#earned-media

#earned-media

I've been in that room a hundred times. The lights are dimmed and the "big idea" is revealed to a round of applause. It's bold, beautiful and expensive. And just before lunch, someone says: "Okay, let's bring in comms to get a press release out and prep for any negative feedback." In that moment, the comms team isn't a creative partner. They're the airbag. The risk-mitigation function brought in to protect an idea they had no hand in shaping.

Earned media's value has always been real, but here's what's changed: For years, PR's impact was largely invisible. So companies kept cutting. It felt like they made a good decision, but it was really a false equivalence. Now, with AI, we can see what's actually happening. We can measure the patterns. We can prove that PR isn't a soft spend.

Every public relations (PR) professional's dream is to get their brand or client featured in a national publication with a high readership. In the digital PR world, getting a link back to your company's website is even better. Unfortunately, it's not always that simple, as you might not have news to share every month that interests the press. So, how can you still earn media coverage, and links back to your website?

For years, brands tried to split the difference by hiring a PR agency for visibility, an affiliate manager for commerce coverage and affiliate partnerships, and a media buyer for paid social scale. Seven years ago, I, in fact, was one of them as the former VP of Marketing and Founding Team at Ritual. On paper, it made sense. In practice, I found it created silos, competing agendas, and a lack of shared accountability and synergy across agencies and partners.

While some turn to social media influencers or local event sponsorships, the most effective cannabis marketers are now turning to something more sustainable-earned media on high-authority platforms like stupidDOPE.com. For those serious about long-term growth, brand reputation, and SEO dominance, stupidDOPE has become an essential part of the modern marketing toolkit. It's not just a media outlet-it's an engine that drives measurable brand visibility across the internet, Apple News, Google News, and even AI-powered search experiences.

"Brand building is a bit like pointillism ... Every time you activate your brand, you're placing a dot in somebody's brain," said Kaplan, explaining that those individual dots cluster over time to form richer perceptions of a brand. Marketers who have a strong grasp of such perceptions can act with confidence on whether and how to deploy their brands in different cultural contexts while those who don't may simply create more noise.

On AI, he says it's not a replacement for creativity, but a tool for those who know how to use it. "AI won't replace creatives but creatives who don't know how to use it as a tool will probably get replaced by those who do. It should be another string to a creative's bow, much like Photoshop." For Roberts, originality is still the point, and no amount of automation can change that.

If your brand isn't being mentioned on credible media outlets, industry lists or podcast transcripts, it's less likely to get pulled into LLM answers. LLMs lean on the same principles as traditional SEO. And earned media remains essential for authority and discoverability, whether it's through an LLM or SEO efforts. In traditional SEO, that authority helps content rank higher. With AI, trusted brand mentions have even greater influence, directly shaping how and where a brand appears in AI-generated results.

The traditional buyer journey-the familiar path from awareness to consideration to decision-is disappearing. Today's buyers are moving faster, skipping steps and often making decisions after a single trusted source validates your brand. What's driving this shift? Earned media and AI-driven research tools. Public relations has always been seen as a credibility builder-a way to get your brand noticed and trusted.

Saratoga Spring Water saw $1.8 million in earned media value after an influencer's video featuring their product went viral, increasing stock by 16%.