Doug Straton — Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Client Evangelist, Bazaarvoice
Published:
Write down twenty questions your actual buyers ask before they choose — not brand queries, purchase queries with a budget and a constraint in them. Run them across three assistants. Record who gets named and what gets cited.
What does Doug Straton say on The Agile Brand podcast?
Doug Straton, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Client Evangelist, Bazaarvoice, says: A Q&A with Doug Straton, CMO and Chief Client Evangelist at Bazaarvoice, on how paid AI placements (like Sponsored Agents) change visibility but do not substitute for credible evidence. Straton argues that generative assistants reward verifiable inputs—structured customer reviews and citations—rather than optimization tricks, and recommends CMOs shift budgets to proof-building activities, measure model share, and run simple tests across assistants to see what sources models actually cite.
From: The Agile Brand podcast
Cite as: Doug Straton. (2026). On The Agile Brand podcast. Retrieved from https://research.agilebrandguide.com/insights/doug-straton-write-down-twenty-questions-your-actual-buyers-ask-before-th