It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And no, it’s not the candy canes or mistletoe that’s doing it for me but the ads. For creative studios and the brands they serve, the festive season is their time to shine. Whether it’s John Lewis tugging at the heart strings, Coca-Cola’s annual dose of nostalgia, or Kevin the Carrot’s latest escapades, the ads were out before we’d even had a chance to put up the tree.  It got me thinking about my recent trip to Advertising Week New York 2025 and the often-underappreciated crossovers between the creative advertising industry and our own. So, decked out like Don Draper and with an access-all-areas pass dangling alongside my skinny club stripe tie, I found myself in Manhattan this October for adland’s premier networking and thought leadership event.  Advertising Week New York (AWNY) is a high-octane summit where changemakers from the world of marketing, media, tech, and culture converge as the future of advertising – and all that comes with it - take centre stage. It’s a chance to take stock of achievements, learn from the best (and sometimes the bad), be inspired to do great things, and make meaningful connections. But there was something different about it for me this year.  As a London-based comms professional, coming to AWNY should feel like a pilgrimage to the birthplace of our industry. This is our spiritual home, steeped in our collective lore. The venue was just a short walk from Times Square - the open air-temple of consumerism - and the storied Madison Avenue was only a few blocks away.  Nonetheless, standing at the entrance I couldn’t help but feel like an impostor, as though I was about to infiltrate a space where I didn’t quite belong. After all, what was a serious PR man like me doing in the flashy world of advertising?   Advertising is what my grandmother thinks I do and I’ve given up trying to explain the difference. My colleague here in London refers to PR (half-jokingly) as an industry of professional introverts, whereas adland appears to be populated with our much more outgoing and in-your-face cousins.  It also didn’t help that I was most definitely the only one in a suit. But, unperturbed, I was determined to see what this fast-paced, buzzword-laden cacophony had to offer. And I jumped right in only to find the familiar echoes of PR were everywhere if I listened hard enough.  Not before ditching my tie, of course, lest these New York ad types think me a square…  Here's what I learned:  Lesson 1: Earned media is a marker of success Naturally, my first port of call was the press room. As usual, it was tucked out of the way down in the basement, or “we prefer to call it sub-level two” as the steward who led me there tried to spin it. Down in the bowels of the Penn District, I was met with a familiar sight: reporters hunched over, feverishly chipping away at that day’s assignment, plugged into a vast hydra-like extension cable and occasionally reaching for a basket of delightfully inedible-looking American candy. These were my people. And they were here for a good reason: adland makes for great stories!  Once again, AWNY reinforced earned media as a gold standard for success in advertising. Who doesn’t like to see their work making headlines? For the right reasons, that is (see Lesson 2). CMOs increasingly view coverage generated by their campaigns as a core KPI, not just a bonus. When an ad sparks conversation and becomes a news story, it signals cultural relevance and creative impact. Not to mention all that additional – and free - exposure.  For PR teams, this means treating creative campaigns as newsworthy assets in their own right and identifying angles that resonate beyond paid placements. That said, journalists want stories, not slogans. Media strategies must therefore emphasise the campaign’s cultural or social significance. Another major theme at AWNY was the use of real-time analytics, enabling PR teams to monitor which creative elements are gaining traction and pitch those narratives accordingly.  Lesson 2: When an ad campaign becomes a PR nightmare When American Eagle’s CMO Craig Brommers took to the stage over at ADWEEK House, I knew we were in for a show. He offered a striking example of how traditional crisis comms strategies are being totally up-ended in a post-cancel culture world. Seemingly still smarting from the blowback the clothing brand’s controversial Sydney Sweeney ads caused earlier this year, Brommers claimed to have resisted the “crisis communications industrial complex”. He decried the decades-old playbook of rapid apologies and campaign withdrawals.  Instead, he explained how the brand paused, gathered insights from “real Americans”, and ultimately chose to do nothing. An approach, Brommers said, that proved effective because it was grounded in audience sentiment rather than reactive optics. This underscores a critical lesson for PR professionals: in today’s fast-moving media landscape, sometimes slowing down to read the room can be more powerful than rushing to appease vocal critics. Brommers was also quick to note the commercial success of the ad campaign, resulting in a record uptick in sales and company share price despite the backlash. Lucky for him, as CMOs are very often made sacrificial lambs in these situations.  Lesson 3: Navigating polarization Nicole Schuman of PR News highlighted what she saw as a growing polarization in reputation management. Brands either go silent during controversy or lean even harder into purpose-driven statements, leaving little middle ground. Combined with shorter attention spans and faster crisis cycles, this new dynamic demands agility and clarity from PR teams, explained Schuman.  Trust remains the cornerstone and brands that can demonstrate authenticity and consistency, rather than performative gestures, are better positioned to weather such storms. For PR professionals, this means integrating audience insights and aligning responses with long-term brand values, not just short-term optics.  Lesson 4: An AI, a PR and an adman walk into a bar... If there was one two-letter initialism on everyone’s lips, it was not PR. AI was pretty much all anyone talked about. The last time I was at AWNY, Gen AI was still emerging, and its full potential had yet to be realised. Back then, everyone was pretending not to be afraid of losing their jobs to the machines. This year, however, the tone had shifted. The CMOs I spoke to talked about AI as though it was a fully integrated (albeit turbo-charged) member of their team, enabling human creatives to do more with less, be experimental, and make smarter, data-driven decisions.  But some trepidation remains and this is clearly an industry in the midst of rapid, unprecedented change. The pace of this transformation was perhaps best illustrated by my interaction with a fellow interloper. Like an island of calm in a sea of chaos, I was drawn to one exhibitor stand not because of its flashy new tech demo but for its real-life human poet in residence. Refreshingly analog, he was a living paradox punching away broodily on an old-fashioned typewriter. Ironically, he was there at the behest of a company specializing in AI-powered content creation – one of the platforms that would be otherwise putting him out of a job. He brought to mind the image of Sitting Bull being wheeled out for one of those late Victorian-era Wild West traveling shows. A once-mighty relic of a by-gone age now performing for our entertainment, courtesy of the same forces behind his demise.  In true New York fashion, AWNY was also capped off with a comedy roast of AI – the highlights of which I can’t repeat here. Let’s just say, when it was AI’s turn for the roastee’s rebuttal (delivered in monotone via a Dilbert-lookalike stand-in), he didn’t pull any punches. But hey, what better way to process a potentially existential threat to your industry than to have a good laugh about it?  Lesson 5: Attention Economics 101 There was no doubting it, attention is the ultimate currency. But not all attention is born equal. As sessions like ‘Cracking the Attention Code: From Noise to Noticed’ highlighted, 75% of all digital content receives zero active attention (as opposed to passive attention) and only 30% of ads cross the 2.5-second threshold where they are committed to memory. Consumers are now bombarded with thousands of messages daily, meaning brands must fight tooth and claw to stay relevant and stand out in this cutthroat attention economy.  The answer could lie in PR’s ability to create authentic narratives that cut through all this noise. Audiences are becoming much more discerning in what they choose to consume. Unlike paid ads, earned media signals trust and credibility, which increasingly skeptical audiences seem to crave. PR teams must position themselves, therefore, as architects of cultural conversations, not just pushers of press releases. The challenge is to make stories that are both compeling and authentic, so that they earn attention organically and complement the paid strategies that dominate advertising.  Lesson 6: Social platforms as decision engines - PR's new playing field AWNY underscored the rise of social platforms as decision engines, not just entertainment hubs. They are now most people’s primary source of information and influence. Consumers increasingly turn to Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram for news and recommendations, often bypassing traditional sources altogether. This is blurring the line between news and social chatter, creating both a challenge and an opportunity.  Most PR teams now integrate social listening into their media monitoring programmes as standard. But the ones who also turn to these platforms for insights in the early planning stages will have the advantage, tracking viral trends before they even happen.   Stories should also be crafted for platform-native formats, considering short-form videos, creator collaborations, and interactive content that can amplify earned media.   And here’s the kicker: journalists themselves are sourcing ideas from social platforms. A strong social presence doesn’t just engage audiences; it can indirectly drive traditional coverage too. For PR teams, if you’re not part of the conversation where it starts, you’re already way behind.  Lesson 7: B2B or not 2B Reporters weren’t the only bunch consigned to the basement. Down on sub-level two, the B2B marketers had also set up shop. In the dedicated lounge hosted by LinkedIn (who else?), sessions like ‘B2B’s New Power Play: Lead Gen Rewired’ highlighted how AI and predictive data models are empowering B2B brands to be more B2C. B2B marketers are adopting approaches that are bolder, hyper-personalized, and more emotionally engaging. They are able to target buying groups as a collection of individual human consumers rather than an indistinct mass of ‘stakeholders’.   AI is also helping B2B marketers move away from outdated engagement models and performance metrics, and toward precision targeting and trust-building. These same insights can be used by PR teams to craft sharper narratives for B2B clients. The AWNY panels also demonstrated a shift in measurement conversations. Instead of vanity metrics, there’s a renewed focus on trust indicators like share of voice in credible outlets and sentiment analysis – mainstays of PR programs. Lesson 8: It’s all integrated anyway  AWNY made it clear: the era of siloed campaigns is well and truly over. Brands now deploy fully integrated strategies across paid, earned, owned, and shared channels. Creative analytics, influencer partnerships, targeted media engagement, and experiential activations are all part of the same ecosystem.  PR is now a strategic partner in integrated campaigns, not an afterthought. We can feed much-needed cultural insights and media engagement expertise back into the creative development process, ensuring campaigns stay relevant and newsworthy.  But it also means that PR teams need to re-learn the language of marketing KPIs. We’d better get used to terms like reach, engagement and conversion, because PR outcomes are increasingly tied to these metrics.