The past few months of 2024 cemented what was already a big year for global democracy. Donald Trump’s election win marked one of the biggest political comebacks ever witnessed, and critically, it was a campaign fought on more domestic, nationalist policies, like many others last year.

So, let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture from the past 12 months.

In 2024, there were 73 elections, the majority of which saw many incumbent governments displaced and domestic issues prioritised in the likes of Austria, the US, The Netherlands, Germany, India and Indonesia etc.

According to the World Economic Forum, the “slobalisation” from 2008 is turning to a trend called de-globalisation, driven by more protectionist policy agendas, regulatory priorities, wars, the pandemic, the climate crisis and much stronger ideological differences. As this year closes out, we’re seeing de-globalisation really permeate into public consciousness around the world.

In 2025, when we think about global brands and global PR networks, clients, lead agencies and local agencies need to reform their roles, rather than stay static, because nationalist thinking isn’t going away any time soon. Hoping and praying that global announcements are sticky enough to make an impact will not be enough as increasingly local agendas become more prevalent. Don’t get me wrong, it has always been best practice to empower local agencies to tell local stories, but often communicators lose sight of what matters in the quagmire of global storytelling with (more often than not) really tight deadlines.

We must advocate for the reform of this habitual practice going into 2025. And critically, we should acknowledge that to achieve wholesale change, everyone needs to change together. By reforming individual roles, there will be an inevitable impact on another team or person. Below I take a top-level view of the component teams and people powering global and local stories, but each relies on the other intrinsically. We are in an era where big change is important to survival.

What needs reform?

• Lead agencies are a bridge between a brand’s global strategy and its connection to any local market - and that bridge needs to be even stronger in today’s world. Why? Because we need to increase collaboration across markets to ensure complex local and cultural issues can feed the global machine in a way that generates the right results in 2025. Lead agencies now need to “lead” by example by demonstrating unbelievable empathy for - and commercial understanding of - what works locally, and how this understanding can shape global goals when providing counsel on different markets, and what success really looks like.

• Lead agency functions are about to feel an increasing, day-to-day pressure of global vs local priorities. But if it works in the right way, it is the equivalent of a behind-the-scenes kingmaker if the right strategies are put forward, fought for, and their global merits articulated. As a result, the lead agency team should be filled with specialist, resilient, collaborative agency folk with multilingual skills, to truly understand priority global and local issues.

• Local agencies need to advocate for a safe space to define what matters in their markets. They are the eyes and ears on the ground and their insights needs to feed into the planning process early doors. They cannot be the last thought in the storytelling process; the pitchers of a story they know won’t land anymore. There needs to be a shift in their roles to ensure they are at the front of the planning queue, not a tactical add-on. Local agencies also need the freedom to have solid relationships across the board, from local client spokespeople and client customers, to members of the local sales and marketing team. They will then be better at adapting how they report back to the local and global stakeholders so a standardised reporting model doesn’t glaze over critical pieces of information.

• Brands and their in-house PRs should embrace the power of local ideas, insights and stories when planning global campaigns, in an effort to avoid one-sided, global groupthink. Otherwise, lower quality coverage outcomes will follow. In-house teams need to be really clear with agency teams on global strategy and priorities, so there are no uncertainties with focus areas, target audiences and personas. Invariably, it will involve many global stakeholder conversations internally to retrieve this clarity. And of course, they should then consult with local field marketing and senior sales leads to identify any alignment gaps per market, to minimise any division between global and local priorities. There will always be nuances that need taking into consideration. Ultimately, show that you prioritise and embrace the value of local programmes, by giving lead and local agencies enough lead time to build relationships, plan, strategise, be creative, and refine, before jumping into tactical execution.

This will be an interesting year for global PR and global programmes. As we put 2024 and its political hurricanes behind us, PR networks need to react to events and not stay static. The thinking and reform starts now.