among the marketers.

But how can you draft an effective marketing strategy which capitalizes on the fear of missing out?

Simple, by using the following strategies.

Scarcity Principle

From flash sales to limited stock to limited period offers and deals, scarcity principle always triggers the fear of missing out and attract more viewers/customers/consumers.

According to this principle, humans consider a scarce object more valuable than the one which is in abundance. Scarcity creates a sense of urgency, triggers FoMO, and evoke people to act immediately.

Network Effecat

Network effect states that the value of a good or service increases when more people use it. That is, a good or service will attract more customers if its value depend on the number of customers. Social media networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp are few examples.

How does the network effect trigger the fear of missing out?

The more people use that good or service, the more likely you’re to try it or you’ll get a feeling of being left behind.

Triggers

You’re more likely to get hit by the fear of missing out when you hear the notification pop on your phone than compared to when there isn’t any trigger. Triggers come in many forms like emails, pop-up notifications, phone calls, word of mouth, etc.

A strong focus on trigger based marketing strategies is beneficial if you’re planning to capitalize on FoMO.

“Someone likes you, swipe right to see who” – Tinder ripped me off? from r/Tinder

Exclusivity

Exclusivity increases the pride of the exclusive users and make non-exclusive users long for the same benefit. This increases the word of mouth marketing. Many restaurants run special discounts and other offers exclusively for their regular members which attract other customers to become regular and experience and see what they’ve been missing out.

Be Explicit

Being explicit about the loss that the user will have to suffer attracts more users than notifying them about the gains.

Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on fear of missing out in the comments section.

“Did you hear about Bitcoin? It’s an insane investment! I invested $100 and earned more than $1000. Can you believe that?”

Welcome to the era where every marketer aims at creating a buzz around his product.

Why?

Average human witnesses around 5000 marketing messages daily, out of which very few marketers get to monetise their attention. Buzz marketing helps you to bombard the user with 100x (or 1000x) more marketing messages than you usually would have. All thanks to his friends, family members, friends of friends, social media, blogs, news channels, and influencers.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this bitcoin price chart.

When did you hear about Bitcoin first? Was it in the second half of 2017?

What Is Buzz Marketing?

Buzz marketing refers to marketing strategies used to capture the customers’ attention and other influencers to amplify the marketing message to an extent where talking about the brand, product, or service becomes entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy.

It is a subset of viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing. But to understand it to the fullest, it is essential to understand the meaning of the word buzz. A buzz is a trigger that results in the word of mouth marketing. It can be an idea, a phrase, a tagline, a logo, a mascot, an advertisement, or any other trigger which makes people talk about the brand or its product.

Buzz starts conversations. It is a great/different/weird idea or a story that others are willing to share.

How Buzz Marketing Works?

A buzz can be created by a wink by a female actor, an outspoken leader,  a great tagline, or an ambush marketing strategy like this:

Buzz marketing is different from traditional marketing communication. It involves creating a trigger which spread out to the masses as it leads to:

Word Of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing starts with buzz marketing. It involves planning a buzz so well that motivated, satisfied, or impressed people in your target market start spreading your message voluntarily.

Fear Of Missing Out

No one wants to feel left out in this digital era triggered by social media. Not having a piece of vital information or having a feeling that one is not a part of the ‘in’ group releases enough psychological stress that acts as a threat to them. This makes the buzz easier to convert into word-of-mouth marketing as it has more conversational value. Plus, social media acts as a catalyst.

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is a situation where one stumbles upon an unfamiliar word, name, or buzz and soon afterwards reencounters the same subject, often repeatedly.

It’s the phenomenon which makes you say, “I recently heard about it, and now it’s everywhere.”

Buzz marketing sends you the same message through different channels, which makes you experience this phenomenon quite often, and the message sticks to your mind.

The meme marketing strategy is based entirely on this phenomenon.

How To Create A Buzz?

Is buzz marketing important? Well, when 83% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers over advertising, how unimportant could it be?

Focus More On People And Less On Product

Even though your brand or the product is in the spotlight, people have a more significant role in creating a buzz around it. The only way you can succeed in creating a buzz is to focus all of your marketing communication strategies on your target market’s needs, wants, interests, hobbies, etc.

Use Influencer Marketing

It’s a proven fact that people trust influencers more than any advertisement. Using influencers to your benefit can help you get the attention of their followers in a positive way.

Use The Scarcity Principle

The scarcity principle is brand-induced scarcity to create a mismatch between the demand and supply of the product. The phenomenon is on the rise with the increased popularity of flash sales on ecommerce websites as it increases the demand and creates a buzz around the product.

Scarcity techniques like flash sales, limited period offers, use it or lose it offers, limited users offers, etc. can help you create a buzz around your product and increase its demand.

Capitalise On The Network Effect

The network effect refers to a situation where a product or service becomes more valuable when more people use it. Creating a buzz around a product that capitalises on the network effect is easier as the network effect itself is a type of buzz.

For example – the more people use WhatsApp messenger, the more valuable it becomes to the users and the easier it is for the company to attract more customers.

Other Buzz Marketing Strategies

A brand can use many different buzz strategies or buzz buttons to create a buzz around itself or its products and services. These buzz buttons are:

• Guerrilla marketing (using creative, imaginative yet unconventional marketing tactics to get maximum reach and better results without involving high costs and resources)
• Suspense (creating suspense around its product)
• Taboo (Breaking taboos)
• Humour (Using humour which can be used by customers in their conversations)
• Secrets (spreading out rumours or secrets)
• Unexpected (A soft-drink brand making an advertisement on obesity due to soft drinks)
• Extraordinary customer engagement, etc.

Buzz Marketing Examples

The 2017 Oscars created a lot of buzz when ‘La La Land’ was accidentally announced as the best movie instead of ‘Moonlight’. Why? Because it was unexpected in such a reputable award function. There are many other examples where the brand created a buzz.

The Honest Coca-Cola Obesity Commercial

Coca-cola was in the news, on social media, and in the title of many blog posts when it released the honest coca-cola obesity commercial where it accepted the fact that coca-cola causes obesity.

Tiger Woods Jesus Shot

EA games launched the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 game with an intriguing yet entertaining shot called the Jesus shot, where Tiger Woods would go into the water to play the shot. Later it was revealed that this feature was intentionally added to create a buzz around this game.

Mini Cooper Boxes In Amsterdam

Mini Cooper, to promote its 99€ a month finance deal during Christmas, executed a guerrilla campaign where it featured packing boxes in prominent locations around Amsterdam. This created a lot of buzz around the car in 2009.

Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on Buzz Marketing in the comments section.