107: AEO and Beverage Marketing

Courtney Sandora: Foreign. Hey, everyone. Welcome to E Drink Social. My name is Courtney Sandora, and throughout this podcast series, you'll be hearing from myself and the Go Social team. Go Social is a PR and social media marketing firm with offices in Denver, Colorado and Louisville, Kentucky. We'll be discussing social media trends and influencer best practices in the food and beverage social media landscape. If you have any questions and want to reach out, you can find us on, um, Facebook, Twitter and instagram @the gosocial. Or you can visit our website at goforth be social dot com. Today on Eat Drink Social, we are talking about an emerging topic of AI and LLMs and what that means for beverage brands specifically. It's a, uh, fascinating growing area that I think a lot of people are still just trying to wrap their arms around. And I know one of those people that has been in this discussion with me is Jeremy Morell, a fellow, ah, spirits industry veteran and also owner of Morpheus Consulting. Thanks for joining us, Jeremy.

Jeremy Morell: Yep, I'm, um, glad to be back. I think last time I was here we were recapping our Great American Beer Festival, um, experience. So I'm glad we could get back together.

Courtney Sandora: Me too. So, uh, you know, in full transparency, we have been spending a good part of 2026 really getting inside the head of, of the robots, as we like to say, or clankers, um, and trying to figure out what does chatgpt mean as people turn to these new tools to ask about recipes and brand recommendations. And more importantly, what does it mean for marketers? Um, so I guess I just wanted to get your kind of opinion on. Do you think people and marketers are focused on this this year? Do you think they've even kind of started to plan for how their brand appears in these LLMs?

Jeremy Morell: I think the answer is sort of, um, when I just think about AI or LLMs, I just think about how, how it's become just part of every day for, for, uh, for me specifically. And I think for a lot of people that I know, right, because it's becoming just part of a daily routine, meaning I look at ChatGPT and I have I don't know how many different conversations on a variety of different topics. Right. And so I think from a personal standpoint, a lot of people, you know, like we, we know about AI and LLMs, um, and we're using them for those purposes in our personal lives. And I think when it comes to companies in general, I think companies are starting to use them more often, probably more so in. And again, just from what I've seen more from an operations perspective, looking to make things more efficient. Um, but marketing, you know, marketing to some, I think it's kind of, we're in a test and learn phase when it comes to marketing. So, um, I don't know that anyone's, you know, really had a silver bullet to, you know, to, to say this is what exactly is it does for marketing. But there's a lot of different use cases and a lot of different really interesting things that people are trying out. Uh, I think you've got a lot of C suite who are saying we need to use AI and it's like, what does that mean? What do we mean by we need to use it? And especially when it comes to marketing, in my world of insights, I think that, um, there's not really a blueprint for that yet. I think there's a lot of interesting approaches, but nothing specific right now.

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And I think exactly what you said, that people are using it and it's almost like they don't even realize that they've made that jump from Google over. Or even if you are still using a lot of Google, it's like you're really using the Gemini kind of A.I. overview. Um, we saw that Google changed their search bar for the first time in forever. And so that change is happening. I don't think people plan for it in their marketing budget this year, but I think by next year it's going to be this must have initiative for people. Um, and it's just happening so fast.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah, that's the crazy part to me. I think we say I haven't seen the most recent numbers, but we had talked about was it last year or year before where about 10% of people were using some version of an AI for, for research or not research, but like to get answers to the questions that they had. And now it's closer to 50%. I mean, when it's moving that quickly, it's, um, it's just, it's part of how we use part of the time that we spend in our lives. Like it's a tool that we're using on an almost daily basis at this. And I think if you're in marketing or if you're a brand, you have to start thinking about. All right, well, what does this mean for me? And that's both internal in terms of the way you run your brand and your company, and also external in terms of the way that it impacts the way people are finding out about your brand or what they're hearing about your brand.

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And we know that there's over a billion monthly users in a month. Uh, uh, that's what Reuters just reported for ChatGPT. That's, it's growing and the adoption's happening faster than popular social media apps, even like TikTok. So this is just, you know, you always hear about like AI and exponential growth that's happening with this adoption. And I remember this moment when social was first coming on the scene and I was in the airport and I saw this grandma checking Facebook and I had this moment of thinking, wow, wow. Yeah, this, if, if grandma's using it, like this is really mainstream and it's going to stick around. And I know my mom was talking about her friends who are in their 70s and one, one friend hadn't read the book for book club and she had Chat GPT give her a summary of the book. And again, it's like if my mom and her friends who are in their 70s have embraced this like that that train has left the station.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah.

Courtney Sandora: People would say, crazy.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah, that's what the grandma told you, right? Yeah.

Courtney Sandora: Um, the other thing I think that's really unique about these LLMs is the way they help you think. Right. So I was on a, ah, webinar and someone said, you know, have you named your chat GPT? And it's like, yes, I have. I'll keep that to myself.

Jeremy Morell: Are you going to share what the name of your tattoo is?

Courtney Sandora: I never, I've never named Google. Right. Like, I never had this desire to be like, oh, uh, call Google something else. And so to me that speaks to. This isn't just like a search engine, this is a partner in crime. This is someone who's really helping you think things through.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah. And not only can you name your LLM, but you can tell it what sort of personality you want it to have. You can direct it on how you want it to behave. You know, so for, for me, and I use it for a lot of different purposes but, you know, I've asked it to not just defer to what I think, you know, I want it to push back. I want it to give me a different perspective. I want it to challenge my thinking because I don't, you know, if you think about something like Google, you basically type in a phrase and you're at the, um, not the mercy of um, but you're just going to get what it thinks is the most associated with those words that you put in there, you know, as opposed to um, an idea or a thought or. I had this question, here's why I'm asking it, ah, um, here's what I know, here's what I really don't know, or how do I do this? And um, you know, I was just recently, as I'm updating, uh, and doing some different things on my website, I had to ask my I chat GPT to talk to me like I'm 4 and explain to me what I need to do to change this particular thing. You're not, you're not going to get that with more of a traditional, you know, Google search. So it, as someone who's in insights and as someone who's really always been fascinated by consumer behavior and why we do what we do and how that impacts the choices we make, just looking at the, like, the context and the way we have conversations with LLMs to get to some of the answers that we want is fascinating to me.

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And I mean we're seeing there are certain categories where it's even more important than others. And food and beverage definitely is one where people are leaning into the LLM. So they're having it not only asking about recipes, they, they're asking about gift ideas. They're at, they're helping it. I talked to someone who was like, yeah, I have my chat. Or uh, maybe it was Claude pull recipe ideas for the week. They make my grocery list and they upload it into Instacart. And that's where she stops it because she said, I don't want it actually, you know, hitting the purchase button for anything. I want to review this first. But like for food and Bev, that has become such a, a big thing. And again I'm like, are people really thinking about this?

Jeremy Morell: Yeah. I share this story a lot because I think, uh, when I talk to clients or colleagues around this idea that I was using chat GPT to find a really good spot for Mother's Day brunch. Bear with me here. It's a little bit of a story, but it was, I asked it in its simple terms of I'm looking for some suggestions on Mother's Day brunch. What do you have? And it came back with a short list, two to three restaurants. But what was interesting is that the restaurants were more, I would say nicer restaurants that had prefix menus. That was more what you would consider like a fancy Mother's Day brunch experience, like for a flat fee, that sort of thing. So as a follow up, uh, I gave it more context on, you know, I have two teenage sons. Um, this is a bit, I want something more casual, you know, I want something that has a nice variety of its menu so we can order what we want. And it had like two or three sort of back and forths with of where it continued to learn about what I was really looking for. And sometimes you don't know what you're looking for until you don't. Until you get the answer and you're like, that's not what I, that I want. But I eventually landed in a place where it's two to three suggestions. I want something that has a good bar because we, you know, we want to have cocktails. And it said this is your place. So I went and did some research on the back end to check it out, look at the menu, that sort of thing felt great. Made the reservation, we went and we had a great time. It was a fantastic meal. It was a place I'd never heard of before in Denver. Um, shout out to Steuben's. Great, great experience there. Um, everyone enjoyed it. It delivered on all the things we were looking for. And it's a brand or it's a restaurant. Now that'll be on the short list of if I'm not sure where do we want to go eat tonight? It will be thrown out as an idea amongst us because we had a great time there. Now I would have never found that restaurant without having or I let me say it this way, I would have had a different experience if I would have just went to Google and say best Mother's Day brunches. I would not be able to do the context that I did and I'd have probably got frustrated and just booked something that I'd done previously. So this idea of the impact that it's having, um, is crazy in terms of how I can get very specific, um, and, and only serve up a handful of things for you for that specific question, which I think is one of the big challenges right now is there's a short list. So how do I get on the short list?

Courtney Sandora: Yeah, I don't think people are, and maybe they are, but uh, I don't know if they are. Thinking through you went from, you know, hundreds of Google pages now to a conversation where there's only three brands or three answers recommended. And I think that's where you and have really, really dug in to say, okay, one, this is, this is going to be a, an issue if you're a brand with the level of adoption. So how, how do these LLM, um, things, how do they get to those, you know, three spots? And, and one of the things we discovered as we dug into this was you, you brought up restaurants. It's, it's almost like chat GBT or these LLMs are concierges. Right. And if you think about a, uh, concierge to ask you some questions and they're going to provide you a couple of recommendations that they really trust. And what do I mean by trust? I mean they've eaten there, they've read about reviews, they've heard from other guests or you know, other employees, coworkers that have gone there. And that's exactly how these LLMs behave. And it's very, very different from the Google world where you could base things off of backlinks and, and keywords. And I don't want to say game the system, but game the system. And now, and this is where I as a PR person gets completely excited is it's about third party sites. So this whole game about, you know, let me change my brand website and my brand content has become a heck of a lot less important. And it's really about what are other people saying about you in this world?

Jeremy Morell: Yeah, yeah.

Courtney Sandora: Because that's what it can trust. It's, you know, it's like anything. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm not going to tell you my own brand is great. Like, I need to hear it from other people who have no emotional tie.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah, yeah. And I think that we talked about challenges right now in this environment and look, it's moving quickly. Um, I would say that, that no one from a brand perspective really has it figured out. I think we're in this era of AI where brands that have been very consistent in their messaging and they've been telling it on a frequent basis and they're sort of spreading their bets a little bit in terms of not just going on, uh, you know, not just focusing on their website or their own channels. You know, those are important. But they've also started to find ways previously to insert themselves into some of these trusted sources that you talked about. Those are the brands right now that are starting to, um, to pop up on those recommendation lists. Right. Those are the brands that have sort of built the foundation already without knowing of AI is on its way. But they've, they've done the work in order to say, okay, you know, they're, they're, they're getting on that short list based upon different questions. And I think that's, you know, the, it's not a problem necessarily, but if I'm a brand today, I'm trying to think about, okay, either I know I should be an answer to some of these questions, but I'm not showing up or, um, I don't really know is what I'm known for is the thing that my brand's all about. Are those actually questions that people are asking are those brands people are looking for? So the challenge becomes, uh, AI is becoming more important for recommendations. And I don't think that's going anywhere. But how do I as a brand start to play that game? How do I try to start to lay that foundation of I want to show up on those short lists? And I think as AI is becoming more trusted with those recommendations and people will start making decisions based on it. They're already doing it. It's going to continue to happen. How do I solve for that as a brand? Right. How do I, how do I start to make sure that I'm giving my brand the best chance to get recommended in those, in those cases?

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And you know, through our work and we'll talk a little bit more about it, but you know, we took, we've so far taken a deep dive into whiskey and to rom and we found that those brands that have had a clear consistency message. So we're thinking about a Captain Morgan and Coke, right? Like Captain and Coke or Makers and their weeded mash bill. Like those are the things that they've got decades of advantage. And it's almost like this marketing mirror that's being held up to your face. Like the people that were consistent, true to who they were, credible in what they were. Because you could also like, you can say like Captain and Mountain Dew, but if it tastes horrible, like you're not going to get that third party validation. So just because you want to own something, it also has to be credible to that. But you know, going back to those brands who have done it well, I mean they have years and years of PR heads of community conversations already built in. And I think one of the important things that we found is it's not like this robot has a brain, at least not yet a brain of its own. It's really scraping the Internet. And what, what do people say about you? Not what you say, what do people say about you? And so if for the last 20 years people have been saying Captain and Coke is a great combo, it is going to be really, really hard for a new rum brand to come in and top that.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah. And I just want to add on to your thought of, um, if what you're saying is actually a reflection of your brand, like, does it make sense and are you able to deliver on what you're saying you can do, that's part of it, and I think the second part of it that we found with some brands is that the thing that you own, it's ownable, it's different and unique. But when we're looking at the questions people are asking, people aren't really curious about that thing, whether that be a specific cocktail or a brand story or, you know, some other component of your brand, people aren't asking questions in that manner. So it's not that those things aren't important or that you shouldn't use them as part of building your brand over time, but you really have to get a good sense of what are the things people are looking for. What are those questions being asked? Because if you're an answer to a question that's not being asked, then it doesn't matter right now. Right. So I think. I think the other thing that it does is when we look at a lot of brands in the spirits industry and we start to dive into sort of their, um, sort of the foundation and their reasons to believe in the stories they tell. A lot of brands have a lot of similar stories, right? Especially when we think about whiskey and we look at its. Its age, its proof, its place, its people. Those things are very important to brands because it adds credibility. But if you're leading with those as your main point, if you're leading with that, to say, this is who I am, um, people aren't necessarily, you know, wanting that type of information, right. It's not the lead. It's. They're looking for different things. And that's what, as we've got into this work of, um, you know, analyzing these spirits categories, that first step, and the thing that's most fascinating to me is really making sure you understand what are people asking about, Right. And looking at the history of how LLMs are learning about these different categories, what are the different questions that are being asked so that we can really get a sense of what's important to people? Um, and it's again, if you don't know the questions that are being asked, you can't plan for, okay, well, how do I show up and be recommended? We really have to first understand what are people looking for? Like, what are the things that they really want to know about the category? What are they trying to solve for when it comes to the category?

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And, uh, I think that's a great point. And I know, you know, in the history of search, you could say, well, yes, you could see what people have been searching. I think we know that another difference with Google is, you know, people are doing just a couple words and with you know, chat, it's like I'll say your life story, but you're getting much more detailed, you're getting more info because you know it can handle it. And so now the, the thing I think we both found interesting is like we're getting to get deeper inside of what really matters to people. Um, and I know it's directional. That's the other thing we, you know, we also are very good about like I think right now because this is a new period because it's a space that you're seeing a lot of SEO people try to own. There's a lot of different information out there. And you know, if I was an SEO, I would be panicking right now because my entire way of doing business just flipped, did a 180, right. Like I, I've spent my career doing backlinks and keywords and blog posts and all of a sudden now like that brand stuff in most cases takes a backseat. Um, and so you've got a lot of people out there talking about this on webinars and you know, articles and things like that. And quite honestly when you take that information, you feed it back through the LLMs, a lot of times, you know, they'll say no, this isn't really true. So I mean that's the other thing I would just really encourage people is like if you currently have a strategy for AEO or geo, like make sure that you are double checking it because the game has changed and not everyone's thrilled about it. And not everyone knows like most SEO people don't know how to do PR because they didn't have to. So it's like, yeah, that's the last thing they want to be recommending. But in all our research we found that the sources that are third parties were the ones that were most important and that also varied by question. Right. So you can't just uh, say, okay, well Imbibe magazine is going to be my answer to everything because it's not, you know, that's what we found. But you also have to really push yourself to get outside of your brand owned channels.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a great point. I think again we talked earlier or I mentioned earlier, it's sort of the wild wild west right now. So you're going to have a variety of different ways of looking at it. I think the other important thing that to mention that we found is not LLMs or not all LLMs are exactly the same. Right. So there are. In terms of how they learn, um, in terms of the questions that are asked, there are some similarities and there are some differences. So, you know, as a brand, you know, some of the advice that I would give is don't just go into your chat GPT or your Claude and say, well, tell me about, fill in the blank brand. Um, it will give you an answer. Right. It'll tell you. Um, but I think that, you know, make sure that you, I think it's important as a brand is to look across different sources. And in the research that we've done, we focused on sort of the top four, which I think we said is, I don't remember the exact percentage, but it's the, it's. The vast majority of, um, users right now are in those top four. And trying to understand the nuances to make sure that you have a complete picture of the category. So making sure that you've got some diversity in terms of those learning models and understanding what those nuances are are really important. And I think we found some really interesting things in those initial categories that we've looked at. In terms of rum and bourbon.

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And really fascinating to see how, you know, within spirits, they differed so greatly and, and how people thought about it. And then looking at the crossover categories too. If I'm a whiskey drinker heading over to rum, what's important? And there's just, to me, the journey started with how do I get my brand on this short list? But then as we dug into it, there was this kind of light bulb moment of like, oh my gosh, this can help me understand the consumer. This can help me understand my next marketing M campaign. This can help me understand where to focus my marketing spend. Like, it's incredible the amount that this, this can help you as a marketer.

Jeremy Morell: If you would have told me five years ago that there would be this natural connection between consumer insights, market research and pr, I would have said, okay, whatever, like, what's that look like? But I think we've actually landed in that place where if you take, if you kind of take it through the line of understanding how people are, um, what they're curious about in a category, or to put it simply, what questions are they asking about a category? And then from there building a framework that helps you understand the brands that are being recommended for those query territories or those questions, and then being able to dial back and say, well, and for each of those, here are the sources of where it's pulling information from. Then as a brand you can say, all right, here's the framework. This is where I have a right to play. These are the questions that I either want to own or I think I could play there. And I've got the, you know, the, the credentials to back it up. Now I can get super focused. I know exactly where I can start planting the seeds of that story to where over time you're going to increase the chances of you getting on that, on that short list. Um, now I'll also say it's not a silver bullet that you get one hit and automatically you're being recommended. But I think it's important to say rather than have a broad, you know, shotgun approach when it comes to things like PR and Influencer and these other third party sources, your ability to get focused and get more bang for your buck on a shorter list, actually in the world of LLM works better for you. You. Right. I mean it increases those chances because you're focused in the right places. And then, you know, the other thing that we've learned is how those sort of go back to the beginning and recheck because how those queries are shifting and how things are changing over time. You can start to use it to see what are some of those topics that are coming up that might be seasonal, might be trending, whatever that is, and then understanding which brands are really getting to benefit from that. It's super fascinating. So again, as an insights guy, as a consumer guy, I love this opportunity because I think there's a lot of richness that brands can pull from that and not just a nice to know, but actually be able to use it to impact, make sure they're getting a bigger bang for their buck on their spin when it comes to marketing.

Courtney Sandora: Yeah. And it uh, ties directly to sales. Like we've seen stats that say people are 13 times more likely to buy a product coming from an LLM. And at first I kind of questioned that. But as you think about it, with Google, you had to process all the information, then make a decision, maybe go to a brand website. Now you're making, with LLMs, you're starting at point, you know, G rather than point A. And it's done a lot of that research for you. You've had that back and forth conversation and you're ready to pull the trigger. Like you've got now you've got three options to choose from versus 300 and you're set to, to buy quicker. So it's, it is does. I know in the world of pr it's always like, well what did this really drive a sale? Suddenly now it ties to sales. A lot of these activities that were more awareness driven, you can now link specifically to a sale.

Jeremy Morell: Yeah.

Courtney Sandora: Or closer at least to a sale.

Jeremy Morell: And yeah, it's, it's, it's really impactful when you think about it that way. And the other thing that keeps coming up for me is there's still a lot of people who aren't using it yet. So as we think about how these models will continue to learn and get educated about different categories and different recommendations, there's still a long Runway of people using it for those purposes. So now if brands have that understanding of, you know, sort of where they sit and what they want to own and where they want to go, laying that foundation now is going to help them, you know, versus the ones that maybe aren't doing it yet. So you're just continuing to, you know, the, the faster you can get an understanding of that landscape and be able to be able to act on it, a brand, those brands will be better off versus the ones that wait, um, you know, till the last minute. It'll just take more work for them to, to get on the list.

Courtney Sandora: Definitely. Well, I, uh, know that we, as you mentioned, we've done some rum and whiskey work so we're going to be doing some follow up conversations starting with rum, um, on the category where we'll look at what are the questions people are asking, what are the brands that, who, who's winning, uh, those narratives and those, those, who's the answer to those questions. So that will be our next one coming up, so definitely stay tuned. So, and uh, we're going to be posting all of these reports on Spirits Signals.com or you go to Romsignals.com with

Jeremy Morell: the research that we've seen. We're super excited about the potential of what it can do to help brands. Right. We're super excited about this idea of um, being able to really tie back for brands big and small, you know, the opportunity to, to get on that short list. So, um, yeah, I'm excited for our next one when we talk specifically about rum. Um, really great insights there, um, and more to come in some of the other categories as we keep digging into it. So uh, definitely looking forward to the next conversation.

Courtney Sandora: Great. Thanks so much for joining us.

Jeremy Morell: Thanks.

Courtney Sandora: All right everybody, that wraps up today's episode of Eat Drink Social. Thanks for listening. If you have a story to share or know somebody that does, feel free to reach out to us.