The WARC Podcast The 'two-audience problem': brand building in the age of AI
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Mar 5, 2026 Oliver Feldwick, Chief Innovation Officer at T&P and AI-savvy co-founder of WPP Open, explores how brands must speak to people and machine decision-makers at once. He outlines the 'two-audience problem' and why brand distinctiveness, machine-readable systems, and new metrics like 'share of model' matter. Practical checks and scalable brand systems are discussed.
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The Two Audience Problem
- Brands must now appeal to two audiences: emotional humans and logical AI agents that make or heavily influence decisions.
- Oliver Feldwick calls this the "two-audience problem" and explains AI can act as a decision-making intermediary (system zero) across many purchase journeys.
Bar Call Analogy For Brand Preference
- Feldwick uses a bar-call analogy: you want consumers to ask for Smirnoff by name so the bartender (or AI agent) picks it without searching.
- He extends this to AI agents acting as digital bartenders where brand name mentions win selection.
Brands Versus Built for Model Competitors
- Strong brands remain crucial because AI agents may default to trusted names, but new 'built-for-model' brands can also win by optimizing discoverability.
- Feldwick compares marketplace success (Amazon review-heavy brands) to potential direct-to-agent brands.