Tunheim

Imagine a nonprofit rolling out a bold new mission at an upcoming press conference. The CEO’s speech is polished, her hair looks great, the deck sparkles, reporters tweet sound bites about innovation and the potential impact. Meanwhile, back in the office, a project manager sends a Slack message to their marketing colleague: “Did anyone know we were doing this?” Silence. A few confused GIFs ensue. Same brand, two stories.

Walk through a college campus or concert venue, and you might spot a flip phone snapped shut or a Walkman clipped to a belt. For a generation raised online, Gen Z is taking a surprising analog turn as some return to landline phones or – gasp! – even talking on the phone. But before you shrug this off as yet another fad, think seriously about the implications for brands. This isn’t simply about quirky aesthetics or fleeting nostalgia.

There’s a certain myth around the “breakthrough idea” — the kind of concept that reinvents a product, captures the imagination of a market, or creates something entirely new. We treat it like lightning: random, rare, and impossible to harness. But the truth is, real breakthroughs — the kind that move companies forward and shift customer expectations — don’t come from luck. They come from process. The cost of sameness is getting higher.

It’s the one thing nobody wants to think about: Recession. In October 2025, Moody’s Analytics reported that 22 U.S. states are either in or near recession. Consumer pessimism is climbing. Inflation is lingering. Major sectors are cutting jobs. The federal shutdown continues. And yet, many companies are budgeting for business-as-usual. That’s a mistake. Recessions are disruptive, but they’re also clarifying.

Walk into a hypothetical coffee shop with me. The first thing we see is the window. It advertises the shop as Frankies Farm-to-Cup in hand-lettered script. It’s a little smudged in a cute way. Feels earnest. Small batch, local, maybe the barista owns chickens. So far, so good. We step inside and glance the menu, which is posted on a large sign at the beginning of the line. Proudly Serving Corporate Fuel. Wait, what? Different vibe. Definitely no chickens.

The world feels especially turbulent right now. Enormous political pressures, economic uncertainty, rapid advances in AI, and ongoing societal shifts around equity and inclusion are putting extraordinary strain on leaders. The stakes are high. The speed of change is relentless. And the demand for clarity—both inside organizations, in the marketplace, and across communities—has never been greater.

When we joined IPREX nearly 20 years ago, our motivation was straightforward: we were stepping away from a holding company and needed a new solution to serve our global clients. We wanted partners in key markets who could help us deliver work at the same standard—people we trusted, who operated like us. IPREX gave us that. And while the nature of global work has changed since then, our reasons for being part of this network have only grown.

For many mid-sized businesses, public relations is squeezed between marketing campaigns, product deadlines, and leadership meetings. Someone “owns” it, but only part-time. Stories get told inconsistently. Opportunities come and go. And before long, visibility starts to fade. It’s not that you don’t have a story worth telling. It’s that building and sustaining visibility takes more than good intentions. It takes a plan and a team to build it.

In the new era of conversational computing, your stakeholders’ first touchpoint is no longer a search engine, it’s an AI. When your investors, customers, policymakers, or future employees ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot a question about you, what do they hear? The AI’s best guess… or your verifiable truth? Because our methodology is integrated across our entire agency, it delivers value far beyond the marketing department.

One of the great elements of having a diverse portfolio of clients is recognizing the emerging trends that impact organizations, regardless of their size, sector, or digital maturity. A doozie I’ve noticed lately is a persistent feeling of busyness. Everyone feels swamped! Yet many of them report that lead generation has declined. If your growth team feels busier than ever but your sales results are sliding, you are not imagining things. You’re probably stuck on the content treadmill.