The Digital PR Recap: Q3 2026

Summer 2026 was a season of wanderlust, sunshine and, for small business owners, tax deadlines. From eye-tracking studies crowning the world’s most beautiful cycling routes and summer cities, to tax-themed ice cream on tour and a global search for the best customer service, we found the human stories hiding inside every brief.

Whether it was a patient FOI project uncovering the true scale of bus lane fines or a fast-turnaround comment on camera-equipped AirPods, this quarter showed what happens when creative ideas and commercial thinking pull in the same direction.

Campaign Highlights

MoneySuperMarket – Best Customer Service Cities

With social media now able to make or break a small business, we explored the role great customer service plays in business success. Using online customer reviews, we built a global comparison of the cities where hospitality and leisure businesses are praised most for their service, turning a niche insurance product into a story everyone could relate to.

The results appealed to travel, lifestyle and business media around the world, earning more than 100 pieces of online coverage and over 70 links, including Forbes, CN Traveller, NY Post, Travel + Leisure and Scottish Business News. Expert advice for small business owners on protecting customers with public liability insurance was woven throughout, helping MoneySuperMarket secure the #1 organic ranking for “public liability insurance” this summer.

“This is a really neat example of finding a broad, super-relatable and newsworthy story from potentially quite a niche product, whilst still maintaining brand relevancy. Travellers and city locals all value insights into a great customer service experience, and the topic still allows for business insurance expertise to be naturally woven in. It all worked together to produce some fantastic coverage that had a real impact on search visibility.”

– Stephanie Finch, Senior PR Director

Explore – The World’s Most Beautiful Cycling Routes

To promote Explore’s cycling holidays, we set out to find the world’s most beautiful cycling routes, and backed the answer with science. Using eye-tracking technology, we showed participants images of 52 routes from around the world, measuring how quickly each one caught their attention and how long it held it. Canada, Australia and Italy came out on top.

With a ranking spanning the globe, the story offered strong international hooks and has so far earned more than 33 pieces of coverage and 22 links, including Forbes, Esquire, Euronews and Travel and Tour World, alongside regional coverage in the top-ranking destinations.

“This is a great example of using a unique methodology to make a subjective question feel scientific. ‘Most beautiful’ is usually a matter of opinion, but eye tracking gave us hard data behind it, which journalists like. Ranking 52 routes worldwide also gave us multiple regional hooks, perfect for pitching this campaign far and wide, all while keeping Explore’s cycling holidays at the heart of the story.”

– Megan Salter, Senior Digital PR Executive

Tide – Making Tax Delicious

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is the biggest tax change in decades, requiring business owners to submit tax information digitally five times a year rather than once. The first deadline landed on 7 August 2026, right in the middle of one of the sunniest summers in memory. Our research found many owners still didn’t know about the new rules, while those who did expected to lose holiday or business hours dealing with them.

So we brought some joy to tax season. A Tide-branded ice cream toured London, Manchester and Brighton, serving free scoops of VATnilla and PAYEstachio, while Tide experts were on hand to help owners get MTD-ready.

The activation landed regional coverage in all three cities, alongside business, lifestyle and trade titles including The Negotiator, Fix Radio, The Business Desk, Money Marketing and Property118. It got people talking on social, both organically and by giving creators a springboard for their own MTD content, while an out-of-home (OOH) advertising push extended its reach even further. The result was greater visibility for Tide around Making Tax Digital, both in Google and in AI assistants, and an increase in Tide account sign-ups.

“On the face of it, a brief about tax can feel daunting. How can we make tax interesting?! The answer is always with human insight, looking at how this will actually affect people, rather than getting caught up in the tax rules themselves. Poor timing from HMRC was a great opportunity for us to spread some joy in the form of tax-themed ice cream. With lots of moving parts across the activation, OOH, PR and social, it was great to see it all connect so well.”

– Richard Paul, Creative Director

Premier Inn – Beautiful Summer Cities

Summer is peak season for city breaks, and with hotels across the UK and Europe, Premier Inn is perfectly placed to inspire them. Using eye-tracking technology, we showed global participants images of 63 cities, measuring how quickly each caught their eye and how long it held their gaze, to create a “Beautiful City Score” for every destination. Banff in Canada took the top spot thanks to its stunning mountain backdrop, with Mykonos, Sydney, Bruges and Bristol completing the top five.

The campaign resonated around the world, securing 86 pieces of coverage, 45 links and 126 brand mentions since launch. Highlights include the Mirror, TravelPulse, Forbes, Euronews, Time Out and CNN Indonesia, plus local coverage in top-ranking destinations through titles such as SoSoir, Tornos News, Time Out Sydney and The Brussels Times.

“We often say that people ‘eat with their eyes’, and this is often true when it comes to the world of travel. It can be tricky to say which destinations are definitively the most ‘beautiful’, as beauty is so subjective, but the science-backed method of the eye-tracking study has enabled us to do just that. The range of destinations then provided the ideal springboard to secure global coverage, thanks to the strong local hooks, all while keeping Premier Inn’s great value city centre hotels at the core.”

– Charlotte Brown, Digital PR Manager

Press Office Wins

MoneySuperMarket – Bus Lane Fines

Our regional media monitoring showed bus lane penalties were a hot topic for local residents, so we submitted Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to councils across the UK. The findings revealed that drivers are fined for bus gate and lane violations on average every 13 seconds, with over £37 million generated from bus lane fines in the first half of 2026 alone. The story featured on BBC Radio London and was picked up by more than 20 regional sites thanks to its city-specific findings, including Edinburgh News, The Scotsman, Daily Post, Wales Online and the Yorkshire Evening Post.

MoneySuperMarket – Without Wills

To highlight why wills and life insurance matter, both for protecting belongings and supporting loved ones financially, we surveyed 1,000 Brits. The results became a series of stories, from how many people know what happens to their estate without a will, to the things people least want to inherit and how many still have an ex named on their will or policy. The consumer-friendly angles landed across money, parenting and lifestyle press, including the Mirror, Netmums and London Daily News.

Reactive

SpaSeekers – Eat Your Reds

With “eating your skincare” trending across social media, we gave the classic advice to eat your greens a colourful twist. Partnering with a nutritionist, we explained why red foods shouldn’t be overlooked and the benefits they bring to your skin, earning coverage across Indy100, NewsBreak and Femina.

Compare and Recycle – AirPod Cameras

When a leak suggested camera-equipped AirPods were on the way, just as searches surged 656% year on year, we moved fast. With Meta’s smart glasses already facing public backlash over privacy, we offered comment on the consent and safety concerns around wearable cameras, securing a valuable link in a major CNET think piece on Apple and AI, alongside Yahoo Tech, CNET Japan, Telefonguru and News ATW.

Want to see more of what we’ve been up to? Have a browse of our work here. And if you’re ready to take your brand further with standout digital PR, we’d love to chat.