Written by Charlie Elmer, Junior Account Director at Censuswide
Every week, comms teams come to us with research briefs that share the same underlying goal: generate a story that earns coverage, builds credibility, and does something meaningful for the brand. What varies enormously is how well those briefs are set up to actually achieve that. After years of designing surveys for PR campaigns across consumer and B2B, for household-name brands and niche specialists alike, we’ve noticed some clear patterns. The research that performs best is the research that was thought through properly at the brief stage, regardless of complexity or budget.
What follows are the things that we find coming back to in those early conversations with clients. From how to frame a brief that gives journalists something to care about, to the questionnaire decisions that look minor but can determine how much story you can tell with the data, these are the principles that separate campaigns that land from ones that fall flat. I hope they’re useful whether you’re commissioning research for the first time or looking to sharpen an approach you’ve been using for years.
Frame the brief as strategy
The brief is where the story is won or lost. The research briefs that stand out are those that ask questions that people are genuinely curious about. If you think about the topics that go viral, are there more wheels in the world or doors? Are Jaffa Cakes biscuits or cakes? Where would a giraffe wear a tie? – they are questions that give people an opportunity to share their opinion. These are light-hearted examples but the same applies to B2B research – what would get people going? What do people want to talk about and give their opinion on? What can they share on their LinkedIn with a bit of commentary? To get there, we need to take a step back from questions that are too self-serving to the brand or company behind the research.
One of the biggest mistakes brands make is being either too obvious or too contrived. If the outcome feels completely predictable, journalists are less likely to care. Equally, if the survey has been engineered purely to validate a brand message, audiences can see through that very quickly. The sweet spot is finding a topic that feels surprising, topical or relatable, while still making natural sense for the brand commissioning it.
Finally, it’s important to distinguish between the target audience for the brand and the target audience for the survey. Those are not always the same thing. Sometimes the most effective PR stories come from broader audiences because they create wider relevance and stronger media appeal.
Ask specific questions before commissioning
The most useful questions clients can ask themselves before commissioning research are: “What would get someone to click on the story?”, “If the results came back differently to what we expected, would we still have a story?” and “who are my target readers and who do they want to read about?”
The best briefs also start thinking beyond the headline stat. They consider what audience segmentation or comparisons might strengthen the story later. Often the difference between average data and a really strong set of results is whether the research uncovers a societal tension or reveals how attitudes differ between groups, regions, industries, or generations.
Starting with the headline in mind
It’s completely normal for research to begin with a hypothesis in mind – it gives direction and focus to the questionnaire.
That said, the key to credible research is exploring a topic rather than trying to force a predetermined conclusion. Putting all your eggs in one basket can lead to disappointment.
The strongest surveys are designed to allow respondents to answer honestly and naturally, with balanced wording and a full range of answer options available. If the results don’t come out the way you wanted, it’s worth looking at the demographics to see if you can tell your story in a different way.
For example, if you have a campaign about screen time and your survey results come back showing Brits are spending much less time on screens than you expected, it might be worth looking at the demographics. If younger generations are spending much more time on their screens than older generations, you could tell the story that way.
Sample design and the story you can tell
Who you survey will fundamentally shape the story your brand can tell. The audience you choose determines not only the robustness of the findings, but also how widely relevant and media-friendly the story becomes.
For example, nationally representative consumer research gives brands the ability to make broad claims about “Brits”, “workers” or “parents” at a national level. It also unlocks richer demographic analysis across age, gender, city and region, which is often where the strongest secondary headlines emerge.
On the other hand, highly targeted B2B or specialist audiences can create extremely authoritative stories, but they require more careful wording. If you’re surveying procurement leaders, healthcare professionals or C-suite executives, the story becomes more niche (but a broader audience would be irrelevant to the story).
One thing we regularly advise clients is not to make the audience unnecessarily narrow. Overly specific audiences can limit both media interest and storytelling potential. If a press release has to describe respondents as “people with brown eyes who wear suits and live in London”, you’ve probably overcomplicated the sample.
The right sample can absolutely elevate a campaign. We’ve seen relatively simple ideas become highly newsworthy purely because the audience choice made the findings nationally relevant or regionally comparable. Equally, we’ve seen strong concepts undermined because the sample size wasn’t large enough to support the demographic cuts the client later wanted for regional media outreach.
Questionnaire pitfalls that only show up when the data lands
One of the most common issues we see is trying to fit too many objectives into a questionnaire, or even a single question. Research tends to work best when the themes and questions are as clear and straightforward as possible for respondents to answer. Not only does this help reduce respondent fatigue, but it also makes the findings much easier to analyse and turn into compelling stories.
When questionnaires become overloaded with “just in case” questions, such as when multiple stakeholders will each add their own “must-have” questions, the survey can lose focus. In reality, a concise questionnaire with a smaller number of well-crafted questions will often generate far stronger outcomes than a survey trying to cover every possible angle where the results are overwhelming and you lose the golden thread.
Another pitfall is not thinking about demographic cuts and segmentation early enough in the process. Sometimes a survey produces perfectly good topline data, but because the right demographic information wasn’t captured, there’s no way to properly explore the richer stories underneath. That can leave teams with data that is technically valid, but ultimately not detailed enough to support a good campaign or multiple media angles.
A lot of these issues only really become obvious once the data lands and someone starts trying to write the press release, suddenly, teams realise the survey hasn’t generated enough depth or comparison points. The best questionnaires are the ones designed not just to collect data, but to support the narrative and media strategy from the very beginning.
Making research campaign-ready
The best angles are often hiding in the smaller numbers. We find that some PR teams often focus heavily on finding those huge, attention-grabbing percentage the “90% of people say…” style headlines. While those can absolutely be powerful, some of the most interesting and newsworthy insights actually come from the smaller percentages that initially look insignificant on paper.
For example, 10% might not sound like a lot in isolation, but when projected against the wider population, that can represent millions of people. Suddenly what looked like a niche behaviour or opinion becomes a genuinely compelling story.
Equally, there’s often nuance in how findings are interpreted and presented. If only 5% of respondents say “I never do this”, that also means 95% do engage in that behaviour to some extent, which can sometimes lead to much more impactful headlines and campaign angles.
Beyond that, one of the best sources of storytelling is often the demographic splits. The overall headline figure is usually just the starting point, while the real depth often comes from understanding who is behaving differently, whether that’s younger audiences, parents, regional groups, business leaders, or specific industries. Those subgroup differences frequently lead to the strongest PR hooks, regional stories, and media angles, so it’s always worth designing briefs upfront with enough sample and demographic detail to properly interrogate those audiences later on.
Questions themselves can be used to segment audiences. For example, perhaps you have asked a sample of workers how motivated they are. Depending on how the numbers fall out, you could compare motivated and unmotivated employees, which would tell an interesting story.
Credibility in an era of scrutiny
Research-backed campaigns absolutely can still perform incredibly well, but today’s standard for credibility is much higher than it used to be. Journalists and audiences are far more likely to question where the data came from, who was surveyed and whether the findings genuinely stand up to scrutiny.
Working with a credible research partner is hugely important. Good methodology, representative sampling and well-written questions (that have been through compliance) are what ultimately protect campaigns from criticism later on. Look out for accreditation, for example, at Censuswide, we strictly adhere to the Market Research Society (MRS) Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles and we are a member of the British Polling Council.
The fundamentals in research haven’t changed: ask questions people genuinely want to answer, give them room to surprise you, and design with the narrative in mind from the very start.
What has changed is the bar. Audiences and journalists are sharper, scrutiny is higher, and the difference between data that earns coverage and data that doesn’t often comes down to decisions made weeks before fieldwork even begins. Get those decisions right, and research remains one of the most powerful tools in any comms team’s arsenal.