Reputation has moved on. We explain why, and how we’ve started measuring what really matters.
There’s one question clients are increasingly asking communications agencies: why aren’t press results what they used to be? The honest answer is uncomfortable, and almost no one gives it. Results have fallen because the place where they used to happen is disappearing.
Portuguese newsrooms have been cut back to the bone. The journalist who today receives a press release about a hotel in the Algarve is the same person who runs the business section, writes the restaurant reviews and also manages the newspaper’s social media accounts. They lack time, not interest. There are fewer pages and fewer programmes, and stories are competing for space that shrinks every month.
Faced with this, the sector has two options. It can continue to promise the 2018-style press clippings and offer excuses, or it can tell the customer the truth: reputation has moved on. Anyone choosing a holiday, a hotel or a wine still seeks advice before deciding. It’s just that today, that advice comes from more sources. It comes from the content creator who stays at the hotel and shows what the breakfast is like, and increasingly from artificial intelligence, which people ask on a Friday afternoon where to spend the weekend. The press still plays a major role, but it is no longer alone in the business of trust.
At Message in a Bottle, we’ve decided to set nostalgia aside and judge our work by reality.
We maintain a presence in what remains of the press, guided by the perspective of those with a background in journalism. And we engage with the right creators and through the responses of AI models, which are already the first port of call for information for millions of people. The sector will get there eventually. We prefer not to sit around waiting in the press room. At this rate, there might not even be any chairs left.
– Ruben Obadia, CEO
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A Message in a Bottle is a communications and public relations agency based in Lisbon, specialising in tourism, hospitality and lifestyle. We work with boutique hotels, rural tourism and hospitality brands in Portugal and through an international network of independent agencies. If you’re considering your hotel’s communications strategy and would like a no-obligation chat, please get in touch.
