Episode Details

In this episode of The Build Up podcast, Ryan Jones — managing director of SLG Agency, the construction marketing specialists now top of the CMA agency league table, and The Build Up's first-ever returning guest — comes back two years on to argue that AI is the biggest chance marketers have had to do the job properly. His problem with how the industry uses it: they reach for efficiency and more output, when the real prize is using AI to understand their audience well enough to earn a seat at the board table.

Ryan makes the case that efficiency and innovation pull in opposite directions, so cutting time and cost quietly kills the space you need to think — and with only about a third of people who call themselves marketers formally trained, he sees a reset on offer. He and Dan get into synthetic data hitting roughly 90% of the accuracy of six-figure research (SLG won best use of AI at the CMAs for it), the “cost of dull” finding that a boring B2B ad has to spend 600% more to land, and why only about 14% of paid-social spend actually works.

Along the way he covers SLG's Horizon 2026 report — four years of data now — where brand awareness has overtaken leads and marketers say buyers are harder to reach despite more channels, the 95:5 rule (nearer 99:1 in construction) that makes the first brand recalled the one that wins, and the post-it note he thinks every marketer needs: “they don't give a shit.” It's a grounded, numbers-first argument for using AI to understand people rather than replace them, and a reminder that whoever can't show their value is the one AI puts in trouble.

FOLLOW SLG AGENCY

Website: https://www.slg.agency/

Ryan Jones (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjonesslg/

SLG Agency (LinkedIn): https://uk.linkedin.com/company/slg-agency

Horizon report: https://www.slg.agency/horizon/

Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency

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