The Digital PR Recap: Q2 2026

Q2 2026 was a quarter of big swings and bigger results. From a tea collection designed to soothe homesickness to a scientific deep-dive into the world’s most stunning spas, our campaigns tapped into universal human experiences and turned them into headlines across the globe. We also had a viral immigration index, a sharp piece of reactive content that landed on ELLE France within hours, and a string of press office wins that made the most of timely angles.

As ever, the ideas that performed best were the ones rooted in genuine insight: campaigns where the creative idea and the audience need were completely aligned. That’s what made this quarter one to be proud of.

Campaign Highlights

MoneySuperMarket – Trade In Your Degree

With the cost of university degrees under more scrutiny than ever, this campaign asked a question that got people talking from the moment it came up in the briefing: if you could start again, would you trade your degree for a skilled trade? It was the kind of idea that generates instant opinion, and that instinct proved right.

We surveyed graduates across multiple industries to find out how many would consider a career in the trades if they were doing it all over again. The findings gave us a strong, data-backed hook that was perfectly timed to a genuine cultural debate around skills shortages and degree repayment costs. Coverage landed across authoritative trade titles including PBC Today and Heating & Plumbing Monthly, and MoneySuperMarket spokesperson Kara Gammell took the story to Fix Radio, known as the Builders’ Station, putting the campaign directly in front of the van insurance audience.

“Tapping into a genuine industry conversation around the trades gap, the data we uncovered gave it a strong hook that clearly resonated, gaining coverage across the niche trade titles we were targeting and spreading internationally across South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.”

— Luci Schalch, Senior Digital PR Executive

AutoTrader – Perfect Driving Weather

Weather affects how we drive more than most of us realise: from road surface conditions and visibility to wind speed and humidity. AutoTrader helps drivers find the right car for their journeys, so we set out to answer a simple question: where in the world offers the most perfect conditions for a drive?

Working with Senior Meteorologist Jim Dale from the British Weather Services, we developed a methodology that set thresholds and weightings across five factors, combining them into a Perfect Driving Weather Score out of 100. We then applied that score to well-known roads and popular driving routes around the world, using historical data from WeatherSpark. The result was a beautifully travel-adjacent campaign that gave international press a local angle to work with: routes in South Africa and Italy scored particularly well, which proved invaluable for pitching. In total, the campaign secured 49 pieces of coverage with an average Domain Rating of 60 and 97 brand mentions, with standout placements including Travel + Leisure, Corriere (DR 89), Motor1 (DR 90) and the Eastern Daily Press.

“Weather and driving are both relatable topics, and ranking roads through a meteorologist-backed index gave journalists a clear reason to cover it. Working with a weather expert to set the thresholds added credibility to the methodology, and the famous global driving routes gave us scenic hooks and plenty of international pitching angles.”

— Raquel Pinto, Senior Digital PR Executive at Propellernet

SpaSeekers – Stunning Spas

Spas are aspirational by nature, which made this campaign’s central question an easy one to get excited about: which spa settings in the world are objectively the most stunning? Rather than rely on subjective opinion, we used eye-tracking technology to find out scientifically, curating a selection of the world’s most striking spa environments and measuring exactly where the eye is drawn.

The shortlist ranged from infinity pools in Bali to snow-covered saunas in Scandinavia and hidden gems across the UK, giving the campaign genuine global breadth. That international scope paid off: coverage landed across 27 countries, with major travel titles including Travel + Leisure, Time Out, Euronews, Yahoo Travel and Nine all picking up the story. Regional UK outlets performed strongly too, with a number of localised angles working particularly well. In total, the campaign earned 74 pieces of coverage, from global publications to niche wellness sites, including features on some of the very spas that ranked in the top ten.

“Spas are inherently visual and aspirational spaces, so asking which ones are objectively the most stunning definitely captured people’s attention. The eye-tracking technology gave it a credible, scientific angle that elevated it beyond a standard listicle piece, and I think that’s why it landed so well internationally.”

— Luci Schalch, Senior Digital PR Executive

Remitly – Taste of Home

Homesickness is one of the most universal emotions there is, and a global survey conducted for this campaign confirmed just how widely it is felt. The creative challenge was to find an equally universal way to address it. The answer was tea, the most consumed drink in the world after water, and a vessel that carries an enormous amount of cultural meaning.

We created a unique tea collection designed to evoke the flavours of home for people living abroad, with unexpected but surprisingly appealing blends inspired by British fish and chips, Mexican tacos, Indian mithai and German bauernbrot. The collection was brought to life with support from expat social influencers, helping to spread the story across the communities it was created for. The campaign resonated across 14 countries, with coverage highlights including Infobae, NOW Toronto and Falstaff, reaching audiences in Austria, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the US.

“This was a really fun and creative way to bring homesickness to the forefront of the news agenda, but with a positive and inspiring spin. As an expat myself, I am familiar with the intense emotions of homesickness that can hit in unexpected ways, so to know I would have something soothing like a steaming cup of tea to help remedy that just a little bit is a comforting and uplifting thought.”

— Tonje Ødegård, PR Director

Remitly – Immigration Index 2026

When the Immigration Index launched in 2025, it performed exceptionally well. So for the second iteration, the team set out not just to repeat that success but to meaningfully build on it. The most popular section from year one, ranking the most family-friendly countries for migrants, was expanded with additional data points. Several other metrics were made more robust too, and the whole tool was redesigned as an interactive, navigable page with translated versions in German, French and Spanish, making it genuinely more useful for a global audience.

The results speak for themselves. The 2026 Index has already surpassed last year’s numbers, with somewhere in the region of 200 to 300 pieces of coverage secured across 64 countries. The campaign went viral in Kazakhstan, where it was covered on national television, and secured top-tier placements including The Times, Bloomberg, La Razon, La Republica, EuroNews, Focus, The Times of India, Finansavisen and Ekstra Bladet.

“To create something that is both endlessly newsworthy and genuinely useful to a global audience is fantastic. We are over the moon to see that the added bells and whistles to the presentation of the campaign clearly made the Index more accessible to an even larger audience.”

— Tonje Ødegård, Digital PR Director

MoneySuperMarket – Invisibility Index

There is plenty of conversation about distracted driving, usually focused on mobile phones and in-car technology. But what about the more subtle kind of distraction? Highway hypnosis is a well-documented phenomenon, and research consistently shows that drivers often overestimate their own attentiveness. We set out to put that gap between perception and reality to the test.

Using a visual survey, we measured what drivers actually notice behind the wheel, and then split the survey group in two to see whether being specifically prompted to look out for something made a difference. The findings were striking: nine in ten drivers failed to spot a pedestrian at the roadside, despite three quarters feeling confident they notice everything on the road. The universal relevance of the campaign opened up strong international pitching opportunities, with coverage secured in authoritative titles including Honest John, GB News and Intelligent Instructor in the UK, as well as Cape Town Etc and IOL in South Africa.

“Distracted driving is a common cause of accidents, so it’s important for drivers to be aware of their skills and their limitations. The universal nature of the campaign has enabled us to successfully pitch the story to international markets, which has paid off with coverage on highly relevant and authoritative titles.”

— Charlotte Brown, Digital PR Manager

Press Office Wins

Tide – The Language of Money

Cautious, apologetic language in professional communication is something most of us are guilty of: the ‘no worries if not’, the ‘just checking in’, the ‘sorry to bother you again’. Tide’s press office campaign turned that habit into a news story, surveying employees and business owners to reveal a direct correlation between this kind of language and real professional consequences, including being ghosted, paid late, and accepting lower pay. People who use this type of language can be up to eight times more likely to experience these problems. The story gained traction in relevant business and industry press, including Workplace Journal and Professional Beauty, as well as picking up coverage in Australia.

Sharps – Hidden Heat

As heatwaves hit the UK, Sharps partnered with an energy expert to reveal how cluttered bedrooms can trap heat and disrupt sleep. With practical, easy-to-implement hacks to cool down bedrooms without air conditioning, the story offered something genuinely useful at exactly the right moment. It earned 24 pieces of coverage including placements in The Independent, Express, Netmums, My London, Leeds Live, The Irish Sun and the Irish News.

Reactive

SpaSeekers – Watch Rot

When a TikTok trend around smartwatch tan lines started gaining traction under the name ‘watch rot’, the team moved immediately. Within the hour, a story was written up, cleared by the client and ready to pitch, using commentary from a SpaSeekers skin expert to flag that what many were writing off as a harmless summer tan could actually lead to a skin infection if left untreated. The story landed on ELLE France within the first few hours of pitching.

“Reactive relies heavily on two things: spotting the trend and being first to react. The team saw the TikTok video gaining attention and within the hour we had the story written up, sent to the client for approval and ready to pitch.”

— Luci Schalch, Senior Digital PR Executive

Want to see more of what we’ve been up to? Have a browse of our work here. And if you’d like to talk about what bold, creative digital PR could do for your brand, we’d love to chat.