Building Brand Gravity Podcast

Anne Green: [00:00:00] How do we break out of our processes? How do we move faster? Perfect Is the enemy of done. I can see issues where something is going out in a business unit, let's say the C-suite or leadership teams or those that are kind of coming to the center of the organization even understand it. It's out the door.

I mean, do you think that's a danger of things that can happen in that way?

Chrissy Jones: One of the biggest. Risks of decentralization is fragmentation and messaging. You have separate business units telling their own story in their own style and tone, and then your company narrative looks like a patchwork quilt.

Anne Green: Hello and welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Anne Green.

Steve Halsey: And I'm Steve Halsey,

Anne Green: and we're glad to be back together again. Steve, you and I were just together in Raleigh recently. I still, you see, you're still in our office there. I'm back in New York, but it's nice to be back together on the pod.

Steve Halsey: Yep. It's exciting to be, [00:01:00] uh, coming to our listeners from, uh, multiple G&S locations.

Uh, and the Raleigh is certainly a very dynamic city and we've, we've seen the area we're at. When we were first here, none of this was behind me. So it's been an exciting, uh, exciting development to see all the growth and the investment, um, here in the, in the southeast. And, with everything going on in the research triangle here, it's also a really good market for some of the, some of the challenges that you're gonna be talking about in your podcast today with all the investment and the highly regulated industries with just the role of comms.

Anne Green: Yeah. You know, I'm glad for that setup. Thank you. I had. A good conversation with our guest today who I'll bring in in a minute, and it had to do with a really perennial issue in our industry, which is, where is comms sitting in an organization is, how is it structured and related to that, where is its stature and influence?

So more specifically for the conversation that's coming, it was precipitated by [00:02:00] observations of where the pendulum swings from either centralized function or decentralized function. And we particularly saw some interesting articles about Pfizer recently, which is obviously a big. Player in the pharmaceutical space that has decided to, say goodbye to a longtime, really respected comms leader.

To say really respected as an understatement and move more of the comms structure into a decentralized function. So they're embedded within business units and not so much within a central service comms structure, if I'm understanding it correctly. And it's not something we haven't seen before.

It is like that pendulum swing back and forth and it's always interesting 'cause it raises a lot of questions for our industry about. How should comms be structured and given? Sectors or organizations and what are the implications of one model versus another?

Steve Halsey: Yeah, and I, and I think what, what you hear is a lot of that, Hey, we want customer centricity.

Let's be really close to the customer, what that looks like. And at least from my perspective we're seeing a lot of momentum now about [00:03:00] decentralization. 'cause it feels like agility, right? If we're closer, if we're in the market, we can be more agile. But without the alignment back to the mothership, so to speak it quickly becomes noise, you know?

And, and we're, and when you become in a trust fragile world like we're at right now, every word carries a lot of consequences. So from, from my perspective, the tension really becomes clear that if you've got agility without alignment, you're really risking that trust, but alignment without. Agility, risk, relevance.

So how do you find that middle ground? I think it's like, it's like all things that you say yes and right. That's kind of the challenge that we're facing right now.

Anne Green: I love that phrase. You hit me with that the other day about, you know, those two sides of the coin. 'cause I always choke the grass is green and brown on both sides of the fence.

Right. With my guest today, it was really about this question of, it's a very intense risk environment right now, and things move extremely quickly. I think this individual feels that [00:04:00] danger and wanted to have that discussion about what are the risks and the danger of making it too decentralized.

Does that. In some ways you're more agile to the business units and to that customer base, but the agility to the reputational aspects of the corporation as a whole. How quickly are you seeing issues rising up out in the different pieces? Is there enough agility, speed, nimbleness of a team to understand how you respond?

Is there enough cohesion in what that corporate message should be? And not just a crisis comms response, but really any kind of communications response. So. I think there's a lot of tensions in there.

Steve Halsey: There, there are. And, and one of the other things I think is important to keep, uh, central to it as well, and we talked about it on an earlier brand Gravity, uh, episode with Elliot Mizrahi and, uh, Rob Jekielek, uh, as, as most of our listener knows, is with a Page Society.

And Rob is with Harris Poll, and they were really talking about what they called the confidence curve. Public [00:05:00] trust is very uneven. And when you lay generational aspects across it, it adds another dimension to this conversation that there's a lot of skepticism across some generations about leaders' intentions and it's only growing and that that makes a structural misalignment that a company may have even riskier.

So, like you said, it's really about that balancing act that leaders face. I thought that's what's so exciting about, uh, the conversation that, uh, our, you're about to have with Chrissy Jones is that's exactly what she challenges us to think about.

Anne Green: Absolutely. And Chrissy, she has a long career in communications.

Really senior counselor and practitioner has been in a number of industry sectors, including the pharma sector. And I think it's time to bring her in. So please stay tuned for this conversation with Chrissy Jones. Well, I'm very excited to be joined today by Chrissy Jones. Hi, Chrissy. How are you? Hi, Anne.

I'm well. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Um, just to let our listeners know, [00:06:00] I've got my notes right here. Chrissy is a very seasoned communications leader. More than 15 years of experience in shaping reputation advising executives. I know you do a lot of executive thought leadership and guiding organizations through complex moment of change and she's led strategy for major product launches, thought leadership programs in industry peers in the public sphere.

And I love this one piece of your bio. Chrissy is especially known for her ability to make it make sense. Taking those complex issues from science to strategy. I know you've worked in healthcare, pharma, professional services into clear narratives and, and making it make sense, I think is a part of what we're talking about today.

But, um, did I miss anything in your bio or you think people should know

Chrissy Jones: that at the heart of what communicators do, we make it. Sense? No, I think Thank you for the intro. No, I think that you just about covered it.

Anne Green: That's great. You know, one thing I always like to ask, especially 'cause we've got a wide range of listeners, a lot of them are across sort of integrated marketing communications, but beyond too, I'm [00:07:00] sure some friends and family as well.

How did you first come to communications? I always like to get personal to start, you know, it's not always the most obvious field, especially how we move through it. Where did you get your start in the field?

Chrissy Jones: Yeah, I think probably like most communicators, my path has not been linear. What I am passionate about, what I was passionate about to at my start was writing and reading.

So I was an English major in college and I just wanted to figure out a way to monetize the ability to write and read all day long. Um. So for me, you know, I've been in the industry in corporate comms for almost 20 years. What I have done that has been consistent across that time period is really helping leaders and organizations achieve clarity.

Through very co complex issues and initiatives. So sometimes that has been [00:08:00] strategy, sometimes that's been the science industry. Um, often that has been with very sensitive issues, but I think that. That through line of my career has been connecting those dots so that people can see the bigger picture.

Um, and so that leaders can act with confidence and clarity

Anne Green: and that I love that. And I think, um, that sense of what it means to communicate to right, to connect with others is so at the heart of it still, no matter where we're positioned in this world now I've been agency side, you know, I've been what is considered more client side, so our.

We've seen so much change in the field. You know, me, 30 years, you almost 20 years. What are the things that still excite you about it today? You know, it's, it is a lot of change all the time, but there's also some DNA to it too.

Chrissy Jones: Yes. So, yeah, I have been in-house or, or client side my whole career.

What I really love about communications is that it's the intersection of [00:09:00] art and business strategy. So you really get to use both sides of the brain, translating that complex business strategy into those human terms that really help people relate to the organization and help build the corporate reputation.

So that's the heartbeat of the company, is that reputation. And like you just said, the field has evolved tremendously. I think that. 20, 30 years ago you know, we were very tactical, tactically focused press releases and media pitches. Um, and now we are really a driver of trust and influence.

So I think the pace is just getting faster and faster over time with AI Digital, so for me it's really the challenge of marrying the speed and the substance [00:10:00] and building lasting credibility with our storytelling.

Anne Green: Yeah, I like that. Speed and substance. And also the art and science of it too, you know, and the connection.

And it is amazing to see the change and then ask ourselves what stays the same, because in some ways it's the humans at the center. It's communicating between humans across groups, and the ways in which communication lands or it doesn't, um, multi-stakeholder environment, which I know you're very much used to.

I mean, this to me gets to the heart of what I hope to talk to you about today and why I reached out to you. You know, I, I really enjoy. In real life connection. And we've had some of that, you know, which is great through industry bodies. But I also enjoy the connections that we forge online, especially on platforms like LinkedIn.

You know, I, I do try to spend some time there to see what are people talking about, and I always pay attention when there's moments of sort of. Lightning on LinkedIn or were moments that really light people up and it seems like there's something that is exciting them or they feel really passionately about.

People are sharing a real point of view and that, and what I was excited about is I saw one of those [00:11:00] moments that you sparked in a LinkedIn post that you shared, and the essence of it really had to do with this question of the communications function. Which by the way is not just PR means press release anymore.

Yay. Uh, hopefully people have a deeper understanding, but. This question of how is it organized? And form follows fun, function and form are very related. So this idea of is it centralized, is it decentralized? And what are the tensions there? So maybe catch our listeners up a little bit about the issue that you saw and what you posted, and then we'll get into it more.

Chrissy Jones: Okay. So. What I saw was the, an announcement of a major shift in comm structure at a very large, very well-known, reputable organization. The reaction from industry peers and functional peers was very centered on the leader, um, which. Was absolutely deserved. The accolades are, are well, well deserved.

But I was struck by how [00:12:00] little attention was being put on the structural changes themselves. So structures, send signals, and then this move from a centralized. Communication structure to decentralized is a signal or a statement of how the company values communications as a strategic function. So what I sought to do was to spark a conversation about that, because that's not just.

Isolated to one company that has ripple effects across our function, our industry.

Anne Green: Yeah, and in this case, you know, it was Sally Sussman departing, you know, a major pharma player. She's so well known and so respected, and as you said, deserves all the flowers. Has been such an incredible leader in the sector and incredible leader for the comms function.

Carried companies through some major reputational changes, ups and downs. And, and so this question of that visibility, [00:13:00] but I was struck, you know, as you comment on, on this and, and like you said, that's one data point, but it's really the bigger picture, right? This is happening not just in one sector.

You see this kind of pendulum swing, the pull back and forth. Centralized, decentralized, not just for comms, but it seems to have been. I've noticed this over the years with communications in particular, having worked in so many sectors, but I was noticing the same thing, Chrissy, when I saw your. Post on LinkedIn.

I was like, yes. Why is people not, why are we not talking about this? Like, where is that discussion? Why do you feel that larger backdrop was less acknowledged or discussed in the public sphere? I'm just curious if you have any hypotheses on that.

Chrissy Jones: I mean, it's hard to say for sure. I think part of it is that people naturally gravitate towards the human story.

Sally's legacy was the headline and is so, especially for those of us in comms, especially for those of us in pharma comms, I mean, we, it's [00:14:00] the celebration is so well deserved. So I think that's maybe why the conversation centered there, um, rather than with the organizational structure part of the conversation.

But, you know, I, I, I wanted to make sure that that structural shift wasn't overshadowed by some of the conversation that was happening because the structure really matters. You know, it signals to. Not just comms professionals, but the wider industry. How an organization values communications and whether it sees comms as central to enterprise strategy or if it sees comms as more as an embedded set of support functions.

I think those types of changes are not. Necessarily celebratory or personal. So that could be why folks we're not [00:15:00] speaking about them as much, but the reality is that they are quite consequential for the future of our of our function. And also for. Corporate reputation and reputation management for organizations.

Anne Green: Yeah. And I wanna talk about the implications for reputation and the risk factors involved. 'cause you've talked about this both in your LinkedIn post and also in a article that you did for a trade magazine that I thought, you know, deepen the discussion. That was really excellent and we can put a link to it in our show notes.

I encourage people to check it out, but. This I wanna come back to that, but first and foremost, you're right. Not everybody is really cognizant of the ins and outs of corporate structure. It's not something people study every day. I happen as an organizational leader and a practitioner to be interested in these things, but maybe give folks a sense if, if they're not really familiar with this.

What would be the difference between a communications function? And we're talking tend to be large entities, right? It's not small entities. It's often large, often multinational. [00:16:00] What would it look like to have a centralized comm structure, communications function, whatever its name is, versus a more decentralized structure?

What would that look like? So people can paint a picture in their minds,

Chrissy Jones: Simply. It's a centralized comm structure is one communications team that drives strategy across the enterprise strategy and messaging across the enterprise. Decentralized you'll have communications folks embedded in different business units and they'll be less or no central oversight.

So each of those models, you can dial up and dial down, you know? So it'll look different for every organization, but each of those models separately has their own merits. You know, centralized communications builds consistency. Um, you have a strong enterprise voice, decentralized communications.

You have more agility. [00:17:00] You have comms, folks that have deep knowledge in different areas of the business. Issue or the, the tension is that decentralized model comes with risks, and one of those risks is trading coherence. And alignment on messaging for speed and agility.

Anne Green: Yeah. It's such an interesting balance.

Like you said, there are, I mean, gosh, I feel like we can't ever get away from the word hybrid. It's like, it's like our lives now. Everything is about hybrid still. But there, there are structures obviously, where you have the hub and spoke, you know, you've got the centralized model. And, and, and ideally maybe that's an ideal thing, where then you reach out into business units so you can build that rapport and that affinity and that subject matter expertise.

And you know, I was saying to Chrissy, when you and I are preparing for this, I've seen this sort of tension, let's say in an agency context with earned media relations teams, you have this pullback and forth between, ooh, we need a centralized earned media team because they will own higher level relationships.

They will build those skill sets, you'll [00:18:00] naturally attract that publicist person who's different. But then you worry, do they lack the subject matter expertise of the client sectors? Right? And so then it pulls back to the account teams. But I think what you're saying about. This moment in time, like you talked about this in your LinkedIn post and in your article about the specific dangers and how the risk landscape changes around decentralization when you come into different sort of moments of time.

What about the landscape today, and especially in highly regulated industries, pharma is one of them. What about that landscape makes you feel like that risk profile is a bit higher now for decentralized comms teams?

Chrissy Jones: Yeah. Any highly regulated industry, you're protecting brand reputation, but you're also protecting regulatory credibility.

So inconsistencies that could possibly occur with a decentralized model can create confusion for regulators [00:19:00] in the public. Um, and then once that trust is lost or eroded, it's very hard to rebuild. So that's why I really value that connected, um, centralized model and think it really matters a lot in, in regulated sectors.

Anne Green: Yeah, it's interesting 'cause if you play it out. That agility and the speed. This is an, I'm all about the idea of dynamic tensions. Like I'm not a either or person. I'm often both, and like 2, 3, 5 things can be true at one time. I think if you can't think in that way, it's hard to be a leader in today's context.

It's so much happening, but. We want flexibility, nimbleness, agility. I mean, we're talking about that in my organization. How do we break out of our processes? How do we move faster? Perfect is the enemy of done, but I can see issues where something is going out in a business unit and before. Let's say the C-suite or leadership teams or those that are kind of coming to the center of the [00:20:00] organization even understand it, it's out the door.

I mean, do you think that's a danger of things that can happen in that way?

Chrissy Jones: Absolutely. I think one of the biggest risks of decentralization is fragmentation and messaging. Yeah. So you have separate business units telling their own story in their own style and tone, and then your company narrative looks like a patchwork.

Quilt. Yeah. The other risk is duplication. So having. Teams reinventing the wheel because they're not connected, um, and kind of wasting resources in that way. Um, and then related is governance. So if you're not, if you don't have that center you could end up with rogue messaging campaigns that aren't aligned to the corporate strategy or the enterprise strategy.

So while. Decentralization offers a lot of agility and deep subject matter knowledge. There [00:21:00] are risks, right? So what we would love to see, I think what, you know, what communicators would love to see is if we are seeing trend towards slight decentralization. We wanna see that connective tissue continuing to exist or being built in organizations that have decentralized structure, um, so that your, your voice isn't splintered.

Anne Green: Yeah. And it's so, it's so funny. I feel like since the admin of social media, this is just one example. When left to its own devices, it being any organization, right? All of its component parts will gravitate toward. We need our own channel, we need our own social channel, we need this. Like I've had so many situations over the years where clients or you know, organizations or peers we're dealing with trying to reel people back in because there's channel proliferation and confusion and I have to say this whole dialogue around ai, which is more than one acronym can encompass, by [00:22:00] the way, I have a pet peeve about people saying AI as if it explains everything. But if we talk about generative, we talk about the large language models, and we talk about the revolution that's happening in search, zero click search environment, generative engine optimization, the role of authority, how discovery is changing.

There's so much. In fact, there's new research from MuckRack, you know, the communications platform vendor out there that we'll be reporting on in another building brand Gravity episode that's did a really deep dive analysis in how AI discovery is being generated. The large language models are getting better at recency, meaning they're pulling in stuff into those AI summaries that are quite recent, which was not the case before.

So boy, you could see how that fragmentation would be a real mess in terms of how AI is representing your organization, right?

Chrissy Jones: Absolutely. And I think that it's real, and it's very exciting that you're doing a podcast on this, and all communicators really should listen to it because. [00:23:00] We are going on a journey to educate our organizations about these changes.

Whereas Mark Marketing had traditionally been sitting in the seat, or, or marcoms had been sitting in the seat of feeding the SEO engine. We are seeing a shift now where traditional communications work is going to be feeding the Gen AI engine. So. We need to educate our stakeholders internally about these changes and how, what an important role communications is gonna play.

Anne Green: I couldn't agree more, and I think it's an exciting moment, but it's a moment to. Re knit together how digital marketing, Marcos communications, stakeholder relations, how it comes together in a more intentional way. Not that SEO goes away, but gen ai, OGEO, whatever we wanna call it. [00:24:00] This is requiring a thoughtfulness regarding content strategy.

Earned owned, the peso model, all the stuff that we've been talking about for years. It's. It really is that next step change and it, I think that theme of where, whether it's more centralized or less centralized, how do you avoid fragmentation and the risk that comes with that. There's a larger question to me.

Because I think you were so right on about the reputational risk issues. Things move so fast and, and if you think about, say, a pharmaceutical context, but it could be anyone in healthcare and you think about, let's say Wall Street as a stakeholder, right? 'cause most of these are publicly traded or larger entities out there, large health systems, whatever.

What is it that this entity is specializing in? Where are the horses they're really riding? Where is that center of gravity that's been identified by the leadership team? Is there so fragment, much fragmentation because every part of the organization wants to feel like their stuff is the most important, that the story [00:25:00] becomes so all over the place, and that's why I really appreciated.

You pointing out sort of the risk of fragmentation, but I think there's a backdrop here, which is, what is the relative stature and empowerment of different functions within an organization and including different leaders. So the C-Suite, which may encompass a chief communications officer, not the same in every organization, doesn't report the same, isn't quite the same, but what is your sense of how that reflects back on where communication sits in organizations?

Chrissy Jones: The debate really never seems to go away for where communication sits in an organization. And maybe part of that is historical, looking back on communications, really being a support function. And it's grown now into a strategic driver. So finance and legal, you never see the same conversation [00:26:00] happening for those functions.

No one, I've never heard anyone ask if the CFO has earned their seat at the table, at the proverbial table. So they've always been seen as indispensable. Comms is still fighting that battle in many organizations. Um, one of the reasons is visibility because. Good comms is invisible. Good comms look seamless which ironically makes it undervalued.

And then when things go wrong, people notice. So leaders in communications are constantly needing to prove their worth, um, in ways that see fos and COOs often don't have to. And then there's the cultural component of it as well. So you have some CEOs who are really attuned to comms. They are storytellers.

They value storytelling and reputation. And then you have some organizations where that is not the case. So. Comms [00:27:00] will be relegated to being a tactical support function. But I think those inconsistencies are why this remains an open question or why this remains a challenge for us in communications.

But the last five or so years have been really, um, critical for communications and I think that. What we've seen is through the pandemic and social justice issues and political polarization, what we have seen is that reputation is strategic, and so the companies that get it right are going to outperform the ones that don't.

And your communications team. Are your reputation drivers?

Anne Green: I think that's so powerfully said. It has been a heck of a few years showing. Um, putting a spotlight on almost every type of [00:28:00] stakeholder group. The pressures on those stakeholder groups. You know, I, it reminds me of a related issue, which is this sort of strange bifurcation that would happen sometimes between internal and external communications.

Like, that is a very old fashioned way of thinking. I think most practitioners I know would agree, but it was so, um, separated for so long. And the fact is those. Employees and colleagues are the first, you know, the drop falls in the pond, the first ring, or your own people before it radiates out. And so I think breaking down those silos and recognizing the pressure on all those stakeholders groups and the fact that reputation has significant impact, it's, it's really like what does reputation do?

It's permission to operate. It's that trust and permission operate. It could be literal permission through regulatory bodies, or it could be just permission through trust. So I think that's really powerful. You said something. That whole thing about earning a seat at the table. Well, comms has to earn its seat at the table.

What do you make, that's such a common phrase we've heard over the years. What do you make of [00:29:00] that? I mean, just what does that bring to mind for you?

Chrissy Jones: I'm tired of, I'm tired of it. Okay. I think it's outdated. I think it's frustrating. We are, as communicators often positioned as less powerful or less impactful than some of our other.

Supporting function or group function, peer groups. Despite the fact that an organization's reputation can swing markets, and we know that, uh, just as much as numbers on a spreadsheet, a social media post can tank your earnings. I. The past couple of years I hope, has really proven that comms not only deserves the seat at the table, but is an integral part of corporate strategy.

I mean, we we're responsible for, for [00:30:00] trust, for leadership impact and executive visibility and for organizational strategy, and those pillars really upholds. Business.

Anne Green: Yeah, I think that's really well said. As we start to wrap up, wrap up today, I'd love to think about, you know, what advice we can give. Who are we?

But let's give advice. We have experience. Let's do it. The first group I'd like to advise. Are those senior executives like CEOs that what? Pick the sector again, decentralization or centralization of the function is happening in many places. It's a pendulum. I think that swings back and forth. It's hitting pharma quite a bit right now, but it's happening elsewhere.

What are, for those that have that most senior level decision making, especially the CEO level, what would you advise them on? What kind of factors do you think that they should be weighing and even more educating themselves on as they, as they weigh this question.

Chrissy Jones: Yeah, I think to uh, position this through the lens of, I [00:31:00] think we are gonna see more hybrid models.

I think we will see a centralized core of communicators for risk and issues management and, and maybe for business strategy. But we're gonna see embedded comms through the business for agility and speed and depth of knowledge. So I would ask CEOs to not look at this as a binary to look to design models that can do both protect.

The enterprise voice and enable speed. So I think the question is not what works now or what's easiest to implement now, but the question that CEOs should ask themselves is what structure is going to protect the company's reputation five years out? So that's more than just the org chart. That's more than just cost efficiencies.

That's really a forward looking. Will [00:32:00] this model provide us with a clear enterprise narrative? Will this model provide us with clear accountability? And does it allow us to manage risks across various stakeholders? I think, the. The CEO could look at communications sort of like an, an operating system.

So you have, you can have multiple apps running. Um, so you can have multiple people embedded in these very specific areas, but you do need a cohesive, unified operating system. Um, at the top. Recognizing that the right reputation and the right structure is a strategic asset. And formatting the comm structure accordingly.

Anne Green: I love the idea of that, the operating system that has multiple apps running, um, multiple programs and, but they come together as a whole. I think [00:33:00] that's a really, I haven't thought of it that way. I think that's a really powerful metaphor. I really like that. So turning to our peers out there, across the industry, comms folks, and, and again, they can be integrated marketing communications as well as comms.

You know, we're all doing many different. Channels and tactics and the more symbiotic, the better of understanding these levers. But for those that are either mid-career and and really growing or more senior folks, what thoughts can we share on the question of what to do relative to raising that stature of communications internally or advocating, pushing for that more cohesive and connective structures that are better in this kind of volatile landscape?

What would you say to our peers?

Chrissy Jones: Yeah, thanks for asking this question because I have gotten, a lot of individuals have approached me and asked what they can do, and it really is very different depending on where you sit in the organization, the structure that's already in place in your organization, how large your [00:34:00] organization is.

There's so many factors that will. Impact and affect the way that you personally can advocate for change in your organization or advocate for the function. But I try to distill it down to something that would be universal for all communicators. And so my advice is to make sure that you are not just running your silo.

So Bills, bridges. Influence outside of your lean. Because corporate reputation does not care about org charts. So we shouldn't either. What we need to do is connect across the business. And the more connected we are, the more bridges that we build, the harder it will be to sideline communications and to position us just as a tactical.

Uh, execute

Anne Green: so much wisdom. I know you've had time to think about this as people have asked you. 'cause that's hard. Like it's amazing for [00:35:00] people to come and ask that question. Corporate reputation does not care about org charts is one of the quotes of the podcast. I couldn't agree more. It's just like.

Consumers encountering a brand, don't care where they're encountering it, it's the brand. Like we've known that in brand strategy for years. I absolutely love that. So to finish up, Chrissy, the name of our show is Building Brand Gravity. So I always like to ask people, what has you in its gravity right now?

What is fun? What's lighting you up? What are you into? However you wanna define that.

Chrissy Jones: Okay, so we're gonna, we're going, I, I'm gonna try to bring this back to communications, but we're gonna go journey I, last night I finally finished K-Pop Demon Hunters.

Anne Green: Have you heard about that? Oh my God, so many people are talking about this.

I was hearing, I was listening to another podcast when there, oh, it was The New York Times was doing like a culture review. But yeah, tell me what your take is, what your hot, well, many people

Chrissy Jones: are talking about it. I have a 9-year-old daughter who is. Obsessed. [00:36:00] So I finally finished watching it with her, and it's it's brilliant because it's a, it's a masterclass in trend spotting.

They have taken. The appetite for K-pop, the appetite for anime, the appetite for what would you even call it, you know, the zombie demons the supernatural crime fighting and somehow put it together into a package that works. I'd, I'd heard yesterday that this has now become in just over two months, the most watched movie in Netflix history.

The music is their earworms. It's just the music is just stuck in my head now. But I think that the, if I'm trying to wrap it up and bring it back to communication, I think, um, communicators can really take a lesson from this by embracing and aligning with the, with. The zeitgeist and the cultural [00:37:00] currents and seek out different ways that combine things that you didn't know, you didn't necessarily think would go together.

But look out into the, into the cultural current and see what you can pull and, and try to. Create something new.

Anne Green: I love that. And that's some great branding. Even the title captures your attention. You're like, what the heck is this? But when I heard the culture critics at the New York Times talking about it, one thing caught my attention talk about marketing is that the K-pop demon hunters, the women in the in the K-pop groups who fight demons, the demons who are guys said to themselves, we have a marketing issue.

We keep getting beaten by these, uh, singers, so maybe we'll form a pop group and it'll be a demon pop group. So there's marketing for you, Chrissy. It's so funny. Well, I so appreciate you being on building Brand Gravity. I encourage. Folks, if you enjoyed this conversation, check out our other episode. Share this one with your friends, especially in the comms field.

A lot of really important things [00:38:00] to talk about here. And Chrissy Jones, thank you again for joining us.

Chrissy Jones: Thanks for having me in.

Dan Nestle: [00:00:00] The big problem is thinking about we need to get this into the times. We need to get this into the Wall Street Journal. We have to get this covered by the ft. Stop that and think about, I need to reach these stakeholders. What are they reading? I need to reach these people. What are they watching? You're gonna find that they have multiple and dynamic reading and and viewing habits soon.

Anne Green: Hello and welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Anne Green, CEO of G&S Integrated Marketing Communications Group.

Steve Halsey: And I'm Steve Halsey, the Chief Growth Officer. And Anne, we've got a lot to talk about today. Two topics that are not only timely, but I think they're really deeply connected. Talking about AI's growing impact on discovery, traffic, and search behavior.

And talk about what that means for the future of earned media. And yes, it is true. PR is having another. Moment. It's great to be in an [00:01:00] industry that constantly reinvents itself with moments and just when the critics are ready yet again to declare the press release. Dead surprise. Turns out large language models kinda like 'em.

I mean, maybe not for click, but definitely for context. So no, the press release, my friends is not dead. It's very undead. It's a corporate zombie, quietly writing its own metadata. And as it turns out, Ann, that's not a bad thing.

Anne Green: It's so funny. You know, everything old is new again. I was telling Steve the other day for our listeners that I've worked in financial services for years and was walking with a colleague, passed a bank branch that has a cafe in it.

I'm like, well, that was there 20 years ago and they're doing it again. But, um, you know, it's interesting, this whole discussion reminds me of, of an event I was at. Last week we got invited to, it was an invite only event, um, by some of the folks from the PE firm, human Ventures, and it was called Media and Brands in a post traffic world.

And it was really high level audience you [00:02:00] had. CEOs or you know, leaders from a lot of media brands like Forbes and Adweek and, and New York Times. And you also had brands like Paramount. They've been in the news a lot. You had Meredith, um, Meredith, you had a lot of advertisers. CloudFlare was there, which was quite interesting because of some of the work they've been doing lately to help gate, um, content for Meredith.

And I think the whole discussion of the event was really zero click search that traffic is going off a cliff. This future that many had predicted and prepared for is happening right now, and it's happening very, very, very fast. And this was a room of very smart people. You could tell a lot of them had just been at CAN and France and a lot of folks knew each other and you know, we were there also as G&S, but Edelman was also there.

So there weren't, weren't as many of the integrated comms firms there. But I think for me, the point of view is just. Underscoring how fast this world is changing, which I think has paired with how fast the dialogue [00:03:00] has risen and intensified around the earned media side of this, which I think is really fascinating.

Steve Halsey: Yeah. You know, and I, I think just you, you, you talk about who was in that room and it just really reinforces what a turning point where we're at. You know, not just for how stories are told, but for how they're found trusted, reused by both humans and machines, and, and that's the part that's different. You know, and what we used to think of as earned media, you know, placement in a publication, quoting a story, maybe even a backlink, is really being reframed by how AI.

Basically gathers and synthesizes the information, and that's really raising the stake for us in comms and, and PR in a big way. So basically, if an, as I understand it, if an article isn't structured in a way that makes it machine readable, like clear attribution, topical clarity, things like that. And it may never make it into the next AI generated summary [00:04:00] or insight somebody sees.

And when Greg Galant was, uh, was on the podcast a few episode, he put it really well when he said. The value of PR isn't just in impressions anymore. It's about compounding credibility, meaning how earned media actually becomes training data for the system that shape public perception. So. A great media hit.

Today isn't necessarily one that's just a short-term win, but it's one that creates long-term brand value. By showing up on knowledge panels, AI generated answers, even influence how search may evolve. So in a lot of ways, that makes the earned media part of what we do. Way more strategic in a lot of ways, way more durable.

Than it was even 18 months ago.

Anne Green: I couldn't agree more and it, I'm glad that you're calling back to Greg 'cause that two part episode on dealing in with AI enablement was a [00:05:00] good listen if people wouldn't go check that out. You know, we always encourage people to go back and see the archives, but. A couple of things.

You know, one is AI is sort of a double-edged sword, obviously for media that post traffic environment for media publishers is really problematic, right? So that was a lot of what the energy in that room was about. And there's a lot of other stuff happening with ai like flop at scale, coming into reporters, inboxes and, and overwhelming people with marketing messages, also phishing schemes and at scale, but, but on the other side, the kind of energy.

Optimism and excitement around regenerative engine optimization. By the way, in the room, everyone agreed GEO is winning versus AIO and all the other acronyms, but so that, that was good to know. That's one clarity there for us all in an unclear world. But I think that the excitement around what this means, let's say for trade magazine publishers, these are.

Entities that have been under a lot of pressure over the years, but they have tremendous authority and domain knowledge [00:06:00] in, in their sectors. Whether we work in ag or healthcare, they create events, they create multimedia, you know, podcasts, video, you know, they're doing in-person events, and the fact that.

We can say to our clients now, it's gonna be really incumbent upon us to understand how different LLMs are gathering their information and indexing it, like you said, in different ways and understanding what does that mean for how our audiences are interacting. Are they on Android phones or mobile phones?

Like you know, which LLM might be the dominant one for them. Um, the fact that OpenAI uses Bing. I mean, all of this stuff is so interesting and we really, really have to be on top of it. And one recommendation I'd make for listeners is PR Council has a great podcast series, quick hits called AI Loves pr, and these are, you know, 13 15, 18 minute real quick.

Podcasts with different experts who are very, very germane to this conversation. So I definitely recommend people check it out.

Steve Halsey: Yeah, so I guess it, you know, play with the acronym. If your [00:07:00] CEO's focused on GEO, then, then that firm's going to win. Right? At least that's what we're doing here on, uh, on, on G&S and is, is really.

For, uh, asking us to lean really deeply into GEO basically as an evolution. Not so much as, as SEO, but really an evolution, just how the entire media landscape is changing. And again, I I oversimplify things. So while SEO really focuses on keywords and backlinks, things like that. GEO is really focused on credibility.

It's on how you structure the story. It's about relevance. It's all those things that the LLMs use basically to gauge and generate, generate responses. And for me, the kicker of all this is that most of that data is earned. It's how we talk naturally. Editorial content, trusted media, industry blogs, because.

Everything I'm seeing is that the large language models love high authority sources. Right. [00:08:00] And that has always been a key part of the earned media was there's a lot of value in being direct and going direct, having people know it's coming from you. But having that third party credibility and having your brand showed up that way gets it repeated, reference referenced, retrieved all things that are really key in terms of the, the earned media where again.

Now we're starting to see an environment where visibility becomes velocity and, and I know there's a lot of challenges with the shrinking newsrooms and everything else, but there is so much power in earned media and making. That part of PR more relevant and more strategic than ever.

Anne Green: Yeah, and there's still gonna be such a need for that peso model.

We're very committed to integration, and I think we see where paid comes in, where owned comes in, where earned comes in. But it's just a new dimension to the conversation. I mean. This is a great segue if, unless there's any, anything else you wanna add before I segue in to set up our interview [00:09:00] for today?

Steve Halsey: I think that captures it. The press release is not dead and uh, you know, for those, uh, for, for those groups that have gotten away from the value of earned media, it's more important than ever. Yeah.

Anne Green: And, and that's why I wanted to talk to our guests. You know, I had a great conversation today, you know, that we're gonna cut into right now with Dan Nestle.

Who has worked as a comms pro for years. And I'll, I'll do more of an introduction when I, when I get with him. But I would flag the fact that we're talking about earned attention. And what does that mean? What's the quality of attention? And attention as not a commodity? It's really a precious capital.

People like Ezra Klein are talking about that people like Chris Hayes have written books around, um, attention being under pressure. And so the idea of where we look at the evolution of earned media. Relative to attention and what does that mean for the media landscape as a whole? You know, Dan has some interesting things to say.

So let's, uh, let's cut over and hear that conversation. So my main hope always for this podcast is to have some really deep conversations with [00:10:00] smart and fun and interesting people on topics that really matter to communications and marketers, and I would say curious humans in general. And this conversation is very much motivated by two trends, which is the evolution of earned media as a practice.

The evolution of media itself, by the way, and then the rise of what some are calling the attention economy. And so, no surprise, my guest is deep in these hot topics. I'm thrilled to welcome Dan Nestle, who excels at the intersection of communications and technology and leadership. And you are a communications leader and strategist.

Dan, I don't have to tell you this, and a podcaster and a lot of insights in this field. Really deep on ai, really deep on what we're gonna talk about today, which is earned attention and sort of that evolution of what we've practiced for a long time, which is earned media. And, um, you know, you're the founder also of Inquisitive communications and host of the Trending Communicator, which I've been honored to be a guest on, and I really encourage people to check it out.

But Dan, welcome to Building Brand Gravity.

Dan Nestle: Thanks, Anne. It is an honor. [00:11:00] I'm glad to be here. Gosh. I mean, last time we had, we were behind the mic with one another was almost exactly a year ago on my show. And, um, and yeah, and it's so amazing to see how much has changed, how much hasn't. Um, and, you know, we're gonna, I know we're gonna talk about ai, it's been driving a lot of that change, but it hasn't been the only driver.

And I think that's, you know, there's the, people forget that it's a thing. It's not the thing. And, um. We need to talk about the attention economy, as you said, the, the, the profession as a whole. And you know, of course weave in AI into it if, you know, if, uh, if that makes sense to do so. And I think it always does so

Anne Green: well.

To get us started, I've been thinking a lot about a paradox. Or I'm identifying is that paradox you can help me decide if it is, which is, it feels like in some ways earned media due to the media itself being under tremendous pressure is under pressure and the practice is under a lot of pressure. Um, but at the same [00:12:00] time, there's all this discussion and energy and excitement.

Also related to a AI, AI about earned media and media itself being on the brink of a renaissance. And both of these realities are tied to media fragmentation, but they're also tied to the proliferation of AI in all its forms. So you know, you've got the AI content at scale and slop and crap, and zero click search and traffic going off a cliff and things like that.

But you also have the way that large language models are pulling and organizing information, serving as the new search, new discovery. Really honoring and pulling from sources that tend to lean more into the world of earned media and the practices we've done. So this is a big question, but what's your overall take on this moment of time?

And is this a paradox in your mind?

Dan Nestle: I, I think it's, it's. I, I agree with you. It is a, it is a paradox of sorts, and I think that paradox lives mostly in our heads, uh, rather than in reality because of, you know, what you'd normally [00:13:00] see when, when any industry is disrupted, you have, uh, legacy mindsets and forward thinking mindsets.

And it's not, I'm not, I'm not being judgy about it. It's just that's kind of the way it is where. The approach to media relations and our, and our kind of inherent ranking of media. You know, like this is top tier, this is mid tier, this is whatever, and there you have the trades and you have different categories.

And categorizations is being turned upside down in a lot of ways. And, um, it's a lot to cope with. And there's still a lot of, I think whether it's cognitive dissonance or whether it's just straight up, um, no. The, the only authority is the New York Times, wall Street Journal, LA Times, you know, et cetera. Um, mindset.

I, I don't know what the answer is, but, but I think that that is, you know, that's sort of our reality now where it's, where everything's jumbled, priorities are jumbled, and [00:14:00] there's a very, I think there's a question of what is valuable and what isn't in terms of. The media coverage and in terms of what counts for earned attention.

Anne Green: That's really helpful. You've asserted, you know, and I, I, I'd love to hear thoughts on this, that traditional media relations is in some ways, not just outdated. Potentially broken or kind of even harmful sometimes just strategic objectives. And I think that has everything to do with how it's framed. But what, when you say that, what are the things you're seeing that seem, wow, this is really counter to what we're actually trying to achieve potentially for a given organization?

Dan Nestle: I think it's, it's mostly about, uh, entrenched. Uh, values and attitudes about what makes good media and what, what does media coverage mean on the one hand? Right? And on the other hand, I think it's also about the fracturing of the media and the audience environment. And, um, I have to, like, I think I have to be, I have to give full disclosure here and, and be brutally honest about my own biases [00:15:00] here, because, you know, being in corporate comms for 20 something years and, and, um, having a stint at at, at agency in the middle.

Um, it always, it was always the case that the executive teams that I was serving or my, or working in partnership with when I was in corporate, um, the only real wins that they understood from their PR teams and from their comms teams were, Hey, we got the CEO in the fill in the blank media. Right. Oh, the CEO is gonna do, there's gonna be a feature on the CEO in, um, in the, in the New York Times.

There's gonna be a feature from the CEO in Barron's. Um, we got, we lined up all these wonderful interviews for the CEO visit next week, and here's where we're taking him by limousine to Bloomberg, to, to, to, uh, you know, to, to the Wall Street Journal, to wherever, right. Uh, we didn't do ourselves any favors, as in, [00:16:00] as a profession, in pushing that as, as CC, we're doing all this great work for you.

Um, and these are the results that we have. And I think that was the case for a long time. So the pressure never ceased and I think it still continues to get that kind of coverage, but also we didn't resist so much. You know, I think that it was harder for. For PR and comms folks to say, well, the CEO's time, the CEO's gonna be here.

We have a day for him or her. Not every CEO is is like Jensen Wang or, or Elon Musk, or you know, Andy Jassy or whatever. So you, you know, you have to have a reality check when your CEO or, or any high level executive is in town, um, and really be self-aware. Where you stand in the corporate pantheon and whether what you're saying is newsworthy or not.

And sometimes those, the answers to those questions [00:17:00] are not quite authentic or honest internally in an organization.

Anne Green: It's so funny because we're, we're gonna be talking quite a bit about the evolution of technology and platforms and processes that, you know, are really changing the game there. You're speaking about something that's so pervasive over so many years and is in some ways very analog.

It's that human perception of value and how is it that public relations is a practice or media, whatever we wanna call it, expresses that value. And that was something I was thinking about in reading one of your issues. You have the trending communicator, both a podcast and a newsletter. And the issue before the last, the one that just came out recently, the one before was about this question of.

Like building on your prior one and earned attention. It was, it was looking at a McKinsey study about, oh, they've discovered this too, you know, the quality of attention. But before, and I wanna ask you about that, but, and we will get to the technology of it all. 'cause [00:18:00] it's really, really germane and it's changing the thing.

But I, I wanna reflect on my own career where you're right, it's like there is this hierarchical value judgment. And it's not always, uh, it's always a qualitative subjective conversation. And yes, we have a lot of data of why the New York Times drives so much, and that that's really, really meaningful and that can be meaningful to most, you know, enterprises if you're in there.

But I remember back with consumer brands at an earlier decade, you know, I used to joke about the O word, which is, please don't say Oprah to me. You know, this was before it was fully like, don't use the O word. Don't use the O. But it was these things that we put up on a pedestal. And the reason that I'm bringing this up now is I've seen some clients over the past decade or so start to, I.

Almost devalue or not recognize in, in executive teams how critical trade media as a category continues to be, or those young reporters at the trade media where you have the chance to train them and inform them and help them [00:19:00] versus I don't have time to talk to that person. So, you know, I think what you're saying, Dan, if I'm correct, is that, you know, these old school pressures and tensions and tropes are still very active today.

Right? And we've gotta look at that again.

Dan Nestle: I think so, and, and you know, those, those tropes or those kind of belief systems, what somebody had once sent to me a long time ago in a completely unrelated topic, that our biggest enemy is not. You know, is not externally. It's our, it's our own bs, it's our own belief systems, you know, and, uh, I think that applies to a lot of, a lot of legacy organizations in the profession for sure.

And I know that agencies have been really pushing the envelope with technology and with kind of, you know, with new developments. But I don't see it always getting, getting through to. The, uh, to the cl clients or to pro, to potential clients or, or to, certainly to large organizations that, that don't have to worry about things like [00:20:00] awareness.

Right. I mean, it, like, I, I think we gotta be clear that when I say, and maybe when anybody says that, um, you know, media relations is really. Uh, well, I, I, my exact words were it's dying and we need to let it go. But that, you know, that is, that's a very, a little, I'm a little polemic about it, but the, I think we, we just have to understand that we're talking about the vast majority of PR of practitioners and companies.

We're not talking about, you know, your Fortune 10 or 50 or a hundred because they have different needs. They're already in the awareness game, uh, and they have that. You know, if you have a very heavy financial and, and you know, investor relations function and you know, you need to be, you're constantly in the media's eye for any move you make with employment or with, you know, with your finances, et cetera.

Your media relations need to be really strong. I don't know if your approach. Needs is would be the same or should be the same. In fact, I would, I would advocate you'd wanna [00:21:00] spread out a little bit more to different outlets, but you do need a strong media function.

Anne Green: You talked about earned attention, which got my attention because earned media earned attention.

And the reason is before we get into earned attention specifically. This whole concept of attention is very of the moment. I feel I'm hearing discussions about it everywhere. Ezra Klein has talked about. Today's most valuable capital is attention. Chris Hayes of MSNBC just published a book. I love the title.

It's the Sirens Call, how Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. So. Endangered resource, valuable capital. That title says a lot. So when you think about attention, and then we'll go to earned attention, how do you think about the concept of attention today? Attention as an entity, as capital.

Dan Nestle: It's where, it's where you're putting your eyeballs. So, uh, you know, you have choice, you have more choice than ever before, uh, on, on where you spend your time for your media consumption or for your, you know, for your [00:22:00] entertainment or whatever it's online. So what is taking your, what is attracting your eyeballs at a particular time?

I think you can, I'm sure there are studies or I'll, I'll, I would imagine that, uh, there are thinkers out there who are saying, if you attract somebody. Three times to your website or to your, to your article, then we can count that as attention. Now, I, I don't get that deep about this 'cause I don't know what the answer is, but I, I would imagine that, uh, you know, that some consistency needs to be there for, for us to really say, okay, we have your attention.

You know, we throw up a, a, a. Crazy advertisement somewhere that's, that attracts eyeballs, you know, on the side of a building or drones in the air. Boy are we getting attention, right? Um, but if that attention is not attached to a brand or to a person or to something else, then it's kind of fleeting and it does, it's sort of, sort of meaningless.

It's [00:23:00] really more about, it's more about, okay, is our content or our proposition. Or what? Or our outdoor activation even what, whatever it is, is it worth someone's time where they come and look at it and spend a little bit of time on it? And that's where attention starts. Then they have to make an association with that and your brand or your person.

And I don't think you can isolate one from the other because otherwise it's impressions and those are, you know, that's kind of meaningless. What we want is somebody comes. They read your stuff. They look at your, uh, at your, they, they look at, at your, at your video. They watch your video. They, they spend a little time with you.

So then, okay, we can say, all right, we've started. Okay. That's one type of attention, but the other one is. I really need to learn about something. I really need to understand about something. It's not been any different from, from directed search or something like [00:24:00] this where you, you know, you're moving a little further down the, the funnel, which may or may not be outdated.

Anne Green: You, you're making me think of that the marketing funnel is, as you were alluding to, and where it's still really resonates and where it translates across disciplines, but mm-hmm. In, um, when you were in your last newsletter, when you were talking about McKinsey, you know, they, they were talking about attention as well, and, and you're reminding me of a separating attention quality.

Yeah. From quantity, right. Driving business outcomes. And you also in that same newsletter and people should go check it out. We're talking about that question of what drives. Intent or behavior. Yeah. And I think that in the comms world, and you know, a firm like mine is integrated marketing communications, so we kind of touch different pieces of it.

But we started as a communications firm. And I think where you start, um, is in your DNA, that question of can we measure, you know, maybe use the marketing language of conversion or intent mm-hmm. Or things like that. But what is your thought about [00:25:00] how. In this new world of earned attention, how we start to think about quality versus quantity.

And quantity could be like size of outlet, but it may not be the quality. Yeah. How do you start to parse that in your own mind, Dan?

Dan Nestle: Well, I think you, you have to marry the marketing to the, to the communications for that to be understood. You know, it's, that is really where you don't know whether it's, whether it's quality attention, when some, when your target or your customer or your stakeholder first, first grabs onto your, to what you're putting out there to your content.

You just have to understand that you need consistency in your content to kind of weed out. Well, there's two, two functions. First is, of course, to present your position and be more and, and, and promote awareness and, you know, make sure that your, your message is getting into the channels and in front of the people that it needs to be in front of.

That's your part. The quality attention part is like paying attention to how people are interacting with that content and then seeing, okay, [00:26:00] well this one's resonating, this one isn't. And that's, you know, from one side of the equation you can turn up or turn down dials and, and change your message. But on the other side of the equation, you have to think, okay, is it resonating because, is it not resonating because, um, the timing's off or because it's in the wrong channel or because it's the wrong audience?

Or is it not resonating because it's really. Part of my language. It's crap, right? I mean, you have to, you know, you have to figure it out. And then when it does resonate again, is it, is it hitting for the right reasons? Did something like go, well, I hate say, I hate this phrase, but did it go viral? Like did it hit hard because you know, you've said something or you've written something that is, that is worth that, that virality, or did it go viral?

Because there's something in your content that actually. Is completely different than what you intended. Maybe there's a, maybe something funnier, or maybe it's a, you know, you start a new meme or who, who knows what it is. [00:27:00] But you know, is it getting the attention, it's getting for the right reasons. And the only way to really know that is to look, is to be consistent, is consistent with your output.

And start looking at who's coming back over time. And from those people who are coming back over time. Um. That's where you're going to see those quality, that quality attention, like the, the, the, the audiences that keep coming back, and then the audiences that, that take action based on what you do. Now.

That, and that's a whole, that's another kind of point, is, okay, are they taking action? Are they doing something based on what you're putting out there? And that's where the marketing side of everything kind of comes in. But it should be our, it should be also in the comms, in the comms. World to measure that the reaction, the engagement metrics are one thing, but is there a actual call to action in your, in your piece or in your content that they can [00:28:00] follow?

Is there a way to measure that? There always should be, of course. And that's kind of where the quality part of the attention comes in. It's more, it's more of the measurable part. Um, so you know, there's a qualitative. If there's a qualitative way to look at quality, quality attention, I suppose. But there's also quantitative ways, and I think we need to cross both of those.

Anne Green: Yeah. And how we marry that together. I mean, I feel like all the disciplines of marketing and comms have moved closer together over time, but there's still different silos there. Um, it was interesting you were commenting on some of the audience segmentation. McKinsey was suggesting. Yeah. They had an about nine, eight, or nine or so, and you picked out a couple, like content lovers.

Interactivity enthusiast and community trendsetters. And that struck me. There's, you know, as people who've made up a million names for audience segments over time as we do. Yeah. You know, they, they are made up and subjective, but they also have reality and research behind them and power behind them. And I think what was interesting to me is these seem to be quite.[00:29:00]

Attention based segments. What kind of attention? And, you know, each of us are fans of something. You know, I have, like, I've been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was a child. So all aspects of Sherlock Holmes. That means I listen to a very niche podcast that covers the Granada Sherlock Holmes series from the eighties with Jeremy.

Brett. And I'm just like a person that's into that. Yeah.

Dan Nestle: Rather. It's a good microsegment. Very, it's

Anne Green: a microsegment and, and there's more people out there than I realize when I discovered this podcast. You know, how should, I don't think, we've never thought in terms of these kinds of segments before, but how do these attention based segmentation feel fresh to you or feels like something to be revisited and reflect on?

Dan Nestle: I think it's, I mean, that's a good question. I, I'm fundamentally in favor of breaking down our audiences in any measurable chunks that we possibly can 'cause. It gives you the intel and the insight to know which channels you can use and what kind of content they need, and. It gets, it's getting a little crazy because as you know, there are more and more [00:30:00] channels available and there's so much content out there that, you know, you're, I, again, it's this word fractured that keeps coming up, and I guarantee you audience out there who, anybody who knows me or follows me, you keep seeing the word fractured.

That is not an AI thing. That's me. I, I keep, because I think it's real, like this whole fractured thing is it, it just keeps on shattering and fracturing and, and there's no. There's very little binding happening. So if we can find ways actually to kind of bind that in different segments, that's actually very helpful.

So when McKinsey, my whole piece on McKinsey is really tongue in cheek and, and I certainly came down hard on them a little bit for discovering something that we already knew. But you know, sometimes they put out some really good, good information. I like the I and the idea of their consumer segments. Um.

Content lovers, interactivity enthusiasts, and community trendsetters. Those are the three that made it into my review, because those are the three that they also highlighted as worth pursuing, right? [00:31:00] When you're devising your content strategy, and if you, whatever you're doing, if you are putting out a story about, um, about turbines or if you're putting out a story about legal services, you know, those are two very, very different audiences.

But within that. Audience, who are the content lovers? Who are the interactivity enthusiasts? Do they exist? You know, and are, are, are the community trendsetters part of that group? I mean, you know, you'd think that if you're corporate and you're talking about something industrial and it's kind of that, oh man, this is not gonna attract these community trendsetters.

You might be wrong in a big way because you know those. Community people it exists at in every industry, in every vertical. And we would be really lucky or or fortunate to figure out how to reach [00:32:00] them first and understand, get their attention, which would then kind of turn into a little bit of a snowball effect 'cause they would get the attention of others.

Kind of a take on influence marketing, I guess.

Anne Green: You know, it's so aligned with how our industry, like many of us as practitioners, have woven influencers as a core part of strategy, and many companies do a great job with that. But I'm, I'm kind of shocked still in the client service landscape, how many companies do not see influencers as part and parcel and symbiotic with all of their other stakeholders from a communications and marketing standpoint.

Um, there's some incredible best practices there, and yet. It's still quite siloed and there's still a lot of, um, organizations that are just not investing what they should in that area and need. And it's, it's that evolution of media. But I wanna move on to the AI of it all because the AI of it all is all around us all the time.

And, you know, it is a double-edged sword in this area. And the fingerprints here are all over the evolution of this field. Um. [00:33:00] I think one of the most interesting things that's very germane to what you're talking about, turning hierarchies on its head and changing what we think is conventional wisdom about what's a good media hit, you know, who is the big fish, right?

So there is so much excitement. I think the acronyms have settled mostly on GEO generative engine optimization, although a IO is still trying to make a play. Yeah. But let's say GEO, right? Sure. And how it is that large language models and each of 'em are a little bit different. The overlap. There's overlap in how they pull, but they're each a little different and.

How open AI is using Bing as a crawler and you know, and other things like Reddit. But what they pull from to create those search results that create that zero click search environment where you get everything on the page, which is so disrupting publishers, so disrupting media, so disrupting like the incumbents of search,

Dan Nestle: I think.

Fundamentally, we always have to remember that quality content, uh, and [00:34:00] engaging content and compelling content will always win in the long term. But it has to be smart content, and it has to be done in a way that I think treats AI as another stakeholder rather than as a, rather than, as a, uh, kind of technical marvel.

It ha you have to think of AI as a stakeholder. How, how does AI like to read what you write? Just in the same way that one of your customers likes to read what you write. Right. So, um, I did a little exercise the other day to, you know, I took a blog post and I said, okay, now, and I was using Claude and, and I asked it to just optimize the blog post for, for search, which by the way, people should still be doing because search is still, is, is, is not going away.

Just. You know, the results are gonna be different, but you, you should still always think about, you know, writing good content for search, but, okay, so optimize for search. And then I said, okay, can you optimize this for GEO? The GEO version was so [00:35:00] radically different in structure, lot of bullet points.

Mm-hmm. Um, they added an FAQ at the end. Uh, there was, uh, there were, they added a credibility section, an authority section to, to establish the authority of the author. Um, and I wouldn't post that the way it was, right? That's not something I would do. So it's just because you, you have something that's ge optimized, doesn't mean you should always use it, you know, take elements maybe.

But the lessons there are that AI is looking for, um, digestible bytes of information. It's looking for a conversational flow. It's looking for content that actually answers questions. Um, so that's why there's a FAQ in there. And, you know, sometimes you have some stuff in the, in the conversational flow, in the content itself.

Um, it's looking for authority and that's definitely where media has that kind of light at the end of the tunnel waiting for them. It's looking for authority and credibility [00:36:00] and uh, you know, it wants to make sure that whatever it delivers to the user is. Not hallucination in Israel, because you know, that is something that even though they still hallucinate, still deliver nonsense, it's, it is something that's, that's important to the ai.

So structuring it that way is, is what GEO is looking for. So, GEO, you know, and each, you're, you are right. Each of the LLMs look at things differently. You know, pulls in, pulls in this information, however they pull in information. The other, the other. Part of it that I'm just really starting to get familiar with, and forgive me if I get some of this wrong, 'cause I, I do urge everybody to fact check me on this, but you know, it's not like search where you're, you're going to create A-A-A-G-E-O optimized um, piece and then it's going to appear or going to have a good chance of appearing in the LLMs the next day.

That's not the way it's gonna work. You know, the piece, [00:37:00] even though LLMs have access to the web. They're using web search to get to find relevant articles and yeah, you're going to certainly have a chance there. It's still search, right? They're still using search. So they're, the search results that they're getting are not any different than the search results you would get when you go to Google and you look, in fact, you can watch the reasoning play out in some of the models, right?

Um, what's happening is your piece, that content is being used for training. And for training the model. So it's going to be, it's going to be added to the models and piece by piece. It will raise your authority, or it will, it, it will kind of make it into, into the models, you know, kind of rep repository and be, be merged into the Borg as it were.

Then, you know, when you search on topics or when somebody searches on topics later. It will have it in the training and it will understand the context around which it will find a website, [00:38:00] uh, which then kind of builds the authority for that website or for that information because you've handily provided it with all it needs authority, conversational, uh, conversational content, answers to questions.

Okay, this is legit, this is where it's going. So it's multilayered, I think, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. So within that, you know, the media. Has a, this is where there's, there's kind of a, a real interesting trend going on and I'm not sure what the truth is here, but I've seen pieces say that media should be really excited because, and, and me, you know, media relations, uh, the focus on top tier media should be stronger than ever because top tier media is going is and is always going to be the most authoritative sources for.

Even for GEO as G gets on and, and there's some truth to that, you know, they, there is authority. I

Anne Green: I think you run into the paywall issue [00:39:00] more often though now with some of those, which is gonna be a challenge for you. It's

Dan Nestle: gonna be a challenge. But, you know, we, there was a recent thing from CloudFlare, I don't know if you saw the CloudFlare, right, where absolutely where they're, they're charging for bots, um, charging bots to crawl content.

You're seeing more and more deals with the media organizations, with the LLMs. So, you know, I think it'll happen more.

Anne Green: Yeah. That was in concert with Meredith, I think, to try to, to do some of that gating of content. Yeah.

Dan Nestle: And that that's gonna play. But you know, yes. If you manage to get that high-end media hit, that's not gonna really do anything for your, for your GEO.

Um, at least. Not in a visible way and not immediately,

Anne Green: no. To me it goes back to the trade magazine piece. You know, what are those deeper authoritative that have a whole body of work on a certain area or sector? Or topic. Right. By the way, thank you for the Star Trek Borg reference. There's never a time in this world not to bring up the Borg.

'cause it always feels, I know. [00:40:00] Especially now. And it, and it's interesting too, what I really liked, I wanna pull out what you said, is treating AI as another stakeholder. Whereas, you know, we've talked about in terms of AI practices and getting more familiar with generative ai, encouraging folks to say, imagine this as a young person or an intern, or, you know, you don't wanna anthropomorphize it entirely.

Know, you have to be careful about the what it is and what it's not. And obviously this whole emergence of chatbots and therapy, chatbots and companion, that's a whole nother world that we'll do another podcast on someday. Um, whoever isn't obsessed with talking to their chatbot, and we'll be here to still talk with me, we'll, we'll do a podcast, but I think this question of.

Thinking of it as a stakeholder that has to be built with information over time and we'll find information sources and synthesize them and bring it up. I think that's really powerful and I really appreciate, I think it was really clear the way you talked about some of these aspects of GEO, which is still developing, you know, we're still learning it with SEO.

There was a lot of work to try to [00:41:00] understand and and the Google algorithm and what are the hundreds of factors and Google would release some and not the other. I think we're in this similar thing of trying to discern through practice, but the really interesting thing about this moment in time is you can also ask the entity, tell me what is GEO optimized or tell me what is gender invention optimized?

How do you communicate? What are you looking for? And one of the reasons I think it's really. An interesting opportunity for folks who have communications at the heart of our skillset as a practice, and also literally as communicators, is understanding what different audience needs an AI as a stakeholder.

We're a multi-stakeholder group. Like that's how we look at stakeholders that way, right? And we understand why would someone need an FAQ? Why would someone need a statement and context around authority? How do I build that in a way? That context come through and it's understandable. How do I reframe? I always [00:42:00] joke, you know, with clients, like, I can give it to you as a Word document, a PowerPoint.

I can do Aldi lamp, you know, interpretive dance, like whatever format you need, I can recreate it that way. So I think it does seem to give some real power to a group that has quite a broad toolkit in terms of how we communicate with different stakeholders. I dunno, does that resonate for you at all?

Dan Nestle: That's straight from my, uh, my hymn book. I mean, there's, there's a. There's, I've always been saying, and I, and I've always been advocating for, for people with the skills that communicators have to take the lead in a lot of this stuff, and we hold back in within organizations or we're, we're stuck in boxes or, you know, you, it's hard to move out of your lane.

There's a billion reasons. Uh, you could anger the wrong people and get laid off. It can happen. That said. Who else should write FAQs? I mean, who else, who else is good at writing? You know, conversational content. The, the next phase or the [00:43:00] current phase of attention is if you're getting the attention of the ai, you need to have content that that earns their attention and.

That's exactly what it is. This, you know, the kind of things that we do, and it's the same thing that attracts the attention of our stakeholders and of, of any audience. Um, people like conversational content. People want to know answers to their questions. Uh, and if it's a even, you wouldn't necessarily put an FAQ, you wouldn't think to put an FAQ with a feature article, but maybe you do now.

Maybe you put a little FAQ at the end. Maybe you put a little study guide because you can do that very easily. Create a study guide for that piece, chunk it on, and then you have all of a sudden something that's a little bit more geed and might be a lot more interesting to your, to your readers. There's a million ways to do this, but it's all comes back to who knows how to ask the que ask the right questions.

We do. We [00:44:00] know how to ask the right questions. We know how to ask the right questions. To the LLMs as well. So, you know, both in the creation side of things and then in the iteration side of things, you know, we are in, we are by nature, curious, inquisitive, uh, inter we like to interrogate in a positive way and we, you know, we, we like to interview, right?

We're interviewers, we're media people. Let's play that out and you'll come up with great content. Um. It's just, it's just interesting to see how that's evolving within our profession. Um, I've gone pretty, I've, I've gone down this huge kind of road and rabbit hole of building that into really better and better prompts and better and better kind of, you know, Conte contextual, um, operations within a, within the ai.

But it just started with me asking questions, you know, like, can you do this? Can you do better? Can you even better? What's a better way to do this? And so on. And it builds [00:45:00] out. We could do the same thing with anything, uh, we do with ai and we are the right people. I think the communicators.

Anne Green: I love that thought about it comes from that questioning nature and from multi-stakeholders.

Um, as we wrap up today, what's one thing you wish or hope every communication leader or practitioner will do to think about earned attention in a fresh way or a step you'd love them to take? You know, any tip that you wanna share,

Dan Nestle: the number one thing to do is. Clear your mind of what good media is and think in a new way about, about what is, what is really important for your message and for your story.

Where, where does it need to land? So the answer there is your audiences and the audiences has to come first before you think about your media. So, you know, we, we didn't exactly say this explicitly, but fundamentally, I think that's the big, the big problem [00:46:00] is thinking about we need to get this into the times.

We need to get this into the Wall Street Journal. We have to get this covered by the ft. Stop that and think about, I need to reach these stakeholders. What are they reading? I need to reach these people. What are they watching? If that's the ft, then go for the ft. It's just creating that strategy from the audience first is critically important.

So think about the audiences first. You're gonna find that they have multiple, uh, and, and dynamic reading and, and viewing habits you're gonna find that you might have opportunities to get into. You know, and certainly the opportunities are much easier than top tier media. The trades are fantastic.

They've done such a great job, I think over the last 10 years of surviving. Building out their technology. They're, they're, they're doing more with podcasts. They're doing more with expert content. They are certainly [00:47:00] ahead of the game with, with uh, GEO, just by default because they're authoritative and they're very technical and detailed, answer a lot of questions.

So look at them in a much with a different lens. Convince your leadership that this is good media for us to be on podcasts, videos, those kind of things. So think audience first, I think is the, is the thing I would beg people to do.

Anne Green: It's kind of a return to the very, very best practices that are foundational to this field, and yet they get lost so often.

I encourage our listeners and viewers to find Dan Nessel, find the trending communicator. Check out, you know, subscribe to the substack, listen to the podcast, and Dan, it's always a pleasure. Um, thank you for being here today. And you know, thanks for everyone's listening to Building Brand Gravity. Check out our other episodes, find us, you know, online on video and give us your feedback.

We always welcome it. So thank you again.

Dan Nestle: Thanks [00:48:00] Ann.