The CPG PR Playbook: 8 Shifts Changing How Consumer Brands Earn Attention
Consumer brands have never had more ways to reach people. They have also never had more competition for their attention.
Media is fragmented. Retail is evolving. Creators are increasingly influencing discovery and purchase. AI is changing how consumers find and evaluate brands. And editors are inundated with more products, pitches, and launches than they could possibly cover.
For CPG brands, that means the old PR playbook is no longer enough.
A great public relations agency should still know how to tell a compelling story and secure meaningful earned media. But modern PR services have to go further, connecting media relations to retail strategy, affiliate marketing, creators, cultural relevance, and even how brands appear in AI-powered discovery.
At Startr Co., we work with emerging and established consumer brands navigating exactly these changes. And while every communications strategy should be different, we see a handful of shifts shaping what successful CPG PR looks like right now.
Shift #1: Earned Media Is Now an AI Strategy
For decades, the value of earned media was relatively straightforward: get your brand in front of the right audience through a credible third party.
That still matters. But today, there is another audience consuming that information: AI.
As consumers increasingly ask AI platforms questions they once typed into search engines, brands need to think about where the answers to those questions come from. Credible editorial coverage, authoritative websites, and consistent third-party mentions can all contribute to the digital footprint that helps machines understand what a brand is, what it does, and why it matters.
This is already changing the media ecosystem. Digiday has reported on publishers adapting to the shift from traditional SEO toward GEO and AI-driven search, while S&P Global has examined how AI is reshaping paid, owned, and earned media.
The implication for brands is significant: earned media placement is no longer valuable only on the day an article publishes. The right coverage can become part of the body of information that defines your brand online.
The new rule: Build PR strategies for human discovery and machine discovery.
Shift #2: A Product Launch Isn't a Story
Your new flavor may be the biggest thing happening inside your company. That does not automatically make it news outside your company.
The same is true of new packaging, expanded distribution, and many retail launches.
The strongest PR campaigns identify the larger story hiding inside the announcement. What consumer behavior does this launch reflect? What problem does it solve? What does it say about where the category is headed? Why is this happening now?
Consider the way Modern Retail covers CPG expansion. A retail launch can become part of a bigger business story about a DTC brand entering mass retail, changing consumer behavior, or a company's growth strategy.
That's the difference between announcing something and making it interesting.
A smart PR agency should be asking one question long before a pitch reaches an editor's inbox: Why should anyone outside this company care?
The new rule: Don't pitch the announcement. Find the story the announcement proves.
Shift #3: PR and Affiliate Can No Longer Operate Separately
For some consumer brands, the line between editorial coverage and commerce has become increasingly blurry.
Many publishers have built meaningful commerce businesses around product recommendations and affiliate links. At the same time, AI and zero-click search are disrupting how audiences reach that content. Digiday's reporting on commerce publishers illustrates just how quickly the discovery landscape is changing.
For CPG brands (especially direct-to-consumer brands), this means affiliate readiness can affect PR opportunity.
If a product is difficult to buy, isn't available through the right retailers, or lacks a competitive affiliate structure, it may be less attractive for certain commerce opportunities. On the other hand, affiliate marketing without strong storytelling can become purely transactional.
The best strategies connect both.
At Startr Co., we increasingly think about affiliate marketing as part of the broader communications ecosystem, rather than a completely separate performance channel.
The new rule: PR creates desire. Affiliate helps turn that desire into action.
Shift #4: Founder Stories Need a Point of View
There's a familiar founder narrative in CPG: I couldn't find the product I wanted, so I created it.
It can be a great origin story. It's just rarely enough anymore.
There are thousands of ambitious founders building consumer brands, and many have compelling personal reasons for doing it. The founders who become valuable media voices bring something else to the table: a point of view.
What do they understand about the consumer that others don't? What conventional wisdom in their category do they disagree with? What did they learn building the company? What can they say about entrepreneurship, retail, manufacturing, culture, or consumer behavior that goes beyond promoting their own product?
Effective brand storytelling should establish not only who founded the company, but why that person is worth listening to.
That shift creates opportunities far beyond launch coverage. It can open doors to business media, podcasts, speaking opportunities, trend commentary, and ongoing thought leadership.
The new rule: Your founder doesn't just need a story. Your founder needs something to say.
Shift #5: Activations Need to Be Built for Earned Attention
The PR stunt isn't dead. The meaningless PR stunt should be.
A giant version of your product, random celebrity cameo, or one-day pop-up might generate attention. But if the idea has nothing to do with what your brand stands for, the attention disappears as quickly as it arrived.
The strongest activations sit at the intersection of brand truth + cultural conversation + participation + surprise.
They give journalists a headline. They give creators something worth sharing. They give consumers a reason to engage. Most importantly, they reinforce something the brand actually wants to be known for.
This requires PR to be involved earlier. Instead of developing an activation and asking a public relations agency to “get press” afterward, brands should be pressure-testing the idea for earned potential from the beginning.
The new rule: Don't create an activation and add PR. Create an activation people want to talk about.
Shift #6: Relevance Beats Reach in Creator Strategy
The biggest creator is not always the best creator.
As influencer marketing matures, smart brands are looking beyond follower counts and asking better questions: Does this person make sense for us? Does their audience trust them? Would they actually use our product? Can this relationship become something bigger than one sponsored post?
That matters even more for emerging CPG brands without enormous influencer budgets.
A smaller creator with genuine authority in parenting, fitness, food, wellness, or another relevant community can sometimes do more for brand credibility than a massive creator whose connection to the product feels manufactured.
Creators can also influence more than social reach. Their content can fuel search, retail discovery, earned media ideas, user-generated content, and increasingly AI-powered brand discovery.
The new rule: Stop buying the biggest audience. Build relationships with the right voices.
Shift #7: Heritage Isn't Enough. Legacy Brands Need a Next Chapter.
Legacy can be one of a consumer brand's greatest assets.
Nostalgia is powerful. Familiar packaging, childhood rituals, and decades-old products can create an emotional connection newer competitors would love to have.
But heritage isn't a communications strategy by itself.
The question for established brands is not simply, How do we remind consumers that we've been here? It's Why do we matter now?
That might mean reimagining a classic product for a new generation, connecting brand history to a current cultural conversation, introducing unexpected collaborations, or finding a modern expression of something consumers have always loved about the brand.
We love the example of our client World’s Finest Chocolate, a legacy fundraising business that recently tapped alumni turned NCAA athletes for NIL deals that show the power of earning while learning (exactly what World’s Finest Chocolate wants to be known for).
This is where business public relations becomes particularly important. PR can help legacy companies protect the equity they've built while giving media and consumers new reasons to pay attention.
The new rule: Celebrate where you've been, but give people a reason to care about where you're going. Be a legacy business while also positioning yourself as a next-generation brand.
Shift #8: Bigger PR Agency Doesn’t Mean Bigger Impact
For years, landing a massive agency felt like a milestone. Big name. Big roster. Big resources.
But bigger doesn't automatically mean better for every brand.
The agency world itself is changing. Major holding companies continue to consolidate, while independent agencies are finding opportunities to compete differently. ADWEEK has reported on the rise of independent agencies amid industry consolidation, alongside broader changes in what clients expect from their agency partners.
For growing consumer brands in particular, the better question isn't How big is the agency?
It's How important will our business be to them?
Brands are scrutinizing what their retainers actually buy: Who is thinking about the business? How involved are senior leaders? How quickly can the team move? Does the agency deeply understand the category? And how much of the investment is reaching the people actually doing the work?
There will always be companies that need the infrastructure and global reach of a massive agency. But for many CPG brands, a smaller, specialized agency can offer something equally valuable: senior attention, category expertise, agility and a team that treats the business like it matters.
The best PR agency isn't necessarily the biggest one. It's the agency whose expertise, structure, and level of attention match what your brand actually needs.
The new rule: Don't choose an agency based on how important its name sounds. Choose one based on how important your brand will be to them.
The Rule That Connects Them All
The common thread across all eight shifts is simple: PR has to be closer to the business than ever before.
The job isn't just getting press.
Modern PR means understanding what will help a retail launch break through. It means recognizing when an announcement needs a bigger story. It means understanding the relationship between editorial coverage, affiliate commerce, creators, search, and AI. It means knowing when to capitalize on culture and when a brand should create its own moment.
And it means choosing a communications partner built for that reality.
At Startr Co., our PR services are designed around that idea. We combine strategic advisement, brand storytelling, media relations, affiliate and influencer marketing with deep experience across food and beverage, lifestyle, family, pet, and other consumer categories.
You can see how we've put those strategies into practice across our consumer brand PR case studies.
Because the fundamentals of great PR haven't disappeared. Great stories still matter. Relationships still matter. Credibility still matters.
The ways brands earn them have simply changed.
And the brands that understand the new rules first have the best chance of earning what every consumer company is competing for: attention that actually goes somewhere.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Los Angeles and New York City, Startr Co. is a strategic communications agency that specializes in scaling next-generation brands. With big-brand experience and deep industry connections, the agency's approach is collaborative, transparent, and grounded in where a client's business is today, so it can lead and shape tomorrow. Over the past decade, Startr Co. has partnered with innovative and recognizable brands including Seven Sundays, GHOST, Our Home (Popchips, Pop Secret, Good Health), GOODLES, SmartSweets, Solely, Walker's Shortbread, La Terra Fina, Learning Resources Brands (Learning Resources, Educational Insights, hand2mind, Brightkins), Fera Pets, Flame Broiler, The Little Gym, and Flight Adventure Park, delivering campaigns that combine creativity, strategy, and measurable impact.