About Laura McAliley
I've made a lot of brand decks.
Mission, vision, twelve to thirty pages. They were right the day they were finished. A quarter later, half of it was out of date, and the only people opening it worked in marketing.
Then AI moved into everyday marketing work, and that old problem got bigger. When AI doesn't have clear messaging to pull from, it fills the gaps on its own. And it fills them the same way for everyone. I'm convinced that's one reason so much marketing is starting to sound alike.
So I built Ripple.
Laura McAliley
Founder, Pebble Marketing
What I built
Ripple is what I built so a brand can live where the work happens, ready for every person and every AI tool on the team. I build each foundation with the people it belongs to, and I keep it current as the company changes.
Pebble runs on Ripple too. I built Pebble's own brand foundation the same way I build yours.
Where I come from
I've spent more than 20 years in branding and positioning, at agencies and in-house. I started in PR. I led marketing at two startups that sold, as marketing director and CMO. Most recently I was Chief Marketing Officer at Devici, where I built the go-to-market and the brand from inception.
My time at Devici ended at the end of 2024. Pebble is what I built next.
Pebble is me. I'm personally in the loop on every engagement. I work with in-house marketing teams, and with agencies and fractional CMOs as partners. When a team needs a marketing leader hands-on, I also work as a fractional CMO.
What I believe
AI's value depends on humans in the loop.
Judgment without a system doesn't scale. A system without judgment produces the average. That's why I work with marketers. This needs somebody who can look at the output and say, this is right, or this is wrong.
- Get the story right first.
- Before AI writes a word, the foundation and the story have to be correct. Every company comes in at a different place. Some have a strong brand with a story that drifted. Some have the pieces scattered across decks and folders. Some are starting fresh. So I start where you are, and I make sure the brand is right before anything gets built on it.
- Your brand should come from what's true about you.
- Your own calls, documents and decisions come first. Where there's a gap, I fill it with research and label it as research, so you always know which is which.
- Brands aren't static.
- They never have been, but now they really can't be.
- Quality and consistency beat volume.
- Fast AI output is easy to get. Output you'd put your name on takes checks, in the right order, and a person who makes the call.
- The tools work. They just need your context.
- AI fills the gaps either way. Without your context, it fills them with the industry average, and everybody starts to sound the same.
- Everyone should work from the same page.
- Your team, your partners and every AI tool.