The Spin Sucks Podcast with Gini Dietrich

Ninety-two percent of content marketers use AI, and they’re no more likely to get strong results than the people who don’t use it at all. In this week’s episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich explains what E-E-A-T really means in the AI slop era—and why it isn’t the “25 years of experience” line in your author bio. You’ll learn the three things AI can’t write for you (your people, your process, and your culture), what 260+ PESO Model® Diagnostics reveal about how teams really work, and the AI prompt I use to flag every sentence a competitor could have written. Read the post: https://spinsucks.com/communication/people-process-culture-e-e-a-t/ PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/ PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/ Spin Sucks Community: https://spinsucks.com/community

Your AI visibility dashboard says you’re winning, but it may only be asking AI about your own headlines. In this episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich shares how we caught a vendor report flattering a client who turned out to be absent from every real customer question, and I walk through the exact AI visibility audit we use instead: the spreadsheet, the anchor hub, the trust map, and the “says who?” rule for measurement. Read the article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-visibility-dashboard-lies/  PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/Spin Sucks Community: https://spinsucks.com/community

Your executives have plenty of thoughts. They just don't have time for your thought leadership calendar. In this week’s episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich shares how a CEO who called a voice-note idea "stupid" became famous in his industry because of it, why the fix is adding one small step to something your execs already do, and what AI can and can't do to turn their thinking into earned media. Read the post: https://spinsucks.com/communication/thought-leadership-for-executives/  PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/Spin Sucks Community: https://spinsucks.com/community

Your executive team wants "the numbers" by Friday, and you know what's coming: six logins, a Thursday-night spreadsheet, and a CEO asking, "So what actually worked?" The problem isn't you—it's a process that asks for activities, judges you on outcomes, and scatters the data across teams and agencies that all measure differently. In this week’s episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich breaks down why measurement keeps breaking and how to fix it: start from organizational goals, measure each PESO Model® media type for its job, and report what the numbers mean instead of just what they are. Read the article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/marketing-pr-measurement-broken/  PESO Model Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  Build your measurement spine: https://spinsucks.com/contact/

Novartis made the most likable pharma ad of the Super Bowl—Gronk, hammocks, "relax your tight end"—and won the Pharma Lions Grand Prix at Cannes for it. But when paid media is the only channel that legal can fully control, the ad quietly becomes your whole operating system, and everything it can't say gets handed to someone else.  In this month's PESO Model® Diagnostic, Gini Dietrich runs the full Novartis campaign through the PESO lens, names the regulated-industry trap, and lays out the fixes that survive a compliance review—at every size of organization. Take the PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/Full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/peso-model-diagnostic-novartis/

Give 1,000 people the identical AI-assisted résumé and change only the first name, and James is "resourceful" while Emily "can't even write a CV herself." Three studies this year show women are judged more harshly than men for the same AI use—and in a profession that's two-thirds women, that's not an HR footnote; it's how the job loss Alex Karp predicted actually happens.  On this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich walks through the research, why the adoption gap doesn't close with access or training, and four things to do about it, whether you lead the team or you're the one using the tools (or both). Read the article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-resourceful-cheating  My conversation with Tara McDonagh: https://communicationsbusinessadvisor.libsyn.com/episode-49-yes-and-what-gini-dietrich-and-i-learned-from-each-other Free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

A new report says earned media is disrupting the PESO Model® for AI discoverability—and a second survey, published the same month, says paid media matters most. They can't both be right, and Gini Dietrich argues neither question is. In this week’s Spin Sucks episode, she walks through what both surveys found, why "which media type matters most" measures who you asked instead of what works, and the finding everyone should be talking about: a 28-point confidence gap between agencies and brands that comes down to one word—measurement. Read the post: http://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-peso-model-proof  PESO Model Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  Spin Sucks Community: https://spinsucks.com/community  D S Simon report: https://www.dssimon.com/earned-media-in-the-ai-era-report/  Sword and the Script survey: https://www.swordandthescript.com/2026/08/ai-visibility-survey/

In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich explains why the AI persona you built last year just got promoted to referee, the only two signals it checks before it vouches for you, and the four moves to make before someone in your building tries to solve "the AI problem" with a bigger ad budget. Read the article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-agents-gatekeepers/  Take the free PESO Model Diagnostic®: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model Certification®: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  AI Visibility Is a PESO Model Problem: https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-visibility-peso-model/  Meet Your New Buyer Persona: https://spinsucks.com/communication/meet-your-new-buyer-persona/

Everyone is writing the same article about AI visibility: it's a new discipline, and—what luck!—they sell the thing that fixes it. Nope. AI systems reward probability, not popularity, and probability gets built through the integrated program communicators have been running for more than a decade: the PESO Model®.  In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich breaks down the specific job each media type does in the evidence base LLMs actually score—and the claims-versus-corroboration audit to run with your team this week. Links:  Full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication//ai-visbility-peso-model  Marketing Dive article: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/why-unpaid-media-is-now-essential-to-ai-visibility/822485/ Free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

Everyone wants the AI visibility tool with the free trial and the dashboard. We don't have one to sell you, and neither does anyone else—because if AI isn't recommending your brand, that's usually a trust problem wearing a tooling costume.  In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich makes the case that trust is a supply chain with stations you cannot skip, and she walks through the three shortcuts that failed in public last year. You'll also learn why getting cited by an AI engine isn't the finish line, and how to tell an awareness problem from a belief problem. Read the full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-visibility-trust/  Links: Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/ PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  The full eight-week arc, from the CMO operating system post through the Duolingo diagnostic, is at spinsucks.com

Duolingo built the internet's favorite brand on rented land—the best shared media engine on the planet, run through one green owl on platforms it doesn't control. In this month's PESO Model® Diagnostic, Gini Dietrich looks at what the legend leaves out: an owned media record too thin to defend the brand when the 2025 "AI-first" backlash hit. You'll learn why Duo's chaos is actually disciplined character work, why AI engines ignore your funniest channel and cite your machine-readable record instead, and the three fixes that apply to any brand being told to "just go viral." Read the full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/duolingo-peso-model-diagnostic/ Links: Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/ PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  The series so far: Budweiser, Liquid Death, Peppa Pig, and HubSpot at spinsucks.com

Your best work goes into review sounding like your brand, only to come out sounding like a terms-of-service update—and legal isn't actually to blame. Nearly 80% of CMOs tell Lippincott that bureaucracy regularly interferes with decision-making, and that's not a culture problem—it's a brand-erosion mechanism. In this episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich breaks down the difference between compliance bureaucracy and the self-inflicted kind, and shares the quarterly content pod system regulated teams use to ship fast without skipping review. Links: Full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/org-chart-brand-sabotage/   Lippincott CMO Outlook 2026: https://www.lippincott.com/cmo-outlook-2026/  Free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

AI tools are already answering questions about your brand—to your buyers, your board, and the journalists who cover you—and they're confidently wrong often enough that one Minnesota company is suing Google for as much as $210 million over a lawsuit its AI invented. To make matters worse, Muck Rack research shows that in 29% of organizations, nobody owns this at all. In this episode, Gini Dietrich shares the four-move discipline for governing what AI says about your brand—baseline the narrative, fix your source of truth, correct the record with infrastructure, and give the work an owner—and make the case that this is reputation management, which means it belongs to communicators. Read the full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-reputation-management/  Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/Explore the PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

Gartner predicts that more than 40% of CMOs who push for bigger budgets this year will lose influence with the C-suite—because their asks never connect to what the business runs on. Here's the thing: your CFO's language has only four words—pipeline, risk, retention, and cost-to-acquire—and 'reach' isn't one of them. In this episode, I show you how to translate your work into those four numbers, which budget lines to cut before someone cuts them for you, and why one traceable story beats 12 metrics in any budget meeting. Read the full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/defend-marketing-budget Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

HubSpot lost roughly 75% of its blog traffic to AI search—and grew revenue 19% anyway. Everyone wrote the obituary for content marketing, but the traffic that died was the content HubSpot never had the right to own, and everything built on real authority held. In Episode 4 of the PESO Model® Diagnostic, I break down what survived, what didn't, and how to tell which of your own content is an asset versus exposure—before AI makes the call for you. Take your own PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/ PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/ Full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/peso-model-diagnostic-hubspot

Your buyers are asking their AI tool of choice who to trust—and if AI doesn't cite you, you don't exist. Communicators missed SEO once because it felt "too technical," and the Lippincott data says we're on track to repeat history with AI. In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich shares the five-move visibility engineering playbook, plus the moment Martin Waxman ran his own organization through the PESO Model® Diagnostic live and turned a 50% score into a blueprint. If you're determined to own AI visibility before someone else does, this one's for you. Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  Get PESO Model® Certified: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  Read the article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/visibility-engineering-playbook 

A new Lippincott study says only 28% of CMOs feel they have real influence in their organization—and your CEO has probably already seen it. Most people blame short-term thinking, but Gini Dietrich argues that the real problem is structural. CMOs are managing a pile of channels rather than running a system. You'll learn why the brand-versus-performance debate is a trap, why dumping budget into AI while starving owned media makes you less visible inside AI, and how the PESO Model® works as the operating system that earns C-suite influence back. If you're working hard and still can't prove your value, this one's for you. Links: Free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/ PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/ Full article: https://spinsucks.com/uncategorized/cmo-operating-system-problem

You understand the PESO Model®, so why does it still feel like a pile of tactics instead of a system that runs? In this episode, Gini Dietrich takes you inside the PESO Model Certification® she tore down and rebuilt—what changed, what she refused to touch, and who it's honestly not for. If you've ever understood something cold and still couldn't make it run, this one's for you. Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  Explore the PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

A cartoon pig ran one of the most integrated campaigns I've seen in years—and it still leaves the most important question unanswered. In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, I run the Peppa Pig pregnancy campaign through the PESO Model® Diagnostic to show you the difference between a brilliant campaign and an actual operating system: one has a finale, the other never ends.  Take the PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  Explore the PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  Read the full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/peso-model-diagnostic-peppa-pig

Your dashboard is full of green arrows—and your CFO still isn't impressed. That's because most of what we measure flatters us instead of informing us, and the numbers that actually matter in 2026 are the ones almost nobody is tracking yet.  In this episode, Gini Dietrich walks through the four metrics that survive the budget meeting—LLM visibility, citation frequency, narrative share of voice, and credibility loop close rate—and why you can't bolt them onto a system that isn't running as a system. If you've ever been proud of a report that couldn't answer "did this move the business?", this one's for you. Take the PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  Explore the PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/  Read the full article: https://spinsucks.com/communication/pr-marketing-metrics-ai-visibility

You're doing the work—the content, the media, the campaigns—and the minute leadership asks what it's all worth, you've got nothing to hand them. So you go looking for a better dashboard. In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich explains why a measurement problem is almost never a measurement problem—it's the first place a broken system shows up—and shares the Diagnostic data proving the biggest budgets aren't buying readiness. You'll learn why pitching the PESO Model® as a marketing expense loses the budget every time, and how to reframe it as the operating system that actually gets funded. Take the PESO Model® Diagnostic: https://spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic/  PESO Model® Certification: https://spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification/

Google just announced the biggest change to Search in more than 25 years, and your CMO is about to ask if you're on top of it. You probably are — but the work doesn't have a name your leadership recognizes. On this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, learn why the visibility gap has two halves, the vocabulary problem costing you budget, and the four moves to close both.

In the second of the monthly PESO Model® Diagnostic series, Gini Dietrich diagnoses the operating system behind Liquid Death, the rare brand sitting at Stage 5 / Leadership on the PESO Maturity Ladder, where the operating system isn't supporting the product. It IS the product. Take the free PESO Model® Diagnostic at spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic, or learn about the 2026 PESO Model® Certification at spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification.

The PESO Model® has six stages of maturity—and the data says 91% of communications teams are stuck in the bottom half of the ladder. In this episode, Gini walks through the six stages (Foundation, Pilot, Scale, Systemize, Real-Time, and Leadership), what each one looks like inside real brands like Oracle, McDonald's, Dove, Sephora, Netflix, and Liquid Death, and how to find out where your team actually sits. Not optimistically sits. Truly sits.

After 18 months of AI-assisted repurposing, most communications teams are quietly producing weaker, more generic content than they were producing two years ago. The leverage is real. The dilution is real, too.  In this episode, Gini Dietrich walks through the telephone game effect—and how you can fix it.

After 12 years and several refreshes, the PESO Model® has a new graphic — and Gini is drawing the line between free use and theft. In this episode, she discusses what changed, what the four outcomes (Authority, Credibility, Discovery, Growth) actually mean, how to read the graphic correctly, and what now requires a license. Download the graphic at spinsucks.com/peso-model-graphic. Use it well.

Budweiser won USA Today's Ad Meter for the 10th time—and while everyone was arguing Monday morning about the Clydesdale, the bald eagle, and whether "American Icons" was AI-assisted, the real story wasn't 60 seconds of creativity. It was whether the ad was part of a system. In the first episode of the new PESO Model® Diagnostic series, Gini Dietrich runs Budweiser's "Made of America" program through the PESO operating system lens and shows exactly where coordination ends and integration begins.  The lesson isn't about $8M ad budgets. It's about sequencing, depth, and a central nervous system—and any brand, at any budget, can build them. Take the self-assessed PESO Diagnostic at spinsucks.com/self-peso-diagnostic to find your own integration gaps.

Earned media is still one of the most powerful credibility signals you can get, but in today’s AI-shaped market, a single hit is no longer enough. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explores visibility engineering, why disconnected media placements create noise instead of authority, and how to connect earned and owned media to build credibility that compounds. If you want to become the answer that keeps showing up, this episode is for you.

In this week’s Spin Sucks episode, Gini Dietrich explores why publishing more content is not enough to build authority in an AI-shaped market. Instead, the brands that win are the ones with clear positioning, consistent messaging, proof-backed content, and third-party validation that reinforces what they stand for. Tune in to learn how owned and earned media work together, why generic content falls flat, and what communicators can do now to become the obvious answer.

Women are on the front line of AI disruption, especially in communications, marketing, content, and other roles built on critical thinking, writing, and judgment. In this episode, Gini Dietrich unpacks Alex Karp’s comments about AI reducing the power of highly educated, often female professionals, what that reveals about who is most vulnerable as AI scales, and why this is a power problem as much as a workforce one.

On this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, Gini Dietrich explores how hustle culture trained us to confuse keeping up with actually understanding, why the performance of consumption is not the same thing as thinking, and what communicators, marketers, and leaders stand to lose when everything is optimized for speed.

The PESO Model® did not become less relevant because of AI—it became more necessary. In this episode, Gini Dietrich breaks down how AI exposed the flaws in disconnected marketing and why modern paid, earned, shared, and owned media must work as an integrated system. She also explains why certification matters for marketers who want to move from knowing the acronym to knowing how to run it.

Measurement isn’t math. It’s storytelling with numbers—and in a PESO Model® operating system, it’s how you prove what changed (not what you did). In this Spin Sucks episode, Gini Dietrich breaks measurement down for marketers who would rather alphabetize their spice drawer than open a dashboard. You’ll learn the outcome-first framework behind PESO measurement, how to stop reporting outputs and activities, and how to measure PESO as a system that creates, validates, distributes, and amplifies proof with purpose.

Running the PESO Model®as separate tactics creates noise, not momentum. In this episode, Gini Dietrich shares what PESO Model integration really is: repeatable decisions, a stop list that prevents chaos, and a one-page integration map that keeps everything connected.

In this episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich resets what shared and paid are actually for inside the PESO Model® operating system. She covers why these two areas feel like chaos, how to define “proven signals” before you spend, and how shared and paid work together to create consistent, compounding visibility in a world shaped by communities, creators, and AI-driven discovery.

In this episode, Gini Dietrich unpacks the visibility engine: Owned and Earned media working together. Owned is your home base—structured expertise built on defendable themes, repeatable authority anchors, and proof. Earned is credibility transfer—validation you can’t buy that makes your expertise easier to trust, repeat, and surface across the web (and in AI answers).

AI has changed discovery. Your audience is getting answers without clicking, and “post here, pitch there, boost this” doesn’t just feel scattered—it performs scattered. Gini Dietrich walks you through the 2026 PESO Model® Certification, rebuilt to help marketers and communicators run PESO as an operating system and engineer visibility, credibility, and trust across paid, earned, shared, and owned media—without needing a bigger team or a bigger budget.

A powerful image out of Minnesota keeps resurfacing: federal agents inside a Target store, terrorizing employees and customers. Just the mere image collapses everything into the questions people are asking in real time: Am I safe at work? Am I safe while shopping? When leaders respond with silence or vague calls for “de-escalation,” they create a vacuum filled by fear, rumor, and the message they cannot control: “declined to comment.” In this episode, Gini Dietrich unpacks why companies default to silence, why that rationale fails, and what communicators should push for instead: decisions, documented protocols, manager scripts, and clear internal and external messaging anchored in duty of care and business continuity.  Trust is the job — and clarity is how you earn it.

We’ve been told the growth strategy is simple: comment a lot, get noticed, build relationships, and win customers. But when busy professionals outsource those comments to AI, engagement turns into performance—and buyers can tell. In this episode, Gini Dietrich shares the “trust math” behind why AI comments backfire, how they create reputation debt, and what to do instead.

The PESO Model® isn’t outdated—but many implementations are. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explains how the PESO Model has evolved from a framework into a marketing operating system designed for today’s reality: fewer journalists, more creators, AI-driven discovery, fragmented trust, and rising expectations for measurement.

Sir Martin Sorrell said, “PR is dead.” The PR industry responded. And the real issue isn’t whether he’s right—it’s why that line even sounds believable to leadership. In this episode, Gini Dietrich separates publicity from PR, unpacks why executives often treat PR as a replaceable distribution channel, and explains what modern PR actually does in 2026: it builds credibility that compounds, educates LLMs, engages humans, and drives revenue by reducing friction in the buyer's journey.  Plus, she shares exactly what to do about it—how to frame PR in executive language and what to measure instead of impressions and “hits.”

The PESO Model® has evolved—and that evolution matters more than ever in 2026. As AI accelerates execution and marketing teams are asked to deliver more with fewer resources, the real challenge isn’t whether to use AI. It’s whether your organization has a system strong enough to govern it. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explains how the PESO Model has evolved from a framework into an operating system—one that helps senior marketers integrate AI, align teams and agencies, and measure what actually drives business outcomes.

Most visibility programs fail because teams don’t know what to measure—or they measure too much, too late. In this final episode of the Visibility Engineering series, Gini Dietrich breaks down three simple metrics that tell you whether your work is driving real pre-pipeline demand. No dashboards. No spreadsheets. Just signal.

You’ve built your anchor hubs, clarified your experts, and added external proof. Now Gini Dietrich shows you how to put your credibility into circulation—not by posting more, but by boosting only what your audience proves they value. This is the week visibility engineering shifts from theory to traction. Tune in and learn how to let your audience show you exactly what to amplify.

Saying “we’re the leading provider” isn’t a strategy. Corroboration is. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explores how to build corroboration loops—the external proof points that show up in trade outlets, creator newsletters, podcasts, and partner channels, and all lead back to your best content. If you’re a senior marketer or communicator trying to move beyond vanity metrics and random thought leadership, this episode will help you turn content into a credibility engine.

Does your website read like a committee of ghosts wrote it? Logos, vague promises, stock photos—and no real humans your audience can actually trust? In this episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich introduces author footprints: a simple way to turn your internal subject-matter experts into visible, credible sources for both humans and AI.

Most buying happens before a call—so if you’re not answering buyer questions up front, the algorithms (and the humans) move on. Gini Dietrich provides a no-fluff visibility engineering sprint to help you prepare for a January launch.

Most of the decision happens before sales. In this episode, Gini Dietrich breaks down Visibility Engineering and how to use the PESO Model© to build anchor hubs that become the safest thing to cite, earn analyst/AI reuse, and measure results. You’ll leave with a copy-and-paste Anchor Hub outline and a 30-day action plan.

In a collapsed-funnel world, “action-oriented” isn’t a button—it’s a byproduct of trust. Today, Gini Dietrich digs into how reputation becomes rank (and revenue), the metrics that prove it, and a simple PESO Model© sequence to lower your cost to convert. Share this episode with a friend, exec, or client who’s stuck debating brand vs. performance.

AI collapsed drafting time—but clients still buy certainty: accuracy, brand safety, and results.  In this episode, Gini Dietrich lays out a practical playbook to stop itemizing hours and start contracting standards, so you keep fees (and win bigger scopes) in the AI era. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to explain “AI speed” without triggering a discount The 10 clauses to codify standards (provenance, data, IP, QA) Fixed/outcome pricing models that hold (and grow) fees Scripts for procurement, legal, and the “show me your prompts” crowd

The internet isn’t dead—it’s haunted. This week, Gini Dietrich explores the “dead internet” theory and why bots now outnumber humans online, which changes how we plan, measure, and defend our brands.  You’ll learn how to replace vanity metrics with human signals, ship proof-of-work content (original data, named experts, receipts), add provenance to your media, and rewire your PESO Model for verified attention. Highlights: Why dashboards glow while revenue stalls—and how to fix it Owned as your fortress: proof stack, schema, provenance Earned relationships that reduce uncertainty (and get the call) Shared in smaller rooms that create real conversation Paid that buys attention you can verify, not impressions you can’t If you want to keep building trust and visibility in a ghosted web, this episode is your new playbook.

Synthetic sparks, real fires.  Gini Dietrich unpacks how bot-created boycotts inflate “consensus,” jump to real influencers, and turn into costly crises.  This episode gives you a practical, hour-one playbook: capture an authenticity snapshot, choose your lane, debunk without oxygen via a single owned explainer, and use paid/shared/earned intentionally.  She also covers the fast tells of inauthentic activity and the governance artifacts you should have queued up before anything explodes. Takeaways • Diagnose manufactured outrage in minutes—no fancy tools required • The exact comms moves to make in the first 2–24 hours • What bots can’t fake (specificity, two-way friction, cross-channel corroboration) • How to prep: thresholds, roles, templates, stakeholder briefs If you found this useful, follow the show and share it with your marketing, comms, and brand teams.

In today’s episode, we put you in the boardroom and show exactly why the current stack can’t answer the ROI question—then we install an operating system. What you’ll learn: • The ~$500B blind spot: marketing without an OS • How a PESO Model© OS creates clarity, efficiency, and revenue attribution • The cost of waiting (and what early adopters are seeing) • A Boardroom Checklist you can use this quarter

Generative AI is sliding into the “Trough of Disappointment.” The Atlantic is warning of an AI bubble. And if you’re a CMO chasing disconnected AI pilots without a plan, you could be next. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explains why PESO isn’t just a model—it’s the operating system that prevents AI from becoming another overhyped, underperforming fad. You’ll learn: Why CMOs keep getting burned by technology hype cycles The rookie mistakes killing enterprise AI strategies How PESO ties AI to real business outcomes The trust signals that matter to both humans and machine customers Before the bubble pops, make sure your AI strategy is built to last.

Ten billion dollars in pharma advertising just got a whole lot less effective. With Trump’s new memo cracking down on DTC ads—TV, social, digital, influencers, even online pharmacies—your pipeline may be at risk. In this episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich explains why disclosure-heavy ads will crush acquisition costs, how competitors are already shifting to PESO Model® strategies, and what you can do now to protect your market share. Don’t wait until your board or investors start asking questions. The brands that move today will be taking market share by March.

For too long, marketing and communications have been judged by clicks, impressions, and vanity metrics. But those numbers don’t move a boardroom.  Executives talk about pipeline, revenue, market share, and shareholder value. If your work isn’t tied to those outcomes, you’re invisible where it matters most. In this episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich introduces The Visibility Engineer’s Manifesto—a new operating model for comms and marketing leaders. You’ll learn how to replace outdated reporting with PESO-driven visibility that proves growth in the language executives actually care about. What you’ll hear: Why CEOs and CFOs rarely mention marketing on earnings calls How AI-powered discovery is reshaping visibility and trust The 11 principles every Visibility Engineer must follow One Day 1 action step you can take right now Download the Manifesto PDF here: https://spinsucks.com/communication/visibility-engineer-manifesto/

For decades, we’ve built personas around titles, demographics, and buyer journeys. But today, your most important persona doesn’t have a job title—it has an algorithm. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explains why AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are no longer just tools—they’re the gatekeepers shaping your category. You’ll learn: Why AI personas are necessary today How these platforms “think” and what they reward What CMOs and comms leaders need to do differently Four practical steps you can run in 90 days to show up in AI results How to lock in your category narrative before competitors do If you’re not influencing the machines, you’re not influencing the people.

Your reputation isn’t just what people say anymore—it’s what machines decide is true. In this episode of Spin Sucks, Gini Dietrich explains why structured trust is the new currency of reputation—and how AI tools are already encoding your brand. If your data is inconsistent, outdated, or missing, you’re invisible (or worse, misrepresented). She covers what structured trust actually means (and why it matters), how machines decide if your brand is credible, the risks of ignoring structured trust, practical steps to build a “source-of-truth” page, use schema markup, and publish citation-ready content, and how to measure if your efforts are working. If AI were asked who you are…would it get the answer right?

On this week’s Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich digs into IBM’s new CMO Revolution study and what it means for the future of marketing leadership. The report makes one thing clear: the next decade won’t belong to the marketers with the biggest budgets. It will belong to the CMOs with operational courage—those willing to dismantle outdated systems and rebuild for an AI-powered marketplace moving at the speed of a microsecond. She shows you how the PESO Model© has evolved into a full marketing operating system, helping CMOs close the execution gap and deliver: Precision, prediction, and protection at scale Integrated, measurable strategies that strengthen first-party data and customer relationships A perpetual growth engine that balances AI speed with human creativity If operational courage is the price of survival, PESO is the playbook.

PR is powering AI visibility—and communicators are more essential than ever. In this episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich breaks down how brand mentions, structured trust signals, and consistent PESO execution are shaping whether your brand shows up in AI-generated answers. The tools may have changed, but the strategy? Still rock solid. You’ll walk away with: A more clear understanding of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) A checklist for improving AI discoverability A smarter way to align your PESO strategy across platforms Hope (yes, really) that your role is more valuable than ever Subscribe, share, and get ready to run your same strategy—at machine scale.

Your job title hasn’t changed. But your responsibilities have. In today’s episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich breaks down what it means to be a Visibility Engineer—and why communications pros are now at the center of AI-driven brand discovery. You’ll learn: Why 95% of AI citations come from non-paid sources (and how to get yours included) How to translate traditional comms skills into strategic AI visibility What new KPIs matter—like citation velocity, AI brand summaries, and misinformation risk How to use the PESO Model to engineer visibility across search, summaries, and smart assistants Plus, we’ll share a “day in the life” of a visibility engineer and give you a tactical roadmap to start applying this thinking inside your own org. Join the Spin Sucks Community for deeper discussions: ⁠⁠⁠https://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community⁠⁠⁠  Follow Spin Sucks on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram for weekly tips.

What do you get when you combine a Coldplay concert, a viral Kiss Cam moment, a silent startup, and Gwyneth Paltrow? A crisis communications case study for the ages. In this episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich breaks down the real-time brand meltdown sparked by a now-infamous Kiss Cam and what every comms pro can learn from it.  You'll learn why timing is everything, how to prevent an awkward moment from becoming a full-blown scandal, and what to do when your CEO trends on TikTok. We’ll cover: How to build a proactive crisis plan (before it’s too late) What to do in the first hour of a PR firestorm Why silence is no longer strategicHow to keep a moment from spiraling into a movement (or how to prevent an issue from becoming a crisis) Whether you’re crisis-tested or just crisis-curious, this episode will help you stay ready, stay fast, and stay in control of your narrative. Listen in—before your brand becomes the next internet punchline. Join the Spin Sucks Community for deeper discussions: ⁠⁠https://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community⁠⁠  Follow Spin Sucks on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram for weekly tips.

AI doesn't see you if your marketing content is brilliant but disconnected. And if AI doesn’t see you, neither do your customers. In this episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich unpacks the discovery crisis—how AI is quietly reshaping the buyer journey, and what it means for brands that haven’t integrated their content strategies. Spoiler alert: the old SEO playbook won’t cut it. Join the Spin Sucks Community for deeper discussions: ⁠https://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community⁠  Follow Spin Sucks on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram for weekly tips.

Generative AI search is rewriting how people find, trust, and engage with information—and communicators are uniquely positioned to lead in this new world. In this episode, Gini Dietrich breaks down why authoritative mentions, trust, and brand signals—PR’s bread and butter—are now the currency of visibility in an AI-first world. If you’re ready to stop chasing algorithms and start building durable visibility, this episode is for you. Join the Spin Sucks Community for deeper discussions: https://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community  Follow Spin Sucks on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram for weekly tips.

If audiences have fragmented attention and trust is harder to earn, what do you need to do? You don't need to burn it all down. It's about aligning your strategy to what works now. Gini Dietrich discusses how you can adapt the PESO Model© to function in a zero-click, zero-share world and how to structure your strategy for discover, trust, and measurable traction.

Remember when clicks, shares, and impressions were reliable measures of success? Those days are gone. In this episode, Gini Dietrich breaks down why AI-generated answers, algorithm-controlled feeds, and private, hidden sharing have fundamentally changed how audiences discover and trust your content.We’re living in a zero-click, zero-share, zero-visit world—and traditional marketing tactics are losing visibility fast. But here’s the good news: you don’t need a shiny new framework to navigate this shift. You need to evolve your PESO Model® strategy to reflect how trust and attention work in 2025.

What does it mean to work smarter not harder when it comes to your communications strategy? Often a 'more is more' strategy feels like the way to go - adding content and tasks and tactics, but you'll get much better results if you focus on alignment instead of addition, and that's what Gini Dietrich is talking about this week on the Spin Sucks Podcast. ffzWcWM9p0QaKJw8YXR1

The expectations for marketing and communications teams are higher than ever, and old systems aren't going to cut it. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how the PESO Model© turns disconnected tactics into aligned strategy, vanity metrics into business results, and overwhelmed teams into confident, focused operators.

It seems like AI content is everywhere these days - in your inbox, on LinkedIn - even in major publications. And for all the many amazing ways AI can help make you more effective, it needs to be supervised. Closely. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to walk the line between getting value out of AI tools, and losing the credibility you've worked so hard to build.

In an environment that is constantly changing, you need to make sure that you are in partnership with your clients, and providing the strategy and insight they need to grow. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is walking you through exactly how to change your relationship from vendor to business parter.

Last week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich shared the 4 types of data stories you need to communicate your metrics effectively. This week, she is talking about how to take those stories to the next level, and make them relatable to the decision makers you're working with.

When you're in communications, you need to make data compelling, and the best way to do that is through stories. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about the 4 types of Data Stories you need to be able to tease out and share.

Do you know if your client's business is moving forward with all the data collected? This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how you can take your client's data and uncover the why behind the number by asking the questions they haven't asked yet.

The PESO Model© will help you build an integrated communications strategy, but if you're not measuring the right things - the outcomes it's creating - then you're going to have a hard time proving it. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to stop measuring your activity, and start putting some real numbers around the outcomes you're creating.

Doing a little bit of everything - picking and choosing tactics - is NOT using the PESO Model©. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about the real power of the model: the integration. When you have a fully integrated PESO Model© strategy, then you have a replicable system that works in your sleep, with each element re-inforcing all of the others, and *that* will never be achieved by choosing and deploying individual tactics.

As economic uncertainty and the pace of technological change increases around the world, the communications plans you made late last year might already need an update. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking you through how you should be reviewing and updating your communications plans in light of this constantly changing environment.

A lot has changed since the PESO Model© was first released in 2014 - marketing and communications have all seen massive change - but the model has been there through it. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is sharing the evolution and elevation of the PESO Model, so that the marketing communications professionals who use it continue to be the best of the best in the industry.

AI adoption in the PR industry has been huge, but you're not at risk of being replaced. AI is taking over the work that ultimately, we don't want to be doing, and on today's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is sharing exactly how to get started, and where your human touch is, and will remain, needed.

When customer journeys are non-linear, and happening around the world, a one-size fits all approach to marketing an communication just doesn't work - but picking and choosing individual tactics from the PESO Model© won't fix the problem - you need a whole strategy. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how large organizations operating internationally can fill that gap, improve performance and bring consistency to your operation.

Being a good communicator means being able to effectively tell stories - that is what helps you build trust and relationships. On today's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about the stories that work best in business and how you can get comfortable telling them.

Most brand stories miss the mark becuase they're focused on the wrong thing, don't resonate with the intended audience, or lack consistency accross different channels. But there is a way to do it right, and that's exactly what Gini Dietrich is sharing this week on the Spin Sucks Podcast.

Requests for Proposals are the bane of many agency's existence, and although they're popular, they're rarely the best way to stary a new professional relationship. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about a better way to position yourself as an expert and get new business without the proposals.

You've seen them on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube - they're an increasingly popular and important method of connecting with the people interested in the companies you represent. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to use this format, and how to integrate it into your PESO Model© strategy.

If AI is stopping people from clicking through to websites - what is the end goal for our PR work? That's what Gini Dietrich is exploring on this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast: the challenges, the opportunities and what you should be tracking and prioritizing as the landscape keeps shifting.

Gini Dietrich dives into AI and how PR professionals are the future of marketing. She discussed the future of paid media and using paid strategies to extend your reach with valuable content with the PESO Model. The key isn't reaching the most people; it's reaching the right people.

Your intellectual property is the culmination of your experience, insights and proven methodologies - and you should make sure that your proprietary ideas, productized services and frameworks are unambiguously yours. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is walking you through the exact steps to take to use you IP to become an overnight success... in just 10 years.

AI search engines, and even traditional search engines using AI are changing how people look for and find information. For communicators, this means we need to update the way we're using the PESO Model© to make sure we're getting found where people are looking. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is telling you how.

The magic of the PESO model is integration between the different media types. Often the lines are blurred between the elements and that means you're doing it exactly right. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to be omnipresent, and why you need to create an environment around each opportunity you have.

More and more of the public have trust issues with companies and media. Gini Dietrich reviews the Annual Edelman Trust Barometer Report and how you can use the PESO Model to address trust challenges in today's communication landscape.

A mistake that companies and individuals often make with the PESO Model© is treating it like a checklist of tactics rather than what it really is - an integrated strategy. On This week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to make sure you're getting all of the benefits of the system - not just a few wins here and there.

Search is always changing, and as communications professionals, we don't always stay up to date on the latest. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is sharing how you should be updating your SEO strategy in 2025 to make sure that the people who need to find your content, do.

There are things AI can do. Lots of them, in fact. But it can't do everything and it can't replace a solid communications plan and team. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how AI can enhance your PESO Model© Strategy in 2025 - complete with measurement and integration.

Competing priorities - goals and budget, immediate results and long term sustainability, efficiency and authenticity - communications is full of them. But that friction can be the source of the best, most creative and most profitable work your company does. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to make sure your programs have enough friction for the magic to happen.

Communications and PR has always been a fast-changing industry, but something that has never changed is the importance of trust, credibility and authenticity. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about what you need to think about as you work on your Earned Media strategy going into 2025.

To create a truly effective communications program, you need to understand how the organization you're working with measure success - that is going to be the foundation of how you communicate the results of your work. In this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about the best ways to demonstrate the results of your work and become a part of the strategic team.

Linking PR and communications work directly to business outcomes has always been a challenge, but a shocking percentage of us are not using all of the tools available, or are not using them correctly, to make it easier. On this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how important it is to have your results tied with other key data about the business.

The new Earned Media landscape demands a different approach than we've used in the past, and it also offers new opportunities to connect more closely with the stakeholders that matter the most. This week on the Spin Sucks Podcast, Gini Dietrich is talking about how to make content that can be adapted and transformed for new channels.

If you're horrified by the very idea of a post-truth country, then you're probably thinking about what you can do to help spread the truth in your role as a communicator. Gini Dietrich is talking about how to fight the three headed monster of modern communications: misinformation, disinformation and malinformation using regular truth audits on this week's episode of the Spin Sucks Podcast.

Disinformation is everywhere, and it reflects a fundamental shift in how information is shared. The challenge of maintaining truth in the public sphere is is more difficult - and more important - than ever. Gini Dietrich is talking about how to do it this week on the Spin Sucks Podcast.