At CEMPR Digital, we spend a good part of our time reading the news, following campaigns, analyzing strategies, and talking with journalists, clients, and industry colleagues. That perspective does not make us the ultimate authority, but it does allow us to identify certain patterns that, when viewed together, help explain where public relations is heading in Mexico and across the region.
This is not about choosing the best campaigns of the semester or deciding who did the best work, because that will always be a subjective discussion. What truly interests us is observing what began to repeat itself across companies from different industries, which decisions seemed to produce better results, and which changes are starting to reshape the way brands build their reputation.
These are five things that caught our attention during the first half of 2026.
Standing Out Became More Difficult, Even in the Biggest Conversations
During the first six months of the year, technology launches, commercial campaigns, discussions around artificial intelligence, economic changes, and the arrival of the FIFA World Cup all converged. Beginning in June, the tournament captured a significant share of advertising investment and media attention across both traditional and digital platforms. With so many brands trying to participate in the same conversations, simply being present was no longer enough, because appearing alongside dozens of competitors did not necessarily help build a recognizable identity.
The World Cup was probably the clearest demonstration of that saturation. Nike, for example, began rolling out its campaign several weeks in advance through teasers, collaborations, and content connected not only to football but also to entertainment, fashion, and culture. The brand did not wait for the tournament to begin to make its presence known, nor did it limit its communication to a single advertising campaign. Instead, it built an entire universe around the event that could evolve across different moments and platforms. Tecate took a different approach with Welcome Back, Paisanoa campaign created in Mexico that connected football with the return of Mexican migrants and with a broader social conversation that already existed beyond the championship itself. In both cases, the event served to expand an existing narrative rather than simply justify a temporary promotion.
What we observed throughout the semester is that brands with a previously established identity were better positioned to take advantage of major events without getting lost within them. As we often say at CEMPR Digital, a high-profile conversation can accelerate a company's positioning, but it can hardly create it from scratch. When a message begins and ends with the event of the moment, its relevance tends to disappear just as quickly.
This same conclusion emerged at Cannes Lions 2026, where much of the discussion around effectiveness focused on brands' ability to generate organic attention, meaningful experiences, and earned reputation, in addition to investing in paid media. WARC highlighted that brand building no longer belongs exclusively to the marketing department, because customer experience, organizational culture, and the way other people talk about a company ultimately influence how that brand is perceived.
Artificial Intelligence Started Requiring More Meaningful Stories
Throughout 2023 and 2024, simply adding the term "AI" to a corporate announcement was often enough to attract attention. However, during the first months of 2026, audiences began to show signs of fatigue toward messages that spoke about innovation without explaining its real impact. Artificial intelligence continued to occupy an important place across technology, finance, manufacturing, and consumer industries, but the questions became far more specific. The focus shifted toward understanding how a tool changes a process, reduces costs, improves customer experience, or enables better decision-making.
Avocados From Mexico provided an interesting example by using an AI-generated avatar of Rob Riggle within a platform that allowed users to make predictions during NFL games. The technology itself was not presented as the main message of the campaign. Instead, it became part of an experience connected to behaviors the brand already understood among football fans, such as using a second screen while watching games and commenting on plays in real time.
Something similar happened in B2B communications. The stories that managed to move beyond generic references to artificial intelligence were those that presented data, practical applications, or measurable outcomes. Globant's Tech Trends 2026 report, for example, gained media coverage in Mexico by linking AI to cyberattack detection and response while supporting its argument with estimates of the savings organizations can achieve when managing a security breach. The story was not simply that a technology company was talking about artificial intelligence, but rather the way it connected the technology to a problem that organizations and decision-makers were already trying to solve.
For public relations professionals, this shift means investing more effort in developing the story before seeking media coverage. A company may have an advanced technological solution, but journalistic interest appears only when it becomes possible to explain what changes because of that technology, who benefits from it, and what evidence demonstrates its impact. Technology remains highly relevant, but it increasingly requires context in order to become newsworthy.
Changes in the Media Have Already Begun to Reshape Public Relations
The transformations taking place inside newsrooms were less visible than the major campaigns of the semester, but they will probably have more lasting effects. Media organizations continue to face staff reductions, changes to their business models, and declining traffic from search engines, while journalists are expected to cover more topics, produce content in multiple formats, and compete with creators, newsletters, podcasts, and platforms that distribute information without necessarily following the logic of a traditional newsroom.
The Digital News Report 2026 Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026, documented that organic traffic from Google to more than 2,500 news websites declined by 33% globally between November 2024 and November 2025. The institute also warns that search engines are evolving into AI-powered answer engines capable of presenting information within a conversation, without users necessarily visiting the original news outlet that published it.
For those of us working in public relations, these figures do not mean that the media has lost its importance. Rather, they indicate that the value of media coverage can no longer be measured solely by the traffic it generates when it is published. An interview, an opinion piece, or an analysis published by a respected outlet can also strengthen a company's digital authority, reinforce the visibility of its spokespeople, provide content for other channels, and become a reference used by search engines and artificial intelligence platforms.
Relationships with journalists also require greater preparation. When a newsroom has fewer people and every reporter receives a larger volume of information, generic or overly promotional materials are less likely to be considered. Companies that provide clear data, accessible spokespeople, and useful insights about their industry make journalists' work easier and increase their chances of becoming trusted, recurring sources.
Proprietary Data Became One of the Strongest Communication Assets
Another practice we observed throughout the semester was the publication of studies, indexes, reports, and market analyses developed by companies and industry associations. This type of content is not new, but it became even more valuable in an environment saturated with opinions and rapidly produced messages because it offers journalists and audiences a reliable starting point for understanding an industry.
FinTech México released its Insights 2026 providing information about the signals and trends shaping the country's digital financial ecosystem, while Finnovista used its Mexican market radar to analyze an industry made up of nearly 800 companies. Beyond the report download itself or the event used to launch it, these materials create opportunities for interviews, feature articles, opinion columns, and conversations that can remain relevant for several months.
The value of these initiatives lies in the fact that they shift communication away from product promotion and toward explaining an entire market. A company that shares information about fraud, consumer behavior, technology adoption, or financial trends can participate in broader conversations than those generated by its own announcements and become a valuable source for journalists seeking local data and expert perspectives.
From CEMPR Digital's experience, proprietary data works best when it is not used merely to support a conclusion that has already been decided. Unexpected findings, regional differences, and changes compared to previous periods usually generate far more compelling stories than a statistic designed solely to reinforce a company's commercial message. The journalistic value emerges when the information helps explain something that was not previously well understood.
Public Relations Began Creating Value Long After Publication
The way public relations is measured also started to evolve during the first half of the year. The number of media placements, potential audience reach, and overall media presence remain important indicators, but they are no longer sufficient to explain everything that happens after a story is published.
An interview can become content for LinkedIn, be included in a newsletter, support a commercial conversation, strengthen a company's SEO, and increase its presence within the sources used by artificial intelligence platforms. This last dimension received greater attention during Cannes Lions, where an analysis of 30 brands concluded that nearly two-thirds of their visibility in large language models came from the brand-building work they had carried out over time.
This finding is particularly relevant because it challenges the idea that visibility within AI systems can be achieved through a single isolated tactic. Consistent media mentions, earned coverage, proprietary content, and the clarity with which a company explains what it does accumulate over time and ultimately influence how it is recognized, both by people and by the systems that organize information.
The first half of 2026 was not defined by a single campaign or one particular technology, but by the way different elements of communication began to reinforce one another. Creativity remained essential, but it required greater consistency. Artificial intelligence maintained its prominence, but it had to demonstrate practical applications. The media retained its influence while transforming its distribution channels, and public relations expanded its impact into areas that were previously measured separately.
There is still another half of the year ahead, and new campaigns and events will undoubtedly emerge that may reshape some of these observations. For now, what we see is an industry where capturing attention may become easier for a few minutes, but building credibility continues to require useful information, long-term relationships, and a strategy capable of maintaining its relevance even after the conversation of the moment has changed.
