Stop Shouting, Start Earning

A bold challenger brand idea hits the market. It’s disruptive, culturally sharp, and should grab attention. But no one’s talking about it.

Why? Because creativity alone doesn’t guarantee cut-through. For challenger brands—often battling deep-pocketed competitors, this creativity needs packaging up with smart media and amplification planning as well. Earned media is, has, and will always be a critical part of that mix.

In a world where attention is the scarcest commodity, challenger brands face an uphill battle. Ambitions might be bold, ideas could be braver, but these brands are still fundamentally lacking the war chests available to their competitors. This means we have to work smarter, not just louder, and find ways to make ideas punch well above their weight. In short: we have to outsmart, not outspend.

But dear reader, here is the good news: history shows that with the right creative concept, media thinking and earned media smarts - challenger brands can earn their spot in the limelight. 

In 2025 we hope to see more brands utilising the magic of creative agencies bringing both media and earned media expertise under one roof in order to win. Because when we bring earned media into the creative process at the very start (opposed to bolted on at the end) we truly have the opportunity to create the culturally disruptive, conversation-driving work we’re promising in our Creds decks and agency websites. 

To create trouble making work that is both creatively immense and benefits from the earned media multiplier, we need to cultivate two things: creative integration and speedy timing.

Big competitors can buy their way to visibility. Challenger brands? They must earn it. That’s why PR and earned media thinking needs to sit at the table from day one of the creative process.

Too often, PR gets briefed after the idea is locked, tasked with squeezing out a headline or two. This is a missed opportunity. Most humbly, let’s take our work for Lastminute.com as an example. We utilised our in-house media and earned media functions in partnership with creative to bring to life our insight that a surprising number of people research and book holidays on ‘The John’. From crafting the headlines, to planning the social media touchpoints, the influencers and media partners and the most appropriate out of home placements for the tactical media buy, this idea would not have seen the light of day had it not been for the confluence of all these disciplines.

Culturally disruptive ideas have one thing in common: they’re designed to be shared, discussed, and debated. With this type of work earned media isn’t a bonus, it is the work. 

Speed matters for challenger brands. If they can’t outspend their deep pocketed competitors, they might be able to out-react bigger companies that have more layers of decision making that can (not always but generally) hinder ultra-reactive work. Bringing media thinking and PR into the creative agency umbrella creates a tighter, more responsive process—allowing brands to hijack cultural moments with ideas that feel relevant, fast, and brave.

The topic of responsiveness is clearly not new. It’s been 10 years now since John St in Canada playfully and brilliantly poked holes at the concept of ‘always on’ which was en-vogue rhetoric in our industry at the time.  

But speed is important for challenger brands. When done well, speed can lead to relevance, and relevance is one of the critical ingredients for successful earned media potential. 

Take the launch of Peroni’s partnership with Scuderia Ferrari F1 as an example. From the beginning, every asset and piece of content was developed with earned media and word-of-mouth potential in mind - every pixel infected with a fire hydrant of in-jokes, subtle nods and easter eggs for the F1 community. Amongst the fanfare of the launch, Ferrari announced Lewis Hamilton as their driver for 2025, and one of our assets subsequently went viral - a tiny detail in our package for press - a little red car, which carried Lewis’ number 44. This tiny detail helped to ‘drive’ (drive, get it?) coverage with over 2 billion reach valued at over €700,000. The campaign was recently awarded Partnership of the Year at the Sport Business Awards. 

“Peroni? A challenger brand?” you might ask. Just take a look at their global adspend versus Heineken. In the launch period around the campaign, Peroni significantly improved its share of search against Heineken, even dominating it in their home market of Italy with a 75% share. 

By collapsing the space between creativity. media and earned media, agencies can help challenger brands turn speed, wit, and relevance into an unfair advantage.

Great creative work doesn’t live in silos. Challenger brands need ideas that don’t just look good, but get people talking. Bringing media, PR and earned thinking into the creative process isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. After all, there’s a lot of shouting out there, and it takes new ways of working and imagining to earn the attention needed to change the game.