Category: Expert Mode

This article was based on the interview with Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar on brand discovery in an age of AI search by Greg Kihlström, AI and MarTech keynote speaker for The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast.

n a recent conversation for The Agile Brand podcast, I had the opportunity to speak with Rick Rosenfield, the co-founder of California Pizza Kitchen. His story, which began with two trial lawyers deciding to get into the restaurant business, offers a masterclass in a principle we often forget: you…

If you’re a marketing leader in an enterprise organization, you feel it every day. The C-suite, the board, even your own team are all looking for the promised land of AI-driven Return on Investment (ROI). The market is saturated with a sense of FOMO, a frantic race to deploy…

The prevailing wisdom was that more choice was inherently better. But we’re starting to see the cracks in that foundation. For high-consideration purchases—the ones that are expensive, complicated, or simply hard to return—this endless choice has morphed from a benefit into a burden, creating a new kind of friction:…

The gap between what we train and what happens in the real world is a chasm where marketing return on investment (ROI) goes to die. But what if we could bridge that gap? What if we could use technology not to replace human interaction, but to perfect it? This…

The battle for a fan’s loyalty isn’t won or lost in 90 minutes or four quarters. It’s a year-round campaign fought in the quiet moments between games, in the off-season, and on the multitude of digital channels where fans live their lives. The core challenge, which should sound familiar…

What if that transactional, often-broken utility could become the most intelligent, personalized, and conversational part of your brand experience? The shift we are witnessing is not an incremental improvement; it is a complete reimagining of digital interaction.

If a rival can buy the exact same AI you just rolled out, what’s actually left to compete on? Rachel Orston has a blunt answer. “Anyone can buy the technology,” she says. “What they can’t buy is the human relationship, and that’s where trust, connection, and retention are won…

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) isn’t merely an extension of SEO; it’s the emergence of a new persona—the AI agent—that demands its own unique approach, its own content strategy, and its own definition of value.

What’s left to set a brand apart once every competitor is running the same models, drafting with the same tools, and promising customers the same speed?