Exponentially increasing competition, content abundance, diminishing attention, product replication, converging AI outputs and a market where buyers increasingly shortlist through machine recommendations. The AI era has made it easier to build business capabilities. But it’s also now harder to scale them successfully. There’s never been a greater need for differentiated positioning in the media industry.

Instead, the problem has been compounded: structurally, as illustrated by HoldCo consolidation and model simplification, and semantically, through mass convergence on a single word that we all now claim to sell - outcomes. Meanwhile, independent agencies have been showing us what it looks like to be different and be chosen.

Paul Evans argues that positioning is a critical business strategy capability, not a messaging tactic. And he shows why the word the HoldCos are running from – agency - is one that the AI era has made the most valuable to the industry.