The PR Equation Every Communications Professional Needs to Know

There's a secret in public relations: most of us operate on instinct. We pitch, we follow up, we cross our fingers. But after years of watching pitches land (and many more crash into the void) a clear pattern emerges. Media coverage isn't random. It's the product of three forces working together and understanding how they interact is the difference between a client who dominates the news cycle and one who wonders why nobody's calling back.

The equation is simple:

Number of Articles = Brand Strength + Current Event Context + Novelty of Your News

Let's break it down — and back it up.

Variable 1: Brand Strength — Your Baseline Multiplier

Brand strength is the invisible force that determines whether a journalist opens your email or sends it straight to trash. It's the accumulated trust, recognition, and perceived authority your brand (or your client's brand) carries in the market.

Consider the data. According to Cision's 2024 State of the Media Report, based on responses from over 3,000 journalists worldwide, the number one thing journalists want from PR professionals is for them to "understand my audience and what they find relevant." But here's the catch: relevance is partly a function of who's talking. When Google announces a product, it's front-page news. When an unknown startup announces the same thing, silence.

Patagonia is the textbook case. The company's commitment to environmental activism consistently generates earned media coverage — not because each announcement is earth-shattering, but because the brand has built such deep credibility that journalists treat it as inherently newsworthy. Brand strength acts as a multiplier: the stronger it is, the less heavy lifting your other two variables need to do.

For PR professionals, this means investing in long-term brand building isn't a luxury — it's a prerequisite. As Forrester noted in its 2024 predictions, organizations must "double down on marketing activities aligned to tier-one media and ensure that they are seen as reliable and trusted sources for journalists." Brand strength compounds. Every quality placement makes the next one easier to secure.

But what if your brand isn't a household name? This is where the equation gets interesting. Because brand strength is just one variable. A lesser-known brand can still break through — if it scores high on the other two.

Variable 2: Current Event Context — The Tidal Wave You Can Ride

Timing isn't everything in PR, but it might be the most underutilized lever. Current event context is the art of aligning your news with what the world is already talking about. In the industry, it's often called "newsjacking" — a term popularized by marketing strategist David Meerman Scott — and the results can be staggering.

During the 2013 Super Bowl, a power outage plunged the stadium into darkness. Oreo tweeted "You can still dunk in the dark." That single post earned over 16,000 retweets and generated coverage in Business Insider, The Washington Post, and Time. This is the power of current event context: when you insert yourself into a story the world is already following, you inherit its audience.

The data supports this at scale. Digital Third Coast documented a campaign about Americans' relationships with food delivery apps that happened to coincide with a viral New York Times article on the same topic. Their outreach team aligned their pitch with the article's momentum and earned "hundreds" of links in a two-week period — results they acknowledged would have taken far longer without that contextual alignment.

In another case, fintech company OMG (Openmarkets Group) used systematic newsjacking of financial news to position its CEO as a market expert ahead of the company's IPO. The strategy produced 192 pieces of coverage from publications with nearly 1.74 billion in estimated online readership.

For PR professionals, current event context means building a media monitoring habit and being ready to pivot. As one practitioner from Matter Communications put it: "News hype doesn't stick around for long — a few hours, maybe days and if we're lucky, a few weeks. But the earlier you can seize the story, the more likely it will benefit you and your client in a big way."

The key is authenticity. You need a legitimate tie to the news. KFC turned a chicken shortage crisis into a beloved "FCK, we're sorry" campaign because it was genuinely relevant. Quantum Tech, on the other hand, issued a press release two days after 9/11 with the headline "WTC Collapse Highlights Need for Quantum Tech's Remote Backup." That's not newsjacking — it's reputation suicide.

Variable 3: Novelty of Your News — The "Wait, What?" Factor

Novelty is the variable that journalists live for. It's the element that makes an editor pause mid-scroll and think: "My readers need to see this."

According to Muck Rack's 2024 State of Journalism report, nearly three-quarters of journalists decline pitches because they simply don't align with their coverage areas — but among those that do align, the differentiator is often whether the story offers something genuinely new. An estimated 95% of all pitches get rejected. The ones that break through almost always contain a "wait, what?" element: original data, a surprising angle, a first-of-its-kind initiative.

Cision's research reinforces this: 61% of journalists value "original research, reports, trends, and market data" from PR professionals, and only 7% consider pitches to be relevant more than half the time. Novelty is what separates a relevant pitch from a remarkable one.

Take DP World and Edelman London's "Move to -15°" campaign. They challenged a century-old shipping industry standard (transporting food at -18°C) with research showing it could safely be raised to -15°C — saving 17.7 million tons of carbon annually with zero new machinery required. The novelty was so compelling that competitors joined the coalition, and the campaign won a Titanium Lion at Cannes 2024 along with an 11% lift in brand trust.

Or consider Weber Shandwick's "Translators" campaign for U.S. Bank, a documentary about the language gap facing Hispanic Americans. The novelty of a bank producing a documentary earned 965 media placements, a 13-point increase in brand awareness, and attracted nearly 193,000 new customers.

The lesson is clear: if your news is merely "new," it's not enough. It has to be novel — unexpected, original, and valuable to someone beyond your boardroom.

The Equation in Practice

The real power of this framework lies in diagnosis. When a campaign underperforms, instead of vaguely concluding that "the media wasn't interested," you can pinpoint which variable fell short.

Low brand strength? Invest in thought leadership, secure smaller placements that build credibility, and make your spokespeople available as expert sources on trending topics.

Bad timing? Build a monitoring system. Track legislative cycles, cultural events, seasonal trends, and breaking news. Have draft pitches ready to customize when the moment hits.

No novelty? Commission original research. Survey your industry. Find the data point nobody else has. As Cision's report shows, data-driven pitches are among the most valued by journalists — and yet the majority of pitches still arrive without them.

The best campaigns fire on all three cylinders. A well-known brand (strength) announces a first-of-its-kind initiative (novelty) at the exact moment the world is talking about a related issue (context). That's how you move from a handful of placements to a media wave.

A Final Note

This equation isn't a guarantee — nothing in PR is. Journalist relationships, pitch quality, multimedia assets, and pure luck all play supporting roles. But these three variables form the structural foundation of earned media success. Understanding them won't just make you a better pitcher. It will make you a better strategist.

Because the real question isn't "how do we get more coverage?" It's "which variable are we weakest on — and what are we going to do about it?"