PR Pitch Wins - September 2026

This week's PRmoment Podcast reviews UK PR pitch activity, agency M&A, and market trends across the summer and September 2026.Overall, the tone is constructive: the market remains busy, clients are still commissioning briefs, and agencies are finding opportunity in both broad integrated mandates and deeper specialist work. The main challenge is not a lack of demand, but converting that demand into higher-quality wins.PR Pitch Market OutlookThe episode opens with a positive read on the UK PR market. Briefs stay busy through the summer and into Q4, but conversion remains slower than agencies would like, so the emphasis shifts from simply generating more opportunities to winning the right ones. Ben Smith and Andrew Bloch note that agencies need sharper propositions, stronger pipeline discipline, and more evidence of strategic impact to stand out. Differentiation is increasingly tied to specialist capability rather than generalist claims: demand is growing for GEO, AI, creator-led activity, content, influencer marketing, and social, alongside integrated campaigns that show measurable return on investment. Selling outcomes, not hours, is important in a more selective buying environment.Pitch Wins for SeptemberSeveral high-profile account changes highlight how competitive the market is becoming. VCCP Roar wins Starbucks’ UK creative consumer PR brief after 18 years with the incumbent, while We Communications secures Mastercard’s global communications account after 14 years with Ketchum.Other notable wins show the range of opportunity across consumer, corporate, and specialist work: Citizen Relations picks up P&G haircare; The Romans wins Salford City FC, Funding Circle, and Desperados; Ernie’s adds Oatly; Stack wins British Land; and PDA wins Casio G-Shock. W reports four wins across Kleenex, Clarendon Fine Art, San Miguel, and Hard Rock Hotels. Bottle adds Nationwide’s digital PR and GEO brief as well as Simprove’s search visibility work, while Taylor Herring, Golin Ketchum, PC Agency, and Shook also secure business.M&A Activity for SeptemberM&A remains focused on capability rather than scale. Burson acquires Limbik to bring its predictive AI platform, Decipher, and associated engineering capability in-house, extending a proposition that already operates across more than 60 markets. Headland acquires Shearwater to deepen political, regulatory, and EU public affairs expertise in Brussels and London, reinforcing the importance of specialist advisory capability. Mission Group merges Mongoose with Bray Leino Events as part of a wider simplification and consolidation effort. The discussion also stresses that organic growth still matters: agencies are increasingly expanding existing relationships into broader portfolios and longer retainers, rather than relying solely on acquisition to add revenue. The overall picture is of a sector using M&A selectively to fill capability gaps and strengthen its offer, not simply to grow for scale.Here are a few beautiful quotes from Andrew from this week's show“Pipeline is potential. It’s conversion that pays the bills.” — Andrew Bloch 0:01:49 You need to be famous for something, specialist in something, not just being a generalist.” — Andrew Bloch 0:01:49 “Agencies need to be doing the stuff that is valuable, the expensive bits that AI can’t do, not just being an expensive version of the cheap stuff.” — Andrew Bloch 0:01:49 “Any PR agency that ignores the impact of GEO is to their detriment for sure.” — Andrew Bloch 0:05:50 “Buyers aren’t buying more of the same; they’re buying what they’re missing.” — Andrew Bloch 0:07:38 “Build the agency that a buyer can’t easily replicate.” — Andrew Bloch 0:09:08 “If you’ve had a client for 10 years, 15 years, you’re a very different agency today than you were when you won that business.” — Andrew Bloch 0:13:30 “Winning new business is harder than it’s ever been.” — Andrew Bloch 0:20:17 “The clever agencies are buying the stuff that’s truly useful and that clients can’t actually do in-house.” — Andrew Bloch 0:45:46Support the show