Public relations has long been assessed through its outputs: what was published, where it appeared, and how far it travelled. These measures still matter. But in a communications environment shaped by platforms, algorithms and AI-driven discovery, they are no longer sufficient on their own. The question facing PR today is not whether it can generate attention. It is how that attention functions once it is created – how it is interpreted, reused and sustained – and what it ultimately produces in the real world.

Measurement in communications has expanded rapidly. Coverage and reach now sit alongside engagement, sentiment, and visibility across an ever-growing set of platforms. Yet as communications becomes easier to quantify, it has also become more necessary to interpret.

The challenge is no longer choosing between visibility and value. It is understanding the relationship between the two – how attention translates into meaning, trust, and action over time. Increasingly, the organisations struggling most are not those lacking data, but rather, those surrounded by metrics without clarity about what success actually looks like. This shift has prompted a broader rethinking of what measurement is for.

Recent industry thinking suggests communications is entering a new phase. Across several frameworks, a consistent shift is visible. Whether expressed through evolving content formats or new discovery behaviours shaped by AI, the emphasis is the same: measurement is no longer positioned solely as an endpoint. It has become a mechanism that informs planning, execution, and interpretation. Three industry frameworks illustrate this clearly:

• The Barcelona Principles 4.0 sharpen how objectives, audiences, and evaluation are connected.
• PR Newswire’s 2025 Global State of Press Releases highlights the need for durable, authoritative communication in an AI-influenced information economy.
• Meltwater’s Marketing Trends to Watch in 2026 examines how platforms and AI increasingly govern discovery, attention and reputation.

Together, they point to a future where communications is assessed not only by what is seen, but by what endures.

The Barcelona Principles 4.0 formalise the relationship between intent, audience and evaluation. They encourage communicators to prioritise:

• Clear, measurable objectives as the foundation of effective communication, anchoring activity and evaluation to purpose;
• Stakeholder audiences as central to planning, recognising outcomes differ by group, channel and context;
• Measurement across all relevant channels, reflecting the reality of fragmented, multi-platform communication;
• Outputs, outcomes and impact as connected stages, best understood in relation to one another; and
• Transparency, ethics and governance, including around data and emerging technologies, as prerequisites for credibility and learning.

At VIVA! Communications, these principles sit at the centre of how campaigns are structured and evaluated in practice. Australia is home to countless identities and lived experiences – a reality reflected in our approach to stakeholder-led storytelling.

This was central to the 2025 launch of QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute’s Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative 2 (EDGI2), an international genetics study on eating disorders, which has since recruited more than 2,700 participants.

From the outset, the campaign was designed to represent a breadth of identities and experiences, not simply as a matter of inclusion, but as a strategic driver of relevance and participation. Stories reflected diverse gender perspectives, including Liam, who spoke about his eating disorder not being taken seriously due to gender-based stigma, and Rosiel, a non-binary queer spokesperson who articulated the impact of their eating disorder on relationships and identity.

The campaign also foregrounded regional, cultural and generational diversity, featuring lived experience voices from South Africa, Germany, and regional Australia, alongside participants who described growing up without access to specialised treatment. Spokespeople ranged in age from 22 to 66, and collectively represented anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID and OSFED.

This multi-stakeholder approach created multiple media entry points, and enabled coverage that resonated across communities often under-represented in public health narratives – strengthening both reach and relevance, and translating visibility into meaningful engagement.

These principles also informed the InsideOut Institute’s launch of the eClinic in 2025, where visibility-led tactics were deliberately aligned with clearly defined objectives, resulting in more than 1,000 new users on the platform’s first day.

Together, these campaigns demonstrate that outputs remain essential – but deliver their greatest value when connected to intent, audience understanding, and real-world action.

PR Newswire’s State of the Press Release 2025 reinforces the continued relevance of structured communication in a rapidly evolving discovery environment. While generative AI has transformed how information is surfaced and summarised, the report shows that media releases remain a durable source of authoritative, machine-readable content.

Their structured format, clear attribution, and factual density mean they increasingly function not only for journalists, but as reference material within AI-driven search and answer engines. In this context, the press release continues to operate as a reliable anchor as information is reused, summarised and redistributed.

Meltwater’s Marketing Trends to Watch in 2026 broadens this discussion by examining how discovery, reputation and influence are increasingly shaped before audiences ever encounter traditional media. Platforms, AI search and answer engines now play a defining role in determining what information is surfaced, prioritised and repeated.

As discovery fragments across social platforms, AI tools and multi-channel environments, communications activity must account for accuracy, consistency and context at every point of exposure – not just at the moment of publication.

Crucially, the report frames this shift as a reputational challenge as much as a technological one. Outdated or inconsistent information can now scale quickly across systems designed to synthesise and reuse content, while well-structured material is more likely to endure.

This places greater weight on decisions made at the point of creation. Inclusive language and factual clarity are no longer peripheral considerations; they sit at the centre of how information is distributed, learned from, and repeated across systems. What we publish now has a longer life – and a wider reach – than the moment it first appears.

In an environment shaped by platforms, AI, and fragmented discovery, value is no longer fixed to a single metric or moment. Measurement remains central to public relations, but its role is evolving, helping practitioners understand not only where attention is generated, but how meaning is formed, carried, and sustained.

Effective public relations today is defined not by isolated outputs, but by the discipline of aligning intent, audience, and execution over time. It is about ensuring organisations are not only visible, but accurately, and consistently represented wherever information is retrieved, interpreted or rearticulated.

For organisations navigating crowded media landscapes and rapidly evolving platforms, public relations must do more than generate attention. It must create clarity, trust, and durable understanding.

VIVA! Communications partners with clients to develop communications strategies grounded in purpose, audience insight, and measurable intent.

If you’re rethinking how success is measured – and how meaning is sustained – we’d love to talk.

pj@vivacommunications.com.au

02 9968 3741