In a media landscape where AI systems increasingly shape consumer discovery, brand equity is no longer just what people remember—it’s what algorithms can find, trust, and reuse. That’s the central argument of a new book by David A. McInnis, the founder of PRWeb and a pioneer in News Marketing.
McInnis’s Brand Equity: AI, News Marketing, and People: The New Brand Equity Stack is the second installment in a practical series that began with News Marketing. The book posits that brand equity—the accumulated trust, recognition, and preference that lives in consumers’ minds—has traditionally favored companies with massive advertising budgets. But McInnis argues that the digital distribution and measurement landscape has leveled the playing field.
‘Small and mid-sized businesses can now build equity on purpose, and prove it is growing, without an eight-figure media buy,’ he writes.
The book’s framework centers on what McInnis calls the ‘new brand equity stack’: AI, News Marketing, and people. AI accelerates research and content creation, News Marketing provides credibility and findability, and people ensure the brand remains authentic at every touchpoint. ‘AI makes the process faster. News Marketing makes it credible. People make it believable. Measurement makes it honest,’ McInnis explains.
McInnis, who founded PRWeb in 1997 on the premise that press releases should be public, searchable assets, argues that News Marketing—the practice of distributing structured, timestamped news content across the open web—simultaneously accomplishes 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,’ he writes.
The book includes practical tools like a monthly Brand Equity Dashboard using free and low-cost signals, strategies for developing brand pillars and social proof, and a twelve-month implementation plan. Three chapters walk through the mechanics of News Marketing, from writing press releases to turning them into AI-optimized multi-format packages.
McInnis is careful to delineate AI’s limitations. ‘It will not choose pillars, attend customer calls, decide what is newsworthy, or earn the third-party validation that makes a claim believable,’ he states. ‘Tools amplify strategy. They do not replace it.’
Laura Sturaitis, retired EVP of Business Wire, praised the book: ‘With his previous book in this series, News Marketing, and now Brand Equity, McInnis has literally written the book(s) revealing the tried and true marketing methods and strategies that have delivered for top-tier companies.’
McInnis, who also co-founded Newsworthy.ai and NewsRamp, is widely credited with pioneering News Marketing. He holds a BA from Texas State University and is based in Boerne, Texas.
Brand Equity is available as a free download for a limited time and for purchase on Amazon.com.
