Nasser:
Welcome to Shift Happens, I’m Nasser Sahlool. Today I’m joined by two colleagues, that we used to do this all the time together. And I’m delighted to have both of them back.
Jenna:
But one more than the other though, right?
Nasser:
Well, that goes without saying. You figure out which one I’m happier to see. But first of all, we got one of my favorite people in the world, and that’s Jenna Watson, our head of media, and frankly, one of my favorite people in the world. Welcome back Jenna.
Jenna:
Hi. Thank you.
Nasser:
And also there’s Dan Temby.
Dan:
Also me. Yeah.
Jenna:
And also that guy.
Nasser:
Yeah. That guy who happens to lead our technology practice. Welcome back guys.
Jenna:
Thanks for having us. As though this is your home, and we’re just merely invited. Thank you.
Dan:
Honored and privileged to be here with you. And you.
Jenna:
Okay.
Nasser:
It means a lot. All right, so, I mean, as a as a bunch of 50 somethings, we can say that now right?
Dan:
Sure.
Nasser:
So I’d like you to impart some of that wisdom onto others. And I think one of the things let’s start with you, Jenna, because I think one of the big shifts that we’ve seen emerging is this idea of media as a trust building system, which I find fascinating because there are people who obviously are predisposed to media. But then we also think about platforms and systems whereby media gets deeply integrated into it. So do you see any changes or in shifts in that happening in 2026?
Jenna:
Yeah, I think media has taken on a completely, well, not a completely different role. I’ll circle back to that. So people are going to places like TikTok, places like Reddit, places where other voices will prove that a brand or a product or an offering is good and valuable, and brands are taking advantage of that. They’re getting into that conversation, and they’re buying media in those platforms so that they can be seen and they can be seen with kind of that third party validation from other real users, which is a sea change from how it used to be.
People are getting validation not only from the brand in their media anymore, but they’re seeing that media in the places where real other people are talking about them. So that’s super valuable. And I think it’s both new and super old. So I think we used to care about awareness. And when before media was digital, all you really had was awareness. And you become a trusted brand by being seen and having your value be the same every time you interact with that brand. The same thing holds true today, but we’re doing that because AI is in the middle of it, right? So you need people to be aware of you.
You need the LLMs to be aware of you, and you need both of those things to trust you as a brand. And so media has an outsized role to play now in gaining that trust. So there’s a lot more to think about other than just I put my media on this placement because people are on that placement. It’s doing double duty as to what the media is expected to do.
Nasser:
So when we think about that, and maybe this is something you can take on Dan, but for a brand to actually show up in these environments where people may not want to be necessarily interrupted by a brand, it’s critically important for them to show up properly and appropriately. And part of that is understanding human behavior and what people actually care about. So do you see any shifts in the signals that are available to brands to help guide them in terms of how to show up, especially when we consider increasing privacy restrictions and all of these kinds of things?
Dan:
Yeah, actually, this in terms of, you know, signals that brands can rely on to make these decisions. We were speaking just a couple of days ago how the whole privacy wave sort of came and went. And everybody has set that aside right? It was the only thing we were talking about for so long about what’s your backup plan for identity resolution and other emerging privacy things that have all been set to the side now, because there’s more exciting and interesting things to talk about, it seems.
Nasser:
Sorry, sorry, actually, let me pause you there. Do you think Joe Public has set it to the side? Their privacy concerns?
Dan:
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I don’t think Joe Public was actually the person really concerned with it. Originally, Joe Public didn’t even really know that they were trading their identity and their signals for value. They were just doing stuff on the internet and maybe buying things along the way. So lawmakers and legislation advocates are more focused on AI concerns. And, you know, how do we control and ethically deploy this amazing technology, and privacy kind of gets bundled along with that? I don’t think the signals, were ever the problem, it was, what you could do with them at the right time at scale that was always the problem.
Whenever we got into discussions about personalization, it was never about what information we had. It’s how are we going to crunch all this data and make what decision when. And now that is so achievable. And I think that’s what’s really exciting, is that we’ve got this magical compute running at different stages of the delivery chain where they didn’t before, and we can do so much interesting stuff with them.
Nasser:
So could you give me a specific examples of illustrate that?
Dan:
So think about your Clickstream data on any given web visit or a web journey. The concept of let’s look at what that person just did, and then put them into a bucket that will classify them as a particular type of visitor so that their next hero image changes. That’s evolved to let’s actually analyze this data and run a real time psychology assessment on this user. Based on these signals and other data we may have on this visitor, and make a determination about the words we use on the next page. That type of thing is achievable now. Now is everyone doing that? Not at all. But to be able to have those conversations really changes the dialogue of the whole system.
Nasser:
So I mean, you use the word “compute” and that’s almost a…
Dan:
Trigger word?
Nasser:
No, but, but it’s an analog for the word that we used to use all the time not so long ago around AI. Or if you’re somehow French or Spanish, it’s IA, but somehow means the same thing. So in those instances, what can AI actually read and understand and interpret?
Dan:
So I think AI can read and understand anything we choose to give it. So the question really becomes what is the right signal to give it at the right time. Too much is too expensive and not really fast enough to be able to get the answer. We just spent a couple of days here talking about all sorts of things, one of them is the really vast array of data signals and data types that we have at our disposal. And how, fortunately for us now, it’s relatively trivial to bring those things together. How we use them to answer what question for what reason, whether it’s to help Jenna’s team optimize a media plan, to help the strategy team understand an audience, or in what you’re talking here, is to make a runtime decision about personalization, all of those things are very doable. The question is, what should we.
And I think that’s where our wisdom in our ripe old age comes in. And our experiences, you know, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. And with all of this great power we have, I think that that premise has never been more relevant. We got to make really smart choices about what we do and when so that we don’t go broke chasing things that aren’t going to make a difference.
Nasser:
So let’s pick up a little bit on the signals subject, and Jenna let’s talk a little bit about authority and the impact that that has. So when brands are thinking about the signals that are being interpreted, something that keeps coming back is this idea of authority. Can you talk a little bit about what that means and how to illustrate that or how to demonstrate that?
Jenna:
So it’s really interesting because everybody thinks that now that we’re in this AI-first world, that everything is different. But your question of what does authority have to do with it? Basically, if I’m paraphrasing, that’s always been important, right? So back in the regular old SEO days before we were chasing GEO, AIO, whatever your acronym of the day is, EEAT, the A in that was authority. Still is authority. So you always had to prove to search engines and humans that you were an authoritative, authoritative? That you had authority on the topic that you were talking about, right? So you as a brand, have to prove that you understand the topic that you’re selling, doing whatever. That hasn’t changed at all.
The difference now, though, is that that authority is spread and a brand can’t control it by itself anymore. So the authority comes from what’s on your brand-owned content, your website, anything that you own. But it comes from what people are saying about you on Reddit. It comes from what people are commenting about you on your TikTok videos. It comes from a vast array of different signals that are, by and large, outside of the brands control. So the authority piece remains super important.
It is just even harder now because you can’t just think about it on the places you own. You really have to make the effort to show that you are an authority in the space across everywhere that you appear.
Nasser:
Dan, what do people say about you on Reddit?
Dann:
Good. Lots of good things. Oh, so many good things. Yeah r/Dan is awesome.
Nasser:
There’s one moderator on that one.
Dan:
Yeah, I know, it’s very busy. He may or may not be named Dan.
Nasser:
Damn. No, no, no, it’s actually Tan Demby.
Dan:
Tan Demby, yeah. The brother I never had.
Nasser:
Yeah, it’s interesting, actually, this idea of authority. So I’m just here on Chat, and I asked it to do a relative analysis of our individual personalities and styles.
Dan:
Okay. Like relative to each other, but really what it boiled down to in terms of relative strengths so “What should we do?” That’s me.
Dan:
Yup.
Nasser:
Right. “How do we activate it at scale?” That’s Jenna. And “What technology and data make it possible?” That’s Dan.
Dan:
Yeah. That’s true.
Nasser:
Do you think this is correct? And how does that make me more awesome than you two?
Jenna:
Yeah, you get the fun one. We get the okay. Alright, we’ll go do it then.
Dan:
Okay, the answer is yes. Sure Nasser, let’s go with yes. Okay? So we can move on.
Nasser:
Joking apart, this whole thing around authority and validation, third party validation. Why do you think it’s so important today? And perhaps more important than it’s ever been?
Jenna:
Right, well people are inundated with all this media everywhere. Your feed is personalized to you, so that’s already a check. That’s a problem, right? Because if you can’t get into a person’s feed, then you’re out. But I think it’s also especially important because the decisions aren’t made solely by a human seeing your ads anymore. Like your ad or your content is not the only thing influencing that, the AI is doing that work. So if you are not an authority, if you’re not already in the humans mindset, it’s going to be harder to get in there unless the AI LLM knows about you and believes in your authority as well, because a lot of that decision making is happening… The AI is basically helping the user do it, so you have to make sure that you are proving it to a user and proving it to the LLMs as well.
Nasser:
Dan, what’s your perspective on Jenna’s answer about that?
Dan:
No, it’s great. And that’s….
Jenna:
You have one?
Dan:
Oh yes I have strong opinions, you’d never guess. Your answer is absolutely correct because that’s our experience of this technology and what’s going on. But if you care, if you take a minute and think about how this technology even works, and we covered this on an earlier chat, I think in this room right? Every word, every language, like all of this stuff, whether it’s, you know, AI overviews or Perplexity or whatever, we’re using a transformer based language model behind the scenes to fuel….
Jenna:
Transformers, more than meets the eye.
Dan:
No, very old.
Jenna:
I am 50 as established.
Dan:
Oh, man. Every next word is a dice roll. It’s a weighted dice roll. Right? So you’re talking about authority, right? In a probabilistic environment, we want to tip the dice in our favor by sending more numeric signals in favor of the next word wewant the thing to say.
Jenna:
He’s saying what I said just in nerd talk.
Dan:
Nerd speak. Well, we have a diverse audience, right? I assume.
Jenna:
Probably.
Dan:
No, but I think, like, there’s a direct correlation between the fundamental way these things work and our experience of those as marketers and consumers and human people. But that’s really what’s happening is we’ve got this weighted dice roll, and we’re literally trying to tip the dice in our favor. There’s a little bit of this that feels like SEO circa 2026 all over again…. Remember we were at some event back in the day, and there was that guy that said he created awards websites and then awarded his website with awards from each of those sites to create backlinks. And he just crushed in his category.
It’s not necessarily that easy, but going out there and putting effort into manufacturing signals that are going to find their way into the math to determines whether it’s going to be you or that guy show up as the next token. That’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s nothing more than that. And that’s why you read articles about brands that have been a pretty good job at SEO, tipping those scales in their favor with good, broad content that’s authoritative. They’re the ones showing up right now. But it’s a gameable space, and that’s what we’re here to do.
Nasser:
So getting back to our opening. Anyone who was paying any really close attention to what Dan was saying clearly heard the senior moment when he referred to back in 2026.
Jenna:
I heard it.
Dan:
No, I didn’t say 2026.
Jenna:
You did sir.
Dan:
Oh yes. I meant back in 2006. My bad. Did you catch that? 2006. Good lord, it’s been a long week.
Nasser:
So what are marketers and what are brands supposed to take away from all of this? Like what are the things that they should be doing today as a result of this authority-driven environment where the signals are changing, where you have the capability to crunch enormous, you know, reams of data and pull out insights and actions in ways that you’ve never been able to do before and where the environment, whether people or machines, demands that you approach things with authority?
Jenna:
I like to say, I’ve said this for a couple of years, and I think it’s even more true now. Remember in 2012, not 2026, in 2010 to 2012, omnichannel was the big push, right? Like, we’re going to do an omnichannel strategy and we’re going to put the customer at the center and all the data will be at the center. If everybody had actually done that in 2012, they’d already be ready for this. Because what you have to do is tear down silos, right? You have to have a cohesive approach to “what is my brand going to say.” Literally everywhere. And what are people saying about it back at me? And you have to be looking at the whole entire picture now.
So you can’t have, you know, your siloed product team, your siloed marketing team, your siloed web and dev team, like everybody has to really come together because the world as we know it is gathering all of these signals from literally every place that it can read. So brands have to be thinking, what is that? Where are those every places, where, where places, sir? What are they? And making sure that they’re doing their strategies around all of that. That’s kind of my thing.
Dan:
Wouldn’t add much of that. I think this idea of zooming way out and considering every word, every mention, every reference to you, your brand, what you do, how it might have made someone feel along the way, whatever you can get your hands on to influence in an appropriate way that’s authentic, you should put appropriate energy into that and find partners and friends and staff and team members that can help you do that in an effective way. And that’s what we’re seeing that happen already. We’re seeing our clients that are doing that like, really winning you know, and yeah that’s it.
Nasser:
So there’s the shift. We’ve been talking about authority, Dan mentioned authenticity. And I think together they bring credibility. And I’d like to say thank you to two extremely credible people who have now spent half a century becoming more credible with time. So thank you, Dan. Thank you Jenna for joining us today on Shift Happens.
For people who are paying attention, who care about this. Success is not just about showing up. It’s about showing up with enough proof to be included, cited, trusted and recommended. Now make it happen. Follow Shift Happens, leave us a review and share this episode with your team. If you have any questions for the podcast email us at shifthappens@dacgroup.com, we’d love to hear from you.
Dan and Jenna, thank you very much for coming back.
Jenna:
Thank you.
Dan:
Thank you, Nasser.
Nasser:
And thank you from me, I’m Nasser Sahlool.
