Last month, Violet PR had the honor of presenting at the City Nation Place Americas conference in Ottawa, Canada — a global gathering of place branding and economic development leaders. Representing Violet PR were April Mason, president and founder, and Nicole Marshall, vice president, who were joined on stage by longtime client Bob Ross, SVP of marketing for the Greater Topeka Partnership. 

Together, we co-presented a session titled “Five Ways to Maximize Media Coverage for Your Community in the AI Age,” designed to help city, state and regional organizations navigate a fast-evolving media landscape shaped by artificial intelligence. 

Here’s some of what we covered during the session: 

Five Ways to Maximize Media Coverage in the AI Age 

1. Smarter Tools for Media Strategy – AI is already streamlining media research, trend spotting, and even identifying emerging journalists to pitch.
2. Better Prompts, Better Pitches – Learning how to “prompt” tools like ChatGPT can lead to sharper press releases, backgrounders and campaign ideas — but only with smart inputs.
3. Simplify the Complex – AI is especially useful for turning economic data, lengthy reports and jargon-heavy language into media-ready insights.
4. From Pitch to Press Kit in Minutes – We demonstrated how AI can support rapid content development, from visuals to video transcripts, without sacrificing quality.
5. Ground It in Journalism – AI is no substitute for news judgment. We emphasized the importance of relevance, timing and media relationships — all essential for “real” results.

Key Takeaways 

There are three main takeaways from the above tips, all of which we covered at length on stage. These include: 

• AI tools offer clear advantages, but the real magic happens when they’re paired with bold ideas and compelling place stories.
• Economic developers can lead the way by generating authentic content, leveraging real-time opportunities, and staying connected to journalists’ needs.
• Collaboration is key — as seen in our work with Topeka, where we’ve partnered to capitalize on national trends to generate top-tier news coverage.

Suffice to say that despite the meteoric rise of AI, its success in the communications world still depends on deep, creative thinking and collaboration.

Media Highlights: Topeka in the Headlines 

While in Ottawa, Violet PR also organized a media tour for Juliet Abdel, president of the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce. We secured interviews with leading Canadian outlets to highlight Topeka’s commitment to international business relationships despite tariff-related challenges. 

The campaign resulted in widespread coverage including these stories: 

• BNN Bloomberg, “Topeka Chamber of Commerce president visits Ottawa to strengthen trade ties” 

• POLITICO, “Canada Playbook: Topeka Calling”  

• The Canadian Press, “Kansas businesses hit by Trump’s trade war are wooing Canadian customers” 

• Moore in the Morning, “Juliet Abdel, CEO of the @TopekaChamber of Commerce, tells @JohnTory on @MooreintheAM that she is meeting with Canadian officials to help mitigate the backlash against the US in the midst of Trump’s trade war,” 

Looking Ahead 

We’re proud to be part of this global community of economic development and tourism storytellers. Thank you to City Nation Place and all our peers who joined the conversation about the future of cities and regions in a world shaped by technology and storytelling. 

Want to learn more about how Violet PR supports cities like Topeka? Let’s talk: https://www.violetpr.com/contact