Ben Rees
AI / GEO / AEOBrand & PositioningMeasurement

People - the True Heart of Decent Marketing

My talk at The Marketing Meetup's Cambridge chapter argued that AI visibility is a brand problem, not a content problem, backed by 5,095 real citation checks showing two published articles that never moved a single query they were written for.

Ben Rees - 27 September 2026

AI can copy your words. It can't copy the things that make people believe you.

Here is my talk, given at The Marketing Meetup's Cambridge chapter on 22 September, hosted by Jon Torrens at The Bradfield Centre, organised by Christian Pratt and the rest of the TMM Cambridge team: Michelle Lamprecht, Becky Lamont, Felicity Rose, Patrick Dao, Baz Richardson, and Chris Measures. Thank you all for being such great hosts!

Here's the deck I used.

Ben Rees, Consultant and Fractional CMO - AI won't take your job...

...but you'll need to show you still deserve it

Agenda: Brand, Proof, In-person events, Boardroom scepticism, Some things Claude can't do

Your brand and AI are linked because brand is effectively the prior that AI systems use when deciding which companies to mention, trust, or default to

Beliefs update on evidence, not claims. Bayes Theorem, Erdem and Keane 1996, Marketing Science

Where I have a prior, I get cited, and where I don't, I don't - 5,095 checks from my own data, April to September 2026

Brand marketing is prior-building

So what actually builds a prior? Case studies, earned media, analyst and review-site presence, community and events, visible people

You're looking at one right now

This is why we're here: in-person events

One conversation beats a hundred posts: a £100K deal traced back to one salesperson's rapport

Old search matches the keywords on your page against the query. AI rewards real authority: case studies, reviews, press and named people

Boards at tech firms tend to be very sceptical about brand marketing work

Some things that Claude can't do

The Bayesian approach: brand signals, AI visibility, brand mirrors, investment

A last word on authenticity

Get in touch: www.bjrees.com

↓ Get the full deck (PDF)

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