Gabriella Lucy

Founder & Senior PR Consultant · Gabriella Lucy PR

10+ years in PR · Founder for 3 years

“The sweet spot of PR campaign ideation is coming up with an idea that a journalist would research and write about anyway.”

Gabriella on LinkedIn gabriellalucypr.co.uk

Key takeaways

Look before you pitch

Study the type of articles publications actually write

The sweet spot

Ideas a journalist would research and write anyway

The Inflation Index test

If it reads like an independent article, it's ready

Audience-backward

Let target audience reading habits guide ideation

Introduction

With over a decade in both traditional and digital PR — and three years running her own consultancy, Gabriella Lucy PR — Gabriella has built campaigns for leading brands including Oliver Bonas, Virgin Money, and Maryland Cookies, earning coverage in publications from Glamour and Stylist to the Daily Express and Refinery29.

Her approach to campaign ideation starts with a deceptively simple question: what are journalists already writing? Here, she shares why reverse-engineering editorial output is the most reliable path to coverage — and how a single article in The Cut brought her framework into sharp focus.

Start With What Journalists Actually Write

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“If you can create campaigns that mimic the style of articles a publication would publish anyway, securing coverage becomes ten times easier.”
— Gabriella Lucy

It might seem obvious, but the most effective PR campaigns are built backwards from editorial — starting not with what a brand wants to say, but with the kind of content a specific publication is already producing.

The most common mistake in PR campaign ideation is starting with the brand and working outward. You end up with a story that feels interesting to the client but unfamiliar in a journalist's inbox — because it doesn't match the type of article they'd ever write on their own.

When you reverse that process — when you start with what a publication actually publishes, and ask whether your client could be the source of a story in that same style — your campaign idea has a natural home from the moment it's born.

The Sweet Spot of PR Ideation

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“The sweet spot of PR campaign ideation is coming up with an idea that a journalist would research and write about anyway.”
— Gabriella Lucy

There's a specific zone where PR campaign ideas become almost irresistible to journalists. It's when a campaign so naturally fits the editorial tone, subject matter, and audience of a publication that a journalist couldn't immediately tell it came from a PR agency.

When you hit that sweet spot, everything changes. The story is timely, bang on for the target audience and readership, shareable on social, and therefore guaranteed to generate high engagement and click-through rates for the publication itself.

That combination — relevance, timing, shareability — is what separates coverage that earns organic traffic and social traction from placements that disappear within 24 hours.

The Devil Wears Prada Inflation Index

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“I clicked through thinking "that has to be a PR campaign." But it wasn't — the journalists had researched it themselves. That's exactly the kind of idea a PR agency should have pitched first.”
— Gabriella Lucy

A recent article in The Cut illustrates the sweet spot perfectly. The publication ran a piece called 'The Devil Wears Prada Inflation Index', calculating how much the iconic items from the first film would cost today — Andy's Marc Jacobs blue leather handbag, her black Chanel jacket, Miranda's Starbucks order.

When Gabriella saw it shared on The Cut's Instagram, her immediate reaction was: "that has to be a PR campaign." The idea was timely, tied to a cultural touchstone with huge nostalgia value, perfectly pitched to The Cut's audience, and built around research that made it inherently shareable.

But there was no brand mention. No campaign landing page. The journalists had done it themselves — which means no PR agency thought of it first. That's the gap. The sweet spot, in practice, is spotting those stories before the journalists do.

Let Audience Reading Habits Guide You

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“You can really make sure you're targeting the right audience by looking at articles, social content and videos in publications you know your brand's target audience actually reads.”
— Gabriella Lucy

The sweet spot isn't just about getting coverage — it's about getting the right coverage, in front of the right people. And you only know what "right" looks like if you've done the media research properly.

That means going beyond a list of publications and actually reading them. Looking at what articles perform well, which ones rack up shares, which types of stories get picked up on the publication's own social channels.

When you combine that insight with a clear picture of your brand's target audience — who they are, what they read, what they share — you can reverse-engineer a campaign idea that's almost guaranteed to land in exactly the right place.

About the contributor

Gabriella Lucy

Founder & Senior PR Consultant · Gabriella Lucy PR

Gabriella Lucy is a freelance PR consultant with over 10 years of experience in both traditional and digital PR. She founded Gabriella Lucy PR three years ago and has managed PR activity for leading B2C and B2B brands including Oliver Bonas, Virgin Money, and Maryland Cookies, earning coverage in Glamour, Stylist, the Daily Express, Refinery29, and more. She specialises in media relations, campaign strategy, and training teams to build PR programmes that genuinely connect with their target audiences.

Gabriella on LinkedIn gabriellalucypr.co.uk

Put these tips into practice

Find the journalists writing the stories you want to own

Gabriella's approach starts with knowing exactly what journalists are writing — and who they write for. PressReacher gives you a searchable database of 2M+ journalists, filterable by beat, publication, and more.