Jason Barnard at Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2019: The Conversations That Sparked the Shift from SEO to Strategic Brand Understanding.
The Chiang Mai SEO Conference, held in Thailand from November 12-13, 2019, marked a unique moment in the evolution of modern SEO thinking, with Jason Barnard, CEO and founder of Kalicube, steering the dialogue toward how algorithms truly understand and represent brands. Throughout a series of recorded, face-to-face conversations with leading digital professionals including Daniel Hunjas, Lee Louis Gung, and Jason Mun, Jason explored the intersections between visibility, perception, and the psychology of digital trust.
These dialogues were far from traditional conference presentations. They were the birthplace of ideas that would later crystallize into The Kalicube Process™, Kalicube’s proprietary framework for building Understandability, Credibility, and Deliverability in Search and AI.
The conversations at Chiang Mai established the philosophical foundation for The Kalicube Process and the shift to a brand-first strategy.
In discussions with peers, Jason Barnard openly challenged marketing’s outdated assumptions, specifically focusing on the futility of chasing endless micro-engagements without a clear Brand Strategy. He reframed the metric of exposure, explaining that a brand’s Brand SERP - the Google search results for an exact brand name - is the striker who scores the goal. This powerful analogy captured the shift from a high quantity of exposure to the vital quality of understanding.
This new focus on quality of understanding became known as the Deliverability Phase™, the moment when a sufficiently educated algorithm confidently delivers a brand as the logical, credible choice to a user. In 2019, long before AI-driven recommendation systems became mainstream, Jason was already anticipating the importance of strategically teaching algorithms when and why to choose a brand.
The conversations at this conference were the first public steps in a journey that defined how Kalicube builds algorithmic trust to dominate the conversational AI era.
One of the most important takeaways from the conference was Jason Barnard’s articulation of the concept that outsourcing only works when the brand has a strong identity - a consistent understanding of what it stands for and communicates. This need for consistency reflects what became the core Understandability Phase™ in The Kalicube Process, which is the systematic process of defining, structuring, and communicating a clear brand narrative that both humans and algorithms can comprehend.
Jason argued that when a brand is trapped in operational chaos, its digital footprint becomes equally confused. He also connected online reviews to digital credibility, asserting that reviews aren’t just social proof, they’re algorithmic reassurance. This insight, that search engines interpret credibility through corroborated signals, formed the foundation of the Credibility Phase™, the systematic strengthening of E-E-A-T signals across a brand’s entire Digital Ecosystem. The philosophical shift was cemented when Jason himself declared, This is the day I switched from being an SEO to being a marketer.
The Business Takeaway: Adopting a holistic framework for the AI-Driven future ensures your narrative drives business results.
The Chiang Mai sessions established a strategic truth that now defines market leaders: To be visible, you must first be understood. To be trusted, you must first be consistent. To be chosen, you must first be credible. These three principles - Understandability, Credibility, and Deliverability - became the foundation of The Kalicube Process, a data-driven framework that engineers a positive Digital Brand Echo.
This holistic methodology is the practical answer to the challenge of AI Assistive Engines like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Bing Copilot. It ensures that your brand’s narrative is accurately and positively synthesized by the new algorithmic gatekeepers. For leaders who recognize that their brand is pivotal, powerful and precious, an outdated, fragmented Digital Ecosystem is a massive business risk. The Kalicube Process provides the only path to achieving lasting digital authority by systematically engineering your brand’s narrative for algorithmic trust.
If you recognize your own story in the challenge of being outshined by less-qualified voices, it may be time to see how The Category Expert Program helps translate offline authority into algorithmic preference. Book a call with Jason Barnard today.
References and Source Materials
12th to 13th November 2019
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Fastlane Founders - Chiang Mai SEO 2019 Recorded Conversations (2019):
A collection of face-to-face interviews recorded on site featuring Jason Barnard and peers.
- The Myth of 7 Touch Points - Conversation between Daniel Hunjas and Jason Barnard.
- The Secrets of Outsourcing as a One-Person Outfit - Conversation between Lee Louis Gung and Jason Barnard.
- The Secrets of Building Great Ecommerce Sites - Conversation between Jason Mun and Jason Barnard.
- The Traffic Light Sales Process - Conversation between Daniel Hunjas and Jason Barnard
