Katerina Medvedeva, Director of Communications Development at SberEntertainment, shares her perspective on what matters most in entertainment PR today.
Entertainment is one of the few industries where the product itself is emotion: the surprise of a plot twist, the joy of a favorite song, the pride of being part of an event. That’s exactly why competition here is so intense: thousands of series, millions of tracks, games, and podcasts are all fighting for the attention of an increasingly fragmented audience. The mass audience hasn’t disappeared — it has split into hundreds of segments with different tastes and sources of trust. In this environment, loud announcements lose their effectiveness: people have learned to tune out voices they don’t trust.
That’s why the first question when launching a campaign is: “Who is the audience willing to trust on this topic?”
Sometimes it’s a well-known athlete; sometimes it’s a Telegram channel with 15,000 loyal subscribers. We are increasingly working with PUGC (professionally generated content distributed in a user-generated format).
Planning horizons are also shifting. The key strategic question is no longer “What do we announce this week?” but “Which messages will shape our reputation this year?”
In our model, an ecosystem approach works best — it extends the lifecycle of every news hook: a streaming platform’s project announcement lives on in playlists, is discussed in cultural media, and is echoed in top management speeches. This creates a unified context where each product reinforces the others.
What defines a strong PR team?
Three key skills and one must-have tool:
In entertainment PR, it’s not volume that wins, but precision: understanding the audience, building trust, and telling a cohesive story. Strong teams play the long game, amplify communications through ecosystems, and prove their impact on business.
Make Sense in every message
Entertainment is one of the few industries where the product itself is emotion: the surprise of a plot twist, the joy of a favorite song, the pride of being part of an event. That’s exactly why competition here is so intense: thousands of series, millions of tracks, games, and podcasts are all fighting for the attention of an increasingly fragmented audience. The mass audience hasn’t disappeared — it has split into hundreds of segments with different tastes and sources of trust. In this environment, loud announcements lose their effectiveness: people have learned to tune out voices they don’t trust.
That’s why the first question when launching a campaign is: “Who is the audience willing to trust on this topic?”
Sometimes it’s a well-known athlete; sometimes it’s a Telegram channel with 15,000 loyal subscribers. We are increasingly working with PUGC (professionally generated content distributed in a user-generated format).
Planning horizons are also shifting. The key strategic question is no longer “What do we announce this week?” but “Which messages will shape our reputation this year?”
In our model, an ecosystem approach works best — it extends the lifecycle of every news hook: a streaming platform’s project announcement lives on in playlists, is discussed in cultural media, and is echoed in top management speeches. This creates a unified context where each product reinforces the others.
What defines a strong PR team?
Three key skills and one must-have tool:
- Narrative thinking — not “What are we announcing this week?” but “What story are we telling throughout the year?”
- Cultural awareness — you can’t promote what you don’t genuinely feel
- Measurement capability — PR must demonstrate its impact on business metrics: engagement, retention, audience growth. Without this, conversations with product and marketing teams won’t be on equal footing
- AI as a working tool — helps identify resonant topics faster and choose the right communication format for each segment more precisely
In entertainment PR, it’s not volume that wins, but precision: understanding the audience, building trust, and telling a cohesive story. Strong teams play the long game, amplify communications through ecosystems, and prove their impact on business.
Make Sense in every message