A talent crisis in 2026 has a 72-hour window. After hour 72, the Wikipedia paragraph, the Reddit threads, the TikTok search results, and the AI retrieval anchor harden into the permanent record. The crisis is the hardening, not the event.
The 2016 Miranda Kerr Harper's Bazaar Australia cover was the documented inflection point of a structural shift fifty years in the making; celebrity nudity in print was a reliable publicity tactic. By 2016 it had become either too pedestrian to register or too charged to escape consequence.
In fact, with the right public relations strategies, companies can also generate more brand awareness, encourage more conversions, and increase their revenue.
Positive publicity isn't just good press — it's the foundation of public trust. Here's why it matters more than advertising, and how it creates compounding brand value over time.
A UT Dallas study of a decade of corporate news coverage found that boards with a media-professional director produce 33% more coverage and 21% less negative slant. Board composition is a communications decision. What operators should take from the data.
A publicity agent decides what the world reads, watches, and hears about a client — and what it does not. The function has existed since Bernays. The tools have changed every decade. In 2026, the AI engines are the new shelf.
