Retroviral CCO Mike Sharman - Make ideas ‘worthy of the news’ — focus on stories that spark conversation, not channels

To make an idea newsworthy, it must be worthy of the news, says Mike Sharman, CCO, Retroviral (Image: @ Bizcommunity)

What’s happened over the past 12 months isn’t the rise of PR. It’s the collapse of the walls that once separated every communications discipline.

Advertising, PR, social, influencer marketing, content, partnerships, thought leadership and even product innovation are no longer individual workstreams. They’re simply different expressions of the same idea.

Consumers don’t wake up wondering whether something was a great PR campaign or a clever media buy. They remember the story. They share the moment. They recommend the brand. Everything else is our industry’s internal filing system.

Changed how we think

That shift has fundamentally changed how we think at Retroviral.

For years, agencies have started with channels. What’s the TV idea? What’s the social mechanic? Which influencers should we use? How much media can we afford?

We’ve started somewhere else entirely.

What’s the story that deserves to exist?

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An uncomfortable truth in the age of AI

Because if an idea can’t survive without paid media, it probably isn’t an idea. It’s an execution.

That’s become an uncomfortable truth in the age of AI. Production has become democratised at a speed none of us could have imagined.

Beautiful visuals, polished copy, slick videos and campaign assets are no longer competitive advantages. Anyone with the right prompt can produce work that would have taken an agency days just a few years ago.

Attention harder to earn

Attention, however, hasn’t become easier to earn. It’s become exponentially harder.

That’s why I believe creativity has quietly changed jobs. We no longer exist to manufacture content. We exist to manufacture curiosity.

The conversation

Looking back on the work we’ve created over the last year, the common thread wasn’t the media plan. It was the conversation.

Profmed’s finDR wasn’t successful because it generated headlines. It generated headlines because it solved a genuine problem.

Liberty’s #DriveHope wasn’t a corporate social investment campaign with a press release attached. It gave people a powerful visual metaphor for opportunity through children’s footprints.

Castle Lager reminded us that the country’s greatest sporting asset isn’t just football; it’s fanaticism. Black Crown found cultural relevance not by talking about gin, but by celebrating African botanicals and heritage.

AutoTrader’s strongest stories weren’t about buying cars. They were about what mobility unlocks for people, families and the economy.

Different clients. Different objectives. Different sectors.

The same principle.

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“What will people tell each other?”

Every one of those ideas earned attention because they gave people something worth repeating.

That’s a subtle but important nuance. Too much marketing still asks, “What do we want to tell people?” The better question is, “What will people tell each other?”

The answer to that question changes everything. It changes the briefing process. It changes the role of PR. It changes how creatives think.

It changes what strategists interrogate. It even changes the role of paid media.

Paid media doesn’t create cultural momentum. It accelerates momentum that’s already there.

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The more human marketing becomes

Ironically, the more AI improves, the more human marketing becomes.

Algorithms can generate infinite content. They can’t manufacture cultural tension.

They can’t instinctively recognise the joke everyone’s about to make, the debate everyone’s about to have or the story a newsroom will choose over a hundred others. Those moments still belong to people who understand people.

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Outcomes

Perhaps that’s why Retroviral isn’t a PR agency, or an advertising agency, or even a creative agency. Those labels belong to an industry that still organises itself around outputs.

We’re interested in outcomes.

Our job is to create ideas that move naturally between earned, owned, shared and paid media without losing their potency. Ideas that journalists want to write about, creators want to reinterpret, communities want to debate and brands are eager to green-light.

That doesn’t happen because you’ve mastered every channel.

It happens because you’ve created something that people would miss if it didn’t exist.

In a world where anyone can generate content, the only enduring competitive advantage is generating conversation.

That’s no longer the dark arts. It’s simply modern marketing.

If you want your idea to be newsworthy, first it needs to be worthy of the news.