Episode 101
Brand Story Podcast

Season Five Favorite Moments

featuring Steve Gilman

In this episode of Brand Story, our president, Steve Gilman, revisits some of his favorite moments from season five around building brands, zero-click search, and keeping creativity alive.

Season five of Brand Story brought together conversations spanning marketing, branding, creative strategy, and the evolving role of AI. In this episode, we revisit some of our favorite moments with leaders shaping the future of branding, marketing, and creativity. The discussion spans what it really takes to build brands people believe in, how to think beyond surface-level metrics in a zero-click world, and what it means to keep creativity alive.

Whether you’re catching up or listening again, this episode offers perspective and practical takeaways for anyone responsible for shaping a brand or guiding creative work forward.

Featured Guests

Mark Lester

Co-Founder and CSO at Squint

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Aya Baeshean

Partner, VP, & Global Head of Design at Known

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Phyllis Rothschild

CMO of Pete & Gerry’s Organics

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Rand Fishkin

Co-Founder & CEO of SparkToro

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Simon Hill

President, FutureBrand North America

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Brian Thibodeau

Creative Director, Designer Strategist

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Words of Wisdom

“If you try to be all things to all people, then it just gets lost. You end up being plain vanilla – nobody really knows what you stand for or what the brand means. Really knowing who you’re relevant to and why it matters to them is the through line.”

– Phyllis Rothschild

“People are more actively trying to spend their money on things that they more explicitly think will uplift them or raise their happiness.” 

– Mark Lester

“Zero-click internet is not going to kill all transactions, it’s just going to kill all the information consumption that used to happen on your site that now happens on the platforms before anyone gets to your website.”

– Rand Fishkin