Forfatter: Cathrine Pierce

As 2026 gets underway, many communications teams are opening their planning tools and thinking, “we should really look at that… soon.”

Resetting your PR strategy for 2026 doesn’t have to turn into a three-month internal project. With a few focused steps, you can move into the year with clearer insight, sharper priorities, and a PR plan that actually reflects where the business is heading.

1. Review your 2025 PR performance

Start with a clear picture of how your company showed up in 2025.

Review:

• Share of voice in your core markets versus competitors
• Tone of coverage (supportive, neutral, critical)
• Key themes and messages: did the stories you wanted to tell actually land?
• Geography and outlets: where did you gain the most traction?
• Spokespeople: leadership, technical experts, partners

This kind of overview makes it much easier to align PR activity with wider business strategy, something we prioritise in every PR audit and strategy we run for clients.

2. Look beyond traditional media coverage

Your reputation is shaped far beyond press articles.

In many industries, the conversations that really influence perception now happen through:

• Podcasts and webinar panels
• Conference stages and technical forums
• Short-form video and explainers on LinkedIn
• Local and industry networking formats

This includes initiatives like our Neon Nights and Morning Focus series in Stavanger, where marketing and communications professionals share ideas face-to-face, often generating just as much impact as traditional coverage.

3. Turn your website and press room into an AI-ready PR hub

By 2026, a growing share of professionals are asking questions via AI tools, not traditional search engines. Those tools summarise answers before showing links – and they rely heavily on sources that demonstrate clear, structured expertise.

For PR teams, this means your website and online press room need to work harder.

Focus on:

• Updating your company boilerplate to reflect your 2026 strategy (not your 2019 org chart)
• Refreshing leadership bios with current roles, markets and priorities
• Making press assets easy to reuse: logos, images and fact sheets in one place
• Structuring content with clear headings, summaries and FAQs so journalists and AI tools can quickly understand and quote you

The goal is simple: when someone – human or machine – asks “who can I trust on this topic?”, your official channels should appear first.

4. Build a simple PR calendar for 2026

You don’t need a complex system. Start with a single page that captures what you already know is coming this year:

• Product launches, field trials or major project milestones
• Financial results, ESG or sustainability reporting
• Exhibitions and conferences (from ONS 2026 to niche geothermal or offshore events)
• Internal milestones worth sharing externally, major hires, anniversaries, office moves

From our event and PR work, we see the strongest results when PR, marketing and sales align early around the same milestones.

Even a rough calendar gives you time to shape stories – not just announce them – and reduces last-minute scrambles when an important date suddenly appears “next week”.

5. Clean up media monitoring and alerts

Most communications teams aren’t short on information, they’re short on relevant information.

Early in 2026, take an hour to:

• Refine keyword lists around real priorities (markets, technologies, competitors, partners)
• Reset alert levels — weekly digests for most topics, instant alerts only for critical issues
• Segment coverage into usable views (investor-relevant, customer-relevant, talent-relevant)

When we built weekly media intelligence for FourPhase, the goal wasn’t more news. It was insight that “read like a colleague who understands our deals”, something the team could act on every Monday.

6. Make your PR content easy to find and aesy to cite

If you want journalists, analysts and AI assistants to reference your company, your content needs to behave like a reliable source.

We’ve seen this work first-hand. For clients like FourPhase, building a library of specialist, well-structured insights has made their content easier for both engineers and AI tools to quote and reuse.

Here, depth beats volume. A small number of evergreen pieces that people bookmark and return to will do far more for your reputation than a steady stream of thin updates.

7. Set clear, simple PR goals for 2026

Once you’ve reviewed 2025, define a small set of PR measures that actually matter internally.

This might include:

• Visibility of experts (quotes, op-eds, speaking slots)
• Engagement with key insight content
• Website traffic or enquiries generated from PR activity

The aim is to show how PR supports business strategy, not just how many headlines you generated. This is the same approach we take when running marketing and PR audits for new clients.

In Summary: a practical PR reset for 2026

A short PR “new-year reset” can give you:

• A shared, fact-based view of your reputation after 2025
• A website and press room that support journalists and AI tools
• A realistic PR calendar for the rest of 2026
• Media monitoring that cuts through noise
• Clear, meaningful measures everyone understands

The big wins are easy to see, but often, it’s the small things that matter most.

To celebrate the small things, we’ve picked our top moments from 2025 – giving us twenty-one little wins that shaped our year.

Because the small things add up – and they’re often the ones that tend to leave a lasting mark.

• Summer party 

Our 2025 summer party will live long in the memory. A luxurious boat cruise to the beautiful Lysefjord, complete with great company, food, beverages – and an obligatory dip in the fjord. Oh, and the weather was glorious. Stavanger at its very best! – Sven

• Our office views

For those of you who have been inside our office, I’m sure you’ll agree that scoring the desk by the window is a win! Being able to breathe in the fresh ocean air and seeing the life of our small city buzzing throughout the day is my creativity booster. Combining that with Sven’s music and dry humour, Valentina’s laughter and Laura’s positive energy is the perfect formula for great days in the office throughout 2025. – Cathrine

• TCO website 

2025 was the year we delivered a brand new website for TCO. They now have a digital presence that matches their capabilities, supports commercial objectives, and strengthens their position in a competitive global market. – Sven

• Mission Impossible campaign for Izomax

One of my standout professional moments at PN was leading the Mission Impossible campaign for Izomax. What made this especially meaningful was finding a client in the oil & gas space who had the courage to do something genuinely bold – a rarity in a traditionally conservative category. Collaborating with Moxie to bring the concept to life was incredibly rewarding, and the creative partnership pushed the work to a level I’m truly proud of. While budget constraints meant we couldn’t execute the full rollout as envisioned, the experience reinforced the value of brave clients and ambitious ideas, even within challenging industry contexts. – Valentina

• Seeing our work out there

This isn’t something that can be attributed to 2025 alone, but it is something I love year on year – seeing our work in “real life”. Whether it’s driving past the Ocean Installer office and seeing the logo on their building, or strolling through an exhibition and getting eyes on a stand we designed. There’s true satisfaction when we see our work delivering as required. – Joe

• International Propeller Club of Norway

Supporting IPC Norway as they established themselves in Norway has been a privilege and joy! The people behind the scenes are incredibly passionate, and we’ve truly enjoyed being their communication partner this year. A highlight was hosting them at our last Morning Focus event of 2025. – Cathrine

• Practising what we preach

From consistent LinkedIn posts, regular website blog articles, launching our monthly newsletter to securing press opportunities for ourselves! The team have taken the challenge of boosting our own communication and smashed it! There’s always more to be done… but that’s what next year is for!!
– Laura

• Breaking even

Given my role, my eyes are always on the numbers and reaching break-even each year is a quiet but meaningful milestone. It’s a testament to the hard work done by the wider team and gives us confidence in the operational decisions made along the way. – Stephane

• Developing the FOX Subsea website

Often part of our role is to help a company enhance and evolve their visual identity, but in this instance, FOX had a strong and distinctive brand… it just hadn’t been brought to life digitally. Taking inspiration from their exhibition stands, it was satisfying to align their digital presence with their physical one. A new website which fully reflected the strong identify they’d already created. – Joe

• Working with Pio

For a few months this year I’ve worked full-time as a consultant at Pio, focusing on creating content for their marketing team. While I’ve missed the office, it’s been really nice to dive deep into one product.
– Catarina

• Reelwell milestone 

Our long-standing client, Reelwell, signed a landmark contract with Vår Energi at the start of the year – marking the start of a multi-year deployment of their game changing DualLink technology on the North Sea. It was great to help communicate this to the industry, through press releases, photos and videos.
– Sven

Laughter in the office

Maybe this is cheating, as it’s not one moment (!), but hearing laughter across our office is always something that makes me smile. Bringing together a team that works well together and gets on well is not always easy or achievable. But this year, this team has jelled both professionally and personally. A solid team that’s been a pleasure to work with. – Laura

• Keystone customer testimonials video series

The Keystone customer testimonials video series was a deeply collaborative project, built for the client and with the client. It stood out as a moment where trust, co-creation, and strategic storytelling came together seamlessly. Working closely with the client ensured authenticity at every stage (from concept to execution) resulting in content that felt credible, human, and commercially effective. This project highlighted the power of partnership-driven work and remains a benchmark for how I approach client collaboration. – Valentina

• The weekly check-in

One hour each week to take stock, share updates and plan what’s next. Nothing flashy, just a practical, productive and scheduled time in the week that is vital to keeping everyone aligned. Over the year, those small moments of structure make a big difference. – Stephane

• FourPhase media

Calling Shell’s office in Trinidad and Tobago is not something we do daily. But for our clients we are more than happy to defy time zones and country codes. Especially when it results in a sign-off for FourPhase’s press release that later turned into several pieces of media coverage in top tier international news outlets.– Cathrine

• Global Maritime – Custom Build for Offshore Wind Exhibition (London)

Collaborating with Joe and Full Circle on our first fully custom-built stand for Global Maritime at the GOW in London was another great moment. It marked a full end-to-end delivery (from strategic thinking through to physical execution) for a high-profile international event (Global offshore wind). Seeing the concept come to life on the exhibition floor, and witnessing the client’s response, was incredibly fulfilling and set a new standard for what we could deliver as a team. – Valentina

• Feedback

Whether it’s a comment from a client, someone attending one of our events, or a message from a contact in the industry, feedback always lands with me. Not because it’s flattering (which it can be too! 😆), but because it confirms that the work is seen and resonating with people. A small but important signal that we’re doing something right. – Laura

• Morning Focus

2025 was the year we jazzed up our popular Neon Nights event by adding a morning event for the early birds. So if you think coffee and presentations by industry frontrunners is the perfect start to the day, make sure you pencil in our next Morning Focus event on February 11th, 2026.

• Media intelligence

Working with PR means I live and breathe news, so I loved putting together a new media product for our clients this year. It’s called media intelligence, and it offers a tailored round-up of industry and company specific news once a week. This helps the executive and business development teams stay up to date with the latest movings and shakings, and come prepared with all the latest updates to client meetings. – Cathrine

• Julebord!

Nights out with the Project Neon team are always a highlight, but the Julebord (Christmas party) this year was spectacular. The views, the food, the company… stunning! As a remote member of team I’m always struck with how beautiful the city is at Christmas time. Strolling along the cobble streets, with the Christmas lights is always a highlight of the year for me and a great kick-off to Christmas. – Joe

• Ending the year without panic

All businesses have ups and downs; Project Neon is no different. But this year I feel we’re ending the year with the business in full control – not always the case in an agency-style business. While we don’t know what 2026 has in store, the current sense of steadiness is something to be acknowledged and valued.  – Stephane

Big industry events can feel like a game of visibility: who has the biggest stand, the flashiest booth, or the boldest giveaway?

But here’s the truth – to really stand out it’s not all dependant on your presence on the show floor.

By adopting a clever mix of creativity, visuals and a well strategized deployment plan, a wider campaign can help you get the best return on your investment.

With the right mix of digital tactics, you can take your exhibition messages and campaigns beyond the show floor. Let’s explore why and how you can bring in your wider audience and ensure your brand gets noticed, beyond your physical stand.

Why invest in your digital presence?

Investing in your digital presence helps boost your brands visibility at a strategic time. Before, during and after the event, as well connected campaign builds credibility, drives engagement, and creates more measurable opportunities for growth.

Importantly it drives people towards your owned platforms, whether that is your stand or your website.

With exhibitions you never know who is going to pop by your stand, but digital campaigns deliver more specific results:

• Pinpoint targeting – reach only the audiences that matter
• Trackable ROI – get the data on what’s working
• Lead generation – build connections beyond the event week
• SEO lift – boost your visibility long after the show
• Guaranteed eyeballs – have your name seen beyond the physical stand
• Smarter spend – options for every budget
• Use repurposable content – create talking points by using videos, interviews, and articles that keep working for you. It is important to remember that content is not a ‘single-use’ item. Develop insightful content and it can be used repeatedly across different platforms and spark conversations when they matter.

What tactics should you consider?

Here are some top tips for boosting your digital presence and gaining brand awareness beyond the show floor. All of these can be deployed during events to connect and extend your message:

Own the spotlight with video interviews

Step into a professional studio, sit down with an industry editor, and walk away with a polished interview that runs on a top outlet.

Go hyper-targeted with digital campaigns

LinkedIn, Google, Schibsted in Norway – wherever your customers spend time, you can be there too. Define who you want to reach, set the budget, and let precision campaigns do the heavy lifting.

Make news travel further with sponsored articles

Got something important to say? Place it directly in front of your audience during the conference. Speak with the media sponsors of an event and ensure your updates land with the right people at the right time.

The takeaway

A physical stand might look impressive but supporting it with a connected and strategic digital presence gives you additional opportunity, flexibility, and quantifiability. By choosing the right mix of media and messaging, you can push your brand beyond the show floor, reach the right people, and make your event budget work harder for you.

If you’re an international company looking to enter Norway, visibility matters. But it needs to come through the right channels in a way that builds trust. In Norway, earned media still carries significant weight. It remains one of the most effective ways to establish credibility with investors, local partners, and future employees.

So how do you get covered by a respected outlet like Dagens Næringsliv, Teknisk Ukeblad, Aftenposten or a regional newspaper? And does this kind of media coverage matter?

Norwegians Still Read Traditional Media Outlets

Norway has one of the highest rates of news readership in the world. In 2024, 58 percent of the population read online newspapers. Among university-educated Norwegians, 80 percent follow the news daily, and 90 percent weekly.

And they are not just reading passively. Forty percent pay for online news subscriptions, placing Norway at the top of 47 countries surveyed by Reuters. Trust in media also remains high with 55 percent of Norwegians saying they generally trust what they read[1].

Positive media coverage therefore offers a unique opportunity to increase awareness and trust for your company. If you have something meaningful to say, your audience is listening.

A Different Kind of Storytelling

What often earns media attention in the UK or US, like grand announcements, bold personalities, headline-chasing angles, may go unreported in Norway. Norwegian media tends to prioritise stories that have local or national relevance. Public interest, economic impact, and policy alignment often take precedence over company promotion. Praise is measured and claims are examined carefully.

A recent BI study highlighted the subtle influence of Janteloven (the Law of Jante) in Norway and how it encourages media scrutiny on ventures that fall short, debt and failed projects. The Law of Jante is a social code that discourages individual success and standing out, promoting humility and conformity instead.

As a result, celebrating company successes are rare, unless the success positively affects the country or a local economy [2].

That doesn’t mean good news is ignored. But for your company to be featured, your story must offer something concrete. Norwegian journalists look for clear connections to the local economy, jobs, technological innovation, or the energy transition. A press release on its own won’t be enough. So, think about how you can build out the story to include interview opportunities, provide data to back up the story. Of course, good imagery also helps.

What Makes News, and What Doesn’t

Media interest tends to grow when your story includes investment in local communities, knowledge-sharing partnerships, or demonstrable benefits for Norway’s energy ecosystem. Journalists appreciate transparency around risks and outcomes, realistic projections, and a tone that avoids hype.

An example is when we collaborated with UK based BIG Partnership to manage local media activation for their client STR, announcing the opening of their new Norwegian facility. The result was a well-rounded media footprint that delivered exactly what STR needed: visibility in key outlets that matter to their industry and community. Coverage was secured in Energi24, Maritimt Forum, Haugesund Avis, and Radio Haugalandet, offering a blend of trade credibility and local resonance.

This media activation shows that when the framing is clear and the relevance is strong, international companies can gain meaningful visibility in Norwegian news outlets.

Want to Be Featured in Norwegian Media?

At Project Neon, we can help you tell your story in a way that fits the Norwegian context. We work closely with international companies to clarify their message, identify relevant outlets, and shape stories that speak to Norwegian values and priorities.

We guide you on tone, timing, and approach. We help you focus on what matters to local readers, from innovation and job creation to long-term contributions to the sector you operate in.

We are based in Norway, but our experience is global. We understand the expectations of both international executives and Norwegian journalists, and we know how to bridge that gap. Done right, media coverage can do more than raise your profile. It can open doors to new partnerships, signal long-term commitment, and build trust with the people holding the power to shape your current or future investment in Norway.

That’s what we help can you achieve. Not with spin, but with real stories that resonate.

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[1] https://www.ssb.no/kultur-og-fritid/tids-og-mediebruk/artikler/norsk-mediebarometer-2024

[2] https://www.bi.no/forskning/business-review/articles/2022/01/skal-vi-fa-mange-suksessfulle-grundere-ma-det-bli-kult-a-feile-ogsa/

This month, Stavanger’s Gladmat Festival returns. Drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors and over 100 food exhibitors. For brands, it’s more than a festival. It’s an opportunity to build connections and relevance.

This isn’t just clever branding, it’s high-ROI strategy. When brands create cut through and align with memories, they drive loyalty, seasonal sales, and lasting relevance. The result? Long-term revenue growth.

For CEOs, the message is clear: strategic marketing isn’t a cost – it’s a competitive investment. Being remembered beats being seen. And being chosen beats both… So as Gladmat is preparing for its 2025 festival, here’s a few examples of how food brands have created cut through:

TINE: The ROI of Showing Up Where It Matters

Since 1998, TINE has been more than a dairy brand – it’s been a fixture of childhood summers through TINE Fotballskole. By backing local football programs across Norway, TINE didn’t just sponsor a holiday activity, the brand became part of growing up.

Tens of thousands of kids wear TINE-branded kits every year, turning casual matches into meaningful brand moments. But the real value lies in consistency: TINE shows up where its core values- childhood, health, and community -naturally live.

This is grassroots marketing done right. Hyper-local, emotionally resonant, and long-term. The result? A brand trusted not just for its products, but for its presence.

Kvikk Lunsj: The ROI of Ritual

Since the 1930s, Kvikk Lunsj has positioned itself as fuel for the outdoors,but it’s on Norway’s snowy trails that the brand truly delivers. Wrapped in its iconic red, yellow, and green stripes, it’s become as expected on a ski trip as wool socks and a thermos.

This isn’t just nostalgia, it’s strategic marketing. Kvikk Lunsj has embedded itself into national habits, making the leap from product to ritual. It’s not a chocolate bar you buy; it’s one you pack. By aligning with lifestyle moments and showing up consistently, the brand earns loyalty, seasonal spikes, and long-term relevance-proof that memory builds margin.

Food is universal, across markets and cultures. Creating cut through with events is not just limited to Norway.

KFC Japan: The ROI of Cultural Opportunity

In a country where Christmas isn’t traditionally celebrated, KFC saw white space—and filled it with fried chicken. In 1974, the brand launched its now-iconic “Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii!” (“Kentucky for Christmas!”) campaign, positioning KFC as the festive meal for families without set traditions.

This wasn’t just clever—it was insight-driven. The campaign tapped into a cultural gap, offering a joyful, shared experience at a time of year centred on togetherness.

By aligning its brand with a new cultural ritual, KFC didn’t just boost seasonal sales—it created one of the most successful examples of brand-led tradition building. The result? Market dominance every December and decades of emotional resonance.

What B2B Brands Can Learn from the Food Brand Masters

Although food brands are B2C, strategic thinking and learnings can be applied across sectors.

In our core markets (energy, maritime, aquaculture and technology), the stakes are high and the audience’s niche. However, the principles of standout brand building remain the same:

• Be present where it matters: Just as TINE shows up in grassroots football, B2B brands can connect at industry events, training programs, or through long-term community involvement. Visibility is strongest when it’s connected with relevance.
• Build rituals, not just recognition: Kvikk Lunsj turned chocolate into a cultural habit. What moments define your customers’ routines? Find them. Own them.
• Spot the cultural gap: KFC in Japan didn’t wait for permission to be part of the holiday season, it created the moment. B2B brands can do the same by spotting unmet emotional or operational needs and creating category-defining responses.

In a crowded market, standing out isn’t down to luck, it’s built with strategy.