Zoom has a brand awareness problem of a particular kind: it wants to be understood as an end-to-end, AI-first work platform rather than a meetings app, and it is using creators to get there. The company is part of the ChatGPT advertising pilot, but rather than rely on paid placements inside LLMs, it is betting that creator content improves its odds of being cited in AI search results. Kimberly Storin, Zoom’s chief marketing officer, is direct about the evidence, which is that there is no explicit link marketers can point to yet. “It’s not a direct correlation at this point, but the influencers, we believe, is so important to that ‘be present and be believed’ aspect of the framework,” she said.
The campaign pairs Zoom with Nayeema Raza, a journalist, filmmaker and host of the podcast “Smart Girl Dumb Questions,” who has more than 30,000 followers across Instagram and YouTube. Raza appears in spots across Zoom’s social channels, Zoom is sponsoring a six-part series of her podcast, and she will keynote the company’s annual conference in October. Zoom took the work in-house, partnering with Profound AI, a generative AI marketing intelligence platform, and is tracking which sources AI systems draw on when answering customer questions.
“In the past, brands would target creators based on their reach, so those creators can share content that gets a reach. But now brands are looking to target creators who are being cited by LLMs,” said Joseph Levi, CEO and co-founder at Noise Media Group. What marketers do know is that LLMs have preferred sources: Semrush’s AI Visibility Index puts ChatGPT at an estimated 15.4 sources, favoring Wikipedia and Reddit, and Google Gemini at 3.3 on average, favoring YouTube, Wikipedia and e-commerce sites. Levi is pushing clients to publish listicles on their own sites or in high-quality publications. “Being featured on high-quality publications — even if they’re not necessarily the publications that are being cited — it certainly adds towards your overall authority,” he said.
Zoom is not the only one testing the link. In June, Priceline increased its social spend, favoring influencers and content creators for storytelling. “We think of this as an AI visibility strategy, but I also step back and say, ‘I think this is just good marketing,’” Storin said.
Read more at Digiday.