Who Tells Your Brand Story Online? Digitaloft Digital PR Summit 2026

Digitaloft Digital PR Summit 2026

It's easy to get caught up in the hype whenever a transformative technology, channel, or platform arrives. Whether it's TikTok, Reddit, or AI search platforms, the underlying mechanisms of brand building remain the same.

The truth is, we've never been in control of how our brands are known, discussed, or represented and our audiences and platforms are far too smart to take what we say at face value. So the marketer's job isn't to tell people who the brand is, or what they do, but to lead audiences and platforms towards amplifying and creating the narratives that align with who we want to be.

TL;DR AI hasn't changed marketing, it's a reminder that most of the time our audience is asking someone else about us rather than accepting what we say at face value.

Transcript

2. Dromology Who’s heard of it?
4. Dromology: the study of technology & speed on worldview, society, and the individual (why we’re all here today)
5. Before we took everything for granted, a business’ audience was limited by population and practicality If you can’t get to Leeds, you couldn’t shop at Marks & Spencer
6. Technology enabled transport of goods, businesses to standardise products, and customers to travel Leeds to Manchester: One week on foot 2 days by horse 3 hours by train 1 hour by car
7. Now people can buy from any business in seconds - every business is accessible Leeds to Manchester 1.7s* by Internet Next day delivery 1 hour click & collect
8. However empowering technology creates challenges, like the fight for attention & familiarity People can buy any product from any brand From any branch or warehouse Of any business In any country in the world They need a shortcut…
9. People use brands to make more efficient decisions
10. A brand is shorthand for a promise (I promise)
11. * - you’re not leaning weirdly, please excuse the 1 degree skew… Marketing started out as shouting loudly...
12. * - you’re not leaning weirdly, please excuse the 1 degree skew… THE BRAND THE PRODUCT SOCIAL PROOF OUTCOME/VALUE AUTHENTICITY While the bones of a brand are here, marketing doesn’t create the brand
13. The brand isn’t here… Hans Sloane is not a brand.
14. Or here… The chocolate is not a brand.
15. Or here… The company is not a brand.
16. A brand is Spectacular ‘The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.’ Guy DeBord, The Society of the Spectacle, 1967, p.4
17. So how does a spectacle come about? • Enough people believe it exists • Enough people believe it stands for a similar idea • Enough people believe it is worth recalling • Enough people can effectively use it to communicate If enough people agree a brand is real and important, your brand exists and is important
18. Brands are social norms, built through replication. But replication creates mutation
19. Communication is the product of negotiation and interpretation You only control the input, the output belongs to the audience
20. The meaning of communication comes largely from the audience Chair: • Has a seat pan • Has legs/a bottom bit • Has a backrest • Arms are optional
21. Search and AI add another layer of summation & representation for your brand’s message Wowee what a brand!
22. Our brand grows through amplification and curation of brand messaging - we want to minimise noise & decay
23. Empower your audience with relevant and repeatable narratives
24. Relevance 101 - (Sperber & Wilson, 1995) Message Received Does it apply? Does this update my worldview Is the update worth the effort? It’s irrelevant It’s Relevant!
25. This test applies to humans, search engines, data centres, and the acts of retelling and remembering What I get from paying attention vs the work I have to do to get it How much better my database gets from indexing this vs the storage it consumes How much better my search results get by serving and rendering this content How much better my anecdotes get when I add this detail to my story How much better my response is when I retrieve data vs hallucinating it
26. It must be easy to understand why we should remember
27. Create consensus & consistency for your audience
28. Brewdog created a base around cause and ethos, before creating and amplifying disharmony within that base
29. This is the brand equivalent of amplifying the noise by amplifying contradictory signals.
30. Having a high ratio of noise creates an ambiguous and contradictory proposition, mission, and brand.
31. Amplify and agree on what makes you special
32. Identify this by asking, ‘if you were in market who would you shop with, and why?’
33. This creates growth from how humans read & retain knowledge People read, and retain, what is Relevant and skip/discard low value information. Attention poor people read long passages of text using the F Pattern We’re attracted to contrast and differentiation People remember best through Primacy, Recency, and Frequency
34. The but wins with relevance, recency and frequency and often has its unique value or use-case called out in the summary.
35. One thing you can do for ‘free’…
36. Ask agents to summarise who,what, & why your brand matters Who is [brand]? What do people think of [brand]? What’s unique about [brand]? Why should I buy from [brand]?
37. Use AI & web scraping to aggregate coverage & reviews
38. Brand The Internet Our Media Our Audience Our food is high quality, fresh, and innovative Our clothing is contemporary, wearable, and great value We provide financial security & peace of mind The food is exceptionally good and convenient No longer ‘old people’s clothes’ - fashionable designs with inclusive sizing Ethical trading & trust in the brand Expanding stores & ranges with exciting seasonal releases Modern designs with a focus on comfort, inclusivity, and affordability Significant investment in British produce for fresh meat & veg. Fresh food quality is mixed. Specials are fantastic Some lines have inconsistent sizing, and longevity of clothing can be poor. In-store experience is great, with helpful staff. Online support is poor.