October 23, 2025 • 38 mins
When everything feels urgent, clarity wins. Trust, structure, and focus are core to who gets heard.
In this mailbag edition, Steve Halsey and Anne Green take on this podcast season’s most asked questions from communicators, marketers and other leaders. They revisit the communication function’s “seat at the table” debate through the lens of reputation as a business asset, and explore how values alignment works in the real world when individuals and organizations pull in different directions. They break down why hybrid comms structures can deliver both alignment and agility, and why clarity is currency in a noisy year. You will also hear how GEO and AI are reshaping visibility, why proof beats posture, and how the best leaders embrace paradox and think in systems.
In this episode:
In this mailbag edition, Steve Halsey and Anne Green take on this podcast season’s most asked questions from communicators, marketers and other leaders. They revisit the communication function’s “seat at the table” debate through the lens of reputation as a business asset, and explore how values alignment works in the real world when individuals and organizations pull in different directions. They break down why hybrid comms structures can deliver both alignment and agility, and why clarity is currency in a noisy year. You will also hear how GEO and AI are reshaping visibility, why proof beats posture, and how the best leaders embrace paradox and think in systems.
In this episode:
- What the “seat at the table” conversation gets wrong, and how to prove value with reputation and results
- Alignment and agility in practice, and why hybrid comms models are gaining ground
- GEO, AI, and the move from traffic to trust with citation-friendly content and steady proof
- Leadership in uncertainty, from leaning into transparency to embracing paradox and systems thinking
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
God are the days at corporate communications. Is we're going
to push out a press release, We're going to manage
a couple key stakeholders. It's really embedded in everything we do.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You can see how in larger entities communications manifest in
different ways in different parts of the business, and yet
it's so critical across so many levels. I think it's
a good conversation to have. The PENSUL intends to swing
back and forth relative to centralized decentralized. But if we
can embrace that both and two things being true at once,
(00:29):
I think we're going to be in much of a
stronger place.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Steve Halsey and I'm
Mann Green, and we are your host of Building Brand Gravity. Well,
today's going to be fun. Today's episode is also going
to be a little bit different. We're diving into a
mailbag of the big questions that have surfaced across our
conversation so far this year, and we've spoken to some incredible,
(01:02):
incredible guests from comms leaders, AI experts, researchers. How really
gauging how we think about trust and what really struck
us is how often the theme seem to overlap They're
all very individual episodes, but a lot of them reflect
what many of you are grappling with inside your own organizations.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it.
Instead of revisiting each episode one by one, we're just
going to weave together questions by theme, and we're looking
at the kinds of discussion points we're hearing most from
communicators and marketers and leaders. So we can consider this
a lightning round of the issues that just keep coming
up in boardrooms, in our conversations with ourselves and other agencies,
(01:44):
and also in the media. So Steve, I'm going to
let you jump right in.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Well, why don't we start with the topic that always
comes up when you start the conversation about communications, the
stature of communications and where we fit in. In your
interview with Chrissy Jones in the Future of the Comms Function,
you and Chrissy discuss that off sided point that quote
unquote comm needs to earn a seat at the table. Right.
(02:10):
We've been hearing that for a long time and it
kind of feels outdated, and that's the point you were saying,
Yet it continues to come up over and over again.
Why is that and how is the statue of COMMS
in the C suite still unsettled at this point?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, it's really interesting. We did talk about that. That
was a very recent episode, so I encourage people to
check it out. I think about this a lot. Why
COMMS has to earn a seat at the table and
many organizations it has, like that's not even a question anymore. Yet,
I think the continued challenge of how value is measured
is probably at the heart of it. The revenue issues,
(02:48):
stock price, those hard metrics, the dollars capital tends to
still be the way, especially larger organizations, measure value. The
value of things like reputation as a business asset are,
of course and have always been harder to measure. They
are qualitative as well as quantitative, and there's been many
efforts to put the quantitative number to it, the dollar figure,
(03:12):
but those always feel a little bit hollower. They fall
short relative to a literal thing like bottom line revenue
or stock price, and so I think that that is
going to continue to be a challenge. Yet, you and
I have been doing some reputation work recently, and in
speaking with a whole C suite of a very very
large organization, it's incredibly clear to those folks that reputation
(03:35):
is a business asset and that these pieces are critical.
And so I think that we have to find a
way to keep articulating that and insisting on both qualitative
and quantitative. And the other thing we need to do
is remind folks that in a volatile landscape, communications folks
and communications functions are more central and necessary than ever.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, in a lot of ways, you know, there are
people that try and make it be almost like a
binary question of Hey, should comms really be sitting in
the c suite right there in the center of power,
or should they be out where the customers are in
the field with the businesses? How do they balance both?
In a lot of ways, I feel like sometimes that's
a binary point, that's that's being put out there. But
(04:20):
you like to say it's yes and right.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, a lot of things can be true at once.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So so that that continues to be part of the challenge.
But but you know it really, like you said, it's
no longer about having the seat of the table. It's
really about what are we going to do there? How
do we demonstrate the value? And it's interesting that the
role of senior comms has kind of shifted from that. Hey,
we're kind of the you know, kind of like that
(04:46):
little voice of the organization kind of steering it on
the path to really, like what you were saying, of
really thinking about reputation as a value driver, particularly in
as volatile environ like we're in today.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I just don't know that that question
is ever going to go away. It's our role is
going to be different than a cfo's role or a
senior council legal counsel. And I think we just have
to embrace the differences there and keep articulating it well.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And part of that challenge too. And you and Ethan
McCarty covered this in that episode of Living with Values
when culture and brand collides. You guys really talked about
the challenges of what happens when organizational and individual employee
values are not aligned, sometimes in clear conflict. But isn't
(05:37):
it impossible to ever fully achieve alignment between the corporation
and the individual And what kind of expectation should leaders
have for employees to truly buy in?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, when we had the Ethan episode, there was definitely
some good feedback there and some discussions even among our
own team about that question. There's like the organizational value
the individual's value. Because employees are not a monolith, right,
How do they overlap? How close are theyre they won?
Are they the same?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So you know? And I had actually reached out to
Ethan when they had put out at Integrals some good
research they do every year about employee values, employee experience,
et cetera, because that's their expertise. I think where we
were netting out here is that there's no way that
the circles completely overlap. That would be something that you
(06:28):
wouldn't expect to happen, You shouldn't expect to happen. Nor
is that probably good. I think there's a dynamic tension
between how you organization and its leaders as a collective,
and then the individuals in the entity pull and push
at each other to find your center of gravity within
those values. Now, one thing Ethan said I think is
(06:50):
very clear, and I think this is the flag for
organizational leaders, but also communications folks that are dealing with
internal and external communications. When the circles are too far apart,
some very not good things can happen. You want to
try to bring them more into alignment. So trying to
(07:10):
hope that you can have more of the overlap. But
part of that is going through that consistent process frequently
and refreshing it, of discussing what values really mean at
a collective level and at an individual level, and creating
an environment where people can speak about where they feel
tensions with their own individual values. You don't have to
buy into everything, and sometimes it's better if people exit
(07:32):
because they don't feel that alignment. But I think that
leaders have to be more intentional and mindful about how
they speak about this in their own ecosystem. I don't
know does that resonate with you?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I think I think it does. And you know when
I had the discussion with Elliott ms Rahi when he
was with the Page Society and Rob Yeclec of the
Harris Pole, they did some research at the turn of
the year which was really focused on that idea of
value using to the point that you were talking about
how a corporation really needs to stay true and demonstrate
(08:06):
and live out those values and then, like you said,
at some point, if they don't align, sometimes it's best
to go different directions. But it's also bringing that why
why are these values important to us? And why do
we live every day, I think our key and they're
becoming more and more I was gonna say more and
more transparent, but communication is so all encompassing. They're just
(08:29):
more evident, It's.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
True, and I think sometimes where there's a disconnect, and
this is a big issue, but just to lightly touch
on it, is when something's happening in the ecosystem but
it's not being named and openly discussed, that's when that
sense of trust or transparency erodes. So again, if there's
something the organization has to do that's hard, and there's
(08:54):
a lot of those hard choices in an environment like
ours that companies have to make, speaking about it, talking
about how hard decisions can be commensurate with your values too,
and allowing space for an employee, body and individuals to
kind of say this doesn't feel good and I want
to talk about it, but finding a way back to
the whys you said that, That to me, really is
(09:16):
so much of it. That's why I really enjoyed having
discussions like that with someone like Ethan Well.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And even thinking about communicating with them where they are
is a much more challenging question now than it was
five years ago. You have some organizations that everybody is together.
They're in one place, they're driving it others. You know,
a lot of companies that have industrial manufacturing component, you
have this divergent workforce that you've got hourly workers that
(09:45):
are coming in every single day to work the machines
to create the thing, while other people may be coming
into corbet or you have other groups that are really hybrid.
And I guess going back to your conversation that you
had with Chrissy Jones, you know, we got some interesting
feedback and some follow up that with questions about this
(10:06):
idea of our hybrid structures for the communications function, not
talking the corporation, but our hybrid structures for communications function
is the best approach today to try and achieve both
alignment and agility.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, and you know that alignment and agility if people
go back and listen to that episode, and I'm glad
you circled back to it because you brought it up
before and it's really germane. You had brought that up,
that question of how do you have both alignment and
agility if the hypothesis is that having communications folks embedded
in business units gives them greater alignment and intense intentionality
(10:41):
or does it give it more agility to move faster
because they're closer to the customer. Or do you have
better alignment if you have the centralized structure that's closer
to the C suite and less agility, or does that
make you more agile because you're closer to the center
of power. And I've been thinking more about this, as
you can tell, because there's a both and here. I
do feel in discussing it with Christy and with others
(11:05):
that that hybrid structure is probably powerful and it's going
to be different flavors and shades of gray for different companies.
What does it look like, as you said, a manufacturer
versus a knowledge worker type of organization. It's differently structured.
But the idea that you need to think about, you know,
again honoring your construct steve alignment and agility, And it
(11:29):
has to be both and in both settings. Alignment with
the business unit, in the customer's agility to move faster
from the field, alignment with the C suite and with
the ultimate leaders an agility to get to regulatory legal counsel,
make decisions move fast, especially in a volatile reputation environment.
I think that kind of common structure with a respected
(11:55):
senior leader close to if not in the C suite
is to me sweet spot.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, And I think the conversation you and I are
having with CEOs both here in the States and globally
is just really reinforcing that. And when I think about
and reflect on that concept of the hybrid structure, to me,
it just really reinforces how important communications is to the
very foundation of just how businesses operate today. God are
(12:22):
the days that corporate communications is We're going to push
out a press release, We're going to manage a couple
key stakeholders. It's really embedded in everything we do.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It is, and you can see how in larger entities
we work in healthcare, manufacturing, so many different fields. Communications
manifests in different ways in different parts of the business,
and yet it's so critical across so many levels. So yeah,
I think it's a good conversation to have. The PENSUL
intends to swing back and forth relative to centralized decentralized,
(12:54):
But if we can embrace that both and two things
being true at once, I think we're going to be
a much a stronger place.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
All right, now's time to have a little fun. Let's
go on our way back machine. You remember, at the
turn of the year, we did an episode we called
Navigating twenty twenty five Essential Trends, Insights and Checklists. Not
much has happened in the world since January when we
threw out our prognostication as to what was come. But
(13:24):
the trends we had identify they cut across AI, societal expectation,
economic pressure. Never could we have imagined the daily disruption
of the news cycles that we've been dealing. But that's
the reality of where we're at. So let's step back
and reflect and think, how are our predictions panning out
(13:45):
now we're just coming into a Q four. Are our
predictions accurate or not? And how should communicators prioritize anything
when everything feels so essential at the moment?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
All right, I'll bite fort and I'll hand it back
to you. It does feel the way back machine. January
does feel way way way back. I've been talking to
so many people about what does time mean anymore? Just
so much happens every day. So when I reflected back
on our predictions, I mean, one thing I think that
was very on spot was that this truly was the
year that AI within organizations went from more exploration to enablement.
(14:23):
Now there's a lot of debate right now about how
that enablement is going at the corporate level at different sizes,
et cetera. But I can see across our agency, across
other agencies especially, and across many corporates, a huge movement
forward and tangible leaps, tangible upskilling, embracing at different levels,
(14:45):
not just coming from the top, but a lot of
peer to peer engagement, a lot of use of tools.
And we're starting to see more discussion of ROI, which
will be defined in many different ways. I see the
media even this week. I was reading today in one
of the AI news letters, like just this hard thing
about who is defining value in JP Morgan Chase, Jamie
Diamond has come out with some details about that about
(15:09):
what they are seeing as ROI already, but I think
ROI is going to look different, but I'm seeing more there.
And then the other thing I would say is that
some of what we've been expecting in January when we
spoke has been even more intense and acute than we
could have anticipated, as you said, and that includes societal
and economic pressures. The landscape has put even more of
(15:31):
an onus on how we communicate inside and outside our wells,
how we're flexible, how we're resilient. So those are the
things for me. But now back to you, Steve, you
set a high bar in January around three branding strategies
for twenty twenty five, so you could revisit those and
share how your predictions are faring.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, I think like you, I was surprised by how
quickly they accelerated. I think as I look back at
our predictions, I still think we were We were remarkably
on tar get for ours, but I've been shocked just
by how fast and conversations that I've had with our
friends at Muckrack and other AI is no longer a
(16:10):
future bet. I mean, the acceleration curve there has been
incredible that it's really definitely table stakes at this point,
and we're really seeing a rapid evolution that the leaders
are the ones using it to make customery experiences more human,
more meaningful, not more efficient. And if you look at
(16:31):
some of the adjacent spaces to ours, like advertising things
like that, it is incredible the amount of personalization that
can be done, or even just the ability for large
corporations to self create some incredible things with AI. The
second one, you know, and I think this one will
(16:52):
stay true forever. I kind of joke about you know,
the first cave drawing was the first infographic. Right, water
is good, it will nurture you, bears bad, it might
eat you. Right, that was like the original foundation of storytelling.
But we were right that value driven stories matter now
and the bar is higher, particularly when you get such chaos,
(17:15):
such change. You need to have the receipts. Trust now
comes down to really connecting stories directly to proof point
and progress, and it is difficult, but you really have
to really put everything together from point A to B
two C. And then the last part of the predictions
now feels truer than ever that in a year as
(17:37):
noisy as this one and as uncertain, clarity is currency.
You know, the brands that can simplify complexity and make
it clear what their path forward is and why going
to that values thing we just discussed, those are the
ones that are going to emerge as well. So I
(17:57):
guess taken together, our predictions are still whole holding up.
But we still have a quarter to go in the year,
so we'll see when we get to December whether we
feel like we've got there or not.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I love your point on clarity. I think even within
our own group, which encompasses two agencies, we're trying to
be very mindful and asking ourselves what's the most important
message we have to share, what's the most important thing
we need people to understand or do? How do we
strip back some of the stuff they don't have to
worry about as much, you know? And so I always
(18:28):
feel that our group is a microcosm for experimenting and
feeling out how you know, other things are resonating in
organizations far larger than us. But yeah, I think keeping
with the AI trend though, I want to turn the
tables with you in an episode you did not too
long ago, with Lauren King of one of our agencies,
(18:51):
Morgan Myers and Matt Zugan. They talk to you about
what AI is reading now, and there's a lot of
focus on gender and avenge and optimization. One of the
questions we got from folks, and I have my notes
here if AI is being trained on digital exhaust, which
is citations and links and message mentions. I love that
phrase digital exhaust. Does this create new incentives for content
(19:15):
strategies that go beyond traditional earned, owned and paid. So
what were some of the things that you think about
on that question? That was a really thoughtful.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Question, that was really good and I think that the
key point from that episode that just hit me right
between the eyes is GEO is no longer optional. I mean,
it is the new frontier of earned visibility. And that
whole episode was based on Mockrack went and they ran
a million inquiries to look at how the different engines chat, Gemini, others,
(19:48):
how they were processing information. And what they found was
it was incredible and actually incredibly refreshing as a as
a communicator. Based on those million of inquiries, the data
is undeniable. Ninety five percent of what the large language
models are citing is not paid. That means that journalism,
(20:10):
credible research, high authority content are now the most valuable
digital real estate that you can have in your strategy.
So again going back to that foundation of storytelling, it'll
be interesting to see how this plays out over time
because it is a real shift. You still need advertising,
you need paid but it's that return to the delivery
(20:32):
of the story. So every credible mention, link, citation, really
what you're doing is you're teaching the AI brand what
is a trusted source what is not? So visibility has
literally become I'll call it algorithmic trust. There's a term
for you for today, you know, so welcome to the matrix. Right,
(20:54):
We're now creating algorithmic trusts. And all of this is
shifting a little bit how we need to think about
the term of content strategy. It's no longer just about
the audience that we're trying to reach, but it's what
are the machines that are reaching them in this zero
click environment? Right, and zero click environment as you talked about,
is Hey, I put my query in and I don't
(21:16):
need to go any deeper because you're automatically starting to
get those AI summaries coming in there. So what we
need to do is think about how we can create
content and stories and facts that are really citation friendly,
high authority, timely, really structured, basically all those things that
AI can reference and reuse. So I know it's a
(21:39):
long answer to a quick question, but to me, this
means that our mindset needs to evolve not just coverage
for coverage sake, but coverage to earn credibility, which then
goes into the data sets that shape what people see
and believe. And I thought the other thing that was
interesting that Lauren really talked about that is, as you know,
(22:00):
we work in industries I hate to call them niche
because they're huge, like advanced manufacturing and healthcare and agribusiness,
but since they're not part of a lot of these
larger consumer sets, you can really have a much bigger
impact on what shows up by being at the right
places at the right time, with the right credibility. So
(22:21):
there you go. Visibility is algorithmic trust.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Now I love it. Let's keep coining new language. The
language is always evolving and you got to keep up
with it. But I think there's some great points there,
and it's been exciting to watch our teams digging into
GEO or AIO depending on what you want to call it,
and seeing all of the reverberations of it and everything
(22:45):
they can do with it.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well. And you had a very similar conversation with Dan
Nessel in your episode where you really talked about I
think the term was earned attention if I remember right,
And there's so much talk about GEO and AIO and
whatever acronym you want to give it in the context
of earned media or PR, but it seems like this
(23:08):
has broader implications on all digital marketing, on broader channel strategy.
Why in your discussion did you guys really come to
the focus on PR and what's been missing from this conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I brought up Dan and I talked about the
earned media implications, and then interestingly I just did his podcast.
It hasn't come out yet the Trending Communicator, and we
gotten to this point of the GEO conversation is very
focused on what we understand to be public relations and
earned media and is sort of missing the broader digital
(23:41):
marketing and channel strategy. Not entirely, but the bulk of
it I think has been focused on earned media because
of a few things. One is this feeling of where's
the value of earned media? And the broader marketing landscape
and the comms landscape, and again if you go back
to what we talked about with comms a seat at
the table for a long time with the advent of
(24:03):
digital marketing, and also just the preponderance of focus on
anthemic campaign based advertising back in the day. Even think
about mad Men, you know, there was a real focus
on like the big ad campaign. What was the ROI
that was going to drive and then digital marketing. It
kind of was like, oh, look, we cracked the code.
We've got all this data. We've got click data and
(24:25):
this data and audience data and time on site, and
you know, there was just this cascade of numbers that
are very different from the kind of metrics that Earned
Media produced, and there's been so much anxiety about that.
So I think that with CEO, we always knew with
SEO that there were high authority sites and that media
(24:45):
outlets tended to be high authority sites. So this is
not a completely new thing, and SEO is not going
away that way. People are kind of talking about what's
the relationship with SEO and GEO, But I think right
now there's also when you combine that with the trend
of sort of the pressure on journalism, whether it's you know,
an uneasy relationship to put it lightly, with the current
(25:06):
administration with journalism, or just consolidation, loss of jobs, you know,
compressing of outlets, loss of outlets. You know, there's this
fear also about where's journalism going because we need it
in a society like ours, A democracy like ours needs
a free and unruly and loud and boisterous and diverse press.
(25:28):
So you've put these two things together where Wow, journalism
is doubling down on its authority relative to what large
language models are looking at, and not just media sites,
but also you know, owned and other types of channels.
And then you look at the fact of Wow, this
is another evidence of how powerful this kind of work
is relative to earning attention through earning media. I think
(25:50):
there's a big conversation to be had here. So we
can't miss though, the fact that you're on page strategy,
how you develop websites, how you build metadata, and then
the digital marketing, how you're marketing through different channels. That
also has tremendous impact with GEO. So we need to
bring our arms around all of that. We are integrated
(26:11):
marketing communications. That's what most of our clients are doing
as well. We have to look at all pieces of
the GEO puzzle and I've been really proud of our
teams because they've been looking at it through those three pillars,
earned media, kind of digital marketing, and then that on
page development side.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, and you mentioned something I think that's really important,
the making sure we have a free, robust and boisterous
press which is become more difficult with news consolidation, the
shrinking of the newspapers. One of the downsides about AI
is it's writing a lot of local journalism right now,
pulling from box sports for kids, scores, things like that
(26:51):
in sports. And there's also the challenge of just the
heavier topics of trust and societal expectation and some of
those things that you talked about. In some cases, it's
a little bit disheartening to hear from some fellow professionals,
even some professional groups that are like, hey, the answer
to this challenge is don't use the term. If you
(27:13):
don't use the term, it's not an issue. Don't say ESG.
Just say hey, we like the earth, things like that.
But earlier this summer, I mean, you and Cheryl Battles,
what an incredible professional what an amazing career Cheryl's had.
But you guys really waded into some very heady and
important stuff and you're beyond acronyms renaming DEI, and the
(27:38):
title of the episode really challenged on just that, the
challenge of acronism and the over reliance in the case
of D E and I on the literal letters d
E and I as the root of the problem. But
isn't the real issue those that are working to deliberately
misrepresent the concept, both for and against big issues like this.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, I mean I feel that, and it was it
was funny one of the little in terms of this
reframing of DEI we use the header from acronyms to acrimony.
You know, there's a lot of intensity around this, and
I have a lot of feelings about this. I'm very
open about what I feel is the tremendous business value
of what I call the principles and the practices of diversity,
(28:25):
of equity, of inclusion, of belonging, of a set of
tools and a set of lenses through it to look
at the world. And I always say to our people,
part of this work is really becoming better managers. What's
interfering between a manager and an energy What are those
things that are layered? Where do we misunderstand each other?
Where does the idea of cultural competence across generations, across race,
(28:49):
across gender, across every geography, all kinds of things. Right, So,
you know, Cheryl and I really got into the fact
that that there's really real practice is here, real business value.
But what we discussed, and you kind of hit on
it with the ESG thing. Humans love acronyms. We love acronyms.
We just make them up all the time. It makes
(29:10):
life easier. However, that shorthand is a double edged sword.
When you say ESG environmental social governance. Probably everybody listening
here to us in the fields we're in knows that
those three areas encompass a universe of different needs and
practices and areas. Now, there's reasons why they were combined
(29:32):
from a reporting and a stewardship perspective, and it has
a lot to do with board governance, right DEI. There's
reasons why these practices have been grouped, and there's reasons
why we went from just diversity higher diverse folks representation.
Oh wait, we have to also add equity weight. We
should also add inclusion and belonging. I know why these
(29:53):
acronyms grow. But the heart of that discussion, and I
really invite people to listen to because I love to
hear their feedback, is when you reduce things to acronyms
and you're not fully clear with people on the why.
Going back to what you said, Steve, why are we
doing this? And It's not about taking something from one
person to give it to another, and it's not about disadvantaging.
(30:14):
It's actually about trying to say, how do we have
people bring all their talent and represent the fullness of
our customer base, of our employee base. How do we
get better? How do we build trust, how do we
remove friction, how do we fly? How do we create
flourishing and abundance rather than lack and taking away? And
it's sad to see how negative it's become, but I
(30:37):
love again that we have this kind of platform to
talk about the fact that AI is another one, AI
is a billion different things. So if we just say
AI AI AI, are we really defining the why behind
it and the usefulness of it. And I think as
communicators we need to guard against acronym laziness, right, I mean,
what do you.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Think, yeah, one hundred percent, it becomes it comes really
easy to get to get caught up in that, and
then it also becomes really easy to say, well, just
change the acronym. Just changed the term. And what I
thought was interesting about and what you were talking about
the why was when I talked to Robin Elliott, I
referenced that earlier you know, it was really that episode
(31:16):
was about research that they did that showed only one
in four still trust business to lead. And really the
core insight that we really talked about is action alone
isn't enough. Just taking an action isn't enough. But when
companies explain their why, confidence in business more than doubles
from twenty six percent to something like fifty three percent.
(31:39):
That's the difference between action and accountability. And so when
you think about that, you know, trust used to be
earned in moments of crisis. Everybody talks about Okay, well,
Tylan hw the crisis they dealt with, this is great. Well, now,
Tyan naw is a whole different crisis that that that
they're dealing with. That's the subject of a whole separate episode.
(31:59):
But when we think about the topic of trust now,
it's maintained through that pattern of proof. And ironically, when
we talk about GEO and the large language model, you've
got to do that constant pattern. It just can't be
I address it once and then I don't worry about it.
And the other thing we saw based on that research
that we talked about is we really are seeing the
(32:22):
impact of different generational lenses and what those generations are signaling,
and again one of the bigger ones coming through is
younger audiences expect transparency to be table stakes. They'll forgive
your mistakes, but not mixed motives. So that really comes
to the point that you were talking earlier about what
are those corporate values, what are those directions? Let's be
(32:43):
clear about that, because I think that's what's going to
be key, is really mirroring together consistency and courage, and
that's not easy.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
I love that. I think that's such a great build
on what I talked about with Cheryl and I I
think that's an interesting point for giving mistakes but not motives,
understanding what motivates you, even if it's hard and nuanced.
But the fact is, I find younger people they're up
for that discussion, you know, give them that grace and
get into the nuances, you know, the shades of gray matter.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
So I guess, going back to where we started on
our predictions for twenty twenty five and where we're at,
I mean, twenty twenty five has been an exceptional year,
I guess I should say, and I guess my question
is has twenty twenty five been more about managing risk
and uncertainties or is it about seizing opportunities? And how
(33:36):
should communicators strike a balance on those? And where do
we go from here? I mean, I wake up every
days like those are the key questions. And from my perspective,
it's really been a year of dual realities. I mean,
risk management and reinvention. You've got to do both simultaneously,
which is a unique challenge, but it's also in some
(33:58):
ways it's very exciting to think about the need to
deal with both, because particularly those of us in the
agency will but anybody in communications you didn't get into
this career to show up and do the same thing
every day, stamping that envelope. And you said something really
interesting in that January discussion that the most effective leaders
(34:18):
are the one you said are optimistic, realist or realist
opticism It was one of those, but those that are
really clear eyed about the volatility ahead, but they're still
moving forward with intentionality. And so I guess when I
bundle this all together, and my advice to all our
fellow communicators out there is uncertainty itself isn't the enemy,
(34:42):
but ambiguity without direction is. And what we need to
do is we need to be forward looking, pick a
path ahead, and we've got to move. We just can't
stand still.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, you're reminding me in terms of how I build
on that. Just today. I really love Kara Swisher and
her podcast on She also has Pivot, but on is
where she's interviewing you know, one or a few people
and she's just one of the strongest journalists working too.
She's very strong in a lot of ways. But she
had Brene Brown on the legendary you know, leadership Guru, right,
(35:12):
So they were talking about leadership. I think Brenee has
a new book coming out that I need to check out,
but it's a lot about what she's learning from high
functioning leaders in this moment, which is different than maybe
the leadership when you and I were coming up eighties, nineties,
like other times of leadership and who would say, who's
like the legendary CEOs. She said, one of the biggest
(35:32):
things people have to build it as a leadership skill
set is embracing paradox. Humans again, are not really set
to embrace nuance. We tend to move toward trying to
clarify something and it tends to be more binary thinking
or zero sum thinking. Is it this or is it this.
We rationally understand that two things can be true at once,
(35:54):
and often are, but sometimes and when we kind of
know that, things may stay ambiguous and we have to
make the best call we can. But this is not
a natural state for people, especially at the emotional level.
There's a distinctive difference between how we grasp something rationally
and how we feel it and our bodies and how
we manifest it.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
So, in addition to embracing paradox, which is a leadership
skill you need to practice, and it is that like
two things are true at once, she discussed the importance
of systems thinking, which I really appreciate, and she's like,
I don't know why systems thinking fell out of style,
and you can define it different ways, but it's a
lot about in the midst of the churn. You have
to step back and train yourself to try to look
(36:34):
for larger patterns and systems at play, which also relates
to DEI. So these are two pieces of advice, like
living in the paradox and letting yourself be comfortable with
that and saying Kara actually said yeah, she's like, people
ask me what's going to happen, She's I don't know yet.
I guess we'll find out. And then looking at the systems,
and those are two pieces of advice. I'm definitely going
(36:55):
to continue to embrace.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Systems, thinking you certainly had me there. Anybody who knows
me knows I love a good model. So give me
a four square of n diagram, even a napkin to
sketch on, and I'm in my happy place. But what
I like about that is, you know, models, models help
us make sense of complexity. You know, they give us
a system, a mental framework where we can see connections
(37:19):
where we may otherwise miss and kind of make make
decisions from there. And so I guess, as we're getting
ready to wrap, and I think about, you know, some
of the through lines of the season so far, every
topic we've explored, you know, AI, trust, d E and
I brand leadership. It's all part of this larger ecosystem
(37:39):
that's just constantly shifting and changing. But the more we
understand those connections and the better we can think where
the linkages are, and I think, the more effectively we
can move with focus, with proof, with clarity to really
do what we need to do, which is build trust
and really have reputation be a business asset for our
(38:02):
clients and for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the name of
this podcast, going back to the idea of brand gravity.
What is pulling you in? You know, what is bringing
you to an idea, an organization, a leader, and how
you create that through credibility and culture and clarity, and
how that builds resiliency in times of uncertainties. So I
(38:25):
want to thank our listeners for joining us on this
special mail bag edition. Yeah, go back and check out
the episodes we mentioned if you miss them, share what's
on your mind and keep sending us your questions and ideas.
So thank you again. I'm Anne Green for building brand Gravity, and.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I'm Steve Halsey. Have a great day.
God are the days at corporate communications. Is we're going
to push out a press release, We're going to manage
a couple key stakeholders. It's really embedded in everything we do.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You can see how in larger entities communications manifest in
different ways in different parts of the business, and yet
it's so critical across so many levels. I think it's
a good conversation to have. The PENSUL intends to swing
back and forth relative to centralized decentralized. But if we
can embrace that both and two things being true at once,
(00:29):
I think we're going to be in much of a
stronger place.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Steve Halsey and I'm
Mann Green, and we are your host of Building Brand Gravity. Well,
today's going to be fun. Today's episode is also going
to be a little bit different. We're diving into a
mailbag of the big questions that have surfaced across our
conversation so far this year, and we've spoken to some incredible,
(01:02):
incredible guests from comms leaders, AI experts, researchers. How really
gauging how we think about trust and what really struck
us is how often the theme seem to overlap They're
all very individual episodes, but a lot of them reflect
what many of you are grappling with inside your own organizations.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it.
Instead of revisiting each episode one by one, we're just
going to weave together questions by theme, and we're looking
at the kinds of discussion points we're hearing most from
communicators and marketers and leaders. So we can consider this
a lightning round of the issues that just keep coming
up in boardrooms, in our conversations with ourselves and other agencies,
(01:44):
and also in the media. So Steve, I'm going to
let you jump right in.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Well, why don't we start with the topic that always
comes up when you start the conversation about communications, the
stature of communications and where we fit in. In your
interview with Chrissy Jones in the Future of the Comms Function,
you and Chrissy discuss that off sided point that quote
unquote comm needs to earn a seat at the table. Right.
(02:10):
We've been hearing that for a long time and it
kind of feels outdated, and that's the point you were saying,
Yet it continues to come up over and over again.
Why is that and how is the statue of COMMS
in the C suite still unsettled at this point?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, it's really interesting. We did talk about that. That
was a very recent episode, so I encourage people to
check it out. I think about this a lot. Why
COMMS has to earn a seat at the table and
many organizations it has, like that's not even a question anymore. Yet,
I think the continued challenge of how value is measured
is probably at the heart of it. The revenue issues,
(02:48):
stock price, those hard metrics, the dollars capital tends to
still be the way, especially larger organizations, measure value. The
value of things like reputation as a business asset are,
of course and have always been harder to measure. They
are qualitative as well as quantitative, and there's been many
efforts to put the quantitative number to it, the dollar figure,
(03:12):
but those always feel a little bit hollower. They fall
short relative to a literal thing like bottom line revenue
or stock price, and so I think that that is
going to continue to be a challenge. Yet, you and
I have been doing some reputation work recently, and in
speaking with a whole C suite of a very very
large organization, it's incredibly clear to those folks that reputation
(03:35):
is a business asset and that these pieces are critical.
And so I think that we have to find a
way to keep articulating that and insisting on both qualitative
and quantitative. And the other thing we need to do
is remind folks that in a volatile landscape, communications folks
and communications functions are more central and necessary than ever.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, in a lot of ways, you know, there are
people that try and make it be almost like a
binary question of Hey, should comms really be sitting in
the c suite right there in the center of power,
or should they be out where the customers are in
the field with the businesses? How do they balance both?
In a lot of ways, I feel like sometimes that's
a binary point, that's that's being put out there. But
(04:20):
you like to say it's yes and right.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, a lot of things can be true at once.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So so that that continues to be part of the challenge.
But but you know it really, like you said, it's
no longer about having the seat of the table. It's
really about what are we going to do there? How
do we demonstrate the value? And it's interesting that the
role of senior comms has kind of shifted from that. Hey,
we're kind of the you know, kind of like that
(04:46):
little voice of the organization kind of steering it on
the path to really, like what you were saying, of
really thinking about reputation as a value driver, particularly in
as volatile environ like we're in today.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I just don't know that that question
is ever going to go away. It's our role is
going to be different than a cfo's role or a
senior council legal counsel. And I think we just have
to embrace the differences there and keep articulating it well.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And part of that challenge too. And you and Ethan
McCarty covered this in that episode of Living with Values
when culture and brand collides. You guys really talked about
the challenges of what happens when organizational and individual employee
values are not aligned, sometimes in clear conflict. But isn't
(05:37):
it impossible to ever fully achieve alignment between the corporation
and the individual And what kind of expectation should leaders
have for employees to truly buy in?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, when we had the Ethan episode, there was definitely
some good feedback there and some discussions even among our
own team about that question. There's like the organizational value
the individual's value. Because employees are not a monolith, right,
How do they overlap? How close are theyre they won?
Are they the same?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So you know? And I had actually reached out to
Ethan when they had put out at Integrals some good
research they do every year about employee values, employee experience,
et cetera, because that's their expertise. I think where we
were netting out here is that there's no way that
the circles completely overlap. That would be something that you
(06:28):
wouldn't expect to happen, You shouldn't expect to happen. Nor
is that probably good. I think there's a dynamic tension
between how you organization and its leaders as a collective,
and then the individuals in the entity pull and push
at each other to find your center of gravity within
those values. Now, one thing Ethan said I think is
(06:50):
very clear, and I think this is the flag for
organizational leaders, but also communications folks that are dealing with
internal and external communications. When the circles are too far apart,
some very not good things can happen. You want to
try to bring them more into alignment. So trying to
(07:10):
hope that you can have more of the overlap. But
part of that is going through that consistent process frequently
and refreshing it, of discussing what values really mean at
a collective level and at an individual level, and creating
an environment where people can speak about where they feel
tensions with their own individual values. You don't have to
buy into everything, and sometimes it's better if people exit
(07:32):
because they don't feel that alignment. But I think that
leaders have to be more intentional and mindful about how
they speak about this in their own ecosystem. I don't
know does that resonate with you?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I think I think it does. And you know when
I had the discussion with Elliott ms Rahi when he
was with the Page Society and Rob Yeclec of the
Harris Pole, they did some research at the turn of
the year which was really focused on that idea of
value using to the point that you were talking about
how a corporation really needs to stay true and demonstrate
(08:06):
and live out those values and then, like you said,
at some point, if they don't align, sometimes it's best
to go different directions. But it's also bringing that why
why are these values important to us? And why do
we live every day, I think our key and they're
becoming more and more I was gonna say more and
more transparent, but communication is so all encompassing. They're just
(08:29):
more evident, It's.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
True, and I think sometimes where there's a disconnect, and
this is a big issue, but just to lightly touch
on it, is when something's happening in the ecosystem but
it's not being named and openly discussed, that's when that
sense of trust or transparency erodes. So again, if there's
something the organization has to do that's hard, and there's
(08:54):
a lot of those hard choices in an environment like
ours that companies have to make, speaking about it, talking
about how hard decisions can be commensurate with your values too,
and allowing space for an employee, body and individuals to
kind of say this doesn't feel good and I want
to talk about it, but finding a way back to
the whys you said that, That to me, really is
(09:16):
so much of it. That's why I really enjoyed having
discussions like that with someone like Ethan Well.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And even thinking about communicating with them where they are
is a much more challenging question now than it was
five years ago. You have some organizations that everybody is together.
They're in one place, they're driving it others. You know,
a lot of companies that have industrial manufacturing component, you
have this divergent workforce that you've got hourly workers that
(09:45):
are coming in every single day to work the machines
to create the thing, while other people may be coming
into corbet or you have other groups that are really hybrid.
And I guess going back to your conversation that you
had with Chrissy Jones, you know, we got some interesting
feedback and some follow up that with questions about this
(10:06):
idea of our hybrid structures for the communications function, not
talking the corporation, but our hybrid structures for communications function
is the best approach today to try and achieve both
alignment and agility.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, and you know that alignment and agility if people
go back and listen to that episode, and I'm glad
you circled back to it because you brought it up
before and it's really germane. You had brought that up,
that question of how do you have both alignment and
agility if the hypothesis is that having communications folks embedded
in business units gives them greater alignment and intense intentionality
(10:41):
or does it give it more agility to move faster
because they're closer to the customer. Or do you have
better alignment if you have the centralized structure that's closer
to the C suite and less agility, or does that
make you more agile because you're closer to the center
of power. And I've been thinking more about this, as
you can tell, because there's a both and here. I
do feel in discussing it with Christy and with others
(11:05):
that that hybrid structure is probably powerful and it's going
to be different flavors and shades of gray for different companies.
What does it look like, as you said, a manufacturer
versus a knowledge worker type of organization. It's differently structured.
But the idea that you need to think about, you know,
again honoring your construct steve alignment and agility, And it
(11:29):
has to be both and in both settings. Alignment with
the business unit, in the customer's agility to move faster
from the field, alignment with the C suite and with
the ultimate leaders an agility to get to regulatory legal counsel,
make decisions move fast, especially in a volatile reputation environment.
I think that kind of common structure with a respected
(11:55):
senior leader close to if not in the C suite
is to me sweet spot.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, And I think the conversation you and I are
having with CEOs both here in the States and globally
is just really reinforcing that. And when I think about
and reflect on that concept of the hybrid structure, to me,
it just really reinforces how important communications is to the
very foundation of just how businesses operate today. God are
(12:22):
the days that corporate communications is We're going to push
out a press release, We're going to manage a couple
key stakeholders. It's really embedded in everything we do.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It is, and you can see how in larger entities
we work in healthcare, manufacturing, so many different fields. Communications
manifests in different ways in different parts of the business,
and yet it's so critical across so many levels. So yeah,
I think it's a good conversation to have. The PENSUL
intends to swing back and forth relative to centralized decentralized,
(12:54):
But if we can embrace that both and two things
being true at once, I think we're going to be
a much a stronger place.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
All right, now's time to have a little fun. Let's
go on our way back machine. You remember, at the
turn of the year, we did an episode we called
Navigating twenty twenty five Essential Trends, Insights and Checklists. Not
much has happened in the world since January when we
threw out our prognostication as to what was come. But
(13:24):
the trends we had identify they cut across AI, societal expectation,
economic pressure. Never could we have imagined the daily disruption
of the news cycles that we've been dealing. But that's
the reality of where we're at. So let's step back
and reflect and think, how are our predictions panning out
(13:45):
now we're just coming into a Q four. Are our
predictions accurate or not? And how should communicators prioritize anything
when everything feels so essential at the moment?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
All right, I'll bite fort and I'll hand it back
to you. It does feel the way back machine. January
does feel way way way back. I've been talking to
so many people about what does time mean anymore? Just
so much happens every day. So when I reflected back
on our predictions, I mean, one thing I think that
was very on spot was that this truly was the
year that AI within organizations went from more exploration to enablement.
(14:23):
Now there's a lot of debate right now about how
that enablement is going at the corporate level at different sizes,
et cetera. But I can see across our agency, across
other agencies especially, and across many corporates, a huge movement
forward and tangible leaps, tangible upskilling, embracing at different levels,
(14:45):
not just coming from the top, but a lot of
peer to peer engagement, a lot of use of tools.
And we're starting to see more discussion of ROI, which
will be defined in many different ways. I see the
media even this week. I was reading today in one
of the AI news letters, like just this hard thing
about who is defining value in JP Morgan Chase, Jamie
Diamond has come out with some details about that about
(15:09):
what they are seeing as ROI already, but I think
ROI is going to look different, but I'm seeing more there.
And then the other thing I would say is that
some of what we've been expecting in January when we
spoke has been even more intense and acute than we
could have anticipated, as you said, and that includes societal
and economic pressures. The landscape has put even more of
(15:31):
an onus on how we communicate inside and outside our wells,
how we're flexible, how we're resilient. So those are the
things for me. But now back to you, Steve, you
set a high bar in January around three branding strategies
for twenty twenty five, so you could revisit those and
share how your predictions are faring.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, I think like you, I was surprised by how
quickly they accelerated. I think as I look back at
our predictions, I still think we were We were remarkably
on tar get for ours, but I've been shocked just
by how fast and conversations that I've had with our
friends at Muckrack and other AI is no longer a
(16:10):
future bet. I mean, the acceleration curve there has been
incredible that it's really definitely table stakes at this point,
and we're really seeing a rapid evolution that the leaders
are the ones using it to make customery experiences more human,
more meaningful, not more efficient. And if you look at
(16:31):
some of the adjacent spaces to ours, like advertising things
like that, it is incredible the amount of personalization that
can be done, or even just the ability for large
corporations to self create some incredible things with AI. The
second one, you know, and I think this one will
(16:52):
stay true forever. I kind of joke about you know,
the first cave drawing was the first infographic. Right, water
is good, it will nurture you, bears bad, it might
eat you. Right, that was like the original foundation of storytelling.
But we were right that value driven stories matter now
and the bar is higher, particularly when you get such chaos,
(17:15):
such change. You need to have the receipts. Trust now
comes down to really connecting stories directly to proof point
and progress, and it is difficult, but you really have
to really put everything together from point A to B
two C. And then the last part of the predictions
now feels truer than ever that in a year as
(17:37):
noisy as this one and as uncertain, clarity is currency.
You know, the brands that can simplify complexity and make
it clear what their path forward is and why going
to that values thing we just discussed, those are the
ones that are going to emerge as well. So I
(17:57):
guess taken together, our predictions are still whole holding up.
But we still have a quarter to go in the year,
so we'll see when we get to December whether we
feel like we've got there or not.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I love your point on clarity. I think even within
our own group, which encompasses two agencies, we're trying to
be very mindful and asking ourselves what's the most important
message we have to share, what's the most important thing
we need people to understand or do? How do we
strip back some of the stuff they don't have to
worry about as much, you know? And so I always
(18:28):
feel that our group is a microcosm for experimenting and
feeling out how you know, other things are resonating in
organizations far larger than us. But yeah, I think keeping
with the AI trend though, I want to turn the
tables with you in an episode you did not too
long ago, with Lauren King of one of our agencies,
(18:51):
Morgan Myers and Matt Zugan. They talk to you about
what AI is reading now, and there's a lot of
focus on gender and avenge and optimization. One of the
questions we got from folks, and I have my notes
here if AI is being trained on digital exhaust, which
is citations and links and message mentions. I love that
phrase digital exhaust. Does this create new incentives for content
(19:15):
strategies that go beyond traditional earned, owned and paid. So
what were some of the things that you think about
on that question? That was a really thoughtful.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Question, that was really good and I think that the
key point from that episode that just hit me right
between the eyes is GEO is no longer optional. I mean,
it is the new frontier of earned visibility. And that
whole episode was based on Mockrack went and they ran
a million inquiries to look at how the different engines chat, Gemini, others,
(19:48):
how they were processing information. And what they found was
it was incredible and actually incredibly refreshing as a as
a communicator. Based on those million of inquiries, the data
is undeniable. Ninety five percent of what the large language
models are citing is not paid. That means that journalism,
(20:10):
credible research, high authority content are now the most valuable
digital real estate that you can have in your strategy.
So again going back to that foundation of storytelling, it'll
be interesting to see how this plays out over time
because it is a real shift. You still need advertising,
you need paid but it's that return to the delivery
(20:32):
of the story. So every credible mention, link, citation, really
what you're doing is you're teaching the AI brand what
is a trusted source what is not? So visibility has
literally become I'll call it algorithmic trust. There's a term
for you for today, you know, so welcome to the matrix. Right,
(20:54):
We're now creating algorithmic trusts. And all of this is
shifting a little bit how we need to think about
the term of content strategy. It's no longer just about
the audience that we're trying to reach, but it's what
are the machines that are reaching them in this zero
click environment? Right, and zero click environment as you talked about,
is Hey, I put my query in and I don't
(21:16):
need to go any deeper because you're automatically starting to
get those AI summaries coming in there. So what we
need to do is think about how we can create
content and stories and facts that are really citation friendly,
high authority, timely, really structured, basically all those things that
AI can reference and reuse. So I know it's a
(21:39):
long answer to a quick question, but to me, this
means that our mindset needs to evolve not just coverage
for coverage sake, but coverage to earn credibility, which then
goes into the data sets that shape what people see
and believe. And I thought the other thing that was
interesting that Lauren really talked about that is, as you know,
(22:00):
we work in industries I hate to call them niche
because they're huge, like advanced manufacturing and healthcare and agribusiness,
but since they're not part of a lot of these
larger consumer sets, you can really have a much bigger
impact on what shows up by being at the right
places at the right time, with the right credibility. So
(22:21):
there you go. Visibility is algorithmic trust.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Now I love it. Let's keep coining new language. The
language is always evolving and you got to keep up
with it. But I think there's some great points there,
and it's been exciting to watch our teams digging into
GEO or AIO depending on what you want to call it,
and seeing all of the reverberations of it and everything
(22:45):
they can do with it.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well. And you had a very similar conversation with Dan
Nessel in your episode where you really talked about I
think the term was earned attention if I remember right,
And there's so much talk about GEO and AIO and
whatever acronym you want to give it in the context
of earned media or PR, but it seems like this
(23:08):
has broader implications on all digital marketing, on broader channel strategy.
Why in your discussion did you guys really come to
the focus on PR and what's been missing from this conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I brought up Dan and I talked about the
earned media implications, and then interestingly I just did his podcast.
It hasn't come out yet the Trending Communicator, and we
gotten to this point of the GEO conversation is very
focused on what we understand to be public relations and
earned media and is sort of missing the broader digital
(23:41):
marketing and channel strategy. Not entirely, but the bulk of
it I think has been focused on earned media because
of a few things. One is this feeling of where's
the value of earned media? And the broader marketing landscape
and the comms landscape, and again if you go back
to what we talked about with comms a seat at
the table for a long time with the advent of
(24:03):
digital marketing, and also just the preponderance of focus on
anthemic campaign based advertising back in the day. Even think
about mad Men, you know, there was a real focus
on like the big ad campaign. What was the ROI
that was going to drive and then digital marketing. It
kind of was like, oh, look, we cracked the code.
We've got all this data. We've got click data and
(24:25):
this data and audience data and time on site, and
you know, there was just this cascade of numbers that
are very different from the kind of metrics that Earned
Media produced, and there's been so much anxiety about that.
So I think that with CEO, we always knew with
SEO that there were high authority sites and that media
(24:45):
outlets tended to be high authority sites. So this is
not a completely new thing, and SEO is not going
away that way. People are kind of talking about what's
the relationship with SEO and GEO, But I think right
now there's also when you combine that with the trend
of sort of the pressure on journalism, whether it's you know,
an uneasy relationship to put it lightly, with the current
(25:06):
administration with journalism, or just consolidation, loss of jobs, you know,
compressing of outlets, loss of outlets. You know, there's this
fear also about where's journalism going because we need it
in a society like ours, A democracy like ours needs
a free and unruly and loud and boisterous and diverse press.
(25:28):
So you've put these two things together where Wow, journalism
is doubling down on its authority relative to what large
language models are looking at, and not just media sites,
but also you know, owned and other types of channels.
And then you look at the fact of Wow, this
is another evidence of how powerful this kind of work
is relative to earning attention through earning media. I think
(25:50):
there's a big conversation to be had here. So we
can't miss though, the fact that you're on page strategy,
how you develop websites, how you build metadata, and then
the digital marketing, how you're marketing through different channels. That
also has tremendous impact with GEO. So we need to
bring our arms around all of that. We are integrated
(26:11):
marketing communications. That's what most of our clients are doing
as well. We have to look at all pieces of
the GEO puzzle and I've been really proud of our
teams because they've been looking at it through those three pillars,
earned media, kind of digital marketing, and then that on
page development side.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, and you mentioned something I think that's really important,
the making sure we have a free, robust and boisterous
press which is become more difficult with news consolidation, the
shrinking of the newspapers. One of the downsides about AI
is it's writing a lot of local journalism right now,
pulling from box sports for kids, scores, things like that
(26:51):
in sports. And there's also the challenge of just the
heavier topics of trust and societal expectation and some of
those things that you talked about. In some cases, it's
a little bit disheartening to hear from some fellow professionals,
even some professional groups that are like, hey, the answer
to this challenge is don't use the term. If you
(27:13):
don't use the term, it's not an issue. Don't say ESG.
Just say hey, we like the earth, things like that.
But earlier this summer, I mean, you and Cheryl Battles,
what an incredible professional what an amazing career Cheryl's had.
But you guys really waded into some very heady and
important stuff and you're beyond acronyms renaming DEI, and the
(27:38):
title of the episode really challenged on just that, the
challenge of acronism and the over reliance in the case
of D E and I on the literal letters d
E and I as the root of the problem. But
isn't the real issue those that are working to deliberately
misrepresent the concept, both for and against big issues like this.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, I mean I feel that, and it was it
was funny one of the little in terms of this
reframing of DEI we use the header from acronyms to acrimony.
You know, there's a lot of intensity around this, and
I have a lot of feelings about this. I'm very
open about what I feel is the tremendous business value
of what I call the principles and the practices of diversity,
(28:25):
of equity, of inclusion, of belonging, of a set of
tools and a set of lenses through it to look
at the world. And I always say to our people,
part of this work is really becoming better managers. What's
interfering between a manager and an energy What are those
things that are layered? Where do we misunderstand each other?
Where does the idea of cultural competence across generations, across race,
(28:49):
across gender, across every geography, all kinds of things. Right, So,
you know, Cheryl and I really got into the fact
that that there's really real practice is here, real business value.
But what we discussed, and you kind of hit on
it with the ESG thing. Humans love acronyms. We love acronyms.
We just make them up all the time. It makes
(29:10):
life easier. However, that shorthand is a double edged sword.
When you say ESG environmental social governance. Probably everybody listening
here to us in the fields we're in knows that
those three areas encompass a universe of different needs and
practices and areas. Now, there's reasons why they were combined
(29:32):
from a reporting and a stewardship perspective, and it has
a lot to do with board governance, right DEI. There's
reasons why these practices have been grouped, and there's reasons
why we went from just diversity higher diverse folks representation.
Oh wait, we have to also add equity weight. We
should also add inclusion and belonging. I know why these
(29:53):
acronyms grow. But the heart of that discussion, and I
really invite people to listen to because I love to
hear their feedback, is when you reduce things to acronyms
and you're not fully clear with people on the why.
Going back to what you said, Steve, why are we
doing this? And It's not about taking something from one
person to give it to another, and it's not about disadvantaging.
(30:14):
It's actually about trying to say, how do we have
people bring all their talent and represent the fullness of
our customer base, of our employee base. How do we
get better? How do we build trust, how do we
remove friction, how do we fly? How do we create
flourishing and abundance rather than lack and taking away? And
it's sad to see how negative it's become, but I
(30:37):
love again that we have this kind of platform to
talk about the fact that AI is another one, AI
is a billion different things. So if we just say
AI AI AI, are we really defining the why behind
it and the usefulness of it. And I think as
communicators we need to guard against acronym laziness, right, I mean,
what do you.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Think, yeah, one hundred percent, it becomes it comes really
easy to get to get caught up in that, and
then it also becomes really easy to say, well, just
change the acronym. Just changed the term. And what I
thought was interesting about and what you were talking about
the why was when I talked to Robin Elliott, I
referenced that earlier you know, it was really that episode
(31:16):
was about research that they did that showed only one
in four still trust business to lead. And really the
core insight that we really talked about is action alone
isn't enough. Just taking an action isn't enough. But when
companies explain their why, confidence in business more than doubles
from twenty six percent to something like fifty three percent.
(31:39):
That's the difference between action and accountability. And so when
you think about that, you know, trust used to be
earned in moments of crisis. Everybody talks about Okay, well,
Tylan hw the crisis they dealt with, this is great. Well, now,
Tyan naw is a whole different crisis that that that
they're dealing with. That's the subject of a whole separate episode.
(31:59):
But when we think about the topic of trust now,
it's maintained through that pattern of proof. And ironically, when
we talk about GEO and the large language model, you've
got to do that constant pattern. It just can't be
I address it once and then I don't worry about it.
And the other thing we saw based on that research
that we talked about is we really are seeing the
(32:22):
impact of different generational lenses and what those generations are signaling,
and again one of the bigger ones coming through is
younger audiences expect transparency to be table stakes. They'll forgive
your mistakes, but not mixed motives. So that really comes
to the point that you were talking earlier about what
are those corporate values, what are those directions? Let's be
(32:43):
clear about that, because I think that's what's going to
be key, is really mirroring together consistency and courage, and
that's not easy.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
I love that. I think that's such a great build
on what I talked about with Cheryl and I I
think that's an interesting point for giving mistakes but not motives,
understanding what motivates you, even if it's hard and nuanced.
But the fact is, I find younger people they're up
for that discussion, you know, give them that grace and
get into the nuances, you know, the shades of gray matter.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
So I guess, going back to where we started on
our predictions for twenty twenty five and where we're at,
I mean, twenty twenty five has been an exceptional year,
I guess I should say, and I guess my question
is has twenty twenty five been more about managing risk
and uncertainties or is it about seizing opportunities? And how
(33:36):
should communicators strike a balance on those? And where do
we go from here? I mean, I wake up every
days like those are the key questions. And from my perspective,
it's really been a year of dual realities. I mean,
risk management and reinvention. You've got to do both simultaneously,
which is a unique challenge, but it's also in some
(33:58):
ways it's very exciting to think about the need to
deal with both, because particularly those of us in the
agency will but anybody in communications you didn't get into
this career to show up and do the same thing
every day, stamping that envelope. And you said something really
interesting in that January discussion that the most effective leaders
(34:18):
are the one you said are optimistic, realist or realist
opticism It was one of those, but those that are
really clear eyed about the volatility ahead, but they're still
moving forward with intentionality. And so I guess when I
bundle this all together, and my advice to all our
fellow communicators out there is uncertainty itself isn't the enemy,
(34:42):
but ambiguity without direction is. And what we need to
do is we need to be forward looking, pick a
path ahead, and we've got to move. We just can't
stand still.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, you're reminding me in terms of how I build
on that. Just today. I really love Kara Swisher and
her podcast on She also has Pivot, but on is
where she's interviewing you know, one or a few people
and she's just one of the strongest journalists working too.
She's very strong in a lot of ways. But she
had Brene Brown on the legendary you know, leadership Guru, right,
(35:12):
So they were talking about leadership. I think Brenee has
a new book coming out that I need to check out,
but it's a lot about what she's learning from high
functioning leaders in this moment, which is different than maybe
the leadership when you and I were coming up eighties, nineties,
like other times of leadership and who would say, who's
like the legendary CEOs. She said, one of the biggest
(35:32):
things people have to build it as a leadership skill
set is embracing paradox. Humans again, are not really set
to embrace nuance. We tend to move toward trying to
clarify something and it tends to be more binary thinking
or zero sum thinking. Is it this or is it this.
We rationally understand that two things can be true at once,
(35:54):
and often are, but sometimes and when we kind of
know that, things may stay ambiguous and we have to
make the best call we can. But this is not
a natural state for people, especially at the emotional level.
There's a distinctive difference between how we grasp something rationally
and how we feel it and our bodies and how
we manifest it.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
So, in addition to embracing paradox, which is a leadership
skill you need to practice, and it is that like
two things are true at once, she discussed the importance
of systems thinking, which I really appreciate, and she's like,
I don't know why systems thinking fell out of style,
and you can define it different ways, but it's a
lot about in the midst of the churn. You have
to step back and train yourself to try to look
(36:34):
for larger patterns and systems at play, which also relates
to DEI. So these are two pieces of advice, like
living in the paradox and letting yourself be comfortable with
that and saying Kara actually said yeah, she's like, people
ask me what's going to happen, She's I don't know yet.
I guess we'll find out. And then looking at the systems,
and those are two pieces of advice. I'm definitely going
(36:55):
to continue to embrace.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Systems, thinking you certainly had me there. Anybody who knows
me knows I love a good model. So give me
a four square of n diagram, even a napkin to
sketch on, and I'm in my happy place. But what
I like about that is, you know, models, models help
us make sense of complexity. You know, they give us
a system, a mental framework where we can see connections
(37:19):
where we may otherwise miss and kind of make make
decisions from there. And so I guess, as we're getting
ready to wrap, and I think about, you know, some
of the through lines of the season so far, every
topic we've explored, you know, AI, trust, d E and
I brand leadership. It's all part of this larger ecosystem
(37:39):
that's just constantly shifting and changing. But the more we
understand those connections and the better we can think where
the linkages are, and I think, the more effectively we
can move with focus, with proof, with clarity to really
do what we need to do, which is build trust
and really have reputation be a business asset for our
(38:02):
clients and for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the name of
this podcast, going back to the idea of brand gravity.
What is pulling you in? You know, what is bringing
you to an idea, an organization, a leader, and how
you create that through credibility and culture and clarity, and
how that builds resiliency in times of uncertainties. So I
(38:25):
want to thank our listeners for joining us on this
special mail bag edition. Yeah, go back and check out
the episodes we mentioned if you miss them, share what's
on your mind and keep sending us your questions and ideas.
So thank you again. I'm Anne Green for building brand Gravity, and.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I'm Steve Halsey. Have a great day.
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