Founder's Story
Pauline Malcolm: AI Innovation for Creators & Brands with BrandStory Architech | S2 Ep. 181
Wed, 05 Mar 2025
In this episode of Founder's Story, we sit down with Pauline Malcolm—the visionary CEO of Brand Story Architech and former executive from Essence. With over 25 years of experience in digital tech, media, and marketing, Pauline shares her journey from Silicon Alley to pioneering innovative branding strategies. She explains how AI and data-driven insights are transforming the creator economy and empowering brands to forge authentic connections.Topics We Cover:• The impact of AI on brand storytelling and digital marketing• How data-driven insights can authentically match creators with brands• Strategies for building a strong personal brand beyond logos and visuals• Navigating the creator economy as a mini media company• The future of marketing in an increasingly digital landscapeKey Takeaways:💡 AI tools like social listening and content analytics are revolutionizing brand communication.💡 Authentic storytelling is about expressing a core identity, not just design elements.💡 Creators should view themselves as mini media companies to build sustainable brands.💡 Strategic partnerships and community-building are essential for long-term success.💡 Embracing digital innovation empowers both brands and creators to thrive.Resources & Mentions:• Brand Story Architech – Innovative branding and marketing solutions• Pauline Malcolm’s website – paulinemalcolm.com• AI & digital marketing tools – Enhancing storytelling and audience engagementConnect with Pauline Malcolm:📢 Website: paulinemalcolm.com📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandstoryarchitech/Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://www.avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Chapter 1: What is Brand Story Architect and who is Pauline Malcolm?
Hey everyone, welcome back to Founders Story. Today we have Pauline Malcolm. And Pauline, you are the CEO of Brand Story Architect. And I'm excited to dive into all things tech, AI. I mean, these are huge topics that everyone is talking about and the impacts on your business, the good things, the bad things. And we're gonna dive into all that. The future, what do you see in the future?
Before we do that though, Pauline, what was the inspiration behind wanting to start this company?
Chapter 2: How did Pauline Malcolm get inspired to start her company?
Thank you for that, Dan. And thank you for having me. So I've been in the digital tech and media landscape for close to 25 years. I'm dating myself from Silicon Alley, starting my career in New York to Silicon Valley, and also spent some time in Silicon Beach as well. So kind of did all coasts. And really, you know, through my experiences at companies like the Walt Disney
Disney company to being the chief revenue officer most recently at Essence and tripling their revenue. I was always fascinated by brand storytelling as well as working with top notch creators and influencers.
And I saw a lot of white space in the creator economy and thought that, you know, through the work that I've done in helping brands build, you know, multimillion to multibillion dollar companies through my marketing and sales efforts, wanted to do that for creators.
and also leverage AI in a way that can help them build their media empires, as well as high-impact campaigns and partnerships for brands, all sort of powered by AI and data-driven technology. That sort of was the inspiration for Brand Story Architect. Even within the name, it's all about crafting compelling stories and connecting brands with culture, leveraging technology.
Chapter 3: What makes a creator brand successful?
Hence the reason why our brand is Architect instead of Architect, because it's all kind of powered by AI.
There's a lot of articles I've been reading recently around does a creator brand mean it's going to be more successful because they have an audience and they give the examples of the ones that were super successful, but then also the ones that were not successful. And what do you think gives the people the ability to be successful compared to not?
Because many of these people that they gave an example, they have two people successful, not successful. They both have millions and millions of following on different platforms. What do you think separates the two?
Such a great question. So it all comes down to authenticity, right? So what we do by leveraging AI, we're able to, you know, provide social listening as well as kind of drive and or tell information. If there is, you know, a brand affinity with that talent audience, with the brand.
Chapter 4: How does AI enhance creator and brand collaborations?
So, for instance, if Target comes to us, we can use our technology and pretty much identify talent that has spoken, that are lovers of the brand, that have a high affinity, that have shopped at Target and that have spoken about Target in a really positive way.
Rather than just because someone has tens of millions of followers or even hundreds of thousands of followers, it doesn't necessarily mean that that person is going to be a good ambassador for your brand or that there is resonance with their audience.
So by leveraging AI, we can match essentially the right creator with the right brand and ensure also that that story, that video or content that they're creating on behalf of the brand is authentic.
And that's what makes like the best partnerships when there really is that synergy between what the talent is really passionate about, as well as, you know, the brand allowing the talent creative freedom as well. Brands are often so focused or very familiar with making commercials, but not necessarily leveraging content creators.
So the affinity is definitely one thing, but also allowing creative freedom where that talent can create content that they know their audience likes. And really, the brand is more authentically weaved into that as opposed to creating a commercial brand. where their audience will smell that out, sniff that out right away and say, wait a minute, that looks like a commercial.
That tends to cause either friction or the worst partnerships versus like when it's authentic. And also there's creative freedom, which tends to create the best partnerships where it just looks like it's a harmonious fit for both the brand and the talent.
the days of throwing spaghetti against the wall maybe are over. Hopefully you're going to help solve this because I think there is a lot of friction, like you're saying, between the two. If it doesn't resonate with the audience, the audience gets turned away and then it might even impact the brand negatively depending on who the creator is.
Since you were an executive before Essence and you've been in the media space, how do you see AI and creators transforming the media landscape?
Oh, my gosh. And in many different ways, you know, again, sort of like that data driven insights that, you know, AI can provide is just going to help provide a lot more precision. Right. And so and also what I hear from a lot of partners to this day is that there is no standardized way of really tracking performance like AI. is likes, views, and shares don't really tell you the full story.
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Chapter 5: How is AI transforming the media landscape?
They don't tell you the full funnel marketing story. So I think what you're going to start to see with AI and what we're working on from a technology standpoint is to provide both guaranteed outcomes. So guaranteeing impressions is one thing, but also ensuring that you know how many people actually took action after they saw a piece of content.
So following or being able to provide full funnel metrics from awareness to engagement, which I think there's a lot of tools out there that provide that, but more bottom funnel metrics as well. So you get the full story, like what was the sales lift? How many people took action? Did this really drive some sort of reaction from my consumer? I think AI is going to help really transform that.
and make things more predictive where, you know, it will be more formulaic in terms of if I make, you know, 10 pieces of content on a monthly basis, I know I'm going to get X sort of reaction or X lift from my consumers.
So I think it will also help with like recency, frequency of when content should be made, as well as what type of actions, predicting the types of actions that consumers might take from that content.
I really enjoy watching comedic content and I like when they integrate an ad and I don't even know it's an ad. I just think it's another funny video. And then I realized that they're, that they're advertising. I'm like, that's very creative content. Very clever.
I love how if a brand allows a creator, I think you can tell when the brand allows a creator flexibility to how, you know, to doing it their way versus like the brand wanting it to be their way. How do you see AI just transforming content creation, transforming brands going forward in the future, knowing that it's just been I mean, it's going at a pace that I don't think we can even keep up.
Like our brains can't even keep up just how fast AI has been moving even over the last only few years. Where do you see this going?
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Chapter 6: What future innovations in AI and content creation should we expect?
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Like I'm seeing some really interesting sort of content creation like models happening, which, you know, like, for instance, a trend that I've been seeing is like virtual creators that are all AI driven, which kind of freaks some people out. But I think that that's an opportunity for real life creators to leverage sort of like a hybrid model to
where they create content where it stars themselves, but also maybe a virtual character, which could be really interesting, where you're almost like an animated avatar. Just kind of creating dimensions and having some fun and innovation with the content that you're creating. So I think that like the virtual characters is a really interesting model that I've been seeing, like even brands testing.
Like I saw Prada did like a collaboration with like a virtual influencer. And again, I think that there's a way that. real life creators can add more excitement to their content by adding virtual or AI driven characters. I think that AI is also going to help with automation and just being able from a creator standpoint, be more efficient on how you're pushing content out.
where it's a lot more automated. There are some really good tools out there like Hootsuite and others that are all AI powered that allows you to automate your content creation. And then just some of the innovations that I'm seeing even with like video creation. Again, I think that this is all good for creators. I know a lot of people are scared and they think that that may eliminate
their role as a creator. But I think that that human connectivity is so important and that people still want that. And that AI is just a way, again, to be more innovative and really allow you to supercharge your creativity.
I never thought about the use of, like you're saying, creating a virtual version of yourself or somebody else or something where you integrate that. Because I think we're all focused on replacement. You know, what if a brain can just create their own creators, can build their own things that's like their own assets? Would they even use humans?
But I like the idea that you said, I've never even thought about that, of having somebody combined. My fear is, of course, the replacement side. Why would they need somebody? Do you have any fears around AI?
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, AI is generative AI, especially it's like it's still sort of like a somewhat average intelligence human. And I think at the height, it's going to be like the most genius amongst us, right? So there is definitely...
I know fear around replacement, but I do truly believe that AI will be a tool that will help us be smarter, more efficient, and that will actually even allow more creativity because it's kind of taking, eliminating the mundanity. of a lot of the work that we do, which will then open up our brains to be even more creative and accelerate things that have never been done before.
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