Generally speaking, I don’t think CEOs should wade too deep into politics. However, there are plenty of lessons for organizations in our industry to learn from politics — even if that doesn’t mean ‘getting political.’

Specifically, politics has a lot to teach corporate America about how to persuade people. That starts with getting attention. And I’d like to propose a three-step formula to maximizing attention in the current media environment.

You can’t win without attention. The establishment doesn’t get this.

Critiquing the House Democrats’ choice not to elevate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to a leadership position, the Pod Save America guys said the following: “Attention is the first thing that matters. If you cannot get attention, your message cannot be heard. If your message cannot be heard, you cannot persuade people. If you cannot persuade people, you cannot win.”

The Democrats should have elevated AOC even if many moderate members disagree with her politics because she would have done one thing better than any other Democratic member of Congress: orchestrate attention. And if Democrats are going to make any gains with voters, that is the first thing they need to do. 

The same is true of corporate marketing. Attention is the indispensable first step for everything else that comes with marketing and sales: differentiation, urgency, and the relationship building that drives deals. And yet the establishment, which means congressional leaders in the political case and corporate leadership teams in the business one, regularly shows up in the wrong (read: old) places, espouses milquetoast talking points, and tries to build influence via a faceless bureaucratic machine. If you are not getting attention, every dollar you spend on marketing is meaningless.

If you’re sold on the importance of attention, the question becomes how to get it. This is a question of where you show up, what you say, and whom you put forward. In other words, there’s a formula to orchestrate attention and build influence in 2025:

Where: social, newsletters, podcasts.

What (to say): a critique of the status quo on behalf of your customers against your competitors.

Who: a chief evangelist — a charismatic messenger who can bring your story, your fight, to market. Not a faceless corporate machine. 

Let’s address each part of the 2025 attention formula: where, what, and who.

Where to build influence: social, newsletters, podcasts.

There are four pillars of B2B marketing distribution (or where you show up): earned media (the press), social (LinkedIn and Twitter), email (newsletters), and audio (podcasts). The 2024 election alerted political enthusiasts to the changing dynamics of attention orchestration and message distribution as Donald Trump went on Theo Von and Joe Rogan’s podcasts, Kamala Harris went on “Call Her Daddy,” and Democrats wondered after the election if Harris should’ve gone on Rogan (answer: yes, though of course no one decision decides an election).

B2B CEOs and marketers are still sleeping on these changes. Of course, you should have an earned media strategy. But you should also have a social, email, and audio strategy, both in terms of your own content production on those channels and how you’ll influence the creators who drive discourse on them.

Your customers are just consumers. Brand CMOs and agency decision makers read social content, listen to industry podcasts, and read newsletters like this one (I can personally verify that). They’re not mythical creatures who have somehow remained immune to media changes over the past twenty years. And this shift from traditional journalism as a source of information to creators will only intensify in the coming years, especially as millennials and Gen Zs age into corporate decision-maker roles. You need a strategy to reach them.

What (to say): a critique of the status quo and its representatives.

In the wake of the election, AOC asked her constituents on Instagram why they supported both her and Trump (if they did). The responses essentially boiled down to, “I trust you both because you’re both authentic and fight for us.”

Trump says, “Drain the swamp” and rails against the government-academic-media establishment that Nate Silver calls the Village. AOC has a more left-wing critique focused on billionaires and big corporations. Either or neither of these might resonate with you individually. What matters is they both have a very clear critique of the status quo as well as a people they’re fighting for (let’s loosely call it ‘everyday Americans’) and a villain they’re fighting against (the establishment in both cases, though with a left-wing bent in AOC’s case). 

B2B companies should follow a similar formula. When it comes to orchestrating attention and winning supporters (mostly important customers) to your cause, enemies are good. You need a critique of the status quo, a constituency you’re fighting for (your customers), and an enemy who represents the status quo (probably your competitors). 

My client Viant does this very well. They’re very clear on whom they fight on behalf of (advertisers), what’s wrong with the status quo (BS performance metrics that don’t reflect actual incremental sales, among other things), and who represents the status quo (among others, Google, which, in their telling, loves to take credit for branded search term-related sales that were actually driven by CTV, Viant’s biggest channel). Every adtech company should have its own version of this narrative.

Who: a chief evangelist, not a faceless corporate machine.

The last item in the attention orchestration formula is who. I don’t want to overindex on Trump and Harris specifically, but if you look at the last 30 years in American politics, I think it’s clear that you benefit from having an authentic messenger who genuinely cares about a particular issue and is comfortable expounding on it in a wide variety of contexts (i.e. the person doesn't sound like they’re reading off flashcards when they go on a podcast or media interview). 

You want to have what my colleague Paul Knegen calls a crusade: a war you’re waging on behalf of your customers, likely against your competitors, who represent an outdated status quo. The companies that best perform with this marketing strategy will also have a capable, comfortable, and authentic messenger who can capitalize on first-party communications channels (social, email, audio) to bring that story to market.

The most important lesson for adtech companies and agencies to take from this point about “who” is not just that you need a capable messenger but that corporate marketing — the faceless practice of putting out press releases and throwing a bunch of (forgettable) people at the market — is dead. I’m not sure faceless corporate marketing was ever particularly effective, and in this age of institutional skepticism, which is also the age of the creator or influencer, faceless corporate marketing is definitively outdated and ineffective.

Instead, you should be looking for a chief evangelist or two who can bring your story to market. This is a natural role for a founder in founder-led companies, but it doesn’t have to be the founder. It could be another member of the C-suite, including a CMO. Your chief evangelist just needs to have a strong sense of the industry and your company’s role within it as well as the ability to capitalize on social, email, and audio to deliver it. 

Otherwise, attention will remain elusive, marketing will underperform, and in your absence, your competitors will define you. AOC didn’t win that leadership position. And I, for one, have already forgotten the name of the guy who did.