News Archives - Whiteoaks PR

In this blog, Richard Peters, Senior Content Creator at Whiteoaks, explores:

Why the business case for a cyber security purchase starts before formal procurement
What buyers need from vendor communications to build internal support
How evidence-led PR and marketing can help a cyber solution stand up to scrutiny

Cyber security can be a boardroom priority and still fail to win budget. In August 2026, the World Economic Forum reported that 73% of organisations consider cyber security a business priority, while only 59% of boards back that priority with financial resourcing.

Recognising cyber security as important does not automatically translate into investment. Somewhere between identifying the risk and approving the spend, the case for why a particular investment is needed still has to be made.

For in-house PR and marketing teams at cyber security companies, that means the job is not finished when a CISO or security lead understands the proposition. The buyer may still have to explain the investment to finance, procurement, legal and risk teams, or the board, often without the cyber security vendor in the room. By the time formal procurement begins, the internal business case may already be taking shape.

Your message has to survive the retelling

Marketing and communications teams spend a lot of time asking whether a message is clear enough for the buyer. There is another useful test: can that buyer repeat it accurately to someone with less technical knowledge?

Our research of 152 UK-based senior cyber communications professionals found that 38% struggle to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences. This shows how difficult it can be to translate a complex cyber proposition without losing its meaning. And once a buyer understands the solution, they may still need to explain its value to colleagues elsewhere in the business who have very different levels of technical knowledge and different priorities.

A product demo can explain the detail and a salesperson can add context, but once that conversation moves inside the buyer’s organisation, they need language and evidence that make sense without that extra explanation. If a key benefit only makes sense with several caveats, there is more scope for it to become distorted when it is repeated.

Give buyers something they can defend

The challenge becomes greater when a cyber purchase reaches people responsible for budget or wider business risk. An internal champion also has to explain why this particular supplier deserves the investment, rather than simply making the case for spending more on cyber security.

Broad promises are harder to defend in that conversation. A claim such as “100% protection” may sound reassuring, but it leaves an internal champion defending something no cyber security supplier can realistically guarantee. A more useful message is specific about what the solution can improve, how that improvement can be evidenced and where its limits sit.

Buyers appear to be asking for exactly that. 2026 buyer research from NOLA Marketing and the Ponemon Institute, based on 320 enterprise cyber security decision-makers, found that 49% say they need stronger ROI evidence to justify purchases internally. The research also points to a preference for data, benchmarks and independently validated proof over unsupported claims.

For vendor marketing and communications teams, the implication is that evidence has to do more than build credibility with the initial buyer. It also needs to help that buyer justify the investment to others. Customer results, independent testing, recognised certifications and credible partnerships can give buyers material they can use when questions start coming from elsewhere in the business.

PR should make the internal case easier

That evidence should not suddenly appear when procurement starts. PR and marketing can help build the internal case much earlier in the buying journey. For cyber security companies, it means thinking beyond the immediate audience for each piece of content.

A specialist and experienced PR agency can play an important role in that process by helping to translate technical capability into messaging that works for different audiences, while challenging claims that are too broad, too vague or difficult to substantiate. It can also help make sure the same core proposition holds together across media relations, thought leadership, customer stories and wider marketing content.

Each format can then play a different role in helping the buyer make the case internally. A case study can show what changed for a customer facing a comparable problem. Original research can help a buyer frame the issue internally, while expert commentary can place it in a wider market context. Product messaging should then be specific about what the solution does and does not do.

Technical detail still has a place, but the point is to give different audiences enough context to understand why it is commercially relevant, while reducing the risk of the message being oversimplified or misunderstood as it moves through the buying process. There is little value in making every claim bigger when the buyer will eventually have to defend it internally.

Write for the meeting you will not be in

Cyber security companies cannot control every conversation that happens inside a prospect’s business. They can, however, make those conversations easier.

Strong communications give an internal champion language they can repeat and evidence they can defend. That makes the buyer’s job easier long before procurement asks for a formal business case.

Download our research report to explore the communication pressures facing cyber security marketers, from translating technical detail to keeping claims accurate across the buyer journey. And if you want to strengthen the evidence behind your cyber security messaging and make it work harder throughout the buying process, speak to Whiteoaks about your communications approach.

In this blog, Natalia Kaczmarek, Digital Content Manager at Whiteoaks, explores:

Why LinkedIn is becoming an important source for AI-generated answers
Why senior leadership expertise can strengthen both LinkedIn performance and AI visibility
How LinkedIn fits into a wider PR and GEO strategy

LinkedIn already has enough jobs to do. A networking platform, thought leadership channel, media coverage amplifier, lead generator… It’s starting to resemble those LinkedIn headlines of old that somehow managed to fit ‘expert’, ‘strategist’, ‘evangelist’ and ‘thought leader’ into a single line.

Now, it has another job: helping shape what AI tools know about your brand.

A study by Semrush recently found LinkedIn was the second most-cited domain across its dataset of ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Google AI Mode responses, appearing in 11% of answers on average. Meltwater reached a similar conclusion after analysing 9.5 million AI citations across 16 B2B categories, ranking LinkedIn second overall, just behind YouTube.

Suddenly, that thought leadership post has an audience beyond the people scrolling their feed.

Why LinkedIn is finding its way into AI answers

As the go-to social media platform for B2B professionals, LinkedIn contains millions of posts that showcase professional expertise across every imaginable sector.

Think industry commentary on emerging challenges, opinions on where markets are heading, practical advice, tips on how to make the most out of tech solutions, brand stories and first-hand experience from the people working within them.

Taken together, that makes LinkedIn a rich source of professional information for AI tools.

But before everyone adds “get cited by ChatGPT” to next quarter’s social KPIs, there is an important caveat. Posting regularly does not automatically translate into AI visibility, and different AI platforms use and cite sources in different ways.

What current research suggests is a strong role for useful, original insight, particularly published in the format of long-form LinkedIn articles and mid-length in-feed posts. Semrush found that educational content and practical advice featured heavily among the posts cited by AI tools.

That should sound familiar to anyone with a good LinkedIn strategy already. Useful beats generic, expertise beats noise and original thinking gives prospects a reason to pay attention.

Your senior leaders are part of your AI footprint

There is another reason executive visibility should now be part of the AI visibility and LinkedIn conversation.

In B2B environments, people rarely assess a business entirely separately from the people behind it. Prospects check leadership profiles before booking meetings, journalists look for credible experts to comment on industry issues and event organisers seek speakers who are already contributing something useful to the hot topics in the sector.

Visible leaders help turn corporate expertise into something more human, credible and easier to trust – and AI adds another layer to that.

Meltwater found that approximately 75% of the LinkedIn content cited by AI tools in its research came from individual profiles, compared with 25% from company pages. Perhaps even more interestingly, 51% of citations came from people with fewer than 10,000 followers.

That tells me something important. AI visibility on LinkedIn doesn’t appear to be a simple popularity contest. You don’t necessarily need your CEO to become the next LinkedIn celebrity… But you need credible people consistently sharing industry-specific expertise in the areas your business wants to be known for.

For PR teams, that makes executive visibility even harder to treat as a nice extra. The voices of your leaders and subject matter experts can influence how prospects perceive the business, what journalists associate them with and, increasingly, how AI tools understand their expertise and the brand behind it.

LinkedIn should be part of the wider visibility picture

So, should every B2B brand now build a separate LinkedIn strategy purely to impress ChatGPT? Not really. The strongest approach is much less gimmicky.

If your PR team is creating credible media opportunities, your website is publishing useful expertise and your subject matter experts are sharing informed perspectives on LinkedIn, those activities can and will reinforce one another.

A media interview can inspire a LinkedIn post, a blog from an executive can become the basis of a thought leadership article. Original research developed for a PR campaign can give your experts something genuinely useful to say online.

And all of that gives both people and AI tools a clearer picture of what your organisation knows, who its experts are and the subjects it has authority to speak about.

That is why LinkedIn increasingly deserves a place in the GEO conversation.

Not because there is a magic posting frequency, secret format or clever trick that guarantees an AI citation. I’m so sorry to say this, but there isn’t. The opportunity comes from making expertise visible consistently, in places where your audiences are already looking for answers.

For years, we have talked about LinkedIn as a way to put a human face to a B2B brand. Now those human voices may also be helping AI tools understand the business behind them.

Quite a lot of responsibility for one LinkedIn post, really.

Want to make LinkedIn work harder as part of your wider PR, executive visibility and GEO strategy? Get in touch with the Whiteoaks team to discuss how we can help make your brand and its experts more visible.

In this blog, Maddy Birtles, Senior Account Director at Whiteoaks, explores:

How AI can help PR teams interrogate information and uncover useful signals
Why the strongest stories still depend on original ideas, opinions and creative thinking
Why human judgement and journalist relationships remain essential to effective media relations

AI has given PR professionals powerful new ways to interrogate information. It can analyse large datasets, summarise lengthy reports, accelerate research and help teams find new connections with journalists that may once have taken considerably longer to uncover. All these capabilities are saving huge amounts of time and are no doubt useful, but none of them on their own create a story.

Compelling storytelling depends on more than identifying an interesting statistic or summarising what is already known. It needs an idea. It might challenge an accepted view, connect two seemingly unrelated developments, offer an opinion others are not expressing or find a fresh angle relating to a subject that a journalist has covered before.

That is where the distinction between processing information and creating a story becomes important. AI can help PR teams get to the raw material faster, but people still have to decide what is worth saying.

AI can support story development but it can’t find the story for you

One of AI’s most valuable applications in PR is its ability to work through large quantities of information quickly. If you give it a substantial dataset, a collection of reports or existing coverage, it can identify recurring themes, anomalies and patterns that might spark interest or further investigation. However, this doesn’t automatically create a story.

When analysing research data, for example, AI might identify that one result differs significantly by industry, company size or geography. What it cannot determine with the same level of understanding and human context is whether that finding challenges a widely held assumption in the market, connects to a conversation journalists are already having or gives a spokesperson credible grounds to say something genuinely new. That requires knowledge of the sector, the organisation and the media landscape.

The same is true when responding to the news agenda. Good reactive PR is rarely about simply explaining what has happened. The strongest contributions challenge existing views, identify a consequence others have overlooked, put the development into wider industry-specific context and explain what happens next.

AI can summarise the news, but the real benefit must come from having a unique expert perspective on it.

AI cannot manufacture a meaningful point of view

A strong spokesperson has accumulated experience from multiple customers, projects, conversations and day-to-day decisions. They have seen where conventional thinking does not match reality. They may disagree with the direction their industry is taking or recognise a problem before it becomes widely discussed. Those can be the foundations of interesting thought leadership.

AI can help develop that thinking, but it needs something meaningful to work with in the first place. Give it a clear idea, a strong opinion, first-hand insight or an original observation and it can help interrogate the argument, identify gaps in the evidence or explore its implications. Ask it to create a point of view from nothing, and the result is far more likely to reflect the same familiar and generic narratives already circulating elsewhere.

Effective PR should not be about asking a tool to generate something that sounds authoritative and then treating the output as thought leadership. The thinking has to come first. The role of AI should be to help develop, test or articulate what an organisation genuinely knows, believes or sees differently. PR professionals can then turn that into a story others want to engage with. Ultimately, compelling content still depends on having something worth saying before you start writing it.

Creativity still comes from making unexpected connections

There is also a creative element to PR storytelling that is difficult to reduce to a process. Some of the strongest campaign ideas come from connecting things that do not initially appear related. A piece of proprietary data might suddenly become relevant because of a cultural moment. A technical subject might become interesting when framed through its impact on business or everyday life. An overlooked insight might provide a completely different way into an established industry debate.

AI can generate associations between subjects, but there is a difference between producing possibilities and recognising the idea that will resonate. That judgement is informed by experience through knowing what journalists have already seen, which narratives are becoming tired, what audiences will understand and where there is space to do something different.

It is also why creativity in PR cannot simply mean generating more ideas. The skill lies in identifying the one worth pursuing and developing it into something distinctive, credible and relevant to the organisation behind it.

Relationships provide context AI cannot see

The same principle applies once the story is ready to reach the media. AI-powered tools can help identify journalists who have written about particular topics or analyse patterns in previous coverage. That can make research faster, particularly across specialist sectors and international campaigns.

But media relations is not simply a matching exercise between keywords in a story and keywords in a journalist’s articles. A PR professional may know that a journalist has recently changed focus, is tired of receiving a particular type of story or is increasingly interested in an adjacent issue. They may know when a story warrants a call rather than an email, when an angle needs adapting or when not to pitch at all. Those details come from strong relationships.

As AI-generated content becomes easier to produce, simply creating more of it is not a competitive advantage. Having something original to say is.

With the rise of AI slop – in other words, low-quality, generic content produced at scale with little original thought behind it – the difference is increasingly visible. Audiences are becoming more accustomed to recognising content that says a lot without really saying anything new.

In PR, AI should be used to support human thinking rather than substitute for it, bringing together technology, sector-specific knowledge, creativity, opinion and relationships to find the stories that are actually worth telling.

If you want to turn your expertise into stories that cut through, our media team combines strong storytelling instincts with unrivalled journalist relationships to help B2B tech brands make an impact. Get in touch to discuss how we can support your PR.

In this blog, Natalia Kaczmarek, Whiteoaks’ Digital Content Manager, discusses:

The growing concerns about the volume of AI-generated content on LinkedIn
What LinkedIn’s new feedback feature ‘Seems like AI slop’ is about
How B2B brands can protect the quality of their LinkedIn content

The chatter about AI copywriting on LinkedIn has been going on for quite a while, but what happened on my feed during the final week of July could only be compared to a digital feeding frenzy. Everyone had an opinion and most had the same screenshot.

So what’s this all about?

Well, LinkedIn has started rolling out a new feedback feature with rather blunt wording: ‘Seems like AI slop’ – and it went, dare I say… viral?

Hidden within the three-dot menu on posts, the button allows users to flag content they believe is overly reliant on AI. Given the amount of suspiciously polished ‘thought leadership’ filling the platform, it is easy to see why many fellow LinkedIn users have welcomed it.

After all, LinkedIn wants its feed to prioritise genuine expertise, lived professional experiences and original viewpoints on industry challenges. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been craving that authenticity and uniqueness as LinkedIn over the last year or so has not always delivered that.

Giving people more control over what they see could reduce recycled opinions and automated comments that are saying absolutely nothing. So, on the surface, the new ‘Seems like AI slop’ feature sounds sensible and like the right step forward for the platform.

But there is a ‘but’, or rather a few ‘buts’…

Let’s start with the feature’s name

Call me crazy (reserved for colleagues only :-)) but the name of the feature itself seems totally off-brand for LinkedIn. For a rather corporate-sounding, professionally-minded brand, the name has definitely raised some eyebrows – mine too – because it feels so informal.

Although, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, once you scroll past the original definition involving wet food waste, ‘slop’ can also mean “content on the internet that is of very low quality, especially when it is created by artificial intelligence”. It does come with the caveat that this use is informal.

So, LinkedIn has used the word correctly. It just sounds more like something you would see in the group chat than expect to find within a LinkedIn product menu.

Then, there’s the timing

There is some comic timing involved too because LinkedIn, not so long ago, introduced a tool that could help you rewrite your posts using AI. It is now replacing that feature while asking users to report copy that feels AI-generated.

That has understandably confused parts of the social media community. It appears the platform first handed everyone the robot pen and has now introduced a button for complaining about the handwriting.

Of course, using AI does not automatically result in AI slop. The problem comes when the tool replaces original thinking rather than supporting it.

AI slop is subjective

The bigger issue, though, is that ‘AI slop’ is subjective. A LinkedIn post may have been copied directly from someone’s favourite AI tool, carefully written by a human or created by someone whose natural style happens to be polished and structured.

From my own experience, anyone who learnt English as a foreign language at school may remember being encouraged to use contrastive negations and other complex structures in essays and exams to demonstrate the depth and breadth of their good old English grammar.

Now, some of those structures are regularly presented as tell-tale signs that somebody has used AI. And don’t get me wrong, repeated contrastive negations can be a giveaway, alongside the somehow still ever-present rocket emoji.

However, without clear criteria, people may end up reporting content they dislike rather than content that is genuinely low quality or full of recognisable AI copywriting habits. Human writing could be mistaken for AI, while better-edited AI content could pass unnoticed.

There is also a danger that the conversation becomes too focused on whether AI was involved rather than whether the content is actually useful. A post can be written entirely by a human and still be repetitive, vague or lacking in substance. Equally, AI may have helped someone organise a genuinely original argument, improve their grammar or communicate more confidently in a language that is not their first.

The presence of AI does not automatically make content slop. Equally, the absence of AI does not automatically make content good.

Could it cause unethical practices?

We also cannot ignore the risk of misuse here. Could competitors repeatedly flag a company’s posts in an attempt to damage their reach? Could leaders using English as not their first language be unfairly penalised for using AI to refine their wording? Could perfectly good content be flagged simply because it uses phrases people have started to associate with AI?

At the moment, we simply do not know.

The information available at the time of writing does not explain whether receiving one or more ‘AI slop’ flags will reduce a post’s distribution. It also does not establish whether reports could affect future posts from the same person or company page.

There is currently no evidence that competitors can use the feature to reduce another brand’s reach. I would hope professional ethics would prevent that behaviour. But until LinkedIn provides more information about how the feedback is assessed and what safeguards are in place, these are fair questions to ask.

What should B2B brands do now?

To start with, copying and pasting the first output that ChatGPT gives you into LinkedIn has always been a poor content strategy. Every post should have human oversight, include an original opinion, relevant experience or useful detail and data that could only have come from the person or organisation publishing it.

That does not mean brands and PR professionals should stop using AI. As we have said before at Whiteoaks, AI tools can help with research, ideas and structure and it can give writers or subject matter experts a useful starting point when the blank page is winning.

The audience-facing copy still needs to be checked, shaped and edited by someone who understands the subject, the audience and the tone of voice.

The strongest LinkedIn content starts with a real experience, such as a customer conversation at an industry event, a lesson from a recent project or a clear view on an industry issue. AI can help frame that thinking, but it cannot supply lived professional experience that was never provided in the first place.

That human oversight and editing is so incredibly important right now as the mystery surrounding the new feature continues.

Whatever LinkedIn decides to do with the feedback it receives, the reaction to the new button tells me one thing – that people are tired of generic content.

Our digital and content teams help B2B tech brands turn real expertise into LinkedIn content that sounds like the people behind it and supports wider business goals. Speak to the Whiteoaks team about bringing more human insight into your feed.

In this blog, Whiteoaks’ Associate Director, Zachary Harford, explores:

Why GEO should become a board-level issue for B2B organisations
How AI-led discovery is changing the way buyers research and validate suppliers
How PR investment can help strengthen brand visibility in AI-generated answers

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) has quickly become one of the topics every marketing team is expected to have a view on, but for today’s B2B organisations, the implications go beyond marketing. Buyers are changing how they discover, compare and validate suppliers, and AI-led discovery is becoming part and parcel of that process.

Gartner predicts traditional search volume could fall by 25% by the end of 2026, and with around 60% of traditional searches already ending without a click, brand visibility shouldn’t be judged by website traffic alone.

Senior leaders need to know whether their organisation is present and credible in the answers buyers see on AI search tools, before those buyers ever reach a company website or social media profile. GEO and AEO are about whether a brand is associated with the right problems, expertise and market conversations, which is precisely what makes them a board-level issue rather than a marketing one.

The problem with selling GEO as new SEO

One of the quickest ways to lose senior attention is to frame GEO as another technical marketing discipline. The technical elements are incredibly important, including website structure, content clarity and authority signals, while much established SEO practice remains relevant in generative AI search.

But “new SEO” language makes GEO sound like a channel project: narrow, tactical and easy to delegate.

If AI tools are shaping how people understand markets and vendors, GEO becomes a question of visibility, reputation and competitive positioning. Are we surfaced when buyers ask about the problems we solve? Do AI-generated answers reflect our view of the category and our media thought leadership, or do we rely too heavily on our own website?

These are business questions, not technical ones.

What C-suite actually cares about

Most senior leadership teams do not need a detailed explanation of prompts, algorithms or AI crawler behaviour. They do, however, need to understand what is at stake if their organisation is absent or misrepresented in the answers buyers are now relying on.

The first issue is risk. If AI-generated answers are influencing how buyers understand a market, there is a reputational risk in not being visible. There is also a messaging risk if the content surrounding the brand is inconsistent, outdated or too product-led. For B2B tech organisations, where solutions are often complex and buying decisions involve multiple stakeholders, that can affect how clearly the value of the business is understood.

The second issue is opportunity. GEO gives brands a chance to build authority around the questions that buyers are asking online before they enter a sales conversation. That’s important because prospects are not only comparing suppliers but also trying to understand business challenges, assess different approaches, manage internal risk and justify change.

The third issue is competitive advantage. AI visibility is as much about whether the brand appears in AI-generated results as it is about the context in which it appears. If a competitor is consistently associated with innovation, trust, expertise or market leadership, while your organisation is missing from those answers, that gap can start to shape perception long before a shortlist is created.

Lastly, measurement. Leadership teams are very unlikely to buy into GEO just because it sounds like the hottest topic of the year. They will buy into it when there is a clear view of where the organisation stands today, where competitors are gaining ground and what progress should look like over time.

How Performance PR supports GEO

GEO is often discussed through a search lens, but PR plays a major role in strengthening the signals AI systems may draw from. That is because AI-generated answers do not rely only on what a brand says about itself on the homepage of its website. They are influenced by the wider information environment around a company, topic or category. Think earned media, analyst commentary, executive thought leadership, owned research reports and credible third-party mentions – they all help shape the public evidence base around a brand.

Authority is rarely built through owned content alone though. A company can publish helpful explainers on its website, but if the wider market and media conversation does not support its position, its visibility may be limited. Investing in long-term PR helps create that broader authority by placing expert views in trusted publications on a consistent basis, connecting spokespeople to timely issues and building credible associations between the brand and the problems it helps solve.

This is also where GEO links naturally to existing communications activity. It should never sit in isolation from PR, content, SEO or social media strategy. The strongest PR programmes bring these disciplines together and around the same business goals.

Building the business case for GEO

For marketers trying to secure leadership buy-in, the best starting point is not a long explanation of how generative AI works. It is a practical view of current visibility.

An AI visibility audit can help answer the questions leadership teams are most likely to care about, including where the brand and its competitors appear today, which prompts and buyer questions matter most and which sources are being cited.

From there, marketers can build a more focused business case. Rather than asking the board to invest in a broad new discipline, they can show where GEO connects to existing priorities such as brand awareness, demand generation, market education, reputation management and sales enablement.

The key is to keep the measures realistic. Especially given the fact that GEO is still evolving (and fast!) and AI-generated responses can vary. For example, recent research into AI-mediated search has highlighted that source selection and answer consistency can differ across systems and queries. Achieving total control over what AI tools say is therefore impossible, and should never become the end goal. Instead, brands need to work on improving the strength, consistency and credibility of the signals they are putting into the market.

Making GEO actionable

The most effective way to approach GEO is to treat it as an evolution of communications strategy, not a separate workstream competing for attention. That means identifying the questions your audiences are asking, the topics your business has permission to own and the proof points needed to support that position. It also means looking at where your subject matter experts are visible, where your content is being cited and whether your earned media presence reflects the conversations that matter to buyers.

For leadership teams, GEO is not another marketing acronym to monitor from a distance. It is part of how brand authority, buyer trust and competitive visibility are being shaped today. For marketers, the opportunity is to move from tactical experimentation to board-level value: start with visibility, benchmark against competitors, then connect findings to commercial priorities.

In an AI-influenced buying journey, credibility is only valuable if buyers encounter it in the right places. We’re offering a free leadership GEO session to help B2B brands benchmark their AI visibility and build the business case for action. Get in touch with us to discuss more.

In this blog, Hayley Goff, CEO at Whiteoaks, discusses:

Why cyber security vendors must balance visibility with accurate claims
How over-simplified messaging can damage trust and reputation
Why clearer communications standards could help buyers make better decisions

Cyber security vendors operate in a market where credibility directly influences buyer confidence. Because marketing claims often help buyers assess highly technical products and services, those claims need to be accurate, transparent and proportionate.

That’s not always easy to achieve. Cyber security is complex, risk-based and often communicated to audiences with different levels of technical understanding. As such, the challenge for many vendors is to explain what their solutions can realistically deliver without over-simplifying the message or creating expectations that no product or service can guarantee.

This is particularly important when cyber security is being discussed in the context of real business risk. Recent attacks on major organisations, including M&S and Jaguar Land Rover in 2025, have shown the significant commercial and operational impact cyber incidents can have.

As a result, businesses need clear information to help them understand the threats they face and make informed decisions about the people, processes and suppliers that can help reduce risk and strengthen resilience. Communication plays an important role in that decision-making process.

To better understand where the risk of miscommunication can arise and how it can be reduced, Whiteoaks conducted research among 152 UK cyber security marketing, PR and communications professionals. Here’s what we found.

Complexity in cyber communications

One of the clearest examples of the sector’s communication challenge is the language used to describe cyber protection. Almost all respondents in our survey (99%) stated that they had used terms such as ‘total security’, ‘100 percent protection’ or ‘fully protected’ in their marketing materials. In addition, seven-in-ten (70%) cyber comms professionals said they had either been involved in, or aware of, marketing or PR content that they believed included unsubstantiated, misleading or excessive claims.

These findings shouldn’t be read as evidence of deliberate or widespread use of false information. They point to a more nuanced challenge. In a competitive cyber security market, PR and comms professionals are under pressure to stand out and simplify deeply complex topics, which can inadvertently increase the risk of overstatement or misunderstanding.

That risk grows when messages need to work for audiences with different levels of technical knowledge. A board-level decision-maker may not interpret a claim about protection or risk reduction in the same way as a CISO. And because claims rarely sit in one place, moving across websites, sales decks, social media, thought leadership and media commentary, the risk of miscommunication may increase as they travel, particularly if the core message isn’t backed by clear evidence.

The cost of miscommunication

In cyber security, miscommunication can create consequences long before a product is put to the test.

If a buyer takes an absolute claim at face value, they may misunderstand the level of protection, resilience or recovery support a solution can provide. That can shape procurement decisions, internal expectations and how risk is communicated across the business.

For vendors, the same issue can affect credibility if expectations are not met or a claim is challenged. Almost half of our survey respondents (47%) said their organisation has suffered commercial or reputational damage as a result of inaccurate or over-simplified messaging.

Why the industry could benefit from clearer comms standards

So how can the industry address the miscommunication challenge?

Many organisations already involve legal advisers and technical teams before content is published, but our research suggests these checks aren’t applied consistently: only 23% of respondents say all claims are checked by legal teams before publication. Three-quarters routinely add disclaimers or plain-English explanations, yet misunderstanding still persists, with 30% saying messaging is often misread. Checks and disclaimers can of course help, but they aren’t enough on their own.

That’s why our research points to an appetite for something more structural. More than eight-in-ten (86%) believe cyber communications practitioners should hold a cyber-related accreditation or certification, and 97% agree PR has an important role to play in reducing miscommunication risk. Almost all respondents (94%) say the industry needs clearer standards altogether – 70% point to clearer communications standards and 55% to a formal code of practice.

A voluntary code of practice tailored to the industry could offer a practical blueprint: a consistent way to describe products and services, backed by evidence rather than assertion, that gives buyers confidence without replacing any existing professional or ethical standards.

Done well, it could help reduce reliance on absolute claims like “100% protection”, encourage more considered use of testimonials, and, most importantly, help buyers understand exactly what value a solution can deliver.

Building and maintaining trust

Trust is at the core of success in the cyber security sector. Buyers need confidence in both the technology they procure and the claims made alongside it.

Clearer communication standards won’t remove the complexity of the market, but they can help move the industry beyond marketing murkiness towards messages that are backed by evidence and set realistic expectations from the outset.

Download the report, The state of cyber security communications, to find out more, or get in touch if you need support identifying and reducing miscommunication risks in your marketing materials.

In this blog, Mark Wilson, Creative Director at Whiteoaks, discusses:

How B2B buyers are increasingly using AI search to find answers
Why AEO-optimised video can help brands appear in those answers
How strong creative, captions and supporting copy make AEO video more effective

For years, B2B video has been judged by whether it can hold attention and leave the viewer with a clear impression of the brand. AI-led search has added another requirement: the content must also make its meaning clear before anyone presses play. And that changes the creative brief.

A potential buyer can now encounter a brand through an AI-generated answer, a comparison video or a selected video moment long before reaching that brand’s website. This shift in online search behaviour is moving people away from browsing pages and piecing together information themselves towards asking more direct questions and expecting tailored and immediate responses.

That means brands need to think differently about how their content is structured, framed and understood by the platforms delivering those answers. Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the process of making content easier for search engines and AI tools to understand and surface in response to those questions.

For B2B brands, the opportunity is therefore to create AEO videos with a clearer purpose, built around the questions buyers are asking and supported by the context answer engines need to interpret it.

AEO isn’t just about written content

Video is crucial to AEO because it helps to provide concise answers to complex questions – essential skill for marketers of very technical B2B solutions. Buyers may be trying to understand how one solution compares with another, how it will integrate with their existing operations and what the long-term implications could be.

Q&A videos work well because they reflect the questions buyers are already asking and allow brands to respond directly without turning every answer into a sales pitch – which we know often puts buyers off! Each question gives the content a distinct focus, making its relevance easier for viewers and answer engines to understand.

Comparison videos can support buyers when they are weighing up different solutions and approaches to solve their challenges. The strongest examples go beyond placing two solutions side by side. They explain the criteria, the trade-offs involved and which option may be better suited to a particular problem.

This requires confidence from the brand as a credible comparison acknowledges differences, limitations and suitability rather than presenting one solution as the obvious choice in every situation. That honesty helps buyers make sense of a complex decision while demonstrating genuine expertise.

Context to support AEO video

An effective AEO video needs enough surrounding context to help answer engines understand what it covers, who it is intended for and which question it addresses. That context should be considered during the creative process rather than added once production is complete. That includes the video’s title, page copy, description, transcript and captions – all of which should reinforce the same narrative and purpose.

Accurate captions are particularly important for accessibility reasons and they are also useful to people who are silent-scrolling – research shows that a whopping 85% of social media users watch videos without sound. For technical B2B subjects, getting the detail right is especially important because poorly transcribed product names, acronyms or specialist terms can quickly weaken brand credibility.

Bottom line, the clearer the relationship between the video and its surrounding content, the easier it is for LLMs to understand its relevance. Supporting context, however, cannot compensate for an unfocused brand narrative, conflicting messages or poor visuals.

Creative quality determines whether the AEO video lands

Internal marketing teams have the expertise needed to answer buyers’ questions, but translating that knowledge into a focused and engaging video can sometimes be difficult and time-consuming.

This is because subject matter experts may feel a bit uncomfortable on camera, product or brand messaging can become too detailed and limited video production resource can result in content that feels too long or overly technical. Even a strong idea can lose its impact without a clear structure and experienced creative direction.

The role of the external creative partner is to shape that expertise into a story people can understand and remember. This means identifying the central question, helping contributors communicate naturally and deciding which points are best explained through speech, graphics or visual examples.

Filming and post-production can then bring that structure to life via thoughtful editing, cutdowns, animation and on-screen prompts, which all help to simplify complex ideas, maintain attention and give the finished film the quality expected from the brand.

Whiteoaks Studio supports internal teams throughout that process, from developing the brief and video script to preparing senior leaders, filming, editing and producing the supporting visual elements. This results in a purposeful video that answer engines can interpret and buyers will want to watch.

Publishing AEO videos with a purpose

AEO should influence the video brief from the start rather than being applied at the point of upload. Publishing a general product video with a few search terms in its description is unlikely to strengthen visibility among the right audiences in today’s AI-led search environment.

A more effective approach is to plan content around the questions buyers ask at different stages of their research. Each video can then address a specific need while contributing to a broader and more useful body of content. As search behaviour continues to evolve, this gives B2B brands a stronger opportunity to remain visible, demonstrate expertise and help buyers understand complex decisions.

Don’t let AEO pass you by in the quest for brand visibility. Talk to the Whiteoaks team about your AEO video strategy today.

94% of cyber comms professionals call for clearer standards or a code of practice to reduce miscommunication risk

New Whiteoaks International research links demand for greater accountability to commercial pressures, with 61% saying those pressures influence how boldly cyber security capabilities are marketed

Hook, UK – 8 July 2026: 94% of cyber security marketing and PR professionals believe their industry needs clearer communication standards or a code of practice to reduce the risk of miscommunication, according to new research from Whiteoaks International.

The survey of 152 senior UK cyber comms professionals suggests broad recognition that existing safeguards may not always be applied consistently enough. It also points to growing concern that inaccurate, oversimplified or unsupported claims may weaken trust in a sector where buyers need to understand risk clearly. Seven-in-ten (70%) professionals have called specifically for clearer communications standards, while 55% supported a code of practice.

The research suggests this is being intensified by commercial pressure, with six-in-ten (61%) cyber security marketing and PR professionals saying commercial pressures influence how boldly cyber security capabilities are marketed to a moderate or large extent. In a crowded and technically complex market where differentiation is difficult this can create conditions where language drifts from accurate descriptions of what a product does towards broader claims that may imply more certainty than any solution can realistically deliver.

Hayley Goff, CEO of Whiteoaks International, said:

“The pressure to differentiate in a crowded cyber security market is growing, and we see it shape how capabilities get described, often gradually, and often without anyone making a conscious decision to overstate. That’s what makes this a communications problem as much as an accountability one. Buyers making decisions that affect their operations, compliance and reputation deserve language that reflects what a solution can realistically deliver. Clearer industry standards would help ensure that’s consistently the case.”

The risk is not only reputational. 72% of respondents believe exaggerated or vague language increases legal exposure, while almost half (47%) say their organisation has already experienced commercial or reputational impact linked to inaccurate or oversimplified messaging, including lost business, reduced customer confidence and negative coverage.

Speaking at a roundtable convened by Whiteoaks International in London to explore miscommunication in cyber security, Laura Irvine, Head of Regulatory Law at Davidson Chalmers Stewart, added:

“Legal liability arises when a claim does not match what is actually delivered. Cyber security is still earlier in its development as a marketing discipline, and clearer guidance would help reduce ambiguity around the standards they should be able to rely on.”

The research also points to gaps in how communications are reviewed before they reach the market. Only 23% of respondents say all claims are checked by legal teams before publication, while just one-in-three (34%) say they always collaborate with technical teams to ensure their messaging accurately reflects product capabilities.

While (75%) routinely include disclaimers, plain English explanations or risk guidance in their marketing materials, 30% say their messaging is often misunderstood by target audiences regardless, suggesting context alone cannot fix claims that overpromise from the outset.

Joanna Goddard, Chief Experience Officer at National Cyber Resilience Centre Group, said:

“Too often, cyber resilience is communicated as though technology alone can make an organisation 100% secure. It cannot. When brands oversell what technology can do, they create more confusion and ultimately more risk. True cyber resilience needs practical communication focused on risk, relevance and action, and clearer industry standards would help ensure that becomes the norm, not the exception.”

The recommendation builds on issues first raised in the 2023 Business Resilience International Management (BRIM) whitepaper ‘Should the marketing of cyber be regulated?’, co-authored by Joanna Goddard, Laura Irvine and Dr Rois Ni Thuama. The whitepaper set out the case for clearer communications standards to prevent overpromising, reduce buyer confusion and support more responsible marketing of cyber security products and services.

Informed by the BRIM whitepaper and in response to its latest research findings, Whiteoaks has developed a proposed voluntary communications code of practice designed specifically for the cyber security industry. The code sets out ten principles covering accuracy, evidence, clarity, audience relevance and cross-functional review. Whiteoaks International is inviting input from across the cyber security industry to help refine it.

The full report, including the proposed voluntary code of practice, is available here.

In this blog, Whiteoaks’ HR Director, Tara Williams, discusses:

Why poorly-judged AI use can weaken trust in employee communication
Why human judgement becomes more valuable as AI use grows
How employee ownership helps keep internal communication credible

AI has a practical role to play in enterprises today, and with HP’s 2025 Work Relationship Index finding that 76% of UK employees use AI at work, the question is less whether these tools belong in the business and more how carefully they are used.

They are changing how HR and leadership teams communicate with employees. Thanks to AI, information can be organised more easily and consistency across teams can be easier to achieve. The risk is, however, that the polish AI provides starts to replace the thinking behind the message.

Internal communication has a direct impact on reputation and employees are often the first to notice when a business’s words do not match the day-to-day reality of the working experience. Messages about change or wellbeing are rarely read in isolation.

People weigh up what is being said and whether the organisation genuinely understands the issue from their perspective. When messages feel too polished or too generic, they can create a disconnect at precisely the moment employees most need clarity and reassurance.

Employees can tell when something feels off

Most employees are familiar with carefully managed corporate language, and they can usually sense when a message has been smoothed so heavily that the meaning starts to disappear. AI can make this worse when it is used as the final voice rather than a support tool.

The distinction becomes even more important when the topic affects employees on a personal level. Workday research found only 30% of workers would be comfortable being managed by an AI agent, underlining the importance of keeping human judgement visible when communication affects people directly.

HR teams have to consider what people are likely to worry about and how a message will land with someone directly affected. Good internal communication is not about making something look right, but instead, about saying what employees need to hear in a way they can trust, even if that means admitting the business does not have all the answers yet.

For that reason, AI works best in internal communication when it adds clarity rather than takes over the thinking. A routine policy update may only need a clear note and a link to guidance. A message about a more serious workplace concern calls for considerably more care.

Employee voice keeps communication grounded

The importance of employee voice is something we see first-hand at Whiteoaks as an employee-owned business. Because employees have a direct stake in the organisation’s success, maintaining open and credible communication becomes even more important.

Employee voice is one of the most effective ways to stop internal communication drifting into corporate AI-speak because it keeps leadership close to the questions people are asking.

At Whiteoaks, employee ownership gives our team a stronger connection to how the business works and how decisions are communicated. Our Employee Council gives people a route to share views and ideas, and helps leadership stay close to what employees experience day to day.

Leaders who understand the questions and concerns being raised are less likely to produce communication that sounds detached from the culture employees recognise. Openness also has a direct link to how people understand performance and their role in the company’s success because shared responsibility only works when people feel able to speak honestly.

The human voice becomes more valuable as AI becomes normal

Employees will not object to every message that has been supported by AI, as many people use these tools in their working lives. The more important skill for HR leaders is narrative judgement: knowing whether AI is appropriate and how much human input is needed before a message is shared.

Whiteoaks is an employee-owned B2B tech PR agency, so we see communication through both an internal and external lens. The same skills that support our strong client communication, including audience understanding and editorial judgement, are as important inside a business.

Our Performance PR approach is built around accountability and that starts inside the business. When employees feel heard and understand how they contribute to shared success, that culture carries through into the way we support clients.

Handled thoughtfully, AI can help HR teams move faster without losing clarity, while careless use can make internal messaging feel distant when people need it to feel human. HR communication should use that efficiency without losing the judgement employees expect from the people leading the conversation.

To discuss stronger internal communications that support culture and employee voice, speak to Whiteoaks.

Taking insights from the newly launched eBook by the WIN PR Group, our international partner agency network, Natalia Kaczmarek, Whiteoaks’ Digital Content Manager, explores in this blog:

Why one-size-fits-all messaging can fall short across multiple international markets
How to balance global consistency with local relevance to build trust
Why proof points, not tone, are the key to improving local credibility

There is a comfortable assumption baked into a lot of international communications strategies that consistency is the ultimate goal, and that getting one message agreed centrally means most of the work is done. And honestly, it is easy to see the appeal. A single message can feel more controlled and give senior leaders confidence that the brand is speaking with a unified voice. It also makes planning and reporting feel more manageable.

But for B2B technology brands entering new markets, this is often where real problems begin. Global consistency is indeed important as a brand needs a clear narrative, single-minded proposition, agreed messaging and a shared understanding of what it wants to be known for. Without that, international PR can quickly become fragmented.

The issue is when consistency becomes the finish line rather than the starting point. A message agreed in one market and rolled out unchanged across several others assumes that authority, relevance and trust are expressed in the same way everywhere. They are not though.

How buyers assess credibility, how journalists judge a story, how senior spokespeople are received and even how familiar job titles are understood can vary significantly from one market to the next.

Treating consistency as the finish line tends to produce communications that are technically aligned and quietly ignored.

The trade-off that isn’t a trade-off

The more useful way to think about this is that strategic consistency and local relevance are not opposing forces brands should balance. Think of them as two halves of the same discipline.

The brands that struggle are usually the ones that have picked a side: either a heavily centralised model that may protect the message but lose touch with the realities on the ground, or a fragmented one that is locally fluent but drifts into inconsistency that leadership then cannot compare or report on.

Neither problem is really about the message alone. Both are about the operating model. The most effective structure keeps one strategic lead accountable for narrative, standards and reporting, while local specialists own how that narrative actually shows up in their market. Accountability stays central, interpretation moves to the edge. That distinction is what lets a brand stay coherent across regions without sounding like a translation of itself.

Relevance is an evidence problem

Here is the part that often gets underestimated: relevance is not a tone-of-voice exercise, but an evidence one. A B2B buyer is far more persuaded by a peer in their own market facing their own pressures than by an overly polished claim that belongs to someone else’s reality.

That means the work of localisation starts long before the press release, in the proof points a brand can actually offer, such as the regional case study, the local endorsement, the data that reflects what that audience is wrestling with or commentary from a spokesperson who understand the market context. Without that evidence, even a well-adapted message has no legs to stand on.

This is particularly important for B2B technology brands because products may solve similar problems across markets, but the commercial pressures behind those problems are rarely identical. The same technology story may need to be framed around operational efficiency in one market, regulation in another and competitive advantage somewhere else. That does not however mean reinventing the story every time. It means giving local teams the evidence and flexibility to make the core message credible where it needs to land.

Local credibility now shapes discoverability too

There is another reason this has become more important: buyers are no longer discovering brands through one linear route. They are forming opinions through media coverage, social content, analyst commentary, peer recommendations and AI-generated answers. Increasingly, a brand’s visibility depends on whether it appears in the sources people and AI tools are likely to trust.

That raises the stakes for international PR. If a brand’s content, media coverage and social presence only reflect the priorities of one market, it may struggle to appear credible elsewhere. The message might exist globally, but it may not be visible or persuasive locally.

This is where international PR has to move beyond translation into localisation, considering the publications that carry authority in each market, the social platforms where target audiences spend time, the language they use to describe their problems and the proof points they expect before they believe a claim.

Stop mistaking global consistency for control

The strongest international PR programmes do not treat consistency as control. They use it as the foundation for clearer, more relevant communication across markets.

For B2B technology brands looking to expand internationally, this is where PR can make a real commercial difference. Not by repeating the same message everywhere, but by helping the brand become known, understood and trusted in the places it wants to grow.

To find out more, download The WIN PR Group’s new eBook and get in touch if you’d like to discuss your plans for new market expansion.