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That’s a wrap on another busy week at Viva. Defence companies from across land, sea, air, space and cyber came together ...
09/10/2026

That’s a wrap on another busy week at Viva.

Defence companies from across land, sea, air, space and cyber came together this week to mark the second anniversary of the North West Regional Defence and Security Cluster. Lisa attended the conference, where guest speakers and panels explored how the sector is changing and how businesses across the North West can play their part.

That wasn’t all for Lisa this week, she also joined Door4's event at Crow Wood, looking for fresh ideas to make our campaign measurement even more impactful. Thank you to Leon Calverley and Sean Dwyer for another great workshop.

Our MD Tony Garner was at Leonardo UK's Edinburgh site this week, gathering stories for Eurofighter World magazine.

One highlight was a visit to an extraordinary anechoic chamber, where sophisticated radar technology is put through its paces. As Tony described it, stepping inside was like walking into a giant modern art installation.

The trips to Scotland didn’t end there. Lucie and Evie had an exciting trip to Glasgow this week for the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition, one of the biggest events in the global water calendar. They took the trip up north to support one of our new clients operating in the global water sector.

Max and Lucie joined our clients' CoolKit to celebrate their 21st anniversary, enjoying an evening of food and dancing, and memorable speeches from CEO and Founder Rupert Gatty and Managing Director, Danny Miller. It was also a debut for CoolNews, their new quarterly magazine thot off the press that Viva created.

To end an exciting week on an incredible high, we were delighted to learn this week that we’re a finalist in at least one of the two categories we entered at this year’s prestigious AMEC Awards. After a year dedicated to improving our measurement standards, this recognition is a testament to the team’s hard work and commitment to delivering meaningful results for our clients. Lisa and measurement specialist@stephbridgeman of Experienced Media Analysts will travel to London on 5 November for the ceremony. Keep your fingers crossed for us! 🏆

09/10/2026

How do you sound credible about something you've never heard of?

For Victoria Tomlinson, the answer wasn't research. It was a drink.

Early in her PR career, while assigned to promote a product she didn't understand, instead of working solely from a briefing document, she took it upon herself to meet one of the partners and made him explain the product to her from scratch.

Journalists trusted her because she took the time to understand the core of what she was writing about, not just because she could write a good press release. Understanding it first, she says, is what made the work 'better, tighter, and sharper'.

Want the full story behind that drink? Watch or listen on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify (link in bio 🔗)

Victoria Tomlinson had written one press release when she moved into PR.Decades on, she'd built and run her own agency, ...
08/10/2026

Victoria Tomlinson had written one press release when she moved into PR.

Decades on, she'd built and run her own agency, Northern Lights PR, for thirty years, before founding Next-Up, helping senior professionals build active careers after full-time work.

Her first book, ‘Expiry Date Never: Age is the new superpower’, argues that retirement as we know it doesn't work, we're living decades longer than we used to, and nobody's worked out what to do with the extra years or the experience that comes with them.

That same business-first instinct is why she still argues most PR agencies want a boardroom seat without owning the targets that come with it.

This episode covers why PR let advertising agencies walk off with the social media budget, why 'we want awareness' was never a real brief, and much more.

Want to hear it in her own words? The full episode is linked in our bio 🔗

06/10/2026

Victoria Tomlinson doesn’t do sitting still.

She has spent thirty years running her own PR agency, built a second business around what she calls 'unretired' careers, and has a seat on a board trying to measure the real credibility in the age of AI.

She has also released her first book with a mainstream publisher, making the case for rethinking retirement altogether.

Her argument is straightforward – retirement, as most people understand it, doesn't work. We're living twenty or thirty years longer than we used to and society hasn't worked out what to do with those extra years, or with the skills that go to waste because people are written off too early.

Tune in for her take on why she still won't accept awareness as a brief and why she believes leaving full-time work shouldn't mean stepping back completely: https://linktr.ee/vivapr

October marks Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so it's great timing to announce that we've passed Cyber Essentials and Cyb...
02/10/2026

October marks Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so it's great timing to announce that we've passed Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus for the third year running 🔒

This means an independent assessor has tested our systems, giving our clients confidence that the sensitive information they share with us is protected. That's especially important for the many clients we work with in defence, manufacturing and the public sector, where security is non-negotiable.

Achieving this three years running reflects a consistent, everyday commitment to security across the agency.

Our thanks go to the whole team for making it happen.

02/10/2026

AI can get things wrong in more ways than you think.

‘PR Futurist’ Stuart Bruce recalls a story about a group of researchers who invented a fake skin disease complete with jokes so obvious a human would spot them instantly, and AI still cited the papers as fact.

On the latest episode of PR in the Real World, Stuart outlines exactly how easy these systems are to fool and what PRs should be doing to tighten up how LLMs cite the right information.

Watch or listen on our streaming platforms by hitting the link in our bio 🔗

Awards season isn't over for us yet!Within 24 hours, we've found out we're shortlisted for both the AMEC Global Communic...
01/10/2026

Awards season isn't over for us yet!

Within 24 hours, we've found out we're shortlisted for both the AMEC Global Communication Effectiveness Awards and the PRCA UK Awards 🏆

Being recognised on both a national and a global stage means a great deal, especially from AMEC, whose awards focus on the measurable impact of communication. That's something we've built our work around.

The office shelves are already bursting with trophies, but we're confident we can find room for a couple more.

Thank you to our clients for trusting us with work worth entering, and good luck to everyone else on the shortlists.

AI isn't a channel to optimise for. According to PR Futurist Stuart Bruce, it's a stakeholder in its own right - one wit...
30/09/2026

AI isn't a channel to optimise for. According to PR Futurist Stuart Bruce, it's a stakeholder in its own right - one with a view of your organisation built from everything it can find, whether you've given it anything or not.

That shift is already rewriting crisis communications. A plan built around staying quiet and keeping a story tight might still work on journalists, but it hands AI nothing to go on, and something else fills the gap instead.

Stuart's point is that the same thinking now has to extend across the board: give AI a place on your stakeholder map, the same as you would any audience with the power to shape opinion.

You can catch our latest episode of PR in the Real World on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts by hitting the link in our bio 🔗

28/09/2026

A university had an industrial dispute, and their strategy was textbook: they agreed a careful, uncritical statement, sent it straight to a journalist, and kept it off their own website to avoid stoking the story.

The union did the opposite and shared their side of the story on LinkedIn, their website, and through multiple media outlets.

However, when AI models were asked about the dispute, they found one citation for the university's side and eight or nine for the union.

As Stuart Bruce puts it on the latest episode of PR in the Real World: "If your crisis communications plan doesn't include AI as a stakeholder, it's more of a wish list."

It’s this view that is reshaping how we approach crisis comms.

Catch our latest by hitting the link in our bio 🔗

Action-packed and full of lessons. That’s how Martha Hulme summed up her two weeks at Viva as part of our NextGen 2026 p...
25/09/2026

Action-packed and full of lessons. That’s how Martha Hulme summed up her two weeks at Viva as part of our NextGen 2026 programme.

From writing press releases, planning social media content, and meeting clients, Martha got the full experience of working in the fast-paced environment of an award-winning agency.

You can read more about her experience on our website (link in bio) 🔗

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