{"id":89878,"date":"2026-06-29T20:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/89878\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:47:13","slug":"rewriting-the-brand-discovery-playbook-in-the-ai-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/89878\/","title":{"rendered":"Rewriting the Brand Discovery Playbook in the AI Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was created in partnership with Moloco<\/p>\n

Key takeaways Brand discovery is increasingly happening through direct chats with AI agents, and marketers are trying to work around it. Strong customer relationships protect brands from AI\u2019s disruption of the customer journey. The changing world of AI could provide marketers with a renewed opportunity to tap into the human and community aspects of marketing. <\/p>\n

Marketing leaders are grappling with how AI is reshaping traditional funnels, whether it\u2019s through generative AI summaries usurping consumer clicks, or being at the mercy of what AI agents say (or don\u2019t say) about their brands.<\/p>\n

During an ADWEEK House Cannes Lions group chat co-hosted with Moloco, industry executives shared how they are trying to reclaim discovery, strengthen direct customer relationships, and bolster their owned digital surfaces.<\/p>\n

\"Moloco'sMoloco\u2019s Paul D\u2019Arcy Shifting from SEO to GEO<\/p>\n

Paul D\u2019Arcy, CMO of Moloco, kicked off the conversation by sharing a key finding from Boston Consulting Group and Moloco\u2019s research about AI\u2019s impact on the customer journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt showed that the best protection against disruption is longer-term, stickier customer relationships,\u201d D\u2019Arcy said. That includes finding ways to bring people onto your own digital surfaces, apps, and experiences so that your brand becomes the destination, he added.<\/p>\n

With AI mediating so many consumer decisions, Jane Hendrick, managing VP of global integrated marketing at Marriott International, said it\u2019s important that brands ask this question: \u201cHow do you make sure you\u2019re part of the consideration set before someone even goes into the platform?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Marriott Bonvoy, it means tapping into cultural moments and driving more relevance so that the brand is a natural part of the conversation. \u201cYou have to make sure you are leaning into the algorithm and the machine and all of that, but you also have to be top of mind for the consumer,\u201d Hendrick said.<\/p>\n

In fact, being part of the cultural conversation can pull double duty since it can also help brands from a generative engine optimization (GEO) perspective, shared Julie Foster, SVP and managing director of EA Experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s fascinating to me is, if we\u2019re building beyond SEO into a GEO-type space, a lot of the things that it\u2019s pulling from to figure out authority actually ends up being whether or not you\u2019re part of culture,\u201d Foster said. \u201cThey\u2019re pulling from the conversations on Reddit, and so if you\u2019re not top of mind, top of conversation, the GEO piece isn\u2019t going to pull through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(L-R)(L-R) EA Experiences\u2019 Julie Foster, Codeword\u2019s Kyle MonsonRethinking brand discovery and consumer journeys<\/p>\n

Brand discovery is increasingly happening through direct chats with AI agents, and marketers are trying to crack the code to earn their endorsements.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got a brand ambassador sitting between yourself and the customer, which is the chatbot,\u201d said Kyle Monson, founding partner of Codeword. \u201cWord of mouth is powerful. Word of bot is going to become very powerful,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Third-party platforms like Pinterest are another avenue for brand discovery, where billions of searches take place monthly, said Stacy Malone, VP, global business of marketing at Pinterest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s literally turning into Gen Z\u2019s search engine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s interesting, Malone noted, is that only about half of those searches have commercial intent. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany times, they\u2019re not looking for the answer, which is what a lot of the AI platforms are giving people. They want to explore, discover, which is a great place for a brand to be,\u201d she said. \u201cWe hear a lot of consumers say, \u2018I don\u2019t know what I want yet, but I\u2019ll know it when I see it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Case, VP of growth marketing at GoodRx, acknowledged that while brand discovery acquisition is becoming more challenging, things do get easier for brands if they can win customers over during that first interaction. <\/p>\n

\u201cI still think that in-person or user product experience just becomes that much more tangible and creates a certain feeling to make you want to go back,\u201d Case said.<\/p>\n

\"(L-R)(L-R) GoodRx\u2019s Richard Case, Marriott International\u2019s Jane HendrickAnticipating what comes next<\/p>\n

Change is nothing new for media companies, with major platform shifts shaking things up every couple of years, said Dan Gardner, co-founder and executive chairman of Code and Theory. \u201cIt\u2019s literally the same pattern since the Internet was started for media companies, but it\u2019s usually mainly hurt them or disrupted them,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

This time around with AI, however, Gardner predicts that every industry will be affected. That said, he sees a silver lining. \u201cThings are changing, and that is both a disruptive moment and a huge opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(L-R)(L-R) Code and Theory\u2019s Dan Gardner, Pinterest\u2019s Stacy Malone<\/p>\n

Monson sees investment in top-of-funnel and middle-of-funnel marketing becoming even more crucial. \u201cIt\u2019s expensive, and it takes a lot of time to build brand preference. But if you\u2019re not building brand preference with a consumer, then you\u2019re stuck with whatever the preference of the chatbots is going to be, and you don\u2019t have as much control over that model,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Along those lines, getting consumers into the brand\u2019s loyalty ecosystem is a top priority for Hendrick. \u201cAnd of course, delivering on the experience, because you know all of that other stuff literally doesn\u2019t matter if they have a bad experience with your product,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ending on a hopeful note, D\u2019Arcy said that a positive outcome of this period of rapid change could be a renewed appreciation for the human and community aspects of marketing. \u201cAnd hopefully a pride and a return to craft as everything becomes automated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured Conversation Leaders<\/p>\n

Richard Case, VP of Growth Marketing, GoodRx<\/a> Paul D\u2019Arcy, CMO, Moloco<\/a> Julie Foster, SVP and Managing Director, EA Experiences<\/a> Dan Gardner, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Code and Theory<\/a> Jane Hendrick, Managing VP, Global Integrated Marketing, Marriott International<\/a> Liz Kneebone, VP, Community Programs and Development, ADWEEK<\/a> Stacy Malone, VP, Global Business Marketing, Pinterest<\/a> Kyle Monson, Founding Partner, Codeword<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This post was created in partnership with Moloco Key takeaways Brand discovery is increasingly happening through direct chats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16795,16796,24,25,824,9613],"class_list":["post-89878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-adops-branded-content","tag-adweek-house","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-branding","tag-cannes-lions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}