The Science of Digital PR: Why Challenging Your Own Work Builds Better Campaigns

It’s no secret that the current PR landscape is tough. Thanks to what is being widely reported as an onslaught of ‘AI-slop’, in-house and agency-side PRs are under more scrutiny than ever, and with an ever-dwindling pool of journalists and more brands jostling for visibility online, it can be tricky to know how to differentiate yourself. 

Credibility has always been currency in PR, but this rings even more true in our current environment. When you do manage to get your pitch in front of a journalist, nothing will get you blacklisted quicker than vague claims, a poor methodology, or a press release that feels like it was spat out by ChatGPT. 

While nothing in PR is guaranteed, there’s a lot we can, and should, be doing to rebuild credibility in our profession, and it starts with us becoming our own toughest critics. I started my career in Biomedical Science before moving into PR nearly five years ago, and in that time, I’ve learned that the most effective comms professionals have something important in common with scientists, they interrogate everything. 

Why Good PRs Challenge Their Own Ideas

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” - Albert Einstein

There’s no foolproof formula for PR success, but continuously pushing yourself to question your own thinking, challenge your team’s ideas, and keep yourself open to feedback will get you a long way. Here are four ways I interrogate my own ideas to create more credible, newsworthy stories for brands and press alike.

Assume all ideas are bad

All of us are blind to some level of unconscious bias that we don’t even know we have. Whether it’s your idea or someone else’s, always start by assuming it has flaws and try to find them early. Humans tend to seek out information that confirms what we already believe, and this is how in PR (and marketing in general) we end up progressing with ideas that are inaccurate, don’t quite hit the mark or even end up having to pull ideas halfway through production.

Cognitive psychologists call this confirmation bias - the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. The best way to combat it is to create a culture in your team where feedback is not only expected but welcomed. When a colleague pushes back on your idea, particularly if it’s one you felt proud of, it can feel like hostility or judgement. Push past this feeling and understand it’s not personal. If everyone in your team can accomplish this you will create a safe and efficient environment for quality idea interrogation.

Even more importantly, if an idea isn’t working once it’s already in production, don’t cling to it for the sake of timelines or budgets. It’s far better to pivot than to push out flawed or misleading data.

Example: In a recent travel campaign which looked at the safest subway systems around the world, we realised part way through production that the rankings were relying too heavily on datasets that were incompatible with each other by nature of their origin (different governing bodies processing data in different ways).

Doing the research ahead of time and dropping it saved us from pushing out a ranking that unfairly penalised or celebrated different subway systems without understanding the full picture - something no amount of caveats in the methodology would have fixed.

Start with a hypothesis

Most Digital PR campaigns start with a question or an insight. Treat it like a hypothesis and interrogate or stress-test it before diving into the data. For example, if I wanted to run a travel campaign which revealed the exact conditions for the perfect summer breeze, and where in the world you’re most likely to experience it, I’d start with something like this:

Insight: There’s nothing better than sipping a cocktail on the beach or balcony after a hot summer’s day, freshly showered and ready to enjoy your evening. But certain conditions lend themselves to a more pleasant summer breeze than others - what are they, and are some destinations more likely to deliver it than others?

Hypothesis: We believe we can define these conditions by taking into consideration factors like humidity, wind speed and direction, as well as temperature, before cross referencing them with historical meteorological data from different popular summer destinations worldwide to identify where you’re most likely to find the ‘perfect breeze’.

Then I’d interrogate it, before pitching it to a client or moving forward with the idea.

1. Evidence check

Why does this matter now, and why would journalists or their readers care?

What metrics am I using, and are there reliable data sources for them?

Is there a meteorological expert I can partner with who can help me define these conditions?

Has the idea been done before? (And if so, how can I improve or build upon it?)

2. Credibility check

What might a journalist think of my data points?

Can I confidently explain the methodology in one sentence?

Will anything feel sensational or difficult to prove?

3. Story value check 

Can I see a clear headline?

Does it tap into real human behaviour or emotion?

Will anyone question why [brand] is talking about this?

Ask for a peer review

Many scientific studies are evaluated by experts in the same field prior to being published, and if not this is usually made clear. Things in PR tend to move quickly, and as such we’re often under a time crunch. Always account for this in your planning! Don’t underestimate the value of a fresh pair of eyes on your work, and don’t assume that asking someone to proof your content or release is enough. Try to have a data expert review any calculations or metrics used in your study, and ask someone else removed from the story to review your copy separately.

Not all teams have the resources for this however, so if you’re in this boat - try to find a workaround (like an AI assistant) that will help you spot glaring inconsistencies before your story goes to press… More on this next!

Use AI as an assistant, not a research partner

For some teams, whether in-house or agency side, you may not have a data scientist on hand. This is where you can utilise AI for your peer review, but a word of warning… Never use it as a co-author. Instead you should use it as a high-speed fact checker on data already collected by a human or by a trusted tool.

LLMs like ChatGPT can triangulate data against widely available information and surface inaccuracies that people living and working in the same sphere as you might not - but use it with caution. A 2025 study on LLM-Based Fact-Checking Reliability found serious limitations in terms of how well different models can distinguish between claims that sound factual and those that are factual, and it’s essential that PR professionals utilising LLMs as fact checking solutions understand AI’s limitations. 

I’d still recommend manually fact-checking each piece of feedback the LLM gives you, and always find another human to review your work before it goes to a client or to press. Use it at your discretion. It may surface insights that are entirely true and you hadn’t observed yourself, but it can also hallucinate or not fully understand the context in which your study has been conducted, thereby suggesting further analysis that isn’t required for the story you’re looking for.

Example prompt:

You are acting as a fact-checker and topic analyst for a data-driven Digital PR study. I will provide you with:

A ranking or dataset produced from original research.

A description of the methodology (how it was calculated, what metrics were used).

Your task is to sense check the results using publicly available online knowledge, including blog posts, reputable websites, online studies, surveys, and forums that reflect common understanding or sentiment on the topic

Please:

• Identify any results that appear inconsistent with widely accepted or commonly discussed information.

• Summarise general consensus from online discourse (what people tend to agree on).

• Highlight outliers or unexpected results and suggest possible explanations (e.g. “This city ranks low here, but forums suggest it’s very popular because of X”).

• Cite examples or sources if possible (e.g. mention the types of articles or discussions found, not exact URLs).

• Do not disclose private or non-public data.

Dataset to check:

[Paste your ranking or table here]

Methodology summary:

[Briefly explain how your ranking was calculated - e.g. weighted metrics, sources used, time period]

The Science of Storytelling

Anthropological studies show that storytelling evolved to be a preferred skill in hunter-gatherer groups, with our ancestors learning how to tell stories to keep each other safe and to share knowledge, like whether there’s something dangerous nearby or how to safely forage for food. As the years have gone on, we’ve massively improved how we share stories, learning from psychologists and anthropologists the ways in which we can utilise storytelling to get our points across impactfully (and help people remember them).

In science this is done in a very standardised format, which allows scientists from all over the world to communicate their research clearly and consistently with each other. The typical structure is known as IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) and perhaps unsurprisingly is often mirrored by how we tend to write up modern PR stories.

We hypothesise around subjects we think will be of interest to a brand’s audience, we find relevant insights to underpin that topic, develop methodologies to prove it, and then work to convince journalists that the topic and the story is worthy of sharing with a wider audience.

Knowing how to spot patterns in data, how to create bulletproof methodologies and how to convey those stories clearly is imperative to developing and maintaining strong relationships between PRs and press. While the transparency that comes with following this format reinforces why the science-storytelling connection is both an ethical obligation and one that heavily benefits us - with journalists more likely to trust and cover your stories if they can see you’ve done your due diligence.

How to Structure Your Story Like a Scientist

So when you’re ready to go live, present your campaign with the clarity of a research paper. If you’ve hypothesised that certain cities around the world are better for couples who clash on what they want out of a holiday - i.e. cities that tick the boxes of both city-dwellers looking for hustle and bustle and hiking enthusiasts alike, you might start by collating a list of popular city break destinations, before analysing the quantity and quality of walking trails within reaching distance of the city centre.

Here’s how you could structure your write-up for this idea:

• Abstract: "Rio de Janeiro ranks as the world’s best city break for hikers, new research reveals.”

• Introduction: Why now? Link to a cultural moment or consumer insight.

• Methods: Explain the data sources and metrics used - and offer the full dataset if you can.

• Results: Share rankings, insights, and regional breakdowns if you have them.

• Discussion: Add a spokesperson quote that ties your research back to the brand or industry, and discusses or highlights any interesting insights.

• Conclusion: Summarise why it matters and what comes next (e.g. “Buy your hiking shoes!”).

Utilise peer-reviewed research to spark ideas

Pro tip: Search for related topics to your client or brand in Google Scholar to help build your story from the ground up.

For example, when developing a PureGym story on immunity and exercise amid the quad-demic last December, we based our concept on a 2018 Journal of Sport and Health Science study, and follow-up research presented at the American Physiology Summit, which showed that between 15 to 60 minutes of moderate daily exercise boosts immune response.

Using that evidence as the backbone of the story, as well as an insight we already had that time is one of Brits’ biggest blockers to exercise, we collaborated with a PureGym personal trainer to create a practical 15-minute workout to support immune health, resulting in coverage across 18 national titles, including The Sun and the Daily Record.

When Science and PR Don’t Align

I’ll leave you with this, not everything in PR can be backed by science. But when you can back your own ideas with the data they deserve, and clarity surrounding their creation, you should. There will be instances where science can’t quite meet you at a creative level - but science isn’t simply about ‘proving’ something, it’s about crafting a compelling argument towards your hypothesis - and convincing people why it matters in the first place.

Combat less scientific stories by focusing on transparency, if you’re interpolating or interpreting data then say so in your methodology. If your results are correlational, not causal, clarify it. Be explicit about what the data can and cannot support. 

There’s a lot of chatter among PRs and journalists at the moment regarding the usage of AI. Ultimately, the actions of a few unfortunately tar the rest of us with the same brush, but AI isn’t going anywhere and there is a world in which we can all co-exist, while still holding ourselves and each other to high editorial standards. 

My biggest tip? Challenge yourself and those around you, and focus on what you as a PR can do in the coming months and years to rebuild and maintain long-lasting trust between brands, journalists and audiences.

This post was written by Chloe Tickner, Digital PR Manager at Propellernet

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