In the digital PR world, keeping up-to-date with the latest news stories is crucial to ensuring we curate successful content for our clients. However, with new stories being published constantly, it’s not always easy to determine which are the most relevant, or which can be transformed into an opportunity to generate more traffic for your clients.
Whilst we all fundamentally utilise the news to provide our clients with coverage potential, choosing the wrong story to react to, or reacting in the wrong way, can actually be harmful. That’s why we at Shout Bravo have gathered the top headlines that took the news by storm this week, breaking them down into industry-specific categories – travel, pet care, business, health, and transport.
Going forward, we’ll be providing a weekly breakdown of which stories held the most weight in the media, to help you identify what to look out for in terms of press coverage that could lead to a boost in your clients’ engagement and gain additional outreach for ongoing campaigns.
Travel…
This week, one of the biggest stories for the travel industry was the warning to travellers planning to head to Spain this summer. Experts at various travel agencies warned of price hikes to popular Spanish holiday destinations, as more Brits head overseas to escape increased energy costs and inflation in the UK.
Sadly, Spain is now also starting to feel the effects of inflation, meaning that general costs are higher, and this has had an impact on travel costs for tourists. Certain Spanish regions have also chosen to limit the number of British tourists that can enter, including the popular tourist destination of Mallorca, increasing prices by up to 33%.
Mallorca’s decision to move away from the ‘budget tourism’ that has sustained it for so long is likely to have a big impact, not only on the region’s income, but also on the content that future travel pieces include.
With prices set to increase by such a significant amount, it’s not advisable to include this once-supreme summer holiday destination in any travel pieces that are targeting a British audience.
Pet care…
As we move into Spring and an increasing number of people start to contemplate bringing a pet into their home to take with them on their summer adventures, there is a larger interest in the types of insurance policies in place to ensure that soon-to-be pet parents can find the perfect coverage for their bundle of joy.
Whilst there is no specific time limit for pet insurance, and it’s a topic that is generally always being discussed somewhere, we do typically see a higher volume of coverage for insurance pieces in the spring and summer period.
This tends to be the time in which both first-time pet owners and older owners alike might be starting to think about finding a new policy in preparation for taking their pets hiking, swimming, or a range of other activities.
We were able to use this opportunity to secure some amazing coverage for our client, Canine Journal, in SF Gate. We provided expert commentary on behalf of our client, detailing the benefits of different pet insurance providers.
Business…
The biggest news in the business sector this week has sadly been focused around the number of business closures, particularly within the pub and retail industries.
With the cost of living and energy crises continuing to have a significant impact on both on business profit margins and customers’ ability to spend money on luxuries, businesses that are highly dependent on having customers physically in-store to help them offset their energy costs have been hit the hardest.
The result of which has unfortunately meant that many businesses across the hospitality and retail sectors have been forced to close up shop for good, with traditional British pubs seeing some of the largest closures.
This follows concerns from the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) last week that, without additional funding support, up to 2,000 pubs across the UK were at risk of closure.
Similarly, retail stores that have struggled to retain footfall amidst concerns that the UK is about to enter a recession have also suffered significant losses.
Health…
This week’s big story in the health sector is the rise in popularity of weight loss injections. In particular, the use of the brand Ozempic, and the news that Wegovy – a personal favourite of Kim Kardashian – will soon be made available to UK customers on the NHS.
These injections rose to popularity following Kim Kardashian’s viral red carpet moment, in which she wore an original Marilyn Monroe dress that required her to lose a significant amount of weight in a short period of time. Since then, TikTok took to the helm, becoming the driving force behind the widespread use of these injections as a rapid weight loss treatment.
Originally intended for diabetes treatment, the injections – consisting of a substance generically named semaglutide – are now able to be prescribed to patients on the NHS specifically as a weight loss aid.
Transport…
The transport news this week was dominated by the weather. In the UK, we typically don’t see snow very often, so it’s quite a big deal when we do. This week, despite it being March, we finally got to see some snow, and the media was very excited about it.
Of course, with snow comes the concern over driving conditions, so it was unsurprising to see that much of the news was covering tips on driving safely in the snow, and spreading awareness about the weather warnings in place.
To conclude…
We hope that you have found this insight into the top news stories throughout this week helpful, and that we’ve been able to inspire you to try alternative angles in your own outreach endeavours. Throughout this ‘Bravo News’ series, we’ll be sharing the top stories from the week and, where possible, giving you real-world examples of how we’ve used them to curate content that Shouts our client’s names loud and clear.01
