The year is 2008, and The Great Recession has hit the UK with ferocity. Unemployment is on the rise, house prices are going down like an anvil and the last thing you want to hear as a PR intern is that you’re working with a client in the luxury travel space.

“I remember thinking, ‘how on earth am I going to get any column inches on this, what's the hook and why is this relevant now’.”

Having recently graduated from Goldsmith’s University, London, Megan Morass, co-founder and co-CEO at creative culture agency Full Fat, was a bright-eyed and eager intern during the credit crunch. But, she was handed a seemingly impossible task of getting column inches for a luxury travel client during the credit crunch.

Despite being asked to flog a dead horse, the experience became a fast learning curve on cultural relevance and resonance.

The moment

“I called [a travel editor] with the initial story about luxury yachts. They told me to f*** off and hung up.”

“I remember being tasked to secure coverage for a really expensive yachting holiday to the national press which was a minimum £5,000 upwards,” explains Morass. “I was a very young intern, and I remember thinking, ‘how on earth am I going to get any column inches on this, what's the hook and why is this relevant now’.

She recalls trying to pitch the story as the client had intended, which was unfortunately tone deaf, as Morass explains the UK was at a pinch point with the budget looming and growing disdain for bankers and anyone able to afford a pricey trip away.

“I called [a travel editor] with the initial story about luxury yachts. They told me to f*** off and hung up. I had spent a total of three days calling people to pitch the idea that everyone needs a luxury holiday to combat the financial strife, but I was met with resistance.”

Morass was about to admit defeat. She couldn’t pitch in a story about splashing cash without being accused of having delusions of grandeur…until she had a call with her mum.

“Mum was also impacted by the economic downturn and said to me that we all deserve a break. Then the idea hit me: my client could be the people’s saviour by offering free holidays.

“It had to be relevant to the moment and the UK was falling apart. I had to convince the client to give away two or three holidays, and promote the story that everyone deserves time away now the bankers have ‘stolen’ our funds.”

She remembers pitching this campaign covertly to the client. “It was nerve wracking,” she admits. “I didn’t tell my boss what I had pitched as it was a small agency, I was an intern and probably shouldn't have had client contact - but I did it without anyone knowing and it worked.”

Morass made the impossible possible and turned a story that was at complete odds with the zeitgeist into something newsworthy. Her quick reframe of the narrative got the client coverage in The Daily Mail and The Express.

“It was a brilliant moment. It made me realise that if consumers think they are getting something and there is authenticity, then you can easily place [almost] any narrative or story.”

The takeaway

“Over and over again in my career this moment has been repeated.”

“It was a big risk to convince the client it was the right way to go, and there have been lots of similar moments throughout my career.”

This lesson has weaved its way through her professional life and has stuck itself firmly as a core pillar of Full Fat. “The agency has developed beyond earned media, and now we are really focused on cultural strategy. That lesson [in 2008] has been the figurehead of our move as an agency into building cultural narratives and connecting with consumers.”

Indeed, Morass and the team at Full Fat absorbed her lesson from 15 years ago and turned it into something meaningful.

“We’ve created an in-house proprietary tool called the Cultural Resonance Index which breaks down what’s happening with the audience, what they think about and what’s relevant.

“There needs to be this marrying of context and authenticity to the brand, and that was the first moment I realised those two things need to come together. But over and over again in my career this moment has been repeated. People talk about being relevant, but if it has no resonance it won't reverberate and won't be remembered.”

Do you have a moment in PR you'd like to share? Send Elizabeth an email  on elizabeth.howlett at prmoment.com to find out more, or contact her on Bluesky.