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The role of communications has changed. The expectations are higher. The margin for error is smaller.
Earning Your Seat is a podcast for communications leaders operating under changed expectations without a clear playbook.
Hosted by Dino Delic, Stephanie Lerdall, and Genevieve Brammall, the show places the hosts inside an experience many communicators recognize. Smart, capable leaders learning in real time how influence is earned, tested, and sustained.
Each episode features candid conversations with leaders across communications, data, media, and technology. Alongside those conversations, the hosts test ideas in real time, question what they have been taught, and confront where common advice breaks down under organizational pressure.
This is not aspirational thought leadership. It is a practical look at growth as it happens. How communicators earn trust, collaborate across functions, and lead with authority in a world moving faster than the role itself.
Pull up a chair. The work begins now.
SPEAKER FIRST AND LAST NAME:
[00:00:00] Dino: This is powered by Meltwater
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[00:00:57] Dino Delic: All right. For years, [00:01:00] comms teams have been measuring by the numbers, volume, reach, sentiment impressions, but is measurement actually earning communications a seat at the table, or is it just proving activity after the fact?
[00:01:12] Dino Delic: We'll try to answer that question with the help of Evan Escobido, a brand measurement expert who headed media analytics at Western [00:01:20] Union before he built his own company, measured io. Evan talks about what it really takes for communications leaders to move past the numbers and start influencing decisions with smarter brand intelligence.
[00:01:32] Dino Delic: In this episode, we also discussed where AI genuinely adds leverage in brand measurement and where it doesn't.
[00:01:39] Evan Escobedo: [00:01:40] Yeah. And I think where people, um, are, misaligned or are falling short or have a, not the right idea of where AI can take them as they see AI as the strategist. I mean, we, we are the strategist, right? We are the ones that can understand context and nuance and,
[00:01:57] Dino Delic: Sure. AI can surface [00:02:00] patterns and generate insights faster than ever. Everyone knows that. But as you listen more to our episode, you'll be reminded as we were speaking to Evan, that it's still up to comms leaders such as ourselves to place all that into meaningful context.
[00:02:13] Dino Delic: So with that, let's learn more about Evan and how he evolved from using traditional metrics to creating his own formula for [00:02:20] quantifying brand equity.
[00:02:22] Dino Delic: take us back to that time at Western Union, how that transformation took place.
[00:02:26] Evan Escobedo: Yeah, at Western Union, I was there for seven years. Um, left there about a year ago to start my own company, measured io, and then launched this idea called Brand Equity Score. But at Western Union it was very [00:02:40] much I was brought in to, uh, provide media. Listening and measurement, right? It was along those lines of they had some standard reports, that were monthly, and it showed from a social standpoint, engagement and top posts and those typical kind of things that you see from a, a public relations corp comm standpoint.
[00:02:59] Evan Escobedo: It [00:03:00] was a share of voice, us against peers. It was, what was over a month period, the highest performing, press release or mention, based on, uh, volume, uh, and reach. and that was it. That's typically how, you know, PR measurement teams operates today. very [00:03:20] much traditional, you get in a comfortable spot.
[00:03:23] Evan Escobedo: You don't want to, change things you don't wanna disrupt, but I was given the remit, The objective to create this idea of center of excellence. And when you just think about measurement and center of excellence from a pr uh, media standpoint, it's really about creating discipline.
[00:03:39] Evan Escobedo: it's [00:03:40] about creating governance, and it's about creating accountability, but it's also being very deliberate about, the value that you provide to the different stakeholders across the organization. So just getting back to the idea of like what is step number one, step number one to building a center of excellence is really about really [00:04:00] understanding the needs of your stakeholders, right?
[00:04:03] Evan Escobedo: And it's not about, you know, here's the monthly report of share a Voice, and we're at 20% and our peers or our direct competitor, our main competitors at 45. But it's really understanding, what they care about and. Step number [00:04:20] one for me was about kind of not starting with data to say, here's the share of voice or here's the sentiment, let's back fill that into a stakeholder.
[00:04:32] Evan Escobedo: but starting with a person and what we did, which I thought was very, great launching pad for us to [00:04:40] build this idea of center of excellence and getting from measurement to meaning was starting with that person in mind and kind of building this framework, what we call persona based insights. And it's actually quite simple because it's kind of this agile type of idea, uh, of building a, a [00:05:00] persona.
[00:05:00] Evan Escobedo: it's like, as a marketing rep in Dubai, I need. Blank to do blank, right? That's the agile way of building buyer personas.
[00:05:11] Stephanie Lerdall: what did they want in, in Western Union's case
[00:05:14] Evan Escobedo: It was, um, really understanding the competitors and understanding the consumer. Okay. [00:05:20] But from a competitive standpoint, and starting with that idea of as a, I need so that insight so that I could perform my job better, hopefully, or understand something enlightening that I could adjust my way of thinking or do this differently.
[00:05:37] Evan Escobedo: Quarter two versus quarter one. it was then taken that [00:05:40] next step to, ask, okay, let's really be deliberate about like what you care about. Right? So it's the next level of that conversation to say what are those business priorities?
[00:05:52] Evan Escobedo: And,
[00:05:53] Dino Delic: We just heard how Evan recognized the need to be more deliberate with brand equity and how he ultimately shifted into a persona based [00:06:00] insight framework.
[00:06:01] Dino Delic: He went from counting coverage to extracting meaning, but meaning alone isn't the destination. Once comms leaders move beyond volume and sentiment, the bigger question emerges, what are we actually building? And that's where our conversation expands from measurement to reputation to brand [00:06:20] intelligence.
[00:06:21] Dino Delic: After all, insight only becomes powerful when it results in business outcomes.
[00:06:25] Dino Delic: Okay,
[00:06:26] Stephanie Lerdall: does,
[00:06:27] Stephanie Lerdall: so on the step one, like, so you're measuring for digital leader, which is that holy grail, then how do you use the insights to inform whether that's your right goal later?
[00:06:38] Evan Escobedo: it comes to [00:06:40] measuring and then insights to feed, that are we accomplishing that goal of digital leadership?
[00:06:46] Evan Escobedo: I think it goes back to the idea of, what's important again to that stakeholder. Like going beyond volume reach sentiment. Right? What a typical dashboard gives you. is it important to have an executive or a [00:07:00] leader voice being quoted or having a image of the brand in publications, that was important and that carries weight and being able to measure that is important.
[00:07:12] Evan Escobedo: Um,
[00:07:12] Stephanie Lerdall: I guess I'm thinking because yes, so like measuring whether or not you got there, but then what about the part [00:07:20] that's like, is that the right goal anymore? Or like, you know, actually there's this other thing happening over here and maybe digital leadership means something new to us, or.
[00:07:30] Evan Escobedo: being a digital leader. in our case, that that didn't change that evolved to that goal. but that, that didn't change because when you became a digital [00:07:40] leader or ha pushing out that narrative, which was resonating, which was being accepted, there's somewhat of an implication of, okay, there's the market share being gained or lost, but there's market share being gained, when you have that, leadership around that narrative.
[00:07:56] Evan Escobedo: Right. So in our case, f I'd be curious to understand if [00:08:00] that's different in other organizations.
[00:08:02] Stephanie Lerdall: I just seen like the feedback loop. So like, let's say, you know, let's say you've decided you want spokesperson in there and this and that, and you're, You're hitting it all. Yeah. But you're not seeing the business results or just like you're trying to help, you're trying to be a business driver of insights for the strategy [00:08:20] versus just measuring whether or not comms gets an a plus.
[00:08:22] Stephanie Lerdall: how do you set something up so that you're both saying, yep, we're getting an A plus, or We're not, and you're providing value to the business of, with the listening aspect.
[00:08:31] Genevieve Brammall: can I just jump in step? 'cause I feel like that's partly what I have done in, role. We set up a, a system of measurement like [00:08:40] six years ago that really, um, honed in on not just are we on tv, but how are we showing up? have we got our spokesperson, have we got the visual, all the things, and we had a whole set of criteria and we measured all that and we got the a plus on our self marked report card.
[00:08:56] Genevieve Brammall: and then we moved forward, uh, at the same time as doing that and [00:09:00] said, well, how do we overlay our business results with those measures to then demonstrate that this work is actually impacting the business bottom line? So that became our PR value score. So there's actually tactical, Response to publicity where we can see consumer behavior [00:09:20] matching and coming to our website at the exact same time that we've just finished being on air, which is quite remarkable really in how granular it is.
[00:09:29] Genevieve Brammall: But just recently I realized in terms of digital leadership that. we were measuring traditional media really well, and that was all based on [00:09:40] scale and reach and volume and really big audiences. But we had started to partner with really micro influencers and content creators. And so the criteria that I had established six years ago was no longer quite fit for purpose because every time I would work with a content creator, they [00:10:00] might have.
[00:10:00] Genevieve Brammall: In Australian terms, this is very small, but 10,000 followers. But if all 10,000 followers are really interested in Australian rules football and they're all can't wait for the team list to drop and they can't wait for this person's analysis and all 10,000 care intimately, what that person says about [00:10:20] football, and we get that person to talk about our fantasy football product that is really super engaging and likely to shift the dial for us in terms of registrations to our fantasy football product.
[00:10:32] Genevieve Brammall: So we have completely now changed the way the criteria, we've added specific criteria to more accurately reflect [00:10:40] that micro audience share. But all of it
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[00:10:44] Dino Delic: I could listen to Jen talk all day because what you hear is that she's constantly iterating, constantly adjusting and developing new things. She's not resting on her laurels, which I think is key, but also if you just heard that, you probably got excited about one of three [00:11:00] things.
[00:11:00] Dino Delic: Some people get excited about a PR value score. Ooh, PR value. I like those two words combined. But what I like what she was talking about was overlay business results. It doesn't mean that you have to pipe the data into the same database, which sounds very expensive. It's just overlay it. And then she also talks about consumer [00:11:20] behavior and the timing because.
[00:11:22] Dino Delic: Again, what I really like about Jen's thinking is that she's focused on driving a different type of behavior from the consumer, which is what drives business results. She's not focused on driving a PR value. She's focused on understanding does PR value drive the business behavior? So that's a fantastic way [00:11:40] to frame what some people are constantly searching for, but she's constantly searching even when she's found it.
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[00:11:47] Genevieve Brammall: still has to ladder up to the business goal because my view is that it doesn't matter if you get amazing publicity results if at the end of the day the thing that's keeping your CEO or CFO awake at [00:12:00] night is the business bottom line, and you are not.
[00:12:03] Genevieve Brammall: Doing anything that moves the, cart in that direction, then you're kind of just gonna work for the sake of showing up. Right. And, and I would much prefer to show up and, and show out in terms of outcome, not just output. I think that.
[00:12:19] Stephanie Lerdall: You're both [00:12:20] telling me that what I'm asking about is kind of a sex. Secondary thing, like you gotta first get the a plus and show that the work you're doing is the right strategy and it's leading to results. But I am still thinking about like, okay, let's assume you got all that. Like in my world, um, there are new investment types all the time and Morningstar covers all of [00:12:40] them.
[00:12:40] Stephanie Lerdall: And our goal is to just help investors with whatever's in their portfolio. And at this moment I can see that there's a lot of conversation about crypto, and yet Morningstar's kind of like, we don't wanna talk about crypto because it's a waste of time. You shouldn't invest in it. And, and Right. And yet, [00:13:00] like we're missing out on a very engaged audience here because I can see that they're talking about these things.
[00:13:06] Stephanie Lerdall: And so one maybe valuable thing I could say to the business is, let me show you this data that says these kinds of people, of these kinds of demographics are talking about crypto. And by not saying anything, we're just irrelevant to this [00:13:20] growing demographic. I can't exactly quantify all this, but if I could,
[00:13:24] Evan Escobedo: So you have direct competitors, that either are or are not talking about crypto. And those like direct competitors with those like for like services, um, they have either launched a crypto product or [00:13:40] they have not. And if they have that conversation across all of that media is really, really valuable stuff.
[00:13:50] Evan Escobedo: and that's leadership of your space in this particular category of, of crypto. So measuring that narrative, whether you're in it or [00:14:00] not, it is valuable to measure what's working and what's not against you within the industry. That's like step number one. And if it is working, Based on not just volume reach and sentiment, but really digging into the, the data to understand influence and social echo and, cross tabs [00:14:20] into, you know, whatever assets they are pushing clickthroughs to a website or to a product page. Tremendously valuable, right? So I, I think that's kinda where that goes to go beyond, it's really a diagnostic tool.
[00:14:34] Evan Escobedo: In that case, it's an executive decision tool to say, here's [00:14:40] the conversation. We have made a decision not to play in that space. That doesn't suggest that it's not important because it, it's tremendously important. and here's from a CorpCom standpoint, Stephanie, from your standpoint, it's, it's a leadership role to say.
[00:14:57] Evan Escobedo: We should be thinking about this because of [00:15:00] this, right? because our direct competitors launch the product and it's resonating in Reddit and here are the tens of thousands of people that are talking about it, and something that we should be thinking about. Mm-hmm. that's the kind of discipline and governance and center of excellence type of idea that, that was implemented at Western Union.
[00:15:18] Dino Delic: So if brand [00:15:20] intelligence is the goal, the next challenge isn't technical. It's human intelligence doesn't influence an organization on its own. People do, and not all people hold influence equally. This is where communication strategy becomes less about dashboards and more about understanding who makes decisions and what they care about.
[00:15:39] Dino Delic: [00:15:40] Remember,
[00:15:40] Dino Delic: data alone doesn't earn authority or shape decisions. Relevance does. So in the next part of the interview, you're gonna hear how to identify key influences in the room, among other things.
[00:15:52] Dino Delic: I want to talk about the center of excellence thing.
[00:15:55] Dino Delic: what was the title of the Center of Excellence?
[00:15:58] Dino Delic: We are the Center of Excellence [00:16:00] of,
[00:16:01] Evan Escobedo: it was media, media intelligence, media measurement, intelligence, and insight was the specific
[00:16:06] Dino Delic: I went and had lunch. I'm gonna name drop here if you know who this guy is, but Fred Cook, the, um, former CEO of Golan. He runs the USC Center of Center for pr.
[00:16:15] Dino Delic: Sitting next to him was a guy who's a researcher, comms [00:16:20] researcher. You know, we all know I'm faking being a data-driven communications researcher now in a way.
[00:16:25] Dino Delic: And then I just realized, I realized so many things during that thing, but my diagnosis of the problem with the industry. People dunno the difference between measurement, evaluation, and research. And so it's interesting to me that you're setting up a center of [00:16:40] excellence and the word measurement is in there.
[00:16:43] Dino Delic: But there is, to me, there is a distinct difference that only, I've only discovered now that I've been spending a, a, a full year working on this obsessively researching and interviewing people. But I think
[00:16:54] Dino Delic: that's the biggest problem in the industry and that we feel that as a measurement company, [00:17:00] because people come to us for measurement when they're actually. Looking for evaluation or they talk about research, but they don't even know the difference. Like, I don't know. I'm getting into semantics, but I wish that there was like a clear framework that said to people, this is measurement.
[00:17:17] Dino Delic: This is research, this is [00:17:20] evaluation. Do you think that.
[00:17:21] Stephanie Lerdall: Jen has it, right? Like she was like, there's a three step thing and everyone's stuck at one, which is like, what are my KPIs? And maybe evaluation within that framework, but then nobody's doing the like, but what should I be doing
[00:17:34] Stephanie Lerdall: differently?
[00:17:35] Evan Escobedo: Yes. People are stuck in this idea of, of brand measurement. What does Meltwater [00:17:40] provide? Brand measurement. I think the next maturity step to that is brand reputation, right?
[00:17:47] Evan Escobedo: Which everyone is, is kind of trying to grapple with and understand brand reputation. And, but then I think you get into this idea of brand intelligence and brand intelligence. Is this all [00:18:00] encompassing, action oriented, idea that is. When it comes to your priorities or when it comes to what I would consider those top priorities of every brand, trust, innovation, perception, reputation, those four dimensions, and really understand and uncover [00:18:20] what that means for a particular brand based on media intelligence and your drive and you're driving action.
[00:18:25] Evan Escobedo: that I think is kind of the, the maturity model or the maturity steps that I, kind of top of mind for me. Monitoring, yes. Putting in a, kind of a crisis.
[00:18:37] Evan Escobedo: [00:18:40] Brand spikes over X number of sentiment or mentions. Yes, we have that within tools, many tools have that idea. Right? But kind of this idea of getting to brand intelligence, I think is kind of what, where my head's going over the, over the, certainly last year of building out measured IO and building brand equity score as the main [00:19:00] product.
[00:19:00] Dino Delic: I see the, the framework differently. And I think when, you know, with your brand equity score, the people that I've shown it to, immediately, they go to, well, okay, how's my brand doing? But what you've done is you've standardized, this is what every brand should be focused on.
[00:19:14] Dino Delic: You've created like an aggregate set of, parameters, attributes. It doesn't matter what you sell. [00:19:20] These are the pillars,
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[00:19:22] Dino Delic: can I just spell something out? Like by now, if you're playing the drinking game at home, I don't know how many shots you would've taken at the word intelligence, but it's come up at least 50 times I guess. So what is intelligence? And I think it needs to be defined because we just keep glossing [00:19:40] over it, but I wanna spell it out here.
[00:19:41] Dino Delic: Intelligence is information you can do something with. We often, you know, there is a solution behind what Evan is talking about. Of course, he's built a framework and a rubric and, and calling it intelligence sounds great. It sounds like it's definitely much more useful, but. I wanna spell it out.
[00:19:58] Dino Delic: Intelligence is [00:20:00] information you can do something with. So many of us are producing information and not intelligence, and the difference is that you have to be able to infer and, recommend an action that someone would take against it. So what Evan has built is technically very, very good, [00:20:20] but it's only as good as the ability for someone to take action against it.
[00:20:23] Dino Delic: That's what makes intelligence different.
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[00:20:25] Dino Delic: and that's what RepTrak and, uh, other primary, data vendors have done. that's different to measurement, evaluation, research. I just think people are not understanding, and maybe I'm creating something new.
[00:20:36] Dino Delic: That's part of the scariest thing. And I, I opened up to Marissa, I almost cried [00:20:40] last week, where I was like, no one's picking up what I'm putting down.
[00:20:43] Dino Delic: I'm trying to think how do I help communicators get better at their job?
[00:20:47] Dino Delic: And I think where we keep falling into the same ditch, no matter what we try is because there isn't this clear distinction between measurement, research and evaluation. So what is the difference? Researchers data before the [00:21:00] decision measurement is data during the execution of the strategy and evaluation is when the game is over.
[00:21:07] Dino Delic: We sit down and we look at how did we do? obviously I'm oversimplifying, but that's exactly, it's just a, a timing. And Jen does this naturally when she talks about stuff. She talks about the data that she used to create the strategy.
[00:21:19] Dino Delic: That [00:21:20] was research. Then she implemented the strategy and she was measuring how we doing with getting these people placed on, on air. And then afterwards she evaluated whether or not the strategy worked by talking about how many newspapers were sold in that area. And I think people who are not so mature, who are, are being pushed in a particular direction, who are being told be [00:21:40] data driven.
[00:21:41] Dino Delic: They think that measuring is the same as research.
[00:21:45] Genevieve Brammall: Can I just, can I add in here too? Um, very interesting. The campaign that we just launched on Sunday, I was brought in to do some publicity and often people think, well, you know, just get us talked about everywhere else and we'll be fine. So that all they want [00:22:00] is a measurement, indication that says.
[00:22:02] Genevieve Brammall: This Many people have seen the content and this many people are engaging with it. And we, and we're delivering that. And I can, and I can tick that box no problem. But when we were in the campaign ideation phase, and this is why it's so important to have that seat at the table, at the get go, I said, well, hang on, but what are we trying to achieve?[00:22:20]
[00:22:20] Genevieve Brammall: Like, what's the objective? And someone said, oh, the objective, the objective is to inspire the nation to into action to get people to buy Australian made products more. I said, okay. So are we measuring that on a data set that we don't have access to, which is, retail, sales of products [00:22:40] that we don't own?
[00:22:41] Genevieve Brammall: Or is it a sentiment score? are we gonna track changes in consumer behavior? Consumer sentiment around the notion of buying Australian? 'cause we can track that. And everyone went, oh, I don't know if we should track that. Hmm. what if we don't change the sentiment?
[00:22:55] Genevieve Brammall: Well, well, if we don't change the sentiment, then we haven't succeeded. So then we went out and [00:23:00] everyone said, well, we've actually got a, a tracker. We've done some research, it's gonna inform our launch editorial, and we've done some research. I said, oh, great. Who did the research? And they said, oh, well, our internal growth intelligence center, we've just done a, a typical, uh, survey.
[00:23:16] Genevieve Brammall: And I said, well, what's, we're gonna mark our own homework and tell all of our [00:23:20] clients and our readers that we were successful. When we may very well be successful. The sentiment will likely change because this campaign is so big. But I said, we need an independent survey so that we are seen to be, Being assessed by someone other than ourselves. And so we had to go back to the CEO and the CFO and get the [00:23:40] funding to do the seed survey to have a baseline before we started the campaign on Sunday. and so that's not even meltwater, that's not, that's not me using the technology that I have at my disposal.
[00:23:53] Genevieve Brammall: That's me knowing the value of what I wanna do at the end, because I wanna be able [00:24:00] to say that we did this, it led to this, and now what? and shows something that is bigger than just a media output at the end. And that, that is what drives me. Like I get out of bed being so inspired knowing that I work for an organization that is delivering news, [00:24:20] to, you know, mass audiences across Australia, but These kind of campaigns that we're backing are, are really meaningful and they are shifting consumer sentiment and consumer behavior. But unless you're measuring for that, you know, it's kind of the vibe of the thing. And it doesn't deliver for you professionally. You, you can't go and demonstrate the value that you're bringing to the business, but [00:24:40] you also really don't know if you are really having that much of an impact.
[00:24:44] Genevieve Brammall: So, come to work every day and don't even know if what you're doing matters. I don't know. That doesn't, that doesn't do it for me. and it is scary, right? you're gonna be measuring, knowing if what you're doing is actually working. And marketers know that. Marketers can see [00:25:00] changes in consumer buying patterns.
[00:25:01] Genevieve Brammall: They know they can pivot in the moment they can go, right? That channel's not working. There's no optimization there. We are not getting any return on investment, let's. Pull that budget from here and put it somewhere else where it is working. But in comms, you, you don't have that nuance. And so you have to be prepared to, to measure in [00:25:20] different ways.
[00:25:21] Genevieve Brammall: and it, it still is, a report card for the work you're doing.
[00:25:24] Evan Escobedo: And it's being able to ask that question, right? Digging deeper, asking the so what? Okay, well. Now, so what? And then now, now what kind of thing? That's, that's, uh, that's awesome. and even that sentiment, uh, is not just a sentiment score. It's [00:25:40] tens of thousands of mentions to dig into, like what are they actually saying about the launch of, what you're launching.
[00:25:48] Evan Escobedo: Um, so it's not just a positive and negative question. It is a theme analysis, topic analysis and uh, and those kind of things that a meltwater or a listening platform can [00:26:00] uncover which Dino's point is that evaluation phase to then, you know, change your next launch or your next campaign. So that's ama That's good stuff, Jen.
[00:26:09] Evan Escobedo: Yeah, Jen.
[00:26:11] Stephanie Lerdall: Your foresight to, to push for budget and everything to do that. That way, you know, I think generally comes [00:26:20] from experience, but what have you learned about, because like asking for budget to do a third party survey is, you know, not small. So other than the personal satisfaction of knowing a job well done, how does that help you in terms of building a case for resources or, you know, earning your seat at the [00:26:40] table earlier and earlier, like why do that?
[00:26:43] Genevieve Brammall: it definitely does help. Um, when you, when you are able to demonstrate success at that level, because you're speaking the same language as the people who hold the purse strings, they are able to completely correlate, oh, this team does that, and that leads to this.
[00:26:59] Genevieve Brammall: We [00:27:00] need to invest more there. So for me, that has translated into being, supported with more resourcing for agencies. It has meant that when I've said I need to measure the work of my team, even in a cost cutting environment, I'm able to maintain, you know, services like Meltwater because they matter [00:27:20] to be able to demonstrate what success looks like.
[00:27:22] Genevieve Brammall: and I think ultimately this particular, campaign that we're working on has stakeholders from right across the business, but it was the idea of our CEO. So,
[00:27:32]
[00:27:33] Dino Delic: What
[00:27:33] Dino Delic: love about this interaction between Evan and Jen. As you can see then how powerful the dynamic is when you have a [00:27:40] curious communications leader and a smart and capable analyst, because that's Evan's role. Evan knows how to answer the question, but you've gotta know which question to ask in the first place.
[00:27:50] Dino Delic: So here's my advice to you if you're listening to this. If you don't have someone on your team, like an Evan, find someone real quick. And if you don't have a [00:28:00] communications leader, that A, that's asking the right questions. And if that's supposed to be you, then start thinking about what questions should I be asking.
[00:28:06] Dino Delic: Having both of those, and often it is best to have a dynamic, two people riffing off of each other in a room looking at a dashboard. And please don't be a sucker for another salesperson like myself who tells you that this dashboard is gonna answer all the [00:28:20] questions for you. No, it's a combination of two human beings sitting there figuring it out and saying, what do I want to know?
[00:28:26] Dino Delic: How do I find that out? When you have that team dynamic, magic will happen.
[00:28:30] Dino Delic: happen.
[00:28:31]
[00:28:31] Genevieve Brammall: you know, he's intimately en engaged and involved now in, oh, well what's happening here? And we've got a newsletter that we're putting out [00:28:40] every day to, Probably 750,000 consumers that is specifically around this campaign. And then to the clients who've come in as, as part of the campaign to tell them what success looks like, not just on our own platforms, but in other media. So in the report that I've provided for the past two days, we've used Meltwater to pull the [00:29:00] best quotes of leading commentators a across the airwaves.
[00:29:03] Genevieve Brammall: What, what are they actually saying about our campaign? our internal, content division has pulled, um, reader comments. But what I've used is I've used the mirror function, which is the new AI function inside Meltwater to deliver results that are really, insightful about the [00:29:20] campaign From the perspective of the clients who've come on board, like these are really big brands in Australia that have, and the Australian government that has come on board. So I didn't wanna just say, oh, you gotta mention, I wanted to be able to demonstrate, conversations that were happening in market around those brands and how we were shaping those conversations and how ultimately [00:29:40] that will shape consumer sentiment longer term.
[00:29:43] Genevieve Brammall: And it's incredibly powerful to be able to do that in a, in a way that really resonates with all of those audiences. suppose what it means at the end of the day is that, people look to me now for advice. Yeah. Like that, that senior council that I provide back to the [00:30:00] business is not something that I have to fight to achieve.
[00:30:03] Genevieve Brammall: It is something that people seek me out to do.
[00:30:06] Dino Delic: Once you understand who needs the insight, the next question is when it matters most. Is brand intelligence something you look at after a campaign, or is it something that shapes the decision before it's ever made? [00:30:20] The distinction reframes the entire discipline, and it's also where AI begins to change the equation.
[00:30:26] Dino Delic: me, let's talk about unfair advantages. '
[00:30:27] Dino Delic: 'cause as you're talking about this, One of the topics that came up at lunch with Fred and Dave was marketing, because they spend money on paid media, they know that you have to build measurement into the budget and [00:30:40] the campaign comms typically doesn't do that.
[00:30:41] Dino Delic: We've talked about that in previous episodes.
[00:30:43] Dino Delic: And their vendors do that, right? Like a media buying agency will put in a pre and post survey as part of the all in costs, but also PR is faster to deliver value. Like, you don't need to do research. You could just go off your gut. I could get you a campaign tomorrow. Whereas [00:31:00] advertising is like, well, it costs more money. And so they just have a different workflow. Interestingly, Fred was like, he just shut that idea down.
[00:31:06] Dino Delic: He is like, we're not advertising, so why do we need to start baking things into the budget? We're different. I thought, Ooh, isn't that an interesting old school way of thinking? This, obviously I'm not gonna, uh, defame the guy, but that, that to me was interesting that he's just not interested in keeping up [00:31:20] with advertising.
[00:31:21] Dino Delic: But unfair advantages. You work for a media company. Did you learn this from advertising? Is that why, it just kind of went over my head, but maybe that's where you learn these techniques of, and, and also when you have a CEO who leans in and says, well, what's happening in pr? He's the CEO of a media company.
[00:31:38] Genevieve Brammall: yep. There is definitely an unfair advantage [00:31:40] there. My, my CEO grew up, his early career was as a marketer and so he really, truly understands the value. Of communications and publicity. Mm. But he hasn't only worked at NewsCorp, like he's worked, he headed up outdoor, he headed up a radio, conglomerate in Australia.
[00:31:56] Genevieve Brammall: So he's, he's, but he's largely been Yeah. In media. [00:32:00] So I,
[00:32:00] Dino Delic: Media works. It does understand. I'm not just trying to discredit you. I'm trying to think, well, how can we get other people to that same situation? 'cause I don't think that it should just be possible only at a media company. What you are doing should be possible elsewhere.
[00:32:13] Evan Escobedo: so you, it sounds like have, achieved what I think is on top of mind for every PR [00:32:20] measurement or, or per, uh, person in this role. And that is to have a seat at the table and in order for you to have a seat at the table. Step number one is to build trust, right? Be that internal trusted partner.
[00:32:36] Evan Escobedo: And then when you have that trust built with [00:32:40] those questions, those deeper level questions of so what's, and now whats, and here's how we're gonna, have impact to the organization for a particular campaign. You then become a strategic advisor, which it's, I mean, that's like you, that's what you've done.
[00:32:54] Evan Escobedo: You're advising, um, strategy. that is the aspirational goal of [00:33:00] ever, everyone in our space moving from a role to a, you know, person, building a center of excellence to a trusted partner internally to a strategic advisor and having a seat at the table be called on.
[00:33:15] Evan Escobedo: what was that like for you, Jen? I'd be curious to hear kind of that evolution of that [00:33:20] capacity for you.
[00:33:21] Genevieve Brammall: I think the one thing that I've always done is identify who in the room is gonna understand what I've got to say. And that doesn't mean that, at the very beginning I go, oh, the CEO is the one that I need to influence. So I've just gotta start talking to the CEO because that wasn't my [00:33:40] experience. In fact, I was never in the room with the CEO, I had to be capable of identifying who actually, was in the room with the CEO when I wasn't there.
[00:33:51] Genevieve Brammall: And of all those people who were the ones that actually, um, might get what I've got to bring to the table [00:34:00] and start small. And so I took. Baby steps. And sometimes it might have been that the head of sales sitting at the table and I did a micro piece of work that impacted one of their clients and then she was able to be in the room going, do you know, we've got this like PR team over here and they're doing this stuff, and [00:34:20] like, maybe we need to do more of that.
[00:34:22] Genevieve Brammall: Or, you know, the head of marketing would be sitting there going, we, we got this great result from a marketing perspective. But I think it was also impacted by the work that we did with PR because. That actually achieved this. maybe no one exactly saw the totality of the work the way that I saw it.
[00:34:39] Genevieve Brammall: But I [00:34:40] had these micro influences around the table who could really understand that we, we could bring value. And then I think as you get more experienced, as Steph said, you get more exp you get more courageous. and I think I've now just gone, well, I've got nothing to lose. I, I know what I'm doing.
[00:34:56] Genevieve Brammall: and I think also we're at a, we're at a real juncture in media [00:35:00] more broadly across the world, which is, well, if we're not taking risks now what are we doing? let's have a real go. Like, that passion comes from, just knowing my, my role, right? And, and knowing, knowing what it is that I, I need to achieve.
[00:35:13] Genevieve Brammall: And, and going at, I'm not trying to do someone else's job. I'm, I'm sort of in some respects staying in my lane, but my [00:35:20] experience is informed by, deep experience and knowledge. and I'm not good at everything, but I'm quite good at, at this bit.
[00:35:28] Evan Escobedo: I'm going back to the idea of kind of persona based insights framework
[00:35:32] Evan Escobedo: Do you think that's kind of the starting point of starting not with data, not with sentiment scores, and not with share voice and not with [00:35:40] volume and reach trends over a month, but a person.
[00:35:45] Evan Escobedo: And it's people, right, that you're trying to influence and what do they care about? I mean, can you talk to that a little bit?
[00:35:52] Genevieve Brammall: I think that's very true. I don't, I'd never heard that sort of language, the persona based insights, but I think, retrofitting that [00:36:00] into my experience is definitely, is definitely the case. And, trying to work out, I think, there are a lot of different stakeholders who have slightly different, um, business needs and business objectives.
[00:36:10] Genevieve Brammall: And so Steph was saying earlier, well, how do you satisfy all of them? Or you can't, um, satisfy all of them at the exact same moment with the exact same insight or piece of [00:36:20] data or, or whatever it is. But you can know what their needs are and understand how you can add value to their need, and then adjust for that.
[00:36:30] Genevieve Brammall: And I think, that's largely what I've done, but I would say you can't do it in a vacuum. You still need to be, have that BAU that baseline. [00:36:40] You still need to be demonstrating, some sort of always on value that, generally speaking, the business understands and then be nuanced in your approach with, with various people.
[00:36:52] Genevieve Brammall: it's interesting for me too, because. I know Steph and others are in global roles. I sit in, a capital city in Melbourne, but it's not the [00:37:00] capital city where our headquarters is. So I think a lot of people think, oh, I've gotta be in the room. Like literally physically present. Yeah.
[00:37:07] Genevieve Brammall: And I would say that I have managed to be influential even though I'm not even in the same city as where the decision makers are largely based. And that takes a whole nother layer [00:37:20] of agility within a business to understand how to influence people from a farm. And this,
[00:37:24] Dino Delic: also comes in a world before remote work was so easy, maybe you guys had better technology, but like how, how did you do it back before Zoom and everything?
[00:37:33] Genevieve Brammall: I can't even remember,
[00:37:34] Genevieve Brammall: just think I just was very strategic with the conversations that I had with people. [00:37:40] email obviously was, and still is a really powerful medium. Used well, when you're able to, to find the right people to talk to, maybe not having.
[00:37:49] Dino Delic: FaceTime. So they only saw your face Yeah. Once a month. Yeah. And they, you got to a trusted advisor position not being in the seat of power or the seat of government, [00:38:00] which is Sydney for, for News Corp. That's actually very interesting. I, I think we do a whole episode on how people gain that influence when not being in the physical proximity.
[00:38:11] Genevieve Brammall: I will say the most important people in our business are editors. They always have been. They still are. Like, they are shaping the narrative of the [00:38:20] nation. And I started out as a journalist the way I've always positioned it is I'm just here to make you look good.
[00:38:25] Genevieve Brammall: That's my job. Yeah. I'm here to start a conversation. Make people have, we're gonna have a lot of noise about the work you are doing. I am gonna make you look better, so invite me in. The ones who understood [00:38:40] that I was literally just there to make them look good. They were the ones who were like, yeah, come on.
[00:38:44] Genevieve Brammall: Like, I'll have a conversation with you. What can you do with me? You know, I had editors straight up, saying to me, next time you're in Sydney, we need to have lunch. Next time you're in Sydney, let's go and meet some stakeholders together. Like they would, they, they really, truly got it.
[00:38:57] Genevieve Brammall: There's a few that, don't understand it or, [00:39:00] or don't they think, you know, whatever. But the ones who really understood were the ones that brought me on that journey. And then other people in the business because you, you know, you deeply embedded and engaged with the most senior editorial leaders in the business, other people are, are also then gonna go well, if they like her, we like her too.[00:39:20]
[00:39:20] Genevieve Brammall: And it's all the same. Like, we're all in the business of comms, right.
[00:39:23] Dino Delic: this is why a lot of people in marketing at Meltwater just don't survive and they do not understand who holds the power at a company like ours. And every company's different. certain companies, it's the product team or it's the AI developers, or it's the [00:39:40] truck drivers, or it's whatever, or it's the investors and the board meltwater.
[00:39:45] Dino Delic: It's the salespeople. In your case. I think maybe then the lesson is going back to also what Evan was saying, like just figuring out who are the important players. And it's a, it is a game of politics. Like if you're gonna be inf influential and gain trust, you need to figure [00:40:00] out which hills are worth dying on with which people you need to build those relationships.
[00:40:05] Dino Delic: And I think sometimes, like, who was it? Somebody else, another person said to me, yeah, but Dina, what you're advocating for, like marrying brand reputation and business intelligence together. A lot of comms people, uh, chief comms officers will get laughed out of a [00:40:20] room for trying to tie themselves to business outcomes. I'm like, why would they do that? Well, because they just know their place in the world and they're not gonna go challenge other people
[00:40:27] Dino Delic: that's where I was like, hang on a am I doing this wrong?
[00:40:30] Dino Delic: Like, why is this person saying like, you're, you are, you're going down a wrong path. 'cause chief comms officer.
[00:40:35] Stephanie Lerdall: or need up, I suppose. Fair enough that I wouldn't be like, look at all this revenue. I got you.
[00:40:39] Stephanie Lerdall: But
[00:40:39] Dino Delic: [00:40:40] So here's what we know. AI can accelerate research, it can surface patterns, and it can generate hypotheses in a second.
[00:40:48] Dino Delic: And it can even in some instances, tell a better story than any humble but hesitant communications leader could. But speed isn't. Strategy and pattern recognition isn't judgment. [00:41:00] Which brings us to the real tension underneath this entire conversation. In a world of automation, what remains uniquely human and how does that define the future authority of communications leaders?
[00:41:12]
[00:41:15] Dino Delic: I got my, my bravery was from listening to Jen's little video, which a [00:41:20] lot of comms people do. But understanding who's powerful and gives them confidence or, they decide what is success or not success, like that, that is so overlooked, and that's where people jump into measurement.
[00:41:35] Dino Delic: Oh, we're gonna measure everything and the data's gonna tell us how awesome we are. How awesome you [00:41:40] are is. Editors, for example, might think success is different than your advertising sales team. Yes, editors might actually hate advertising and they might think, oh, we just won the biggest advertising deal of anybody.
[00:41:51] Dino Delic: And they're like, I fucking hate that because that's a terrible company. And they ruined our pages and like they made me push all my stories back to the back page or whatever. Like you [00:42:00] have to read the room, which is what comms people are good at, but you can't be afraid. And what was interesting also about what you said there, Jen, you did this all without APIs and data lakes.
[00:42:10] Dino Delic: Like you came in, you said, we did all this and then this happened. And maybe it's because people understand how media works that they're like, well, if this happens, then I know that that's gonna lead to this. [00:42:20] Maybe that's the fear that other people in other industries, B2B Tech, for example, Meltwater ironically, hypocritically also feels that way.
[00:42:28] Dino Delic: So I have to convince people that a podcast with you guys is a great idea. Why should we do that? I don't know. Do you want other people saying nice things about the things that we provide? Not necessarily about our products, but [00:42:40] just the fact that we have a solution to a problem that everybody's talking about.
[00:42:44] Dino Delic: So I don't know. It's, it's interesting how a lot of things that we've just talked about, some go over our heads, but others, we just hear time and time again, you gotta build relationships, you gotta understand, you gotta speak their language, you gotta meet them where they're at. And you put a [00:43:00] technical term on it, which was interesting 'cause it came before chat t.
[00:43:02] Dino Delic: But Evan, you called it persona based insights. That's meeting them where they're at. What's your job? Yeah. Oh, okay, cool. You care about Dubai? I'm gonna cancel out everything else. Doesn't matter that we're number one in Africa. You want Middle East? Meet them where they're at.
[00:43:14] Genevieve Brammall: I think it's intuitive. Dino, I think that the majority of comms leaders know [00:43:20] this. It's not, it's not like I ever sat down and, and strategically said, how am I gonna influence people? I've gotta go and make friends with this person, or that, like, in fact, it's, it's actually the opposite of that. it's an evolution of being really great at relationships.
[00:43:34] Genevieve Brammall: At stakeholder management, their skills that most people in senior comms roles have in [00:43:40] spades. It's, it's how you actually got into a role that doesn't usually have a lot of budget. Right? So, you know, the marketing's sitting there with all the money. You are sitting here with all the relationships. And so if you understand that that's, you know, the place that we're coming from, and you're able to work those to your advantage, but without [00:44:00] being.
[00:44:00] Genevieve Brammall: So, I don't know, it feels manipulative the way that we are discussing it right now. But it never was that for me,
[00:44:04] Evan Escobedo: you provide value, you provide your, you gain trust and all that good stuff. I did wanna bring up ai.
[00:44:11] Evan Escobedo: I'd be curious if Stephanie and Jen have been asked by their superiors how they plan to leverage ai. Where does AI come into [00:44:20] play? Jen, you mentioned ai. ' I'm a melt water user. I think Myra's, uh, Myra, or Myra is I think amazing, in the way of summarizing what happened.
[00:44:32] Genevieve Brammall: are you relying on that? Are you relying on that to inform stakeholders? Are you digging into understand [00:44:40] the, why behind the, the, what it's providing in the way of summaries and AI categories and, I am doing it as of Sunday, so I just started using it with this campaign. But what I would love to use, and I've spoken to our team at Meltwater about is how. How do I use AI to [00:45:00] drive the next step? So for me, I wanna be able to say, so I've got six years of data, for example, around, us and our campaigns and our output and our work.
[00:45:11] Genevieve Brammall: I wanna know, you know, what the next step is. Like, if I'm gonna develop, if I'm really gonna challenge my team, we're gonna do things differently. We're gonna continue to show up [00:45:20] in really innovative ways. What does that look like? And AI, to me, has capabilities that. You don't even really know what it's capable of until you've got the right prompt and then it can tell you something you never even thought you needed to know.
[00:45:34] Genevieve Brammall: And that's where I wanna use ai. Not so much of like push out a report. I mean, it, it's good, it's, it's [00:45:40] time saving, it's sufficient, et cetera. But I want to do the thinking that, that, I don't even know if a bunch of humans in a room could get to
[00:45:48] Genevieve Brammall: that point
[00:45:49] Dino Delic: measurement evaluation research. Where is AI most powerful?
[00:45:53] Stephanie Lerdall: Research.
[00:45:54] Dino Delic: Why? Because it helps you see context and all this that might exactly make your strategy better, whereas [00:46:00] where is everyone trying to use it? Measurement,
[00:46:03] Genevieve Brammall: Yeah.
[00:46:03] Dino Delic: you're not gonna learn anything from measurement. You're just collecting data and quickly finding out like, oh, I, but where success comes from is designing the right strategy in the first place.
[00:46:12] Dino Delic: I'm not one who designed strategies you guys are. So that's a hypothesis that you tell me is if I was to tell you that you are gonna get [00:46:20] more results from just designing a better strategy than measuring and evaluating better. Is that true or false?
[00:46:25] Genevieve Brammall: true if I'm gonna get.
[00:46:27] Dino Delic: Asking for agreement. I actually wanna debate about it. if you only had one bucket to invest in measurement, evaluation, or research, which one would you go into?
[00:46:34] Genevieve Brammall: I still want a way to be able to demonstrate success. Like the measurement is still important to me. It's important because, [00:46:40] yeah, yeah. Yeah. And also I will say in our company, we have a whole separate research arm that does, they're like my best friends. they are doing research always on research about consumer's behaviors in Australia, around the world that they're amazing.
[00:46:54] Genevieve Brammall: So I'm very fortunate that I actually don't have to choose because I get access to great stuff anyway.
[00:46:59] Dino Delic: [00:47:00] you are not unique in that sense. 'cause like Western Union, you had a consumer insights department for sure. You get so much data from the digital infrastructure that you built. Same thing with Morningstar. Like you must have so much data on your customers and your data science teams.
[00:47:13] Dino Delic: I mean, work for an investment company. clients often say to me things like, oh yeah, but you know, Jen has this research arm because they, they sell [00:47:20] advertising. I think every company is sitting on a mountain of data. It just takes a curious person to unearth it and figure out where it is and how to use it.
[00:47:28] Dino Delic: And again, if you can use it for research to design a bit of strategy in the first place, isn't that the place you're gonna go back to evaluate.
[00:47:35] Evan Escobedo: Yeah, I think that's where AI really comes into play, right? I mean, you, you can [00:47:40] summarize and categorize 20,000 mentions being pulled from Meltwater. No problems. That's what AI does. but to ask the under underlying questions of, okay, so why, or what's the meaning of that?
[00:47:52] Evan Escobedo: Or how did that impact trust? Or how did that impact, how you're seen as a company or how you're known as a company. [00:48:00] That's, not just that media, 20,000 mentions exported from Meltwater into an LLM, but marrying that against the. Quantitative survey data that, you know, goes to our previous discussions, you know, of, qualitative and quantitative to create a better understanding of your consumers, or the [00:48:20] brand.
[00:48:20] Dino Delic: There's one other ingredient I think AI brings to the table that maybe a good humble comms leader doesn't, and that is the confidence to hallucinate when they don't know the story. Because it's the telling of the story. And I know it's kind of funny, but it is true that if you ask AI to tell you something insightful about a bunch of data, it's [00:48:40] probably never gonna come back with, sorry, there's nothing to see here.
[00:48:43] Dino Delic: Yeah, it's always gonna tell you an interesting story. Whereas if you ask a comms leader who's like, even if they had the time to go through it, if it's not an interesting story, they're just gonna say, sorry, it's not interesting. And then you as a leader, you go back to that person. Like they didn't tell me anything interesting, but if you just made it up a little bit, but just enough where [00:49:00] it wasn't like.
[00:49:00] Stephanie Lerdall: Fire Dino. Integrity wins every day, all day.
[00:49:06] Dino Delic: So I think that is that fine line, but, uh, maybe because we just don't expect AI to be right all the time, but then we do. Whereas we expect a human who we trust, like, don't let me down. 'cause one time you let me down, like I'm not gonna go back to you. It, it, it is interesting that I, I do [00:49:20] think I've always also, advocated that the skill that's gonna save communicators in this new AI world is also storytelling.
[00:49:26] Dino Delic: And it's not storytelling making up stuff. It is connecting the dots.
[00:49:30] Evan Escobedo: Yeah. And I think where people, are, misaligned or are falling short or have a, not the right idea of where AI can take them as they [00:49:40] see AI as the strategist. I mean, we, we are the strategist, right? We are the ones that can understand context and nuance and, um, understand that when you dig into the data, AI can't do that.
[00:49:51] Evan Escobedo: So, Saying that, I want AI to be all things to all people when it comes to strategy. I think that's where we [00:50:00] humans come in to, to, uh, provide that context around the data, dig into the data, understand the nuance of it and the meaning of it,
[00:50:08] Evan Escobedo: and
[00:50:08] Dino Delic: I think this is a perfect place to end the episode, but before you press stop, let me give you a little more.
[00:50:14] Dino Delic: If there's one thing our conversation with Evan makes clear, it's this. When measuring success, [00:50:20] comms leaders cannot simply rely on numbers and metrics. Accounting coverage isn't strategy. Dashboards aren't authority and measurement on its own doesn't move decisions. What's important is that you extract meaning from metrics and turn that into intelligence and intelligence.
[00:50:37] Dino Delic: Brand intelligence only matters when it [00:50:40] shapes action before the decision is made, not after the campaign is over.
[00:50:44] Dino Delic: And I know AI has essentially been a part of the conversation in every episode of Earning Your Seat, but for a reason. Today, we found out from our conversation that yes, AI will accelerate research, but strategy still belongs to the people who understand context.
[00:50:59] Dino Delic: [00:51:00] And it's up to us to understand and leverage things like power dynamics, trade-offs, timing, and risk. In an AI world, we have an opportunity not just to defend our value, but to define it.
[00:51:16] Dino: Earning your seat isn't about passively absorbing. It's [00:51:20] about executing. So take a moment and reflect and think about how you can use what you've just learned in this episode to grow, recalibrate, and improve. Thanks for listening. I'm Dino Deli. We'll see you next time on the next episode of Earning Your Seat.
[00:51:35]