News & Insights

Let's be honest about the conditions: it was July in Austin, we were on a patio, and no amount of shade was going to change that. But PRSA Austin Connect: Brews & Bites went ahead Monday evening at Lazarus Brewing Co., and the picnic tables filled up anyway.

That turnout is the story. The crowd was a genuine mix — first-year pros and practitioners with decades behind them, agency and in-house, across just about every specialty this chapter covers. Everyone found a table, a drink, and someone worth talking to.

No panel, no presentation, no agenda. Just cold drinks, snacks, and conversation that stretched right up to the last minute. That's what these Connect events are for, and this one did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Thanks to everyone who came out and sat in the heat with us, and to Lazarus Brewing Co. for hosting.

More events are on the way. Not a member yet? Join us.

Hello PRSA Austin members and friends,

I'm Nandini Bhalla, PRSA Austin's Director-at-Large for Membership. This month, I'm excited to share an excellent opportunity for recent graduates and for anyone connected with emerging communications professionals.

PRSA National has announced that PRSSA members graduating in 2026 are eligible to receive their first year of PRSA membership at no cost. This is a valuable opportunity for new professionals to continue building their networks, access career resources, stay current on industry trends and remain connected to the broader public relations community as they begin their careers.

Activating the complimentary membership is simple:

1. Log in to MyPRSA at myprsa.prsa.org/MyDues.
2. Select "Join PRSA for Free."
3. Complete the registration process.

Once your national membership is active, we encourage you to join PRSA Austin and become part of our vibrant local community. Our chapter offers meaningful professional development, networking opportunities, mentorship and connections with communications professionals across Central Texas. Whether you're seeking your first role or looking to expand your professional network, PRSA Austin is here to support your journey.

If you know a graduating PRSSA member, please share this opportunity with them. Questions? Contact us at membership@prsaaustin.org and we'll be happy to help.

While this opportunity is especially exciting for new graduates, PRSA Austin welcomes professionals at every stage of their careers. Whether you're a student transitioning into the profession, an early-career communicator, or a seasoned practitioner looking to expand your network and stay connected to industry trends, we invite you to join our community and take advantage of the professional development, networking and leadership opportunities PRSA Austin offers.

We look forward to welcoming you to PRSA and PRSA Austin.

It's a strange year to be in travel and tourism PR. Fuel costs are up, a major international soccer tournament has pulled global attention to North American cities, and AI is changing how journalists find and write travel stories — sometimes in the same week. PRSA Austin Live brought together three communicators who navigate all of it for a living, for a conversation that was equal parts industry insight and behind-the-scenes honesty.

Melanie Fish, VP of Global PR at Expedia Group Brands, Wesley Lucas, Director of Communications at Visit Austin, and Elsa Morales, Senior Account Director at Giant Noise, joined moderator Alison Kwong, Head of Global PR at Vrbo, at Visit Austin's downtown office for Beyond the Booking: Travel Trends and Brand Storytelling. As Alison noted afterward, the timing lined up almost too well: the World Cup descending on North America, Fourth of July weekend on the calendar, and a room full of communicators eager to talk shop about what's actually moving in travel.

A few threads stood out. On the destination side, Wesley walked through how Visit Austin plans around the city's biggest tourism moments — F1, SXSW, ACL — building promotion strategies months in advance of events that put Austin in front of a global audience. Melanie and Elsa picked up that thread with their own experiences turning unexpected cultural moments into travel stories, a reminder that some of the best PR wins come from spotting a trend before it has a name.

That idea got two real-time proof points in the days right after the panel. Vrbo's "Readaways" data — tracking a rise in book-focused, slow-travel getaways — made headlines in The New York Times. And Melanie herself turned up in Fast Company discussing new Expedia data on budget-conscious summer travel, describing a shift where travelers are spending less time asking where to go and more time figuring out how to make a trip work within their budget — through rewards, all-inclusive stays, and lesser-known destinations. Two different signals, both confirming the exact data-to-headline pipeline our panelists described on stage. (For the record: the panel also taught us the term "set-jetting" — travel inspired by shows like The White Lotus — so apparently travel trends can come from anywhere, including PRSA Austin.)

The conversation also turned candid on the harder parts of the job: how travel brands manage reputational risk when a customer's trip goes wrong, how AI is already changing the way panelists pitch and research stories, and what it actually takes to break into travel and tourism PR. The panelists didn't shy away from sharing their own missteps alongside their wins — proof that even the most polished campaigns started somewhere messier.

Thanks to Melanie, Wesley, and Elsa for their candor, to Alison for moderating a conversation that covered serious ground without losing its sense of fun, and to Visit Austin for hosting us. If you weren't able to join us, keep an eye out for what's next on the PRSA Austin calendar. Not a member yet? There's no better time to get involved.

I moderated PRSA Austin's May panel on tech PR, which meant I got a front-row seat to a conversation I found genuinely useful—and I'm not just saying that.

We had four practitioners on stage, each walking through a real campaign with real results. The through-line: the fundamentals haven't changed, but the context keeps shifting, and the communicators winning right now are the ones who've stayed curious and adaptable.

When the problem is education, not awareness

Destin Singleton, APR, presented a campaign for a utility company's time-of-use energy program — a product with an industry-wide enrollment rate of just 2%, largely because complex rate structures require customers to actually understand what they're signing up for. The solution was AI-powered, bilingual conversational outreach at scale via calls and texts. The results: 200,000 touchpoints, 1,150+ enrollments in 75 days, and $400K in staffing cost savings — with more than half of customers never speaking to a human at all. The lesson: match your channel to the communication problem, not just the audience.

Building a brand in cybersecurity

Ashley Houk-Temple, APR, shared her work positioning DXC Technology's cybersecurity practice, placing their Global CISO in outlets including the Wall Street Journal, TechTarget, and CSO. In a crowded space where everyone is claiming expertise, she focused on making the spokesperson the story — through thought leadership, podcasts, and owned content that gave journalists a reason to come back. Coverage compounded over time because the relationship-building came first.

What stuck with me from IBM Think

Evi Sinopidou from IBM shared lessons from managing media at IBM Think, their flagship annual conference. Her framework applies well beyond big events: develop media relationships well before you need them, make every in-person moment count before, during and after, lean on third-party sources to validate your story, and — if you're working with agency partners — be a dot-connector even when you can't be in the room.

Finding your way into a bigger story

My Treble case study focused on Zilliant, a B2B pricing software company navigating a noisy market. The approach: find the story already being told (pricing volatility, tariffs, dynamic pricing backlash), create data to support a point of view, sharpen the message into soundbites, and build on early wins. The result was placement in Fast Company and Axios — not by chasing coverage, but by making Zilliant's perspective useful to journalists working stories they were already writing.

Thanks to our panelists for a candid, practical session, and to Amplify Credit Union for hosting. Watch for details on our next event. Not a member yet? Join us.

Our spring mixer had one small hurdle before it happened: weather. We rescheduled Coffee & Cocktails after severe weather threatened the original date, which turned out to be the right call — the rescheduled evening at Cosmic Coffee and Beer Garden came off without a hitch.

By all accounts, it was exactly what a good mixer should be — low-key, genuinely social, and the kind of night where you end up in conversations you didn't expect.

More events are on the way. Not a member yet? Join us.

Students from Texas State University scored a historic win by capturing first place in the 2026 PRSSA Bateman Case Study Competition. This is the first time Texas State University has earned the national title in the competition’s 43-year history. The university had two student teams compete for top honors, marking the first time in two decades that two teams from the same university have competed in the judging finals. 

The Texas State University AdvoCats won first place, and the Texas State University StarCats earned third place after advancing to the final judging round and presenting their campaigns to a panel of judges on May 5. The teams competed against Montclair State University for first-, second- and third-place honors. This year’s competition drew 46 entries representing 35 universities from across the country. The Bateman competition tasks student teams with creating strategic public relations campaigns for a national client, which this year was ACCESS Newswire. 

Congratulations to the Texas State Bobcats for this incredible accomplishment and to their faculty adviser and PRSA Austin president, Debra Price.  

Read PRSA press release here:

https://www.prsa.org/news/2026/05/07/texas-state-university-wins-2026-bateman-case-study-competition

There's a version of the Gen Z conversation that communicators have been having for years. Edelman's Gen Z Lab brought a different one to PRSA Austin last month.

Elizabeth Birdsong and Olivia Tompkins walked a room full of Austin PR professionals through their special report on how Gen Z is evolving — and why treating this generation as a single, predictable audience is a mistake communicators can't afford to keep making.

Their central argument: there are effectively two Gen Zs. Gen Z 1.0 (ages 23–29) came of age during progressive movements and still believes brands and institutions can do good — they're trusting until proven wrong. Gen Z 2.0 (ages 13–22) grew up in a pandemic, content overload, and political chaos — and they're skeptical until proven credible. Same generation on paper. Very different audiences in practice.

A few numbers that landed in the room: 79% of Gen Z trust brands to do the right thing — significantly more than they trust media (56%) or government (19%). That's an opportunity, but also a responsibility. The same research found that 70% will fact-check what brands say, and 65% have boycotted a brand over silence on a societal issue.

The session also touched on what Gen Z actually wants from brands — not new platforms or flashy campaigns, but presence in the spaces they already occupy, experiences that feel personal rather than performative, and a sense of community. That last finding — 58% say they want brands to provide it — felt particularly relevant for a room full of people who run communications programs and member organizations for a living.

Thanks to Elizabeth and Olivia for a genuinely useful session. If you'd like to dig into the full report, reach out to info@prsaaustin.org and we'll get it to you.

No panels. No presentations. Just people in a room, guided by a format designed to make conversation feel less like work and more like, well, actually connecting. That was PRSA with Heart, a structured networking mixer that sold out before the night arrived, held on Feb. 24 at Love, Tito's.

Every single attendee who responded to our post-event survey said the event met their expectations. Nearly 90% gave top marks to the structure and flow, and several specifically called out the guided networking as the reason conversations felt natural instead of forced. A few asked us to do more of it, including mentorship-focused formats.

PRSA Austin has always been about more than professional development checkboxes. It's about finding your people. They're the ones who understand the craft and who've navigated the same challenges. PRSA With Heart was a reminder that those connections don't happen by accident. They happen when someone creates the right room.

We're grateful to everyone who came out, and to the board members who helped make the night happen.

If you weren't there this time, we hope you'll join us for what's next. And if you're not yet a member of PRSA Austin, there's no better time to get involved.

Learn more about membership

Read what some of our accredited PRSA Austin members have to say about the process — in their own words. Our APR blog is a great first stop if you're considering accreditation and want an honest look at what the journey actually involves.

Future accreditation posts will appear here on the main blog, so stay tuned.

The Texas State University PRSSA chapter has once again been named a PRSSA Star Chapter — the fourth year in a row it has earned this prestigious honor. Out of more than 300 chapters nationwide, only 44 received this recognition in 2025.

At the heart of this success is our very own board member, Paul Villagran, who serves as Austin PRSA’s Director-at-Large, Membership and as Assistant Professor and PRSSA Faculty Advisor at Texas State University. Paul’s mentorship and guidance have been key in helping the chapter consistently achieve excellence and national distinction.

This year also brought individual honors for Texas State. Emma Vega, immediate past president of the chapter, was one of just 44 students nationwide to receive the PRSSA National Gold Key Award, the highest individual recognition for PRSSA members.

We’re proud to celebrate Paul’s leadership and the continued success of the Texas State PRSSA chapter — a shining example of how Austin PRSA members are shaping the future of the profession.