#139 Why brand matters more in an AI world, with Sandra Phillipson

AI has made brand matter more, not less. When a machine is choosing who to recommend, brand is what gets you picked. Jonny Ross talks to brand and customer strategist Sandra Phillipson, founder of Crozest after a 25-year career in brand and customer strategy, most of it inside one of the UK's biggest banks. From the Madonna pen to Airbnb, the Evri rebrand to this week's Halifax news, this is a practical case for treating brand as a commercial lever, not a logo. Score your own brand and AI visibility in a couple of minutes, free, no sell: https://jonnyross.com/magic-multiplier Three things you will take away: Why brand is the biggest commercial lever in your marketing, and how clear positioning lets you charge more Sandra's working numbers on the new buyer journey: around 70 per cent of it now happens before anyone reaches your website, and a buyer arriving from an AI recommendation converts around three times higher Brand warms up the buyers, performance converts them. Why the two teams drift apart, and what joint accountability looks like Jump in: (02:04) What big brands understand about brand ROI that smaller businesses miss (11:29) Sandra's insider take on the Halifax and Lloyds brand news (15:47) Why you should not let AI build your brand, and where it genuinely helps (21:18) How AI has changed the buyer journey: 2.6 seconds and 24 touchpoints (31:51) Brand versus performance: why they drift apart and how to fix it (39:01) Where SEO, AEO and GEO meet the brand work (42:47) The one thing Sandra would do this month Mentioned in this episode: Rory Sutherland on behavioural science, Daniel Priestley's 7-11-4 rule, and Mark Ritson on brand warming buyers up and performance converting them Brand monitoring tools Sandra rates: https://www.brandwatch.com and https://brand24.com, plus asking ChatGPT to show its sources Full Circle, the Yorkshire brand reinventing how we talk about funerals: https://fullcirclefunerals.co.uk Sandra Phillipson is the founder of Crozest, a brand and customer strategy consultancy. Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-phillipson-12318712/ or at https://crozest.co.uk Jonny Ross is a fractional CMO working with founders, CEOs and MDs of scaling businesses: https://jonnyross.com New here? Follow the show and the next episode lands automatically.