On a recent pitch, Citizen Relations heard what every agency craves: “That was the best presentation we’ve ever seen.” For the team, it was validation of a model a decade in the making.

For years, Citizen has been working toward a model where strategy, creative and PR don’t pass the baton but stand shoulder to shoulder, shaping ideas together. It’s the product of an integration that began in 2014, when Citizen moved beyond its PR roots to bring strategy and creative in-house.

“Ten years ago, we had a client challenge us on whether we had done our own strategy. They couldn’t believe a PR agency could produce that level of insight,” says CEO Nick Cowling. “Today, that’s the expectation. People expect us to be that strategic.”

That cohesion has been built deliberately. Leadership made integration a priority, setting the tone in rooms where debate is encouraged but never entrenched, and where vulnerability from the top invites the same at every level. “It feels a lot more fluid now,” says CCO Josh Budd. “There’s no cheat sheet or shortcut to integration. It comes from time spent together. The chemistry, trust and respect develop over time.”

But chemistry is only part of the story. Guiding it is Citizen’s earn-first philosophy: a commitment to building attention, trust and reputation before anything else. “We want 100 people talking about our client, as opposed to our client telling 100 people about themselves,” says Cowling. Across multiple disciplines, the nucleus is always the same: it must be earned.

That mindset has served Citizen well as AI changes how people consume information. For Cowling, the shift doesn’t disrupt PR so much as reinforce it. “AI platforms look for the most trusted, authoritative content available, and that’s what we create,” he says. “Modern PR helps the brands we work with do the right things, as opposed to just saying the right things.”