A flagship keynote on the handful of laws that decide who wins attention, traffic and markets. I learned them the slow way, doing SEO, digital PR and content work for clients. Then I'll show you what to do with them on Monday.
The thesis
The same few principles run physics, finance, markets and marketing. AI makes the machines cheap. Our edge is to float above the machines, with strategy, taste and last-mile implementation.
There are tons of heuristics and frameworks out there. A few of them get the lion's share of attention, which happens to be the first principle. This talk explains a dozen of the strongest ones, shows how they fit together, and ends with the parts you can actually go and implement.
Twelve short acts and a close. Each act takes one idea, explains it, and then shows it working in search, PR or content.
Power laws: a few winners take most of the eyeballs, links and sales. The long tail still adds up to a lot of volume, and the internet was built to serve it.
Aggregators that don't make most of what they sell. Network effects and the lock-in investors love. Then ChatGPT, the product that broke the rules without a network effect at all, and why word of mouth still compounds.
The satisfaction loop. Google wasn't the first search engine. It earned the top spot, and user signals like NavBoost help it stay there. Serve the searcher and the loop keeps paying you.
Market dominance versus focus on the user. It works like sports: everyone is trying their hardest, and you can win without a killer instinct.
Porter's Five Forces as the classic frame, then Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers as the working toolkit.
Last-mile implementation beats tool enthusiasm. AI unlocks with a live demo. Build the machine that builds the machine. Remember the bitter lesson so you don't over-engineer. And a 7 out of 10 at the right price often beats a 9.
Apple sells along the whole price curve. Throughput versus artisan craft. The AI labs as a case study playing out live, and the question of whether Google can ever crack social.
Capital markets, venture power laws and kingmakers. Bezos on swinging for 1,000-run outcomes and keeping an empty chair for the customer.
The 4 Ps and 7 Ps, plus a personal story. My first job out of college was merchandising liquor in grocery stores, inside the three-tier system. That job taught me what distribution really is.
AI is a consensus machine. It raises the floor, which makes standing out harder. Next comes how the next big thing bubbles up, why volume and showing up matter, and getting promoted two levels in your head: from maker to director, with taste. Brand lasts in a sea of sameness. Systems are the brand, and you can see it in the drive-through test.
Be a big fish in a small pond: own and name a category. Then watch the market cycles and notice where the money moves next.
Levels of strategy, from channel up to grand strategy. Strategy sits above all of it, and it's how we keep our humanity: we float above the machines.
All of it pulled together for PR, marketing, brand, SEO and AI search: selection, sequencing, tracking and iteration. Then one line to end on: focus on the user and give them as much value as you can.
The whole arc gets cut down to a 90-second video for anyone who can't sit through 45 minutes. Fittingly, it's being made with the same AI video tools the talk demos live.
Coming soonThe talk is built for marketing, SEO, PR and founder audiences. The close can be retuned for any of them.
The deck is still being written. If you'd like it on your stage, reach Joe through Green Flag Digital.