Send us a text

Our Guest:

Our episode guest is Amy Dunham, chief communications officer at Habitat for Humanity International. Overseeing the organization’s global brand, marketing, and communications strategy, she helps reach audiences across all 50 U.S. states and more than 70 countries. Amy is a seasoned communications leader passionate about using market insights to shape strategy and strengthen engagement worldwide.

Five things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. How to leverage market insights to shape and guide PR strategy

2. The balance of art, science, and passion in effective strategic planning

3. Practical ways communicators can advocate for audiences at the strategy table

4. How messaging and strategy must stay in lockstep to maintain credibility and consistency across audiences

5. How brand perception gaps create opportunities for stronger audience engagement

Quotables

“The human brain always absorbs things best in threes. And communications know if you’ve got 15 priorities, you have no priorities. When setting priorities, it has to be a clear way to say yes and to say no. If it doesn’t give you the ability to say no, then it’s not really helping you set a strategy.” — Amy Dunham

“You can't have good communication or public relations strategy without messaging. They're in lockstep together.” — @JasonMudd9

“To really stand out in PR, whatever you're doing, is to make sure you're saying things that are provocative, contrary, and have a unique point of view from what everybody else is saying because otherwise, you're just going to blend in and not stand out.” — @JasonMudd9

“It's not a conversation about ‘I know better’ versus ‘you know better.’ It's much more about ‘Here's what the data indicates, and now here's the flexibility to be able to use it in the way that works best in your market.’” — Amy Dunham

“It's really through the lens of ‘How can I add value in a way to enable their work?’ rather than to direct how things should get done.” — Amy Dunham

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

About Amy Dunham

Amy leads Habitat for Humanity’s brand, marketing campaigns, and communications efforts across its global footprint in all 50 U.S. states and in more than 70 countries. Before joining Habitat in 2022, she held brand and communications roles at the NCAA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and US Airways.

Guest’s contact info and resources:

Amy (Kudwa) Dunham on LinkedIn

Habitat for Humanity website

Fact Fullness by Hans Rosling

Crucial Conversations

Additional Resources:

Support the show

• On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
• On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

Send us a text

In this solocast episode, On Top of PR host Jason Mudd discusses why 96% of AI citations come from PR content and how brands can lead with media relations in the age of AI.

Tune in to learn more!

Five things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. Why 96% of AI citations come from PR-driven content

2. The six types of content AI trusts most for brand visibility

3. How earned media, thought leadership, news coverage, and press releases shape AI search results

4. Why reviews, social media, and web content boost generative discovery

5. Seven steps to ensure your brand and not your competitors gets cited

Quotables

“PR has become the front door to artificial-intelligence-powered discovery.” — @JasonMudd9

“PR isn't just part of the marketing mix anymore. It's the backbone of your visibility in 2025, the age of AI.” — @JasonMudd9

“AI is shaping first impressions of your brand, and PR determines what AI learns and repeats back to them.” — @JasonMudd9

“When you combine earned PR content with the supporting signals, you're feeding AI the content it needs to cite your organization.” — @JasonMudd9

“You must feed AI platforms the content they crave that's credible, quotable, and consistent.” — @JasonMudd9

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

About Jason Mudd, Axia Public Relations

Jason Mudd is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands. Since 1994, he’s worked with brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.

Jason founded Axia Public Relations in 2002. Forbes named Axia one of America’s Best PR Agencies. At Axia, Jason oversees strategic communications for national clients and leads top PR talent. Clients love his passion, innovation, candor, commitment, and award-winning team. He consults with leadership teams at billion-dollar global business-to-business and business-to-consumer brands, advising them on spokesperson training, crisis communications, analytics, social media, online reputation management, and more.

In an increasingly tech-forward world, Jason’s grasp of the technological demands companies face helps his multiple-sector clients reach their target audiences. After teaching himself HTML in 1994, Jason helped pioneer internet marketing strategies as an early adopter of e-commerce, search engine optimization, and social media, inspiring tech giants like Yahoo. He speaks to corporations and industry groups and writes about PR trends and best practices for American City Business Journals and other national outlets.

Contact info and resources:

Axia AI Visibility

Support the show

• On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
• On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

Send us a text

In this episode, Serena Ehrlich joins On Top of PR host Jason Mudd to discuss how AI-powered search engines take data from press releases, and how they decide on what to show their users.

Tune in to learn more!

Our Guest:

Our episode guest is Serena Ehrlich. She’s the go-to-market director at Notified, the parent company of GlobeNewswire, which provides global press release distribution services.

Serena helps spread the “good word” of up-to-date, evolving PR strategies to help PR pros navigate an ever-shifting landscape.

Five things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. How AI ingests press releases and what sticks

2. How the rise of AI-powered search engines parallels the rise of traditional search engines like Google

3. Who actually reads press releases and why they’re the most important to your business

4. The current and future impact of fake press releases

5. How to build a quality press release that will reach your intended audience

Quotables

@4:20 — “When somebody says a press release doesn’t work, the very first thing I think of is, ‘Oh, you don’t know what it’s supposed to do.’” – Serena Ehrlich

@13:33 — “Search, social, and AI.” – Serena Ehrlich

@22:21 — “If it’s as easy as you and me releasing a press release and having that impact AI, look at the opportunity.” – Serena Ehrlich

@25:35 — “I love you guys, but your press releases are terrible.” – Serena Ehrlich

@ - “People read in an F pattern. If you don't have images, you’ve lost them” – Serena Ehrlich

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

About Serena Ehrlich

Serena Ehrlich is a veteran professional in the fields of investor relations, public relations, and marketing. She currently serves as the director of product marketing at Business Wire. Over more than 25 years, she has become a trusted authority on emerging communication technologies and strategies, helping guide organizations through evolving trends in media and consumer behavior.

Her deep-rooted experience began in advertising, where she honed her understanding of large-scale branding before continuing through two decades in the newswire industry. She has driven successful local, national, and global campaigns for major brands such as Kraft, Kohl’s, Avon, Mattel, and more.

Serena transitioned into a strategic go-to-market and social media leadership role, currently serving as the go-to-market director at Notified. Known for her dynamic approach to modern media, she blends content creation, data insights, and format innovation to drive education, advocacy, and revenue. Her philosophy encapsulates this approach: Data + Content + Format = Education + Evangelists + Revenues. A recognized thought leader in the industry, she was named one of the Top 25 Women in Mobile to Watch in 2013 and continues to leverage her pr

Support the show

• On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
• On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.