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- [00:01]
A
Hey there, Melina here. Really quickly, before we get into the episode, if you've ever wanted to level up your goals or your communication, I've got great news. Two of my most popular courses through Texas A and M's Human Behavior Lab are open now for enrollment. Setting brainy goals helps you to actually achieve those big plans, not just write them down and forget about them. And creating better presentations will totally transform the way you communicate at work and in meetings or on stage. They're part of the certificate in Applied Behavioral Economics. But you don't have to commit to the entire program to join either of these classes. There are no prerequisites, no fluff, just three weeks, all virtual directly with me and some other brainy folks from around the world. If you're interested to learn more and enroll, head to HBL like Human Behavior Lab, TAMU like Texas A and M University Edu, and click on certificate program to learn more and enroll again. That's hbl, tamu Edu and click on certificate program. I can't wait to see you in class. And when you're ready, let's start the show. Welcome to episode 549 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Alessandra DiLorenzo, author of Adjust How Ads Shape what We Think and Do. Ready? Let's get started.
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B
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast, where we dig into the psychology.
- [01:44]
A
Of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making.
- [01:50]
B
It more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [01:55]
A
Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Have you ever stopped to think about how the ads you see, the ones that show up in your feed, your inbox, or even your favorite playlist, are quietly shaping your decisions. Whether you're in marketing, leadership, innovation, or just curious about how people buy, advertising plays a much bigger role in our behavior than most people realize. And with AI access accelerating change in how visibility and influence work, this topic is more relevant than ever today. I'm thrilled to introduce you to Alessandra DiLorenzo, a CMO lecturer and author with more than 20 years of experience shaping the advertising and media strategies of companies like ebay, vodafone, and lastminute.com. her book, Adjust, explores the hidden infrastructure of advertising and how it impacts our minds, our choices, and our sense of what's normal. This is a perspective you may not have heard before or at least not quite like this. Alessandra brings a distinct point of view on how advertising has evolved and how it's affecting what we see, do and believe. Whether you agree or not, it's an opportunity to look at your own brand's visibility and influence in a new light. Really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 549. Now let's jump right in. Alessandra DiLorenzo, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.
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B
Hi. It's a pleasure to be here.
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A
Yeah, I'm super excited to have you here. We have, of course, I always do this. We've been chatting for, for a little bit, leading in and so we, I feel like we know each other now. We can continue to be best friends after this. But for everyone who does not yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
- [03:59]
B
Of course. So let's start with the labels. So I call myself cmo, Fractional CMO at the moment Consultant cmo. I am also a lecturer and most recently I wrote a book. So I'm also an author in sort of the past 24 years. I don't want to age myself, but I've been in advertising. I started just after the. Well, the. Yeah, again, I don't want to age myself, but I was with Yahoo many, many, many moons ago when Yahoo was very big. And then, you know, all the way through to Vodafone and ebay and then agency side with media Monks, now called monks and lastminute.com and yeah, now I am in London, close to London, and it's a pleasure to be here. Perfect.
- [04:50]
A
Well, like you said, you worked in and going through the book, you know, it's talking about how ads are, you know, shaping life and really in a way that people don't necessarily realize how much of the world around us is shaped by the advertising that we are exposed to. Can you share a little bit? We'll wait to get to kind of the. Where we are now. Let's step back to like, you step into this wonderful world of advertising and online sales. Like, what are some of the things that you learn? Stuff that's like, would surprise people, you know, to kind of find out about when you think about selling and human behavior.
- [05:31]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I think when you. Well, I Started when I was very young and after a degree in marketing. And one of the things that one of my professors told me was, now that you're here, nobody, you'll never look at the world in the same way. Right. Because once you start looking at how the mechanisms of advertising and marketing work, then every, everything really changes. It's like you put on a new pair of glasses. And so when I started working in the industry, when you're junior, you start doing smaller things, so you start doing, you know, the, the, the smaller components of the job. So for example, my first job was focused on mobile marketing and, you know, setting up campaigns. So I started learning how to write good copy. And what does writing good copy mean? It means writing copy that will convince people to do something or choosing the right images, best practices, right. So choosing the right images for the right banners, again to make people do something, using what we call call to actions. So writing the right, you know, buzzword to make sure that people are actually then activating and doing what you'd like to do. And at the core of, you know, what we do, at the end of the day, there's, there's a brand and there's an audience and then there's a lot of other bits in between. Technology, other companies that try to make that exchange efficient and profitable. But yeah, that's it, right? A brand talking to an audience through digital. In the case of where we are today. When I started at Yahoo, it was about, yeah, writing good copy and banners and then all the way, you know, in more recent years when I was commercial director at ebay, we built a product, and this was in 2005, four, that was able to predict and then show ads to women based on what trimester of pregnancy they were in. And this, this was in 2004. So we could basically with, by looking at the data and behavioral information around triggers and things they were doing online on this, on the platform, we were able to say, oh, this, this woman's probably in her first trimester. Let's show her an ad for, you know, supplements or let's show her an ad for Pampers if it's, you know, third trimester. And that's spooky. And that's just gotten worse. And with AI now, it's, it's, yeah, it's scary, scary business.
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A
I remember that just reminded me when so many moons ago, I remember going from. So having been on Facebook and being where my, you know, status had been, just like in a relationship. And I remember seeing the ads as somebody who also Has a degree in marketing and later in behavioral science. You know, I, I always am paying a lot of conscious attention to ads where I know that a lot of people don't pay as much attention as I do. But I remember seeing like the minute I changed my status to Married, every ad on Facebook, every post that was focused on and like, whatever, the way that Facebook did this before became babies, instantly everything changed to baby stuff. And you know, at that point too, I'm like, no thanks, right? Like not a thing. But I mean, I like watched it switch these days. It happens typically a little bit more gradually than that, but in those early days that it was a very marked difference of selecting something. And so it's an interesting balance because of course, you know, when you think about, from the marketing, the business perspective of this, right? There is a real positive in only being able to be in front of people who might want the thing that you want, right? It helps with costs, it helps you to be more efficient. It makes it like when you think about logically, right? Like, I have less people who don't want to see the thing. I'm not showing this to someone who doesn't care. I'm not. Like, it could also be very annoying if every single woman is seeing stuff about third trimester pregnancy because, like, I don't need that. Like, I'm not having any babies, right? Or a bunch of men are seeing it that are not going to be having babies. And so like that. But when you're just putting things on a billboard, whereas if you can be, you know, targeting the person who would need the product, it feels like, hey, this is a win, win. And it's really easy to just look at it in that way.
- [10:12]
B
Exactly. And I think, you know, what powers this virtuous exchange, right? From a business perspective is data. So the more data that a company has about you and your, your behavior and your likes and dislikes, your context, where you are, what weather, what the weather looks like, the more information that company has, the more relevant that message can be or become for you. And so my argument, I mean all along isn't that we should be demonizing ads. Not at all. I mean, they are, after all, the, the engine of the free Internet. And we can talk maybe about this a bit more and because actually, I think there's a connection between advertising and democracy and democratic, you know, discourse, the ability to have multiple voices. But that's a different point. The point is when an ad is relevant, it almost becomes like a service. It becomes content. The problem is we're not there yet. So we have examples like ads following you around the Internet that's, you know, retargeting gone bad because there's a data point that's not being passed back to the advertiser. For example, if you go onto a shoe website and you really like that shoe but you don't buy it, that ad follows you around most likely because it's connected to a cookie which is in your browser. If you then go off and buy it, that information that you bought, it doesn't get transferred to the person or the technology that's actually showing the ad. So you'll still get, you still see those ads anyway, although you've already bought them and that becomes irrelevant. Again, it's about the data behind the machine. And with AI, things are getting much more precise. Hence hopefully the advertising will be more relevant but also more dangerous for consumers.
- [12:05]
A
Well, and that's like you're saying the thing about the shoes. There's this also the line of like, I don't want to also have to tell everyone everything I've bought. Right? And so we don't need to, you know, share and have that out in the world and, and what gets put. I know for me, I'm so hesitant to ever click on or like even. It's like I liked a photo. Right. Or you like something that's out there and it changes everything else that you see after that point. And so it is, it is interesting to see how that all kind of comes together in. When you think about just again, if we're looking at this and this, the sight of someone who's doing some branding. So of course, being from like ebay and Yahoo, like very large companies that have a lot of resources behind them and they figured out a lot of different things over the years as you think about people who are less exposed to thinking about their advertising in this way. So if we were to say someone who has a small business and does kind of just put out a message of like, this is the my product and it's good and you should like it and aren't thinking about those deeper layers of who am I talking to at what time and why are they going to care about this? Like, being able to understand the way that your product or service can like shift and feel differently relevant for different people. Like, can you share a little bit about what your advice would be for someone as they're thinking, thinking about how to message in a way that actually can help them as a small business owner, compete in this space?
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B
Yes, absolutely. That is such a great question. And I say genuinely because for a number of reasons, the first one is that the world is full of people trying to sell to small businesses services of all sorts and in very choppy ways. So you'll have the SEO expert and then you'll have the SEM expert, and then you'll have the AI expert and then the small agency, et cetera, et cetera. So it's very easy as a small business owner to get drowned in choppy bits of the ecosystem and then put money into one or the other, whoever you trust more, and then get no results. So my advice is going back to what I said just, you know, maybe three, four minutes ago. The exchange has not changed brands. Talk to audiences, to people. What is an audience is a group of people. So my advice in very simple terms is talk to real people. Who is your buyer? Go and talk to your customers. Simple stuff. Ask them what their pain points are. The more you know about who your customers are and who the customers that you'd like to attract might be real people, the more you can construct a system of advertising or marketing that is relevant. Then, of course, you need to know a bit of the digital world because you might be creating really cool content and then get four likes out of it. And that's expensive, too. So. But before you do anything, my advice is understand who your customer is, understand where they spend their time, how they buy things, who your competitors are. All the stuff that we all know before the noise of digital.
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A
Yeah, well, we all. So we know that. Right. But there's a reason my book is called what your customer wants and can't tell you. Right. So if we have the asking the question, you know, and finding the right people, how do we think about for someone like you're saying, so there's SEO and SEM and AI and someone who does marketing and someone who just does social marketing and someone who can write the post for me and someone who can do this and that and whatever. Like, what's your line as you think about in understanding those customers better? Like, I talk about this all the time, so of course I have my opinions. People have heard on the show a lot. But as you think about, like, how do you see what people are doing? Like, so as a small business owner, I don't feel like I have access to enough of the data and being able to see what people are actually doing, what they're clicking on, why or how. And so what form of resource or research would people be able to do to kind of understand that journey of their ideal customer if they're not buying from them yet, how can I start to see see what those larger companies are seeing so that I can understand when someone is more likely to click or be open to the thing that I'm selling or some of those words that might resonate with them. Any tips on that?
- [16:40]
B
Yes. So the tools that are out there, the ad buying tools without naming them, we know the bigger, the bigger ones but I mean we can list them. Google Ads is, is a, is the the tool that we should all be considering as small business owners already does that for you essentially with you don't need much budget maybe you know, a thousand dollars is sufficient and I tell to start pacing a campaign into the tool and start getting real reactions to your prospective customers. And it's got a really cool wizard where it's, it's not even difficult. You go in, follow the steps, set up the campaign and then once the tool has started learning with the real interaction with prospective customers or your target audience, it will suggest the most performing, the most performing ads and upweight those it will suggest more keywords for you to use. If you're doing Google Ads page, you know the blue links, classic blue links and Facebook and Meta Meta and all the other platforms work in the same way. So there is no and you don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this. A thousand, maybe two thousand is sufficient to start getting some real traction on these tools. So that would be my suggestion. Just get your hands dirty in the tools. If you're even slightly digital, don't outsource that to a third party. Do it yourself because that's when you're really going to learn what works.
- [18:10]
A
Yeah, I love that. I was actually going to ask a little bit about kind of what to add outsourced and whatnot to so in a world where you can't do it all and I know too in the book you talk about someone who, where it's working for I think they were at an agency. Maybe it was your agency, I forget but that was making had to make 200 different ads for a campaign and it's you know those little nuanced versions that are going to be running a B test after a B test after a B test which is hey great, I love, I love testing. Right. That's really helpful for someone, you know as a. In a. So for one handing all that to one person to do in a short period of time, not ideal but as we look at, you know, how many, you know, versions of an Ad, should we consider starting with if you're gonna use that thousand dollars. Right. So we say, so I need to know what I want people to do. Right? So for one, like, we don't want it to just be like, hi, I have a company. Hooray. Right. But like, so you want them to click to go to your website to do what? Is there a particular product? Is there like, you want people like, for me, do I want it to be like, subscribe to my new YouTube channel? Is it. Check out that I have a podcast? Am I looking to sell a book? Am I looking to gain engagement on something? Do I want people to book me to speak? Like, there's so many things you could be doing. If I just say, hi, I'm Molina, like that not going to do much even if I have a bunch of versions and I can't track what worked. So of course we need to know specifically we have this thousand dollars we're going to invest in doing one thing. What's the most important thing it could do? How many versions of the ad would we make for our wizard? And then kind of, what might we. What should I do myself versus working with someone to help me with.
- [20:05]
B
Yeah, So I think going back to my, to your point and, and the one that I highlighted before. So the most important thing is before digital, the, before we do the work. So it's really understanding what our objectives are. What are we trying to achieve? To you, to, to you. You were explaining this perfectly. Right. So what do we want people to do once we say, hi, this is my shoe, we want them to buy the shoe, we want them to buy the piece of clothing. And then we need to think about, you know, who are the people that are buying today and who are the people that are. That we'd like to sell this product to. And then we go into. Once we have very. As much clarity as possible around this, then we can start engaging with the tools and going back to Google Ads, it itself gives you the option to use 1015 headlines and then, you know, upload 1020 images and then what it does and subheadings and so on. And it's got an intelligent AI that suggests the. That by the way, with the keywords that you put in. And then what it does is it essentially combines them and creates X or N amount of versions of your ads from the headlines, the sub headlines and the images and then up ways when your budget is running up ways, the one that works best and the other platforms work similarly. So if you have at least a little Bit of expertise with digital tools. It doesn't need to be. We're not talking coding here. We're talking about, you know, being able to open a console and work with it. My recommendation would be try to do them in house, these things, even if it's working with a younger intern, maybe someone that's a bit more digitally, you know, first digital first, because you're going to retain so much more. Know how about how your prospective customers interact with your brand. When you hand it out to someone else, you're just going to get a report, oh, you got three clicks, five people came to your website. So what? And then you really don't have any knowledge. That's just generally how it works. So if you can't do it yourself, which I completely understand, in some cases people are busy making the shoe and don't have time to fiddle around with content online, then in that case I would recommend not to give it to an agency. But if the resources allow to hire maybe a young and enthusiastic social person or ad or generalist marketing person who's also, you know, interested in exploring and learning so that again, you can retain some of that learning in house and then finally make sure that your touch points are very clear. I don't think that a small to medium enterprise needs to be too worried about 300 iterations of the same message. What I do think is that the message that is important is to make sure that you're, you're very clear on what you're communicating and that your touch points are consistent. So if your ad is saying, you know, buy a shoe for 9.99, the landing page needs to have the same title, the same logo, the same brand, the same message. And then a very clear what we said before call to action. And I know some people maybe think this is very salesy, you know, why would I have a call to action? We don't want people to feel like they're missing out. Fomo, we don't want to introduce elements.
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A
Yes, you do. You do want them.
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B
But we actually do, unfortunately. We do. I mean, we know this for a fact. The Chinese giants, commerce giants, the temu, the Sheens, they're really good at this stuff. And, and that's what small business owners are up against. So a little bit of this logic needs to really be understood. And, and unfortunately, used to, you know, it doesn't have to be evil. Just use it to your advantage because it works.
- [23:46]
A
Yeah. And, and no, no worries about it here, I think so. This audience, I am confident, is full of, well, Intentioned, thoughtful people who are all excited about the psychology and understanding human behavior for the better. Right? And like I was saying to this idea of I make, you know, I being whomever's listening, right? Like, I make a really great product or I have this amazing service that I've been pouring my, like entire life into and I just need the right people to see it. And if they did, if they understood it, they would want it. Right? And so when you can prove that out and make it to where they're going to pick you instead of just the least expensive thing or that knockoff that exists and understanding brand loyalty and how that ties in with decision making and where, you know, all these different aspects. So this is definitely an audience of people who, who get it and are on board with being able to use that for the better. You were talking a little bit about AI and we talked a little bit about some of the pieces. With SEO, you have an. And I know we haven't dug super deep into your book and what's there in adjust, which is really, really helpful for people being able to understand how these ads come to you as a consumer as well. And of course it can be build on that. But I think there's a good transition here to this kind of supplemental essay that's looking at the way things are changing and what used to be true isn't necessarily anymore. So can you share a little bit about that, kind of set our stage before we then talk about like, so what do we do now?
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B
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I think going back to the previous question, let me bridge that because into trying to answer this one.
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A
So.
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B
So we spoke about the tools in terms of paid media. So if you're buying media, we spoke about that. Another very important aspect is to remember that actually buyers are still people. So investing time into speaking to your community, your audience online, I think will give you a very strong response because people want to buy from people in spite of all of these tools. And this is true in every single research and every single piece of work that I've done. The difficult part is doing that in at scale. And this is where all these machines come in. Now, going back to the tools, AI can really help with all of this if used, you know, with a little bit of knowledge, but not too much. It can help come up with creative concepts. It can help automate some, you know, boring tasks. So I would really suggest to embrace AI as a tool for marketing. And it's very noisy right now out there because there's a million tools and Everybody's building a new one. However, you know, doing some research and maybe talking to, you know, best in class in the market, following the brands that are doing this well, as a small business owner, as following competitors may give you, you know, a way forward in terms of how things are shifting. Well, the fact that we, I'm sure everybody's seen that Google and obviously ChatGPT and the others, Google has launched the AI mode and it's now broadly available across the board. What Matt does and what ChatGPT does and all of these other large language models is that they're now becoming a new way of searching for things for people. And what does that do? That means that instead of sifting through content that was written by anybody who wanted to write that content and then shown to you because it was relevant, that's how the old search model worked. Now you have neural networks that are synthetic neural networks, large language models summarizing stuff for you and then telling you, oh, if you want to know more, go here. But the majority of people don't want to no more. They'll just be sufficiently satisfied with the answer that the summary is giving you. So what that means is that SEO is breaking down and that's a step too far. What that means is that websites are not getting the traffic that they would normally get through a well indexed SEO strategy, good content. And so if they're not getting the traffic, then they can't monetize. And when they're monetizing through advertising, this is even more worrying, like traditional publishers. So I don't know whether that makes sense, but I think that the core of this message is AI is not only shifting the way we make marketing, but also the way we consume content that's supported by advertising.
- [28:30]
A
Yeah, right. And so that's where you think about, you know, for creators, for anybody that's looking to whether even if it's like I, you have a, a recipe blog or you are selling executive coaching, like, and everything in between. Like if you, most of those have something where there's, you know, ad based something that's in that process, like for the, you know, recipes, there's always the joke of like you have to read someone's entire life story before you find out how to make the bread because it's filled with so many ads like along the way, but like there's something there. But if people don't go to the web page anymore and they don't read it there, then that person can't be making the money for the stuff that they're putting out into the world. Right. And so in your book you talk about some ways that we can actually do something if it may feel like, well, as a consumer all I can do is like read the thing that's given to me. You know, what options might there be? So one, as you think about this, you know, the two sides of the coin. So as the person who's the creator who's realizing that, oh man, like my clicks are way down, there's a lot less views on my actual website and so I'm not getting that ad revenue I used to get. What might you recommend for them to help to, to either stand out, to bring that large, you know, to bring more people to them. What sort of options do people have? And knowing it's early, so it's kind of speculation in a lot of ways at this point. But then also as someone who wants to support other creators that they like real human people, you know, what advice do you have for them?
- [30:12]
B
For sure. So I think this is just my opinion, but I think we're in a position where the concept of website, of websites is shifting and I don't know if there's going to be an Internet of websites in the next 20 to 30 years. I really don't know because content is being consumed differently and because the ad funded model is under a lot of stress. So if you look at the UK for example, there's some news that's come out recently about some very large publishers who have lost up to 50% of their traffic to their site. What does that mean? That means that the publisher can't pay for journalists. And so what does that mean for free speech and democracy and all that? Well that's a bigger topic. So to go back to practical stuff, okay, so things are shifting. Websites are not performing as much. So maybe from a content creator perspective, why not focus on creating content inside the platforms where monetization is still prefenced. YouTube is a good example. I've seen, seen many of your videos Melina, which I really enjoy. Actually the Disney one was my favorite. Yay.
- [31:23]
A
Thank you.
- [31:24]
B
You're very welcome. And so that's a good way to retain some of that control. And monetization also, you know, sponsored content when it's baked into the content, so spoken out loud rather than, you know, pre rolls and post roles and all that is obviously more monetized, more profitable for the content creator. And we all know that as creators ourselves. So that would be my, my, my, you know, key sort of advice there when it comes to Consumers. So I. So in the last sort of 10 years, the Internet started to get, you know, littered with accept this, accept that, cookies here, cookies there. Nobody really knows what it is, right. And it, all it does is it disrupts your experience as a user. But actually it's so important, it's, it's a gimmick. This whole thing is kind of gimmicky in my mind. This GDPR out in Europe and in the States, California is very active in this and some other states are too. And I think ensuring that people have the option to say yes, I want to accept you website tracking me and then serving me ads that are relevant to me is something very important and it should be a decision that we do actively. If I'd want, I'd love to have a conversation with the people that are listening to see how many of us have actually ever looked inside or behind that accept. Now some websites are sharing data with hundreds of other websites. Now there's nothing bad in that in itself, but I think we should be selective in terms of who we allow to do that. So if we're supporting, for example, a free newspaper that is giving us great content, I'll give you the Guardian as a good example in the uk, then yes, you're giving me quality, I'll give you my data, it's a fair exchange. But if that's not right and look at the big platforms, the social networks and so on, you can't use them if you don't sign your soul away. Is that really what we want to be doing? So again, it's about that conscious act of consuming content online. I think you alluded to it as well.
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A
Yeah, and I think, I think that's great. Like showing with the Guardian and things that you. We've gotten very accustomed to free access, free content, free apps and like for one, knowing that that company still has to run on something, whether the company is a single person or a very large organization, like you said, whether it's the Guardian or it's meta or whatever else. So there's a lot that goes into creating that and it gets funded somehow. And like sure, there's some like VC type funding that goes into some of those, but also it's a lot of ads and data. Right. And we know this now. Right. But like to really understand what that means and understand that when those are like targeted, when clicks come from, then I would recommend for people to check out too. I did an interview about the history of the like button recently and that I think digs into this a Little bit more too. And how that has become kind of this commoditized space and the value of me liking something, it's really interesting. And so with that, if you just think about though, like you have a choice and you can say, I want to give some money to the guardian because I know they're going to be losing some ad revenue or things they might have had because that matters to me. Or, or we're saying to individual creators, if there is someone whose recipes you've always liked or if there's someone whose content you've enjoyed. Many creators now too are looking for things in that, like a membership group or a paid way you can buy that person's T shirts and whatever else they're starting to make now in these, you know, ways of merch. And so I think supporting in other ways so that people can continue to have a voice and to create and that you can know for yourself as a creator to think about how you're going to be boosting that. Whether you're a thought leader inside an organization or a small business owner, it's just really key to consider putting your, your views, your dollars, actually click through to a website still, if you care about that, don't just take what Google shows you. Too.
- [35:48]
B
Well, exactly. It's, it's like so the Internet monetizes our attention, but we're in charge. We are the owners of our own intentions. So let's. And it's valuable. So let's, you know, consciously put it where we want to put it rather than just the endless scroll, which really just helps the big guns monetize and become even more scary. So, yeah, completely agree. I mean, it's obvious, right? The way. I suppose what we didn't talk about is why accepting for a website to use my cookies or use my data is important. Well, just to close on that, the more data, the more information. I'll call it information because data seems really technical, right? Information about browsing behavior, about likes to your point, around historical, around context, around where you are. The more information a website has about you, the more relevant the ads they show you are going to be. And the more relevant they are, the more likely it is that you will click or interact with the ad and therefore go and buy that product. And therefore the higher the likelihood, the higher the monetization value for the publisher. That is why information is so important for the ad model. I don't know whether that adds value, Melina, but sometimes it gets lost in the big data word, you know.
- [37:14]
A
Yeah, well, and I think it's, it's good to know that, like you were saying here, you have some opportunity and intentionality in that. Right. So for those that you trust and want to give that to, you can say yes. For those where I just happen to be here, so, like, no, I don't feel like doing that. I'm gonna go here. And I think everybody investing a little bit in learning, like, what does it mean when I accept or reject a cookie? Can I still, like, see your website if I reject this thing that comes up for me and like, what happens? And so I know in, you know, adjust, you share a little bit about kind of each of those where you can put up the ad blocker if you want or not, and how to give feedback about whether something is relevant or not to help shape your experience and have that in a thoughtful way. And knowing that as any, all of us are in business of some sort and we are all consumers of things as well. And so being able to say, well, why did I click on that? Why was I interested in this? You know, learning from your own behavior as a person, consuming things to then be thoughtful about, how you're creating things, Virtuous cycle.
- [38:23]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about how that then projects onto our kids, I don't know whether that's a topic that you want to touch on today, but it's, it's even more concerning and urgent for us to be really, really, you know, as parents, up to speed with how this works at every cognitive stage of development for kids.
- [38:40]
A
Definitely, yeah. The ramifications of the thing you click on or don't click on and, and what that, what happens and, and works there is important. And if you don't understand it, me being part of the collective you like, then how do you explain that to, you know, protect the next generation as they think about this is really key and important. So, yeah, business and life applications for all of it, for sure. And there are great tips and insights in your book and the company essay I know that you had sent over to me. We'll have links in the show, notes for people to be able to get that, to follow you, to learn more. But for everyone who does want to do so, you know, what's the best route for them to keep in touch to see what you're working on, to support you, you know, in the world of what we're talking about here.
- [39:28]
B
Oh, thank you for asking that. So I'm on LinkedIn, LinkedIn and Instagram, but more lightly on Instagram, on LinkedIn quite actively. And so Anybody that's interested, really, feel free to just ping me. Hey. Hi. I'm, you know, I'd be delighted to talk to anyone interested. I'm literally on a mission to bring media literacy in business and consumer for everyone to the forefront. So that's really what I'm trying to do. And I'm so appreciative of this conversation. Mina, thank you. Thank you very much.
- [39:59]
A
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me. It was a really enlightening conversation and the book and everything. So really excited to be able to do our part to share. And when everyone who does connect with with Ally with Alessandra here, make sure you say you heard her on the brainy business to help her know where that came from and she can remember the conversation and it's going to just keep it all, all going. So thanks again for joining me. It was just really delightful to chat with you today.
- [40:29]
B
Thank you very much.
- [40:31]
A
Thank you again to Alessandra Di Lorenzo for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, it was the idea of how much power we hold as consumers of content and how often we forget that power. Every like share, view or follow sends a signal. And in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms and AI, those signals are shaping what gets seen, funded and amplified. As we move into this new normal of media influence and advertising, it's more important than ever to be intentional about what we read, where we get our information, and how we support the voices and creators we believe in. That includes journalists, independent bloggers, influencers, podcasters, and brands that align with our values. Small things like subscribing to a newsletter, buying a book, commenting on a post can have a big ripple effect. And that's a key takeaway here. The system isn't just something that happens to us. We're part of it. We help build it every day. So as we close out the episode, I just have some thoughts, questions for you to consider. How might you use your attention, your clicks and your dollars to support the kind of content and creators you want more of in the world? And if you're a creator, what are you doing to adjust to encourage that support from your audience? Whatever your thoughts and ideas on that, please do come and share them with me on social media. You're going to find me as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, as well as links for my top related past episodes and books, including Adjust Ways to get in touch with Alessandra, myself and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainybusiness.com 549. And thank you again to Alessandra Di Lorenzo for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
- [42:47]
B
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast.
- [42:50]
A
Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly.
- [42:57]
B
For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.