How Ordinarily Different secured 26 published media opportunities through expert HR PR
Ordinarily Different
Workplace culture and HR consultancy
Ordinarily Different worked with Fair Public Relations on a nine-month expert PR campaign focused on turning founder Sophie Bryan’s extensive experience in HR, workplace culture, leadership and organisational development into useful commentary for journalists.
The campaign records show 26 published media opportunities, with coverage across HR, business, workplace, finance and consumer media including HR Magazine, Raconteur, Refinery29, IT Pro, GOBankingRates, NASDAQ, People Management, WorkLife and Stylist.
The client
Ordinarily Different is a workplace culture consultancy founded by Sophie Bryan.
Sophie has worked across HR, Learning and Organisational Development, leadership growth and culture change for more than 20 years. She started her HR career at 17 and became a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development at 29. She also holds a degree, a master's in HR and a mini-MBA.
Before founding Ordinarily Different in 2017, Sophie progressed to HR & Workplace Culture Director and worked on award-winning workplace initiatives. Her business now focuses on helping organisations create healthier, happier, more productive and purposeful workplace cultures.
That background gave the campaign a substantial range of genuine professional expertise to work with.
The opportunity
HR and workplace culture are constantly evolving.
Changes in working patterns, technology, artificial intelligence, employee expectations and management practices mean journalists regularly need credible experts who can explain what those developments actually mean for employers and employees.
Sophie was particularly well placed to contribute.
Her experience meant she could discuss traditional HR subjects such as performance reviews, burnout and resignations, but she could also speak about workplace culture, leadership, flexible working, artificial intelligence, employee wellbeing and the changing relationship between employers and their people.
The opportunity was to position Sophie as a useful media source across that wider workplace conversation rather than simply promoting Ordinarily Different as a consultancy.
The PR strategy
The campaign focused primarily on expert commentary and reactive journalist opportunities.
Subjects appearing across the campaign included:
workplace culture
HR and people management
leadership
employee performance
performance reviews
artificial intelligence in HR
burnout
employee wellbeing
flexible and hybrid working
quiet quitting
workplace communication
resignations
career progression
employee purpose
meeting culture
workplace relationships
organisational change
This gave us a large but coherent area of expertise within which to identify relevant media opportunities.
Making deep HR expertise accessible to journalists
A major strength of Sophie’s positioning was the depth of her professional experience.
She had spent years working inside HR and workplace culture rather than observing the subjects from outside.
Our role was to identify where that expertise intersected with the stories journalists were already working on and help turn it into clear, concise commentary.
That led to articles exploring issues such as what happens when an organisation is publicly shamed, the role HR teams should play in business travel policies, how HR and marketing can work together and how employers should respond to the cost-of-living crisis.
Other opportunities explored performance management, team mapping, burnout and the changing terminology used within the HR profession.
Responding to the changing world of work
The campaign coincided with a period in which workplace practices were changing rapidly.
Hybrid and flexible working remained prominent editorial subjects, while artificial intelligence began raising new questions for HR teams and employees.
Sophie contributed to coverage examining concerns HR leaders had about AI and how HR processes might need to adapt.
Her expertise was also used in articles about flexible working requests, meeting overload, quiet quitting and employee mental health.
This allowed the campaign to keep Sophie involved in current workplace conversations while remaining firmly grounded in her professional expertise.
Expanding beyond specialist HR media
Although specialist HR titles were an important part of the campaign, Sophie’s expertise also translated into wider business, finance and consumer media.
Coverage appeared in publications including Refinery29, Raconteur, IT Pro, GOBankingRates, NASDAQ, Stylist and WorkLife.
For example, workplace and career expertise could be applied to stories about getting a promotion, resignation emails, giving notice, reporting a bad boss and addressing gaps in a CV.
That broader relevance helped move Sophie beyond the confines of traditional HR trade media.
Adapting the PR process around the founder
One of the challenges during the campaign was time.
Sophie was running her own business and could not respond to every media opportunity that came through.
Rather than treating that as a reason to reduce activity, the team adjusted the way the campaign operated.
The aim was to make participation easier and reduce the pressure on Sophie while still allowing journalists to benefit from her expertise.
The impact of that change was immediate.
As Sophie explains:
“I had worked with the team for some time, but the nature of my business made it difficult to respond to every opportunity. They recognised the pressure I was under and offered a new way of working to help me.
The first time we used the new process, I was published. I couldn’t have been happier. The team supporting me were brilliant.”
That flexibility became an important part of maintaining momentum in the campaign.
Media coverage
The campaign board records 26 published media opportunities connected to Ordinarily Different.
Selected publications included:
HR Magazine
Raconteur
Refinery29
WorkLife
People Management
IT Pro
GOBankingRates
NASDAQ
Stylist
HR Daily Advisor
HRO Today EMEA
Money Marketing
WorkingMums.co.uk
FairyGodBoss
People XCD
The range reflects the breadth of Sophie’s positioning, from specialist HR and workplace media through to business, finance and consumer publications.
Selected campaign highlights
| WorkLife | Evolution of office gossip |
| HR Daily Advisor | Performance reviews |
| HR Magazine | Responding when an organisation is publicly shamed |
| Refinery29 | Relationships between different star signs |
| HR Magazine | HR leaders' concerns about artificial intelligence |
| Raconteur | HR and business travel policies |
| People XCD | How marketing and HR can work better together |
| Raconteur | Responding to the cost-of-living crisis |
| IT Pro | Team mapping |
| GOBankingRates | Whether a paycheque is enough |
| Raconteur | Burnout |
| FairyGodBoss | Reporting a bad boss |
| People Management | Meeting overwhelm |
| People XCD | The evolving terminology of HR |
| Make a Difference | Social wellbeing at work |
| FairyGodBoss | Resignation emails |
| GOBankingRates | Using AI to help secure a raise or promotion |
| NASDAQ | Using AI to help secure a raise or promotion |
| HRO Today EMEA | Outplacement |
| People Management | Flexible working requests |
| WorkingMums.co.uk | Quiet quitting |
| Stylist | Workplace support for mental health |
| Money Marketing | Addressing gaps in a CV |
| FairyGodBoss | How to give two weeks' notice |
Building authority around genuine experience
The campaign worked because Sophie’s positioning was grounded in substantial real-world experience.
She was not being asked to comment on workplace culture simply because it was topical.
She had spent more than two decades working in HR, organisational development, leadership and culture change, including at director level.
That gave journalists access to someone who could discuss both the theory and the practical realities of managing people and organisations.
It also gave the campaign enough depth to address dozens of different workplace subjects without moving outside Sophie’s genuine areas of knowledge.
Creating multiple media angles from workplace expertise
The Ordinarily Different campaign demonstrates how broad expert PR can become when a founder has significant professional experience.
One area of expertise, workplace culture, opened the door to stories about management, recruitment, performance, technology, careers, wellbeing, flexible working, leadership and employee behaviour.
Each article had a different subject, but all reinforced the same broader position: Sophie was an experienced voice on how people and organisations work.
This allowed the campaign to maintain media activity without depending on Ordinarily Different having a constant stream of company announcements.
The outcome
Across the nine-month campaign, Fair PR helped position Sophie Bryan and Ordinarily Different as credible sources for journalists covering HR, workplace culture, leadership, careers and the changing world of work.
The campaign generated 26 published media opportunities, with coverage spanning specialist HR publications and broader business, finance and consumer media.
Publications included HR Magazine, Raconteur, Refinery29, WorkLife, People Management, IT Pro, GOBankingRates, NASDAQ and Stylist.
The campaign also demonstrates an important part of successful founder-led PR: the process has to work for the expert.
When Sophie’s workload made it difficult to respond to every opportunity, the campaign approach was adapted around her. The first time the new process was used, it resulted in publication.
That combination of genuine expertise, broad media positioning and a flexible way of working helped turn more than 20 years of HR and workplace experience into sustained earned media coverage.
The results
Campaign
Ordinarily Different
Campaign length
9 months
Objective
Build national and specialist media visibility while strengthening Sophie Bryan’s positioning as an expert in HR and workplace culture
Expertise
HR, workplace culture, leadership, organisational development, employee wellbeing and the future of work
PR approach
Expert commentary, reactive journalist opportunities and media relations
Published media opportunities
26
Selected publications
HR Magazine, Raconteur, Refinery29, WorkLife, People Management, IT Pro, GOBankingRates, NASDAQ and Stylist
Campaign focus
Expert visibility, workplace culture authority and sustained media credibility
Could your expertise become a media opportunity?
Fair Public Relations helps founders, consultants and subject-matter experts turn their professional knowledge into relevant earned media opportunities.
Whether your expertise sits in HR, workplace culture, leadership, recruitment or another specialist field, we can help identify the subjects journalists are already covering, develop clear media positioning and create opportunities for you to contribute credible commentary.
Our campaigns can include expert commentary, reactive journalist opportunities, proactive pitching, thought leadership, founder positioning and wider media relations.
