Every industry reaches a point where its language stops describing what actually happens. Public relations may be one of those industries.
For years, public relations has been framed around media coverage – press releases, placements, interviews and headlines. The assumption was straightforward: secure attention through the right channels and you shape perception.
But attention doesn’t move like that anymore.
At our recent Bring Lunch session at Friends & Family, we invited creative entrepreneur and Amplified PR founder Siki Msuseni to share her experience building a PR agency and working with lifestyle brands across South Africa.
What quickly became clear in the room was that the real work of PR today has very little to do with traditional media mechanics.
The real work is narrative.
How a story moves
Not just what a brand says, but how a story moves – through communities, culture, conversation and reputation.
Media once acted as the gatekeeper of narrative. Today it’s just one node in a much larger ecosystem. Stories travel through social networks, creators, group chats, communities and lived experiences with brands. Reputation is built less through announcements and more through accumulated meaning.
This shift demands a different mindset from PR practitioners.
As our head of PR, Rafeeqah Larney, put it in the room: “A solid narrative and weaving the brand’s key messaging in an impactful, relevant manner circles back to the essence of your strategy. The trick is being aware of the brand’s world within the bigger world.
“Once the narrative is shaped, choosing the correct channels that are relationship-led is where PR moves the needle. It’s not spray and pray off a database found on the dusty PR server.”
Asking different questions
PR is no longer simply about securing visibility. It’s about understanding how narratives form and how trust moves between people.
That means asking different questions.
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What story is already being told about the brand?
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What tensions exist in the culture around it?
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What communities are shaping the conversation?
And perhaps most importantly: what narrative does the brand actually deserve to own?
Because narratives can’t simply be declared. They have to be earned, reinforced and lived consistently over time.
Cultural stewardship
One of the most powerful themes from Siki’s conversation was the role of relationships, not as transactional tools for exposure, but as the infrastructure through which narratives travel. When people trust the storyteller, the story moves differently.
In that sense, PR today looks less like media relations and more like cultural stewardship.
For brands, this creates both an opportunity and a challenge.
The opportunity is that meaningful narratives can emerge from anywhere – from founders, from communities, from the way a brand behaves in the world.
The challenge is that narratives are no longer fully controllable. They must be cultivated rather than managed.
This conversation was shaped by Siki Msuseni, founder of Amplified PR – a narrative-driven agency working with lifestyle brands across South Africa.
Her perspective on storytelling, reputation and community continues to push how we think about PR and the role it plays in shaping culture.
Bring Lunch is a monthly lecture series hosted by Friends & Family, bringing together creatives and industry peers to share ideas, experiences and perspectives shaping the industry.
