the sPRint: All Eyes on Resilience
October 16, 2026 | We cover the fallout for publishers who chased the data to their detriment. We also talk about resilience communications and Pizza Hut’s genius community engagement partnership with the Little Free Library. Plus, Spry PR does a Eurotrip?
The Warmup
A Scary Good Market 👻 Costumes are no longer just for children. Pet costumes have carved out their own massive market segment, accounting for a staggering $920 million in 2026 alone, according to Capital One Shopping Research. Check it out.
Spry PR Goes to Europe 🌍 Spry PR founder Stephanie Pryor spent two weeks traveling in Athens, London, and Dublin to support a major European launch and conference circuit for one of our clients. She attended the EFfCI Annual Conference, Resilience World Nexus Summit, and ACSS European Conference on Export Controls and Sanctions. See more on our LinkedIn page.
Fast Twitch: The Argument Against Convenience
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism has done it again! This time, they published a piece about Gabe Bullard’s new book that argues against convenience (literally titled “Against Convenience”) and its impact on how people discover and consume news.
It’s a great read. Especially this part:
"Reaching these people [who go online for distraction and fun] isn’t easy, because they’re typically silent. They don’t show up in metrics or in comments because they either don’t see your stories or they scroll right past them. Reaching them is hard. But it’s not nearly as hard as convincing someone to reverse their entire worldview and give you $5 a month."
On the other end (public relations), we have to advise our clients to pay attention to the stakeholders that really matter, not the squeakiest wheels online. You'll spin yourself in circles forever if you try to please everyone. And, now that opinion is so frequently blurred with fact, we have to be even more conscious of our own information consumption and biases.
Think about some of the most controversial topics out there right now—data centers, energy costs, AI, whether or not Kelly Clarkson was right or wrong about that novelty shop in Brooklyn. We have access to a 24/7 sea of opinions at our fingertips, and opinions are not news.
Wondering where all that news went? Well, Bullard points out a particularly unsettling reality, which is that original reporting was the first casualty of platform-driven news. When publishers became too concerned with and reliant on the Data™ (views, clicks, and engagement for advertisers) and less with reporting the stories and information that really matter, they lost sight of the most important people: their subscribers.
It’s a strategy that seems to have backfired anyway as the percentage of people who trust the media is still hovering just above its all-time low of 28%, according to Gallup. And, Cision’s 2026 State of the Media report reveals that half of journalists say that fact-checking and combating misinformation are their biggest day-to-day challenges.
These stats paint a particularly ugly picture for journalists and brand professionals alike. Earned media is a pillar of brand credibility, but many people either don’t trust media or don’t engage with it the same way they used to. Local journalism is on life support, and many larger newsrooms face layoffs or budget cuts.
The good news is that it’s spurred a wave of independent journalists and trade media building their own audiences and reporting the stories they care about. At the same time, it’s all just further evidence of an increasingly fractured media landscape; one where we have to stay focused on, and in front of, the stakeholders that need to hear from us.
Read the article from the Nieman Foundation here.
The High: Pizza Hut’s ‘Little Hut Library’
As a team of millennials, we remember Pizza Hut’s literary incentive “Book-It!” from our childhoods. Since 1984, finishing a book could earn you some free Pizza Hut goodness, and this year they’re expanding their efforts to make reading even more accessible. Partnering with Little Free Library, a nonprofit formed to expand book access to readers, Pizza Hut’s iconic red roof is popping up in neighborhoods in a different way.
In the August 6th edition of the sPRint, we talked about the power of nostalgia in advertising. Pizza Hut is taking a childhood memory that so many millennials share and turning it into something physical that gives back to the community. They’re emphasizing their brand heritage and using that connection to build trust and brand equity.
This is great partnership design in action. Little Free Library gets more reach and funding by working with a famous brand, while Pizza Hut gets philanthropic credibility and a lasting presence in communities. Well done, Pizza Hut—a physical activation that emphasizes your company’s values will last longer than a viral social post that disappears in a week.
By the way, the limited edition initiative of “Little Hut Libraries” offers neighborhood book exchanges and anyone can apply to have one! This is a great branding move for both Pizza Hut and Little Free Library as they work in tandem to celebrate National Book Month and National Pizza Month in October.
Learn more about Little Hut Libraries and apply for your own here.
Slow Twitch: We’re Entering Our Resilience Comms Era
If you work in or around corporate comms, buckle up and save this newsletter because Spry PR is coining a new term:
✨ Resilience Communications ✨
What is it exactly? Well, think of resilience communications as the next generation of sustainability communications. This came into focus for me while I attended the Resilience World Nexus Summit in London last week, and in particular when Sir Alan Duncan addressed the audience and said, “We need to simplify how we talk about resilience.”
Resilience narratives focus on the needs of various stakeholder groups—not just investors—and forego the heavy focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics in favor of a communications program built on a corporation’s values, goals, people, and evolution.
While ESG reporting and investor relations are still a key piece of resilience communications, this next iteration goes beyond a company’s sustainability metrics and prioritizes its reputation and business resilience.
The factors that drive a company’s reputation include:
👉 How it approaches innovation in its products, services, operations, and research & development
👉 How it takes care of people (both within the organization and outside of it)
👉 How it moves to make the world a better place through sustainability initiatives
👉 How it hedges against both micro and macro risks facing the organization and all of its stakeholder groups
Risks include cyberattacks and AI security threats, extreme weather and climate change, geopolitical conflicts, supply chain breakdowns, and financial crises.
So, resilience communications meets the business where it is (and where it’s going) in terms of how it is planning for the macro and micro risks facing it, its customers, its employees, its communities—and the steps the company is taking to future-proof itself in a very unpredictable environment.
PS—if you saw this post and thought "I need this," get in touch with the Spry PR team. We can help.
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