David A. McInnis, the pioneer of News Marketing and founder of PRWeb, has released his second book, Brand Equity: AI, News Marketing, and People: The New Brand Equity Stack. This timely publication argues that brand equity is no longer solely about what people remember, but also about what retrieval systems can find, trust, and reuse when someone asks a question in your category. McInnis defines brand equity as the accumulated trust, recognition, and preference residing in people's minds, creating commercial advantages like higher prices, faster conversion, and stronger resilience. For decades, such equity seemed reserved for companies with massive advertising budgets, but the landscape has shifted.
The book's central concept is the 'new brand equity stack,' comprising AI, News Marketing, and people. AI accelerates research and content creation, while people ensure the brand's authenticity at every touchpoint. News Marketing serves as the credibility and findability engine in between. McInnis emphasizes, 'AI makes the process faster. News Marketing makes it credible. People make it believable. Measurement makes it honest.' He argues that generic content does not create preference, and brand equity is the predictable output of a repeatable process.
News Marketing, McInnis's signature methodology, is crucial to this framework. It involves distributing structured, timestamped press releases on the open web, treating them as seeds for broader visibility. This approach achieves five critical tasks: third-party validation, familiarity through repetition, authority signals, a living public newsroom, and durable retrieval assets for AI systems. 'Advertising buys attention, News Marketing banks proof,' McInnis writes. The book includes practical guidance on building a Brand Equity Dashboard using free signals, developing brand pillars, and implementing a twelve-month plan.
McInnis is clear about AI's limitations: it cannot choose pillars, attend customer calls, or earn third-party validation. Tools amplify strategy, not replace it. Laura Sturaitis, retired EVP of Business Wire, praises the book, noting McInnis has 'literally written the book(s) revealing the tried and true marketing methods that have delivered for top-tier companies.'
Brand Equity is the second in a series, following News Marketing, with Success Pillars forthcoming. It is available for free download for a limited time and for purchase on Amazon.com. For media inquiries, contact Newsworthy.ai.
