The PESO Model© has evolved more this year than in the past decade. With artificial intelligence taking hold, plus the massive need for integration and new ways to measure our efforts, we’ve dug deep into how it can remain flexible to changing market needs and how we need to grow our careers to keep up with it all.
As part of the increasing need for flexibility, we’ve spent the past few years working with complex multinational organizations that introduce unique challenges because of their varying media ecosystems, cultural norms, and regulatory environments.
What works in North America does not translate to Asia Pacific or Latin America. Furthermore, these organizations typically operate with established structures—marketing, communications, digital, social media, search engine optimization, and content—often functioning as distinct departments with their own leadership, budgets, and objectives.
This fragmentation runs counter to the integrated approach at the heart of the PESO Model.
PESO Model Integration Gap
Despite significant investments in marketing and communications technology, talent, and agency partnerships, multinational organizations frequently struggle to achieve true integration across the PESO Model spectrum. Our work with global enterprises has identified five consistent challenges that create what we call the enterprise integration gap.
But here’s the thing: this gap doesn’t just exist at the enterprise level. It exists in every sized organization and 99.999% of PESO Model programs. That’s because almost everyone pulls tactics from each media type and calls it a day.
My friends, that is not the PESO Model. The framework is scientific, mixed with a bit of art, and is integrated and measurable. That’s why these challenges exist for everyone attempting to implement it.
Organizational Silos
The first thing that exists everywhere are organizational silos. Way, way back in the day, Geoff Livingston and I wrote a book called Marketing In the Round that looked at how to break down marketing silos and work together collaboratively. The challenge existed back then—and still exists today.
Some of that is due to organizational structure, and some is because people are human, and it’s our nature to control our fiefdoms.
There tends to be a structural separation between key functions. Marketing, public relations, advertising, digital, content, SEO, SEM, and social media teams often operate with distinct strategies, workflows, and success metrics. Physical separation, different reporting lines, and competing priorities frequently reinforce these functional silos.
In many organizations, these teams may view themselves as competing for budget and executive attention rather than as collaborative partners. This separation makes it nearly impossible to execute integrated campaigns in which owned media is the foundation of a PESO Model program, earned media is extended through owned channels, paid media amplifies owned media and earned coverage, and shared media connects all components.
Beyond structural issues, information and data silos create additional barriers to integration. Each department typically uses different analytics platforms, reporting frameworks, and KPIs, making tracking customer journeys across channels or properly attributing results virtually impossible.
Now imagine that if it’s this challenging internally, how difficult it is for your customer. They are probably getting varying messages on different platforms, and it’s impossible for them to know how to buy from you.
Not good.
Even when structural changes are implemented, cultural and mindset barriers can persist. Teams that have traditionally valued different skills and approaches—creative versus analytical, short-term versus long-term thinking—often struggle to find common ground or appreciate each other’s contributions. These cultural divides can be more difficult to bridge than organizational charts.
Traditional budget allocation processes further reinforce silos by directing funds to specific departments rather than cross-functional initiatives. When budgets are tied to departmental goals rather than integrated outcomes, it creates significant barriers for campaigns requiring shared resources and collaborative decision-making.
You can see how challenging it is to implement a proper PESO Model program. It requires changes from the top down to be extraordinarily effective. But when these barriers are removed, you create a multiplier effect that allows you to work smarter, not harder.
And don’t we all want that?
Market Variation
The second challenge organizations face is market variation. As you can imagine, what works in North America often doesn’t translate to Asia Pacific or Latin America. This isn’t just about language differences—though that’s certainly part of it—it’s about fundamentally different media ecosystems, consumer behaviors, regulatory environments, and cultural norms.
In some regions, WeChat or LINE might be the primary communication channel, while others rely heavily on WhatsApp or traditional media. Some markets have intense regulatory scrutiny around influencer marketing, while others operate with minimal oversight. Media consumption habits vary dramatically—from markets where traditional print still dominates to those where mobile-first social platforms are the only way to reach consumers.
These regional differences create significant implementation challenges for the PESO Model. A perfectly integrated campaign in one market might be ineffective in another because the media types don’t function the same way or because audience expectations are different.
Many organizations try to solve this with rigid global templates, but that approach rarely works. It creates programs too generic to resonate locally or forces local teams to abandon the framework entirely and go their own way.
The real challenge is creating a flexible approach that maintains the integrated spirit of the PESO Model while adapting to local market conditions. This requires building a balance between global consistency and local relevance—which is easier said than done when your teams are already working in silos!
For example, in markets where earned media opportunities are limited, you should emphasize owned and shared media channels more. Your paid strategies need complete reinvention in regions with more restrictive advertising regulations. And in emerging markets where digital infrastructure is still developing, your entire approach to content distribution might need rethinking.
The organizations that navigate this successfully don’t try to force a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, they create a flexible framework that allows adaptation while maintaining the core integration principles. They establish clear guidelines about what must remain consistent globally (like brand positioning, messaging, and measurement approaches) and what can be adapted locally (like channel selection and content formats).
This requires not just structural changes but a shift in mindset—recognizing that adaptation isn’t deviation; it’s a smart strategy. It also demands comprehensive market intelligence beyond surface-level observations to truly understand how media ecosystems function in each region.
When organizations get this right, they create PESO Model programs that feel locally relevant while maintaining global strategic coherence—a powerful combination that drives results across diverse markets.
Technology Fragmentation
The third challenge is all the technology we have available today. We used to have a handful of tools, but now there are so many that it’s hard to know what’s the most useful, what is absolutely necessary, and what can be integrated into one tool rather than 20 or 30.
While this explosion of tools has created incredible capabilities, it’s also created nightmarish integration challenges. I also may need to step away from all of the AI tools. So many to choose from!
And I’m not unique. Most organizations we work with have accumulated a complex patchwork of technologies.
The social media team has publishing and listening tools, the content team has a content management system and editorial calendars, marketing operations have marketing automation platforms, PR has media monitoring and distribution systems, SEO has technical tools, and on and on it goes.
Each of these systems was likely selected to solve a specific problem for a specific team, and they work wonderfully in isolation. But here’s the problem: they rarely talk to each other effectively. Data sits in disconnected silos, customer journeys are fragmented across platforms, and the technical infrastructure actively works against the integration that the PESO Model demands.
What makes this particularly challenging is that each tool has its own workflow, data structure, and reporting mechanisms. When you’re trying to create an integrated campaign where content is created once and deployed across multiple channels with appropriate modifications, these disconnected systems create enormous friction.
Think about a simple scenario: you publish a blog post (owned), amplify it through social channels (shared), secure some media coverage based on its insights (earned), and then promote both the original content and the coverage through digital advertising (paid). In a perfect world, you’d have unified data showing how audiences move between these touchpoints and how each element contributes to your overall objectives.
But with fragmented technology, that unified view is nearly impossible. Instead, you get partial insights from each system with no way to connect the dots. It’s like trying to assemble a puzzle where the pieces come from different boxes or, in the case at my house, pieces are missing entirely!
Organizations that overcome this challenge take one of two approaches. Some invest in comprehensive marketing technology platforms that provide integrated capabilities across the PESO Model spectrum, though these often require significant customization to truly deliver on their promise.
Others focus on establishing critical integration points between best-of-breed tools, creating data lakes or dashboards that pull information from multiple systems. I remember the first time, about six years ago, an analytics colleague brought me a data lake solution. I could have kissed him!
When organizations get this right, technology becomes an enabler rather than a barrier to PESO Model implementation. It also makes it much easier for customers to buy from you, which is the ultimate goal for all of us!
Measurement Inconsistency
The fourth challenge is measurement inconsistency, one of the most persistent barriers to effective PESO Model implementation. At its core, the model is designed to create integration across paid, earned, shared, and owned media and measure efforts to business goals—outcomes versus outputs, KPIs versus events and activities.
Public relations professionals have traditionally focused on outputs like impressions, share of voice, and sentiment. Marketing teams prioritize outcomes like leads, conversions, and ROI. Digital specialists look at engagement metrics, while brand teams might emphasize awareness and perception shifts.
Each approach has merit in its specific context, but they create a nightmare in integrated campaigns.
This inconsistency creates several problems.
First, comparing the relative effectiveness of different media types makes it nearly impossible, leading to budget allocation decisions based on gut feel rather than data—and the CFO hating you. You don’t want the CFO to hate you! You want them to looooove you.
Second, it prevents organizations from understanding how the different elements of the PESO Model work together to drive results.
And third, it creates reporting headaches as teams struggle to tell a coherent story about campaign performance to executives.
We have a client that, when we started working with them, had 27 different dashboards. Twenty-seven!
Each team was diligently tracking metrics, but there was no way to connect these disparate data points into a meaningful narrative about overall performance. Executives would receive reports from different teams using different metrics to describe the same campaigns—and the biggest thing we heard from the teams was, “They don’t understand what work we’re doing.”
I know why! Oh! Oh! Pick me! I know why!
You can overcome this by establishing a shared measurement framework that spans the PESO Model spectrum. This doesn’t mean abandoning discipline-specific metrics entirely—those detailed measures still matter for tactical optimization—and so you know what is working and what is not. But it does mean aligning on a set of common outcomes and attribution approaches that create a unifying measurement language.
Consistent measurement creates accountability—the secret ingredient that turns the PESO Model from a theoretical framework into an operational reality.
Talent Misalignment
And last, but certainly not least is talent misalignment. In many ways, this is the most critical one to solve because, well, people.
The PESO Model demands a blend of skills that has historically been distributed across different teams and disciplines. As I tell clients today, you don’t need to know how to do all of this work, but you do need to understand how it all works at a marco level so you can direct the work.
You can think about this as being the conductor of an orchestra. You don’t know how to play every instrument, but you do know how and when to bring them in to make magic. Your job, then, is to have depth in one area and breadth across multiple disciplines.
Unfortunately, most organizations still hire, develop, and structure teams based on traditional specialties. They look for social media managers who know specific platforms, content creators who can write, PR pros who have media relationships, and digital marketers who understand analytics. What they really need are integrated communications professionals who understand how these disciplines work together.
As an aside, these are the types of people I hire. I no longer hire specialists. That’s how invested I am in teaching clients how to effectively use the PESO Model and its integration prowess.
This misalignment creates several problems. Teams lack the strategic vision to see beyond their specialty. Collaboration becomes difficult because people don’t speak the same professional language. And career paths often reinforce specialization rather than rewarding integration skills.
When organizations get this right, they create powerful, flexible teams capable of executing integrated PESO Model campaigns. These teams don’t just pull tactics from different media types—they design strategies that leverage the unique strengths of each component while ensuring seamless integration across the customer journey.
Overcoming Obstacles for PESO Model Success
So there you have it—the five challenges that create the enterprise integration gap: organizational silos, market variation, technology fragmentation, measurement inconsistency, and talent misalignment.
Each one presents significant obstacles to effective PESO Model implementation, but they can all be overcome with the right approach and commitment. In fact, the organizations that successfully address these challenges don’t just improve their communications and marketing effectiveness—they create sustainable competitive advantages that drive business results.
So wherever you are in your PESO Model journey, I encourage you to assess your organization against these five challenges. Identify where your biggest integration gaps exist, and begin developing strategies to address them. And if you need help, call me! This is what we do all day, every day and I have more best practices, pointers, and tips.
The journey may be complex, but the rewards—both for your organization and your career—are well worth the effort.
© 2025 Spin Sucks. All rights reserved. The PESO Model is a registered trademark of Spin Sucks.
