Communicators want to own conversations and that increasingly means owning some of the data that drives those conversations.

Why it matters: Done well, proprietary research can generate recurring insights, coverage and authority, giving journalists and stakeholders a reason to return year after year.

• Done poorly, it's an expensive survey with a clever name.

How it works: There are roughly three ways to build a research moat.

• Own the data: If your business produces data that no one else has, then you've got a real advantage.
• OpenTable turns reservation activity across its network of restaurants into a running measure of dining demand.
• Own the methodology: If the underlying data is available to everyone, then your edge has to come from how you interpret it.
• Invariant's Inflection Index applies a framework to determine when political chatter is becoming business risk.
• Own the theme: If you consistently study one big idea over time, you can start to become synonymous with the subject itself.
• Edelman has spent 26 years building the Trust Barometer around the theme of trust and has expanded to cover trust in brands, health care and other areas.

Zoom in: Ally is trying to build similar authority around the intersection of money, joy and everyday life with its new Joy Index.

• "I would like to see it get to the point where you turn on the news at night and a reporter says, 'According to Ally's Joy Index,'" said chief marketing and PR officer Andrea Brimmer.
• Brimmer said partnering with YouGov was critical to giving the Joy Index outside credibility, arguing the research would not carry the same weight if Ally had simply conducted it on its own.
• Brimmer said turning the Joy Index into a lasting franchise will require sustained promotion, executive visibility, broad distribution and dedicated time and resources beyond simply publishing the research.

Yes, but: A research product also has to be useful inside the building.

• Morgan Baker, Invariant's director of insights and intelligence, said its data has persuaded clients to not react when a charged political narrative remained outside the mainstream.
• "If [the index] gets attention but never changes a decision, it is just content for content's sake," Baker said. "If it helps someone prepare for something they otherwise would have missed, it is intelligence."
• Edelman gives staff access to an internal AI tool that lets them query years of Trust Barometer data for specific markets and audiences, making the research more directly usable in client work.
• Brimmer said the research is already informing Ally's brand campaigns, money wellness programming, product development and GEO strategies.

Between the lines: A splashy launch is only the beginning.

• CEO Richard Edelman estimates it took almost a decade before the Trust Barometer began routinely showing up in corporate events and media coverage.
• "Longitudinal data is incredibly special," says Justin Blake, executive director of the Edelman Trust Institute. That they've stuck to the same topic for so long is part of their "secret sauce."

Reality check: Reporters' inboxes are already full of branded indexes, surveys and reports.

• It's often safer (and faster) to ignore an unknown statistic than spend an afternoon kicking the tires on the methodology.
• The rise of synthetic audience research has also made it harder for reporters to know what's reliable and what's not.
• Blake says synthetic research has a legitimate role but "cannot replace" speaking to people to "truly get a sense of what's happening in the world."

The expenses can add up. Credible research takes expertise and fieldwork; building a franchise adds executive time and distribution dollars.

• Edelman says being a family-owned private company gave the firm more freedom to sustain the Trust Barometer than it might have had inside a large holding company: "To me, it's the proudest thing I've done as CEO of Edelman."

The bottom line: A successful research franchise is like growing a fruit tree: Pick the right ground, nurture it and give it time to bear fruit.

Mastercard is tapping We. Communications as its new communications partner, replacing Ketchum after nearly 14 years, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The agency change comes roughly nine months into Jill Kramer's tenure as Mastercard's chief marketing and communications officer, an early signal of how she is reshaping the company's global marketing and communications operations.

The big picture: Mastercard is trying to position itself for a world where payments increasingly intersect with AI, cybersecurity and new forms of commerce.

• Axios reported in January that the company is working with Google and Microsoft to help shape standards for agentic commerce, focusing on trust, identity and secure payments as AI agents begin buying on consumers' behalf.
• The new comms challenge stretches well beyond Mastercard's traditional consumer-facing "Priceless" story: explaining the company's role in increasingly technical infrastructure to consumers, businesses and other stakeholders.

What they're saying: "For nearly 30 years, Priceless has been rooted in a simple idea: helping people experience moments that matter to them," Kramer said.

• "We're excited to evolve the Mastercard brand story, with We. Communications as our new agency of record helping us tell the fuller story of how Mastercard is powering new forms of value exchange for economies around the world, in new and different ways."

Between the lines: Losing Mastercard is a notable blow for Ketchum.

• Mastercard first assigned U.S. PR duties to Ketchum in 2012 and the partnership produced award-winning work including Mastercard's "True Name" initiative.
• Ketchum was also merged with Golin earlier this year as Omnicom consolidated its PR portfolio following its $13.3 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group.
• The move highlights a growing split between the scale of consolidated agency networks and the speed and flexibility of independent firms.

Zoom in: Mastercard selected We after a nearly six-month competitive review, a spokesperson for the agency said.

• Mastercard also saw the agency's independence as an advantage, allowing it to build a more tailored team and draw in expertise as needed.
• "Our independence gives us the agility to bring together exactly what our clients need around their ambitions," We founder and global CEO Melissa Waggener Zorkin said, adding that the agency wants to "put communications at the center of [Mastercard's] transformation."
• The relationship will begin at the enterprise level, with additional scope and regional work expected to roll out in phases. Initial onboarding is already underway.

What we're watching: Whether the new partnership tangibly changes how Mastercard shows up across markets and audiences.

• The next round of enterprise announcements and major brand moments, including Money20/20 in Las Vegas next month, should offer an early read on how Mastercard's comms are changing.

Precision Strategies has named DGA's Adam Cubbage as its first CEO, Axios exclusively reports.

Why it matters: For a firm built by political strategists, hiring a CEO with operating and business-building experience is a notable signal about where it wants to go next.

The big picture: The move comes six months after Precision acquired Republican-founded Firehouse Strategies to create what Axios' Mike Allen called a "bipartisan public-affairs powerhouse."

• Cubbage is charged with scaling the firm and expanding its strategic communications, corporate advisory, and crisis and litigation support practices.
• Precision secured an investment from private equity firm Abry Partners in 2023 as it sought to accelerate growth across its services, technology and data capabilities.
• Since the Firehouse deal, co-founder Stephanie Cutter had served as acting CEO as well as managing partner. She remains managing partner and co-founder Teddy Goff remains chief growth officer.

Go deeper

🎶 Ed Sheeran's world tour is in turmoil after several supporting acts dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore, who was removed following backlash over his pro-Palestinian remarks. (Axios)

• The whole affair illustrates the limits of Sheeran's "take no stance" posture — something we've covered recently when it comes to corporate positioning.

👩‍🏫 Ms. Rachel, the popular children's entertainer and educator, represents almost the opposite approach.

• Rachel Accurso opened up about how she's navigating fame and the backlash she's received for her continued advocacy for children in Gaza. (Rolling Stone)

🏆 The Emmy Awards, on the other hand, largely steered clear of the political remarks and fiery acceptance speeches that have made headlines in years past. (HuffPost)

• Last year, "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder ended her acceptance speech with "Fuck ICE and free Palestine" — a line bleeped from the broadcast.

🎤 Tom Cruise sat for two rare extended conversations with GQ, a master class in how to connect answers back to a single cohesive narrative. (GQ)

• It's not that Cruise was repeating scripted talking point answers — he instead managed to come back to how he approaches filmmaking as a craft.

Climate Week NYC kicks off Sunday, bringing business, government and civil society leaders to New York and will offer an early look at the debates that will carry into COP31 in November.

Why it matters: The AI boom is colliding with another defining corporate challenge: climate change.

• The massive buildout of data centers is driving up electricity demand and making it harder for some of the world's biggest tech companies to meet their climate goals.
• Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all reported rising emissions or resource use as their AI infrastructure expands.

Context: Back in July, I wrote about a subtler shift already underway in sustainability communications: Companies aren't necessarily abandoning their environmental work, but many are becoming more selective about when they talk about it and frame it in less politically charged terms.

What we're watching: Climate Week will be a test of what comes next.

• How do leaders connect AI and climate? Just this week, Google, Nvidia and others launched a coalition aimed at making data centers more flexible power users.
• How does the corporate environmental narrative shift? Watch whether companies return to big climate ambitions or lean harder into language around energy, nature-based solutions and infrastructure.