Brand Is Back. But PR Isn’t What It Used to Be.

Over the past decade, brand marketing has nearly become an afterthought in B2B. Performance and demand gen ruled the day. Sales teams wanted leads, not logos and eyeballs. Opens, clicks, CTRs, SQLs has become the currency that makes or breaks marketing careers. Prove and deliver ROI or go home.

But things are shifting. 

Buyers, and their many stakeholders, are ghosting emails at record rates. Tried-and-true demand tactics? They’re fizzling, inconsistent, or just flat-out not working.

The pendulum is swinging back toward brand. Not as vanity, but as necessity.Because it's finally clicking: Brand builds trust. Trust drives pipeline. Pipeline drives revenue.

There were certainly nods to this need for trust via the rise of content - blogs, white papers, explainer videos, podcasts. But it has been driven by transactional goals: get the click, get the open, book the meeting. Brand wasn’t the strategy. It was the wrapper.

And now? Companies want to crank up brand awareness, quickly. So naturally, they reach for PR. As someone who started out in the PR world many moons ago, this absolutely warms my heart. But PR today isn’t what it was 5-10 years ago, and definitely not what it was 20 years ago.

A Few Words on Brand

Over the years, I’ve had countless conversations with leaders and peers about brand. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the concept is often misunderstood or overly simplified. So before we talk PR, let’s be clear on what brand really is.

A brand is not just your logo or your color palette. It’s the collective perception people have about your company; it's shaped by every interaction, emotion, and experience they’ve had (or heard about). It reflects your purpose, values, and personality. In short, your brand is how people remember you, trust you, and talk about you when you're not in the room.

With that in mind, let’s look at why PR is a vital piece of your brand and how the evolution of PR has reshaped brand-building.

The PR Game Has Changed

There was a time in B2B marketing when PR meant building real relationships with reporters at both mainstream business outlets and niche industry publications. You pitched timely, relevant stories that aligned with year-long editorial calendars. You landed interviews. You earned your way into media that mattered.

Those interactions between PR pros, subject matter experts, and trusted journalists were how companies built credibility, authority, and reach. But the media landscape has shifted dramatically, and with it, the role of PR in shaping brand perception.

I still remember catching heat from a local business reporter after we gave an exclusive to a major national outlet. He let me have it, but because we’d built a strong (and occasionally blunt) relationship over the years, we could have that kind of honest exchange. And when the next big story came along, one that mattered to the city he covered, he was the first person I called.

Today? That kind of relationship-driven PR is mostly gone.

Traditional media is shrinking. There’s little distinction between media outlets now because they’re all owned by a handful of conglomerates who control the narrative for those media channels - a narrative shaped by how much profit they can squeeze out of those outlets.

Editorial teams have become skeleton crews. Sponsored content takes priority, replacing traditional advertising. Let’s take a moment of silence for the days when editorial and advertising were proudly separate - nary the two shall meet.

Today, many outlets will outright ask for money in exchange for coverage. And so, Instagram influencers, TikTok creators, and Substack newsletter authors are the new press. That’s not a bad thing - healthy competition breeds innovation and disruption.

But the reality is: PR has become too much pay-to-play, not enough earned. Sponsored columns, ghostwritten exec profiles, and paywalled “placements” are now the norm and none of it is cheap.

“Just Write a Press Release” Isn’t a Strategy

Many leaders don’t fully understand the shifts and nuances of how PR works these days. Scroll any job board and you’ll see requests like these.

“We need a press release and guest posts in the Local Times, The Clarion, and API. Share your best rate per post.”

Or worse:

“Only genuine editorial. No paid placements. Must hit DR30+ and 5K organic traffic. No exceptions.”

First, the idea that freelancers have magical access to top-tier coverage with no solid story? Wild.

Second, the checklist mentality, domain rank, organic traffic, name-drop publications, misses the point. (It’s not dissimilar from demand gen requests, but that’s a different blog for another day.)

What should they be asking? 

“We want someone who can help us shape visions, conversations and narratives - then create transparent, trustworthy content that reaches the right buyers and meaningfully resonates with them.”

You don’t win the brand game by appearing in a fancy logo carousel. You win by saying something impactful, in places your buyers actually pay attention to, in places they trust.

So What Is PR Now?

It’s a mash-up. Slightly messy. Still evolving Today’s PR is:

• Part content strategy

• Part influence marketing

• All about credibility

You’re not just pitching journalists. You’re pitching podcast hosts, newsletter writers, LinkedIn voices, and micro-influencers who shape opinion in your industry.

You’re not waiting for coverage, you’re creating it.

Leaders are their own media channels now. You are the amplification engine. Being dynamic, engaging, thoughtful and authentic is required for today’s leaders.

You’re writing for discovery, by humans and AI.

Keyword-stuffed blogs don’t cut it. LLMs like ChatGPT are the new search layer, starting to get good at surfacing credible, high-quality content (with sources) over keyword matches. If your story is valuable, it gets found.

And what hasn’t changed? You still need the right story, in the right place, told by the right people, at the right time.

Brand Isn’t a Campaign. And PR Isn’t a Press Release.

Brand matters again. But if you’re banking on a big PR “hit” like it’s 2010, you’re going to waste time and budget.

You need a point of view. A vision. A way to show how you’ll make your buyers’ lives better, easier, faster. Without those, a press tour or even a press release, have limited value and it’s pointless.

You need to show up where your buyers hang out, with something worth hearing and stop treating PR like a one-lane road.

Smart brand strategy weaves together earned, owned, and borrowed influence. There’s still a place for earned media and advertising to reach your buyers. PR is another highly valuable tool to build community, credibility, and trust, just not as a silver bullet. 

The main takeaway: Trust is earned in layers. Not headlines.