The old marketing style is slowly phasing out as the digital world constantly evolves and content explodes overnight. Businesses have traditionally operated under a "buy attention, get a customer" model. However, audiences now actively seek out content and information that matters, forcing companies to earn their attention. This isn't just a shift in tactics; it's a mindset transformation from a one-way broadcast to an interactive dialogue.

For many years, the conversation within boardrooms and marketing departments has been, “what do we want to say and how do we say it?” A truly effective strategy, however, flips this on its head, starting with the question, “what does our audience want to hear about this and how do they want us to say it?” This powerful redirection requires a deeper understanding of the audience, moving beyond basic demographics to a more nuanced segmentation.

The most important quality a brand can have is authenticity. While highly polished paid media still has a place, brands must be extremely intentional about creating meaningful, relevant content that genuinely addresses their audience's needs, interests and pain points.

According to Ross Rowbury, senior managing director and co-head of group corporate communications at Nomura Holdings, the process of earning attention involves three critical stages:

• First, you must grab attention with a creative approach.
• Second, you must maintain that attention by proving relevance, which is achieved through deep audience research.
• Finally, you must embed your brand's narrative through storytelling that resonates on a deeper level.

Authenticity and credibility are non-negotiable in this process. It is a strategy built on transparency, social validation and community engagement. For thought leadership content to truly earn its place, Rowbury says it must be “interesting, informative, insightful, additive and entertaining.”

Power of third-party validation

From a public relations perspective, earning attention is what Rowbury describes as "refined stakeholder management." At its core, you must deeply understand your audience and build credibility through a third party. While this traditionally meant media placements, the digital age has expanded this to include the power of social validation.

Instead of a brand telling people how wonderful its product is, it tells a story about a customer's experience or what they love most about its services. This approach is about creating a platform to “source and curate social validation that you can solidify around a narrative.” This is a fundamental departure from advertising, which often relies on a brand’s own claims.

According to Tim O'Rourke, area director for Meltwater in Japan, B2B brands can fall into the trap of thinking they don't need to focus as much on community engagement or media outreach. However, having a consistent and trustworthy online presence should be a big priority.

Earning attention, particularly in the B2B space, requires storytelling compelling enough to be shared and discussed by third parties. When crafting these stories, it is useful to remember the nine elements of news:

• Timeliness: Current and recent events or updates on ongoing stories are more newsworthy.
• Proximity: The story is geographically relevant or close to the audience—local or nearby events tend to get more attention.
• Impact: The story affects a large number of people or has significant consequences.
• Prominence: News involving well-known or influential people, organizations or places gets more coverage.
• Conflict: Stories with disagreements, controversies or struggles attract attention.
• Oddity (or Novelty): Unusual, surprising or out-of-the-ordinary events catch readers’ interest.
• Emotion (Human Interest): Stories that evoke emotions or focus on people's experiences and feelings.
• Currency: Stories related to ongoing trends, issues or popular topics that are currently “in the news.”
• Usefulness: Information that helps people make decisions or improves their lives such as tips, advice or warnings.

Human element in a digital age

Buying attention through ads is easy and transactional, but earning it is more difficult because it's built on trust and credibility. This necessitates shifting investment towards methods that build reputation, such as storytelling, PR and social media.

Beyond traditional media hits, the most valuable earned attention comes from authentic voices—your senior leaders, employees and customers. Executive social media, for example, remains highly underutilized but is incredibly powerful. When executives consistently engage on platforms such as LinkedIn, they put a human face on the company and achieve a level of credibility and reach that corporate pages rarely can.

As Stephanie Roberts, chief communications officer at Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems Co., Ltd., noted, a former CEO's LinkedIn content performed "2-3x higher yet with half the number of posts" compared to the company’s official page. This engagement has a real-world impact on employees, prospective employees, customers and partners.

Leveraging employees as brand ambassadors amplifies reach and creates authenticity that money cannot buy. Similarly, a customer testimonial is far more powerful and trustworthy than any ad, because "people do business with people, not logos."

Navigating the AI-powered deluge

The advent of AI and generative search has not made earned attention obsolete; it has made it even more critical. AI models take the ability to produce content quickly, cheaply and at scale to a new level, "super charg[ing] with dynamite" the content explosion and exacerbating the demand for our attention.

Generative search tools rely heavily on high-quality, third-party sources when generating responses. Trusted press coverage and authoritative journalism are among the most frequently cited inputs. Brands with strong earned media are more likely to surface in AI-generated answers, whether the user is asking for insights, product recommendations or industry context.

In this new environment, the visibility earned media provides is now as much about discoverability as it is about reputation. The risk of going unnoticed will only increase if you don’t concentrate on earning attention.

According to O'Rourke, with the rise of AI and large language models (LLMs), it’s crucial to monitor how AI cites the brand to ensure the messaging aligns with company values. Companies can analyze AI-generated responses and analytics to better understand their brand sentiment and determine which sources are being referenced by LLMs. This enables them to be present on those channels.

Gaining the ability to get a 360-degree view of your brand by monitoring leading LLMs, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Grok and Deepseek is an essential tool to utilize, especially since the mid-year snapshot from Datareportal highlights that globally ChatGPT continues its rise and ranks among the most used AI platforms with more than 5 billion monthly visits in Q2 2025.

In essence, "buying attention" is becoming increasingly difficult. It's not about buying attention, but about "interacting with stakeholders." A brand is something that is built over time through continuous dialogue. The digital deluge, now accelerated by AI, demands a human-centric approach that builds trust and fosters genuine connection.

Measuring success in the new landscape

Beyond traditional media hits, the most valuable forms of earned attention today include the volume of social media mentions and the engagement they receive. There is no more important place to capture attention than through a strong social media presence. Once a community grows and brand awareness increases, a brand can leverage user-generated content and work with influencers to build credibility.

With the widespread adoption of generative AI, mentions of a brand within LLMs are becoming increasingly critical. To measure the success of your efforts, O'Rourke advises investing in a software platform that can capture a comprehensive data set across all news, social media, and LLMs.

Monitoring LLMs is vital for brands today to gain visibility, detect reputational risks, and uncover insights to build an AI-first strategy.