Mind the Model: The Modern Marketer's Guide to AI

Roger Dunne - EP014

Roger Dunn on AI, Agentic Commerce, and the Future of Retail Media Retail media expert Roger Dunn joins hosts Nathan Guerra and Emmalee Crellin to discuss the evolving landscape of AI and retail. With more than two decades of experience, Dunn is a leader in the field and an IAB Retail Media Council member who authors the AI Commerce Brief on LinkedIn. Four Futures for AI Shopping: Drawing on a BCG framework, Dunn outlines four scenarios: * Open Bazaar — Consumer AI agents freely discover and buy across retailers. * Super App / Data Fortress — Major tech platforms become all-in-one ecosystems for shopping, entertainment, and finance. * Creator-Led Revival — Trusted creators and communities drive discovery. * Brand Resurgence — Brands regain control through owned platforms and direct data relationships. The "Alphabet Soup" of AI Protocols: Three protocols enabling AI to interact with commerce: * MCP (Model Context Protocol) — Open-sourced by Anthropic, MCP standardises how AI models connect to external tools and data — a "universal USB" for product catalogues, inventory, and more. * ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) — Associated with Stripe and OpenAI, focused on secure payments and checkout within AI environments. * UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) — Google-developed, connecting merchants to AI agents via infrastructure like Google Merchant Center. Winning the "AI Shelf": Traditional SEO is like Battleship — you pick two or three keywords and hope you hit. Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is more like spear fishing. By building structured, machine-readable content — FAQs, specific use cases, detailed product information — brands can meet the 25-to-60-word conversational prompts consumers now use with AI tools. More detail and tighter parameters mean more precise matches, turning discovery from a guessing game into a homing missile. Quote of the Week: Dunn's adviceI: “Start with the building blocks. Learn the technical fundamentals, get hands-on and build something yourself, then think strategically about where AI can drive efficiency and innovation.” Without that foundation, the strategic thinking doesn't land — technical literacy and direct experience are the prerequisites, not optional extras. Mentioned Links & Resources * The AI Commerce Brief [https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-ai-commerce-brief-7362761335731863552/]— Roger Dunn's newsletter on LinkedIn * BCG Framework [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-predicting-agentic-future-start-preparing-four-them-roger-dunn-a50oc/] — The matrix discussing four potential scenarios for the future of AI shopping * Roger Dunn on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdunn/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3B%2BQ3w%2BUslRZ6o9aBfzLh%2FOw%3D%3D] — Follow for his "Friday Memes" and retail media insights * Bon App!: 100+ French classics, made easy by Isabelle Dunn (Amazon [https://www.amazon.com.au/Bon-App-French-classics-made/dp/1923239198]) Mind the Model: Got questions? Email the show at mindthemodelpod@gmail.com [mindthemodelpod@gmail.com]

Mind the Model: 013 Millie Marconi

Welcome to Episode 013 of Mind the Model: The Modern Marketer's Guide to AI! Your hosts, Emmalee Crellin and Nathan Guerra, sit down with Millie Marconi — a seasoned entrepreneur who spent nine years growing a marketing agency before founding TestFeed, a VC-backed AI platform that's reimagining how businesses access market research. Millie breaks down the world of "synthetic audiences" — AI-generated panels built from real human data that make consumer insights accessible to businesses that could never afford traditional research. She walks us through how it works, where it gets it right (and wrong), and why she believes over 70% of market research will be synthetic by 2028. This episode covers: * Democratising Market Research: How TestFeed delivers on-demand synthetic audiences — putting consumer insights within reach for companies of all sizes, not just the big players. * Trust & Reliability: How TestFeed uses peer-reviewed "semantic similarity rating" to validate AI panels against real human panels — and course-correct when they diverge. * Marketing to AI Agents: Millie's vision for a future where AI agents make purchasing decisions — and why marketers will need to learn how to market directly to machines. 📚 RESOURCES & LINKS TestFeed: https://testfeed.ai/ [https://testfeed.ai/] Millie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/millie-maronei-11b22b7a/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/millie-maronei-11b22b7a/] Prompt Cowboy: https://www.promptcowboy.com/ [https://www.promptcowboy.com/] 🎧 If you liked this episode, follow, rate, and share Mind the Model with your fellow AI-curious friends — it really helps us grow! 💌 Got thoughts or ideas for future episodes? Drop us a message at mindthemodelpod@gmail.com.

Mind the Model: Ep 012 Catherine Rushton

People First, AI Second — with Catherine Rushton Episode Overview: Nathan Guerra and Emmalee Crellin are back to dive into the intersection of human intuition and machine learning. In this episode, they sit down with Catherine Rushton (affectionately known as "Crush"), the Chief Strategy Officer and Partner at ⁠This is Flow⁠ [https://www.thisisflow.com.au/]. Crush shares how her agency uses AI to empower their team and why she believes human intuition remains the ultimate competitive advantage. The TL;DR * The AI Breakup: Both Em and Crush discuss their recent "divorces" from ChatGPT in favour of Claude, citing better tone and writing capabilities — though they note Claude's high token consumption. * The "Happy People Project": Rather than a technology-first approach, This is Flow uses a people-first philosophy. They empower junior staff to audit their own workflows and identify "unhappy" manual tasks for AI automation — speeding up the menial so humans can slow down on what matters. About Our Guest Catherine Rushton is an award-winning strategist with over 15 years of experience driving high-impact communications for global brands like Dove, Chanel, and Volvo. Now a partner at This is Flow, she focuses on building elite, high-performing teams that can outperform algorithms by leveraging human intuition. 📚 Resources & Links from this Episode * Crush's Prompting Tip: "Outsource" your prompting by asking the AI itself to write the best prompt based on your verbalised thoughts. Take your AI for a walk! * Speech vs. Typing Efficiency: A Stanford University study found that speech recognition is over 3x faster than typing on mobile keyboards for English users. Level up your dictation game with Wispr Flow:⁠ https://wisprflow.ai/⁠ [https://wisprflow.ai/] * Switching to Claude?: Divorcing ChatGPT and flirting with Claude? Import your context and memory from other LLMs here:⁠ https://claude.com/import-memory⁠ [https://claude.com/import-memory] 🎧 Enjoying Mind the Model? If you liked this episode, follow, rate, and share Mind the Model with your fellow AI-curious friends.  It really helps us grow and keep these conversations going! 💌 Got thoughts or ideas for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Drop us a message at mindthemodelpod@gmail.com. Your questions and suggestions help shape the conversations we have on the show.

Mind the Model: Episode 011: Pip Bingemann

Hosts: Nathan Guerra & Emmalee Crellin Guest: Pip Bingemann, Co-Founder and CEO of Springboards.ai Hosts Nate and Em welcome Pip Bingemann, CEO of Springboards, a company he co-founded with his wife, Amy Tucker, after a 2022 layoff. Initially built to address agency "pitching problems," Springboards evolved with the addition of co-founder Kieran Brown. The company uses AI as an inspiration tool, baking in variation to "inspire the most interesting idea" rather than giving the "most likely answer." The Meat & Potatoes: * Springboards: AI as an Inspiration Engine: The core mission is to inject variation into AI, shifting its role from an "answer generator" to a tool that inspires original ideas, countering the homogeneity of models like ChatGPT. * The Future of Agency Billing: Pip advocates moving away from head-hour billing to value- or outcome-based models. The current system misaligns incentives in an AI-accelerated world, with pressure for change possibly coming from traditional sectors like law and finance. * Creativity as Pattern-Breaking: Pip defines creativity as "breaking patterns." He questions the capacity of pattern-following AI models to genuinely achieve radical, unpredictable creative input, necessitating architectural changes. Quote of the Week "The idea of billing for time in a world of AI doesn't make any sense.” - Pip Bingemann Mentioned Links & Resources: * Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads that takes aim at OpenAI - https://www.thedrum.com/news/claude-s-first-super-bowl-campaign-asks-if-ads-belong-in-ai [https://www.thedrum.com/news/claude-s-first-super-bowl-campaign-asks-if-ads-belong-in-ai] * Springboard’s recent ad that mimics/mocks OpenAI - https://www.bandt.com.au/stop-outsourcing-creativity-to-machines-springboards-highlights-the-peril-of-ai-produced-ads-with-parody-spot/ [https://www.bandt.com.au/stop-outsourcing-creativity-to-machines-springboards-highlights-the-peril-of-ai-produced-ads-with-parody-spot/] * Check out the work of Springboards here - https://springboards.ai/ [https://springboards.ai/] and their monthly newsletter Sparks - https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7393517069868228608/ [https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7393517069868228608/] * Mind the Model: Got questions? Email the show at mindthemodelpod@gmail.com [mindthemodelpod@gmail.com] * Reach out to Pip via his LinkedIn if you’re interested in beta testing their latest version: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pipbingemann/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pipbingemann/]

Mind the Model: Episode 010: Kiri Masters

Hosts: Nathan Guerra & Emmalee Crellin Guest: Kiri Masters (Retail Media Breakfast) Retail media is booming, but are AI shopping bots about to disrupt the entire ecosystem? We brought in the big guns. Kiri Masters is the host of Retail Media Breakfast Club, a daily podcast and newsletter that provides sharp, actionable insights into the fast-evolving retail media landscape. Informed by a decade in the industry, she built the award winning agency Bobsled Marketing before its acquisition in 2022. She writes regular columns for Forbes, The Drum, and WARC, and has been named a Top Retail Expert by RETHINK Retail for four consecutive years. She drops in fresh from the NRF Big Show in New York City to break down the future of retail media, "agentic shopping," and exactly how brands need to adapt. Quote of the Week: "Look at this agentic pathway as a new surface to reach customers." Mentioned Links & Resources: * Check out the current state of AI and frontier model intelligence over time here: https://artificialanalysis.ai/trends#frontier-language-model-intelligence-over-time [https://artificialanalysis.ai/trends#frontier-language-model-intelligence-over-time] * Google’s recent release for UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol): * https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/agentic-commerce-ai-tools-protocol-retailers-platforms/ [https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/agentic-commerce-ai-tools-protocol-retailers-platforms/] Find Kiri at: https://www.retailmediabreakfastclub.com/ [https://www.retailmediabreakfastclub.com/] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiri-masters/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiri-masters/] Mind the Model: Got questions or feedback? Email the show at mindthemodelpod@gmail.com [mindthemodelpod@gmail.com]