The early days of the web saw excitement around “Interactive Marketing,” with brands launching online utilities to answer consumer questions.
At Procter & Gamble, we launched online utilities like Tide Stain Detective, which answered consumer questions on stain treatment, the Always Protection Selector, offering personalized feminine hygiene product recommendations, and the Pampers Parenting Institute, providing expert advice to parenting inquiries.
However, “interactive” was soon replaced by “digital” as advertisers gravitated towards mass online advertising and targeting at scale. In simpler terms, ad serving edged out serving consumers.
NOTE TO READERS: I’m thinking of writing a book on this topic so I welcome your most spirited and critical feedback. This will help me determine if I’m truly onto something. If you want to stay close to my exploratory, let me know. – Pete
Welcome to the Answer Economy
Now, with generative AI, we’re entering an “Answer Economy” that revives many of the web’s earlier principles. Large Language Models (LLMs) like OpenAI‘s ChatGPT, Microsoft Co-Pilot, Perplexity, Meta.AI, X‘s Grok, and Anthropic‘s Claude are answering questions at scale, captivating users worldwide. We use fancy terms like “prompt engineering,” but essentially, we’re just asking lots of questions.
This shift marks an inflection point for brand relevance. LLMs are becoming “trusted third parties” with elegant, ad-free interfaces. In the Answer Economy, brands must build comprehensive knowledge libraries — brand versions of Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia — drawing more from encyclopedic know-how than social media metrics. Listening becomes critical, understanding signals sent through questions and behaviors.
Brands must respond thoroughly to deeper questions about product performance, usage, sustainability, and ingredients. This requires involvement from R&D teams and potentially looser restrictions on shareable and “proprietary” information from legal departments.
Priming the “Prompted Moment of Truth”
“Marketing to Algorithms” becomes crucial to ensure correct and frequent brand representation in AI responses. It’s less about designing ads and more about priming answers for the “Prompted Moment of Truth” that can significantly impact consumer decisions.
As noted in a recent Linked-In post (“Your Brand is a Smoothie“), unlike traditional search engines, AI-powered answer engines blend a brand’s story into a single, cohesive response, now part of the buyer journey. We measure these results daily at BrandRank.AI
New Expectations of Speed & Agility
The Answer Economy demands uncharacteristic speed and agility from brands. LLMs immediately incorporate new information, including crises or negative publicity. Brands must update content quickly to maintain trust. They must also compete with LLMs as a “Single Source of Truth,” making it crucial to attract consumers to brand websites for data collection and message control.
This new landscape brings unprecedented expectations for transparency and accountability. AI empowers quick scrutiny of environmental claims, making greenwashing difficult. Same with health or food safety claims. Brands must provide clear, in-depth, and iterative information on topics like sustainability and product ingredients. They also need to stay close to third parties sources that shape brand answers such as Better Business Bureau feedback or ecommerce reviews.
To thrive, brands should act like concierges (see my Ted talk on this theme), anticipating needs and offering friendly guidance. This requires blending technology with human touch, scaling personalized interactions while maintaining empathy.
As Helen Todd (Human), founder of the excellent Creativity Squared podcast, notes, “Consumers will expect to chat with your website like an LLM, engaging with content through a multi-modal experience.” Indeed!
Providing valuable, timely responses can drive trial, loyalty, and advocacy more effectively than traditional outreach. Superior service and great answers especially appeal to premium. influential consumers and for ecommerce shoppers it’s pretty much a price of entry.
Necessary…But Harder Than It Looks
However, success isn’t without challenges. Brands must invest in technology, train employees, and maintain authenticity and objectivity. They need to recalibrate weighting in the “Paid/Owned/Earned” media mix. They’ll need to champion the importance of websites – a medium many abandoned years ago but which now rank as one of the top”algorithmic anchor” of LLMs against brand related queries. Service must be treated as a profit center and a new focus of brand building.
CMOs will need to sell patience, as “answer” infrastructure needs time to “market to algorithms” and ultimately payout or “sell cases.”
In the end, Answer Economy offers an opportunity to build deeper, more meaningful consumer relationships, driving loyalty and growth in an AI-driven world. It’s already here, and most of us are hooked — if not addicted — to it’s benefits. Will brands sit on the side-lines, or join the party!
Perhaps we never should have left the term “Interactive Marketing” behind.
