BT Group

In May 2025 BT Group’s External Communications team faced an enormous transformation. The team was changing, standing up a new, leaner structure in the absence of a permanent corporate affairs leader. A wider company turnaround brought major moves at the top table, an ambitious cost reduction programme, once-in-a-generation infrastructure upgrades, and intense external scrutiny. The telco industry was also changing: with cost pressures, consolidation, safety & security concerns, and the highest-ever demands on digital connectivity. Instead of letting transformation fragment the story, the team turned transformation into the story. Anchored by a single organising idea – A better BT for all of us – they used owned, earned and paid channels to proactively show how BT’s transformation benefits customers, colleagues, the country and owners. They broke down the siloes of a complex and matrixed organisation. The result was a year of high-impact storytelling across all BT Group’s brands: BT, EE and Plusnet – reinforcing its network leadership, commitment to consumers’ and businesses’ changing digital needs, leadership in digital safety, digital inclusion, security and digital sovereignty, and using major corporate moments to land a UK-wide transformation story. Over the year, earned metrics consistently outperformed the industry with an 41% average share of voice, vs 25% for the nearest competitor. From a peak of issue-led coverage (67% neutral), with outages, refunds and pricing pushing up negative sentiment, BT reset its narrative. By year-end, positive coverage had risen to over half of all media, and negative reduced to ~1%.