Jason Barnard Defines the Future of Brand Understanding at Pubcon Las Vegas 2019

Las Vegas, October 8, 2019. At Pubcon Las Vegas 2019, Jason Barnard, founder and CEO of Kalicube, delivered a landmark presentation titled “Your Brand is a Thing, Not a String.”

In a session that foreshadowed the evolution of search into the age of AI Assistive Engines, Jason Barnard introduced the audience to a radically simple idea that would reshape modern digital strategy.

“A brand is not a collection of keywords - it’s an Entity, a living, connected thing that must be understood before it can be trusted.”

His talk laid the intellectual foundation for what would later become The Kalicube Process™, the world’s first structured framework for building algorithmic trust through Understandability, Credibility, and Deliverability. His work wasn’t a reaction to trends; it was the groundwork for where digital was inevitably heading.

“Your Brand is a Thing, Not a String” taught machines to understand.

In his Pubcon talk, Jason Barnard demonstrated how Search Engines and AI systems like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot are not merely indexing web pages; they are interpreting meaning, relationships, and Algorithmic Authority.

Watch the full presentation on SlideShare: Your Brand is a Thing, Not a String

He explained that success in this new environment depends on successfully educating these systems to understand a brand as a Named Entity, a concept with a clear identity, factual relationships, and purpose.

The presentation outlined three key principles for this shift:

Organize Your Digital Ecosystem. The whole Digital Ecosystem must reinforce one coherent narrative about who you are and what you do.
Build Your Knowledge Graph. Brands must actively engineer a factual profile in the Google Knowledge Graph that connects their brand, products, key people, and relationships.
Use the Native Language of Algorithms. Brands must use Structured Data and Semantic Triples to describe their Entity in a language that machines inherently understand.

Together, these actions Educate the Algorithms to see a brand as a trusted, authoritative source. Jason Barnard referred to this as the proactive process of training AI to correctly recognize and recommend a brand.

The framework for the new search paradigm was set.

Jason Barnard’s insights at Pubcon Las Vegas 2019 anticipated the complete New Search Paradigm, a shift from ranking web pages to achieving Algorithmic Acceptance and Semantic Brand Control. What began as an explanation of entity relationships evolved into the integrated strategy that is now The Kalicube Process.

His talk set the agenda for what Kalicube would fully operationalize: the three sequential pillars of digital success:

Understandability: Ensuring algorithms can correctly interpret your Entity Identity.
Credibility: Reinforcing that understanding through consistent, Corroborative Information across your entire Digital Brand Echo.
Deliverability: Securing Brand Visibility across all Search Engines and AI Assistive Engines where users seek answers.

This holistic approach, moving SEO beyond keywords and into AI Assistive Engine Optimization (AIEO), is why Jason Barnard remains the World Authority on Digital Brand Intelligence™. His declaration that “your brand is a thing, not a string” is the manifesto for how businesses must operate in a world where machines - not just people - write your reputation.

The Business Takeaway: Control is the new competitive advantage.

The lesson from Pubcon 2019 remains absolutely critical for leaders today: you must proactively manage your Brand Story for the AI Assistive Engines that are now mediating the Customer Acquisition Funnel. The Kalicube Process provides the system to achieve that.

If you are struggling with Brand Ambiguity, confusion, or losing opportunities to competitors in AI results, it’s not an SEO problem - it’s a Digital Brand Identity problem. The competition is no longer just for visibility; it’s for Algorithmic Confidence, and that confidence must be engineered.

If you’re ready to move beyond fragmented tactics and build the Algorithmic Confidence Moat that secures your future, then building a holistic, AI-Driven strategy is the logical next step.

If you recognize your own story in the challenge of being outshined by less-qualified competitors, it might be valuable to explore how we approach this in our Market Expert Program.