The Australian Open returns to Melbourne as one of 2026's first major global sporting events. More than just a tournament, the event has evolved into a cultural moment, where sport, fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle collide. Such events also create a highly competitive environment for brands, where standing out requires authentic and credible engagement.
To explore authentic, meaningful brand presence during major sporting moments, Telum Media spoke with Ashleigh Bonica, Senior Communications Director at AMPR. Drawing on her client work in this space, she discussed building deeper brand connections, earning attention beyond traditional sponsorship models, and adapting brand storytelling for diverse audiences without losing sight of a clear, consistent narrative.
Many brands want to tap into the hype of major sporting events even when they have no natural link to the sport. How do you help clients find an authentic point of relevance and avoid campaigns that feel forced or disconnected from the moment?
Authenticity starts with heritage, not hype. For example, with Lacoste and tennis, the connection is genuine - tennis isn't a borrowed platform for Lacoste, it's the foundation the brand was built on.
Our role is to ensure that the brand's values are expressed in a way that feels contemporary, culturally connected, and relevant to how audiences experience the Australian Open today. Rather than defaulting to logos or nostalgic storytelling, we look at how Lacoste's enduring values of elegance under pressure, performance with style, and confidence in movement, can come to life in a modern, experiential way.
Le Club Lacoste Melbourne at AFLOAT is a strong example of this approach. It doesn't interrupt the Australian Open experience; it extends it. It creates a space that mirrors how people actually engage with the tournament, before and after matches, socially with friends, or by the water, while staying rooted in tennis culture.
Relevance is only the first hurdle. How can PR and comms professionals carve out distinctive brand spaces - especially when up against official sponsors and major rights holders?
In a sponsorship-heavy environment, visibility alone is not the goal - meaningful connection is. Consumers are increasingly adept at tuning out brand noise, particularly during major sporting moments saturated with logos and competing messages.
PR and comms professionals can create impact by shifting the focus from scale to substance.
For Lacoste, the opportunity wasn't to out-brand other sponsors, but to be visual and true to the brand, in turn making more meaningful impact and connection with tennis fans. Le Club Lacoste Melbourne offers something both experiential and editorially compelling: a cultural destination that blends tennis, fashion, food, and social connection. By creating a bespoke floating Lacoste Court at AFLOAT, complete with live match screenings, casual play, French-inspired food and drink, and exclusive retail, the brand occupies a space that feels premium, considered, and genuinely newsworthy.
PR plays a critical role in shaping this narrative, positioning Lacoste as a cultural contributor to the Australian summer of tennis. By celebrating craftsmanship, athlete individuality, and the brand's quiet confidence, our storytelling naturally extends beyond sports pages into lifestyle, fashion, and culture verticals.
In crowded sponsorship landscapes, distinctiveness comes from depth, not dominance. When a brand adds value to how people experience an event, rather than simply attaching itself to it, it earns attention in a way that feels organic, credible, and enduring. We saw the effectiveness of this strategy for Lacoste when Lacoste Court was booked out within days of being announced.
With fan behaviour shifting toward real-time, social-first consumption, what emerging opportunities do you see for brands to generate earned attention during upcoming global sporting moments?
Earned attention today is driven less by polished campaigns and more by authentic, human moments that unfold naturally around the action. Audiences are no longer just watching the sport itself; they're engaging with the broader cultural ecosystem in real time, from arrivals and personal style to atmosphere, emotion, and shared social rituals. For us, social-first doesn’t mean social-for-social’s-sake. The most effective live brand moments are designed to be experienced first, shared second.
For a brand like Lacoste, this creates an opportunity to focus on moments of style, confidence, and self-expression rather than match results alone. Le Club Lacoste Melbourne is intentionally built with this behaviour in mind, a space that invites people in for the right reasons: connection, culture, and craft. When an experience is compelling in its own right, content capture becomes a natural by-product, not the primary objective.
We're seeing this same "off-track" focus shape engagement at major moments such as the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix and the Melbourne Cup Carnival. While the sport remains the anchor, participation is increasingly driven by the surrounding experience - fashion, access, and atmosphere. Brands that create environments people actively choose to step into become part of the story rather than a layer over it.
The real opportunity lies in the in-between moments: arrivals, off-court movement, pre-and post-play gatherings, and how the brand can authentically add value through meaningful experiences that connect with their DNA. PR teams now operate as cultural editors, curating access, talent, and context to ensure brands show up with intention. When executed for the right reasons, real-time storytelling doesn’t just extend reach; it builds relevance, credibility, and lasting cultural impact.
Sporting events usually attract layered audiences - from local communities to international viewers, casual fans to passionate purists. How can client stories be adapted into market- and audience-specific angles that are timely and newsworthy without diluting the core narrative?
The strongest partnership stories are designed to stretch across audiences and platforms, while remaining anchored to a single, clear brand truth. With Lacoste, the core story - the intersection of sport, style, and heritage - remains consistent, but the lens through which it's told shifts depending on audience and market.
For the Australian landscape, the global concept of Le Club Lacoste has been adapted to suit the local cultural infrastructure by partnering with an iconic venue in Melbourne's CBD that values authentic experience, whilst also embracing true partnership. At a global level, the story is about Lacoste's global tennis legacy and enduring connection to the sport.
Audience segmentation is equally important. Tennis purists are drawn to performance, athlete credibility, and the brand's authentic roots in the game. Lifestyle and fashion audiences engage more strongly with narratives around identity, craftsmanship, design, and how sport influences broader culture. By creating an experience that integrates sport, fashion, food, and music in an authentic way, we ensure we can capture engagement with any potential audience segment.
By anchoring all storytelling to a single, clearly defined brand truth, PR and comms teams can adapt angles without dilution. The message stays intact; the execution evolves, ensuring relevance across markets while maintaining a cohesive, recognisable narrative.
Chinese fragrance brand DOCUMENTS welcomes CMO
Year Ahead: Mapping the GEO journey in 2026
You might also enjoy
.jpg)
Every few years, someone declares the death of the media release.
Today, the arguments sound familiar. Journalists don't read them anymore. Everything is social-first. AI is replacing traditional media outreach. It's all about the pitch. Press releases are becoming little more than AI-generated filler.
And yet, when we speak with journalists across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, a different picture emerges.
Media releases aren't dead, but expectations around them have changed significantly.
We've analysed more than 10,000 Journalist Interest Survey responses in the Telum Media platform collected over the past five years, alongside insights gathered from conversations with editors, reporters, and producers across the region.
Key takeaways:
- Journalists still value useful PR content
- Relevance matters more than reach
- The pitch and the release serve different roles
- The best releases reduce friction for journalists
- Modern releases need to support multiple platforms
The conclusion is clear: journalists still value media releases, but they value them for different reasons than they once did.
The media release has evolved from a distribution tool into something far more strategic.
The media release is no longer the story
For decades, many PR professionals treated the media release as the centrepiece of media relations activity.
Write the release. Send it widely. Hope for coverage - “spray and pray”.
That approach was far from perfect, but you could get away with it in an era when newsrooms were larger, competition for attention was lower, and journalists had more time to evaluate incoming information.
Today's reality is very different.
Journalists are producing content across multiple platforms, often with smaller teams and tighter deadlines. Their inboxes are flooded with pitches, announcements, thought leadership submissions, and increasingly, AI-generated content.
As a result, journalists have become far more selective about what earns their attention.
The modern media release is no longer just about news stories. It has become a source-of-truth asset, a newsroom resource, and a content hub that supports broader communications activity.
The best PR teams understand this shift.
“The strongest message from journalists can be summarised in a single phrase: ‘Understand what I cover’. Relevance remains the most important factor in successful media engagement.”
What journalists are actually rejecting
One of the most revealing findings from our analysis is that journalists are not rejecting PR content altogether.
What they're rejecting is low-value outreach.
Across thousands of responses, the same frustrations appeared repeatedly:
- Irrelevant pitches
- Generic outreach
- Mass distribution
- Weak story angles
- Excessive follow-ups
In other words, this is less a rejection of media releases and more a rejection of poor media relations practice.
The strongest message from journalists can be summarised in a single phrase:
"Understand what I cover."
Relevance remains the most important factor in successful media engagement. In fact, our journalist surveys over the past two years have seen a sharp increase in a desire for both relevance and personalisation in pitches.
Journalists increasingly assess pitches within seconds. If the connection to their beat, audience, or current priorities isn't immediately obvious, the opportunity is often lost before the email is even opened.
The pitch and the release have different jobs
One of the biggest misconceptions in modern media relations is treating the pitch and the release as the same thing.
They are not.
The pitch exists to earn attention; the release exists to support the story.
The best pitches are:
- Brief
- Human
- Relevant
- Contextual
- Conversational
The best releases are:
- Structured
- Factual
- Complete
- Reusable
- Easy to reference
At a recent Telum Media event, a senior journalist described the fastest way to kill a pitch with a single word: “Respect”. Or a lack thereof.
A generic greeting. A story unrelated to their beat. A mass-produced email that demonstrates no understanding of their audience.
All signal a lack of respect for the journalist's time and expertise.
High-performing PR teams increasingly write pitches and releases for different audiences. The pitch is written for the journalist. The release is written for the journalist's audience.
That distinction matters.
Why journalists still value media releases
Despite predictions of their demise, journalists continue to actively request media releases.
But they want releases that help them work more efficiently.
The most common requests include concise writing, clear headlines, strong news angles, supporting data (with downloadable images and assets), spokesperson access, and easy-to-use formats.
These preferences reveal the modern role of the release: it functions as a workflow tool.
A strong release helps journalists:
- Understand the story quickly
- Verify information
- Access supporting materials
- Build content efficiently
The best releases reduce friction. And in today's newsroom environment, reducing friction is often more valuable than generating hype.
Think beyond media coverage
Another major shift is that media releases are increasingly serving multiple audiences.
A modern release doesn’t just support journalists; it might also support clients and prospects, employees, investors and analysts, partners, and search visibility.
Rather than creating a single-use document, leading communications teams are building content ecosystems.
The release becomes the foundation for:
- Media outreach
- Newsroom content
- Executive communications
- Social media content
- Email campaigns
- Sales collateral
- Thought leadership activity
This approach not only improves consistency but also increases the return on investment from every announcement.
The role of the modern media release
Not every story needs a release
Perhaps one of the most important lessons is recognising when a media release is the wrong tool.
Releases tend to perform best when there is:
- Genuine news value
- Multiple stakeholder audiences
- A need for factual consistency
- Strong supporting assets
- Broader business significance
They are often less effective for internal milestones framed as major news (or self-congratulatory announcements), generic thought leadership, and untargeted mass outreach.
In some situations, a targeted pitch, LinkedIn strategy, executive commentary programme, or direct relationship-based outreach may be more effective.
Good communications strategy isn't about defaulting to a media release; it's about choosing the right tool for the objective.
A framework for modern media releases
If there is one word that captures what journalists are asking for today, it is respect.
At Telum Media, we summarise this through the RESPECT framework:
R – Relevance
Make it relevant to the journalist, their audience and the moment.
E – Efficiency
Help journalists work faster through clear, concise, and usable content.
S – Substance
Provide genuine value through expertise, data, insight, or access.
P – Personalisation
Demonstrate that you've done your homework.
E – Ecosystem
Think beyond the release and consider how it supports broader communications goals.
C – Clarity
Make the key message immediately obvious.
T – Timing
Reach out at the right time, not simply any time.
What journalists are asking for in a pitch / media release: RESPECT
The future of the media release
The debate over whether media releases are dead misses the point.
The more useful question is how do we make releases work better in today’s media environment?
Journalists still value relevant information, credible sources, strong story angles, and efficient communication. Media releases continue to play an important role in delivering those things.
But success today depends less on the existence of the release itself and more on how strategically it is used.
The media release remains a valuable communications tool.
Just not in the way many of us were taught to use it.
FAQs
Are media releases still useful in 2026?
Yes. Journalists still value media releases, but these days want targeted outreach, relevance to their beat, alignment with their audience, and contextual pitching.
What makes a media release useful to journalists?
Journalists are looking for releases in a format that helps them work efficiently. Which means releases that are concise, factual, with a clear angle, contain usable quotes, and come with downloadable assets and supporting data.
What is the difference between a pitch and a media release?
A pitch earns the journalist’s attention in their cluttered Inbox. A media release supports the story by providing structured, factual, and reusable information relevant to their audience.
With more than 30 years’ experience spanning journalism, corporate communications and media intelligence, Reuben Aitchison is Telum Media’s Head of Insights and Communications.
Explore Telum Media tools that help PR teams pitch with precision.
.jpg)