Visibility Is Easy. Relevance Is the Real Work.

PR has always been about getting people talking. But I think the way we approach that has changed. For a long time, success could be summed up by the number of media placements, reach, impressions or influencers involved. Those things still matter, but they don't tell the whole story.

The question I find myself asking more often now is Did we actually give people a reason to care?

We live in a world where people are constantly being marketed to. Every brand has a message, every campaign wants attention and every platform is crowded with content. Simply getting noticed isn't enough anymore. The work has to give people something they want to experience, share or talk about. I've seen this come through in a number of the campaigns I've worked on at Orchard on 25.

Take KitKat's Break Space at Bacardi Holiday Club. Instead of simply putting the brand into a festival environment, we brought “Have a Break” to life through an experience people could actually enjoy. Across three days, more than 1,185 festivalgoers engaged with the space through games, creative activities and KitKat ice creams. What stood out to me wasn't just the number of people who came through. It was that people had a genuine reason to stop we weren't telling people to have a break. We created one for them.

That, for me, is where PR becomes much more powerful. A brand proposition is always stronger when people can experience it rather than simply being told about it. The same thinking came through differently with Neutrogena's Winter Glow with Neutrogena Body campaign. The brief was to establish Neutrogena Body Care as an essential part of a winter skincare routine, while educating consumers around the science of skin. The challenge was making that science interesting.

We connected the educational story with emotional wellbeing, seasonal transformation and aspiration, including the Ultimate Winter Glow Getaway, which gave consumers the opportunity to experience the campaign alongside influencer storytelling. It was a reminder that good PR doesn't have to simplify a complicated story; it just needs to find the human reason to care about it.

Don Julio's presence at the 2026 Hollywoodbets Durban July was a good example of why simply being present at a cultural moment isn't enough. Durban July already has an audience, energy and conversation around it. The opportunity was to find a role for Don Julio that felt natural. The collaboration with Orapeleng Modutle, the couture looks for Linda Mtoba and Teddy Geldert, the premium hospitality, Don Julio Rosado and 1942 experiences, and the Club 1942 afterparty all helped create that world. For me, the takeaway was simple brands don't automatically become relevant because they show up. They become relevant when they add something to the moment.

Some of the best work I've been part of has come from bringing creative, strategy, PR, digital, experiential, influencers, production and account management together around one idea. That's why I believe so strongly in the best idea wins. It shouldn't matter who had the idea in the first place. If it makes the work better, it's the idea we should pursue. We should be looking for ideas that people genuinely want to engage with. Experiences they want to be part of. Stories they want to share. And cultural moments where the brand has earned its place.

Maybe that's the simplest test would people still find the idea interesting if the logo wasn't there? If they would, you're probably onto something because the best PR isn't about forcing people to talk about a brand. It's about giving them something worth talking about. In conclusion I think we should be chasing relevance that create experiences people want to have. Stories people want to share. Ideas media want to tell and moments where brands have genuinely earned their place in culture.