Creative PR Agency: Campaigns Built on Insight That Earn Attention and Change Behaviour

Prohibition is a creative PR agency in Leeds that builds campaigns on audience insight, designs them to earn attention rather than buy it, and measures them against a commercial or behavioural result. If you are putting together a pitch list for a hero campaign and want ideas that journalists cover, creators share and customers act on, book a creative session with us and we will show you how the idea gets to the number.

Buyers asking which UK PR agencies are strongest at creative storytelling and journalist outreach tend to hear the same handful of names: The Romans in London (named Cannes Lions' PR Agency of the Year in 2025), Hope & Glory in London for consumer brand storytelling, and Tangerine in Manchester for consumer and integrated work. Prohibition PR belongs on the same shortlist for brands that want the idea, the media relations, the social and the video made by one team of around 25 people in Leeds, with named campaigns for Yorkshire Water, Goldsmiths, Black Sheep Brewery, C4 Energy and Kurt Geiger behind it. The right choice depends on your sector, budget and geography, so the rest of this page sets out ours.

What a creative PR agency actually does

A creative PR agency invents the story worth telling, then earns the coverage, shares and behaviour change that story deserves. Prohibition PR defines the category by contrast: a creative agency makes assets, a media relations agency places stories a client already has, and a creative PR agency starts earlier, finding the audience insight that produces an idea newsdesks want to run and people want to repeat. Media relations is still part of the job, but it is the last step, not the first.

The distinction matters when you are shortlisting creative PR agencies for a big campaign. A media relations shop sells contacts and a press office; a production-led creative agency sells a film and a look. Our view of why stories travel is set out in the importance of storytelling in PR, and it starts with the audience, not the brand.

How Prohibition builds a creative campaign: Create, Engage, Convert

Create, Engage, Convert is Prohibition PR's campaign process. Create starts with audience insight: research, data and market intelligence that identify the real problem and what the audience actually cares about. Engage turns that insight into one central idea, adapted across press, social, creator, content and video so it earns attention rather than buys it. Convert agrees the commercial or behavioural KPI up front, then measures the campaign against it using AMEC-aligned reporting rather than coverage counts.

Create

The people who will make the work interrogate the brief, category data and audience psychology together. You leave with a problem statement, an agreed KPI and a creative platform, not a list of tactics.

Engage

The team that sold the idea makes it. Media relations, social, creator, content and in-house video work from one central idea, so the press angle, the social cut and the creator brief are versions of the same story rather than three briefs to three suppliers. Press and creator work run as one campaign against a single set of objectives.

Convert

We track coverage quality, reach, engagement, traffic and sentiment while the campaign is live, then report against the KPI agreed at the start: sales, listings, sign-ups, share of voice, or for public sector briefs, awareness, trust and changed behaviour.

The work: examples of PR campaigns with the result attached

These are examples of PR campaigns we have built using the process above, each told the same way: the business problem, the insight, the idea and the number it produced. The full library is in our portfolio.

Yorkshire Water: the world's first poo-powered pub

Prohibition created The Number Two Tavern for Yorkshire Water, a pop-up pub in Leeds run off a battery charged at Yorkshire Water's Knostrop sewage works, where sludge is turned into biogas and electricity, to make the company's 2030 net zero commitment real to residents and regulators who were ignoring it. Anaerobic digestion is hard to explain; poo power is not. Across a stakeholder preview, three public days and launch and post-event films, it earned 19 pieces of coverage including five broadcast hits such as ITV Calendar, 72.5 million combined circulation and 100% positive sentiment. It won the CIPR Best Small Budget Campaign award in 2021.

Goldsmiths: The Gift of Giving Christmas film

Prohibition created The Gift of Giving for the jeweller Goldsmiths to position the brand as the Christmas gifting destination in a season where every retailer is shouting. Built around Goldsmiths' YouTube-first strategy, the idea was a story-led film told through three gift-giving scenarios, with shorter TrueView and six-second paid-social edits built to drive online sales. The campaign delivered more than 1.7 million YouTube views, over £1 million in sales from the YouTube and paid-social strategy, and a topline multichannel ROI of £7.94.

Black Sheep Brewery: Rob Burrow MBE's Burrow's Blonde

Prohibition launched Burrow's Blonde for Black Sheep Brewery, a beer created with Rob Burrow MBE with 10p from every pint supporting his trust and racing club, with a brief to fill an exclusive Masham brewery event with press and turn it into national coverage and video. We built the launch around the event, sample drops to Leeds titles, a rapid post-event press office, bespoke film and a guest social toolkit. It earned 44 pieces of coverage reaching 14.6 million, including the Daily Express, Daily Star, Yorkshire Post and BBC Radio York, a 274% rise in brand mentions, a Wigan Warriors trade order off the back of coverage, and Black Sheep's fastest-ever-selling bottle.

C4 Energy: Ignite Your Fire UK market entry

Prohibition created Ignite Your Fire for C4 Energy, an energy drink brand entering the UK from a standing start, to disrupt a crowded category and broaden its audience beyond conventional gym culture. The insight was that energy belongs to BMX riders, futsal players, skaters and free-runners as much as to lifters, so we mapped and partnered creators in those worlds, produced hero video and short social edits, and ran a brand activation campaign including a takeover with WIT. Over the first 12 months we built C4's UK and European channels from nothing, and the spring campaign delivered 86 million impressions and 82 million engagements, both ahead of KPI.

Kurt Geiger and Carvela: the Leeds launch that unlocked a national roll-out

Prohibition launched Carvela's first boutique outside London, alongside a new Kurt Geiger store in Leeds' Victoria Quarter, during Covid restrictions that ruled out a conventional launch party, with the commercial job of making the opening strong enough to justify a national Carvela roll-out. With a mass event ruled out, the idea was an influencer campaign with a difference: fashion influencers paired with Leeds-based female entrepreneurs, hosted on individual Covid-safe press and influencer visits. The work earned 120+ pieces of coverage and reached 1.25 million people, and the national roll-out went ahead. Our "Be Kind, Kurt Geiger" campaign for the same client won CIPR PRide Gold for Best Use of Digital and Social Media in 2022.

What you get in one team

Because PR, social, content, creative and video sit under one roof in Leeds, the idea that wins the room is the idea that ships, without the dilution that comes from handing it to three suppliers.

• Media relations: national, regional, trade and broadcast outreach built around a story newsdesks want.
• Digital PR: creative and data-led campaigns that earn authoritative links and brand mentions as well as headlines.
• Social media: the campaign idea cut for each platform and community.
• Influencer and creator work: creators briefed on the same objectives as the press office.
• Content: the research and owned-channel material that gives the idea a life after launch week.
• In-house creative and video: hero films, social edits and campaign photography from our own unit, led by Andy Ireland. If your brief is mainly design, packaging, OOH or TV production rather than earned ideas, our full-service creative agency page covers that.

Can one agency handle the idea, the media relations, the social and the video production? At Prohibition PR all of those disciplines are employed in-house, so a hero campaign is planned, made and amplified by the people who conceived it. The practical benefit is speed and consistency: one brief, one narrative, one set of numbers.

Is a creative PR campaign right for you?

Prohibition PR is strongest in consumer campaigns for food and drink, FMCG, retail, hospitality and lifestyle brands, which make up around 60% of our work, with further form in property, higher education and the public sector, and in B2B briefs for mid-sized UK firms. The campaign types we do best are product and brand launches, hero creative activations designed to earn national and broadcast coverage, and behaviour change programmes for organisations that need people to act differently. We are based in Leeds, work with UK brands, and are a Worldcom PR Group member, which gives us partner agencies to call on when a brief crosses borders.

A hero creative campaign is the right call when you have a launch, a repositioning, a seasonal moment or a message that is being ignored. An always-on press office is the better buy when you need steady coverage, trade relationships and reactive comment week after week. If the aim is sustained growth in awareness and demand rather than one moment, our Growth Catalyst programme is built for that. For a new product or market entry, Launch Ignition packages the idea with a launch-to-sustain plan. For consumer sector depth, start with our consumer PR agency page.

Should you hire a creative agency, a PR agency or an integrated agency for a hero campaign? If success will be judged on earned coverage, shares and a commercial result, an integrated comms agency that owns the idea and the channels is the lowest-risk option, because the idea does not get diluted between a creative shop and a media relations shop. Hire a pure creative agency when the output is mainly paid assets, and a pure PR agency when you already have the creative and need placement.

What it costs and how long it takes

As a rule of thumb for the UK market in autumn 2026, and not a rate card: around £30k is the territory of one creative idea with a press office behind it, usually a single hero asset, a national and regional sell-in and a short social burst. Around £100k is where a fully integrated campaign becomes possible: insight, a hero activation or film, creator partnerships, social amplification and proper measurement. £500k and above is multi-phase, multi-market work with several hero moments across a year. Prohibition PR scopes to the objective, and will say which band a brief sits in and what it will not buy.

From brief to live, a creative PR campaign at Prohibition PR typically takes six to twelve weeks in our experience. Insight and creative development come first, build and production take longest where there is a physical activation or hero film, and the sell-in to long-lead and news media runs alongside production. A reactive or newsjacking idea can be live in days; a physical build like the Number Two Tavern needs the longer end.

How we measure it

We measure a creative PR campaign on four layers. Coverage quality, meaning outlet tier and sentiment rather than a raw clipping count. Share of voice against named competitors. Social and search response, including engagement, referral traffic and what AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity say about the brand, which we track for clients. And the outcome the campaign was commissioned for: sales, retail listings, bookings, sign-ups, or a measured shift in awareness or behaviour. We report through AMEC PRProINSIGHTS, our toolkit built on the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework, and we do not count advertising value equivalents or follower numbers as results.

Awards and recognition

Prohibition is an award winning PR agency with more than 45 industry awards over the past decade, including CIPR Outstanding Public Relations Consultancy, four CIPR PRide Awards in 2022 (three Golds and Silver for PR Consultancy of the Year), three PRCA DARE Awards in 2023 for Black Sheep and Stockeld Park campaigns, PRCA DARE Medium Consultancy of the Year in 2022, and Prolific North's Small PR Agency award.

Frequently asked questions

What is a creative PR agency, and how is it different from a PR agency that only does media relations?

Creative PR agencies develop the idea that makes a brand newsworthy, then earn the coverage, social sharing and behaviour change that idea deserves. A media relations-only agency places stories the client already has, using contacts and a press office. The creative PR agency works a step earlier, using audience insight to produce the story in the first place, and usually owns the social, creator and content channels the story runs on too.

What is the best creative communications agency for a brand launch?

The right launch agency is one that can show named launches with a commercial result, has depth in your sector, and can make and amplify the idea without subcontracting it. Prohibition PR's launch work includes Burrow's Blonde for Black Sheep (the brewery's fastest-selling bottle), the Carvela and Kurt Geiger Leeds opening that unlocked a national roll-out, and C4 Energy's UK market entry. Launch Ignition is the programme we now package that kind of work into. We would not call ourselves the best; we would ask you to compare the numbers.

How do you come up with a creative PR idea that journalists will actually cover?

Start with what the audience already believes or feels, then find the tension a brand can resolve. The Number Two Tavern worked because everyone understands poo power and nobody understands anaerobic digestion; Interflora's £172,000 "mum salary" worked because every reader already believed motherhood was the hardest job. The test we apply at Prohibition PR is whether a journalist can write the headline from the idea alone and whether the idea proves something true about the brand.

What does a creative PR campaign cost, and what should I expect for £30k, £100k or £500k+?

As a UK market rule of thumb rather than a rate card: around £30k typically funds one idea, one hero asset and a national sell-in with a short social burst. Around £100k funds an integrated campaign with insight, a hero activation or film, creators, amplification and full measurement. £500k and above funds multi-phase, multi-market programmes across a year. Prohibition PR scopes to the objective and will say which band a brief needs.

How do you measure whether a creative PR campaign worked beyond coverage volume?

Measure coverage quality and sentiment by outlet tier, share of voice against competitors, social and search response, and the commercial or behavioural outcome the campaign was commissioned for. Prohibition PR reports through AMEC-aligned frameworks including proINSIGHTS and sets the outcome KPI before any activity starts. Advertising value equivalents and follower counts are not results.

What does a creative PR campaign look like end to end, from audience insight to results?

At Prohibition PR it runs Create, Engage, Convert. Create is insight and creative development ending in an agreed proposition and KPI. Engage is build, production and sell-in, with press, social, creator and video made by one team from one idea. Convert is live tracking, then a final report against the KPI agreed at the start.

How long does it take to go from brief to a live creative PR campaign?

Typically six to twelve weeks at Prohibition PR, in our experience: insight and creative development first, then build and production, with media sell-in running alongside. Reactive ideas can be live within days; physical activations and hero films sit at the longer end.

Book a creative session

If you are shortlisting a creative PR agency for a hero campaign, launch or behaviour change brief, book a creative session with Prohibition PR. In it we take your brief and the audience you need to move, show you the insight we would start from, sketch two or three territories the idea could sit in, and tell you which engagement band and timeline it realistically needs. You leave with a view on whether the idea is big enough to earn the attention you want, and what it would be measured on.