TL;DR 

The PESO Model® has another graphic refresh. It’s outcome-based—organized around what each media type produces (Authority, Credibility, Discovery, Growth) and how those compound when the integrations run together. 

It’s free to download with attribution. Commercial uses—paid courses, books, software products, training, teaching, speaking that teach PESO(paid or unpaid), and branded reuse, require a license.

Key Insights

• The PESO Model® has had four iterations in 12 years—a list of tactics and platforms, then a list of tactics only, then a strategic overview, and now an outcome-based approach.
• The new graphic is organized around four outcomes—Authority, Credibility, Discovery, Growth—with each media type owning one and the center showing what they produce together.
• The graphic is free to download. Copying the graphic from an image search is a copyright violation.
• Commercial uses now formally require a license: paid training, books, software products, speaking that teaches the model (paid or unpaid), and branded reuse.
• Branded reuse is theft and not allowed.
• The 2026 PESO Model Certification® is the cleanest commercial path. It’s the only place that grants commercial use rights as part of the program, includes the licensed PESO OS AI ($1,000/year value), and is credentialed through Newhouse.

The New PESO Model® Graphic Is Here. So Are the Rules.

For 12 years, the PESO Model® has been copied, reillustrated, rebranded, and quietly absorbed into other people’s frameworks like free wallpaper.

Most of the time, I’ve just silently groaned and rolled my eyes. I’ve tried to convince myself it’s fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

And, in some cases, it truly is fine.

I created that bad boy to provide something useful for the industry. If a communications director sketched it on a whiteboard, an MBA professor put it in a slide deck, or an agency rebuilt it in their brand colors for a client workshop, that was the model doing its job. Reach beats ego. Adoption beats ownership.

For the most part, when you tell someone they can continue using it, but they have to provide attribution, they’re embarrassed they got it wrong to begin with. I’ve heard all sorts of things from “I didn’t realize someone actually created it!” to “I thought it just sort of appeared.” LOL! 

Of course, there are some who think copyright law doesn’t apply to them, and we’re happy to take them down legally, but 99.99999% of working professionals and students, too, are always happy to fix the error and provide proper attribution. 

But somewhere in the last two years, the situation changed. PESO stopped being a framework that people referenced. It became infrastructure people sold—repackaged into paid courses, plagiarized in books, slipped into commercial training programs, and quoted back to me in client decks I had nothing to do with. 

I’ve had countless prospects, clients, and friends tell me that big, huge agencies have come in to pitch their business, and in their decks is PESO, as if they created it, and no one is the wiser. I’ll be honest and say it tickles me pink when they don’t get the business for that reason alone.

It’s not hard! Attribution is key for non-commercial things, and licensing if you want to make money using the system.

So. Today, we are going to talk about two things: the new PESO Model graphic, which is ready for your use with attribution and a free license, and we’ll discuss where the line is between free use and theft.

From Tactics to Strategy to Outcomes

Of course, this isn’t the first time the graphic has been refreshed. It’s undergone several updates in the last 12 years, and each has tracked a shift in how the industry has evolved.

The earliest version was a list of tactics and platforms. News releases. Blog posts. Paid social. Influencer marketing. It even had platforms listed, like Google+ and Vine. It told you what was in the box, because that’s how teams thought about the work back then.

The next version dropped the platforms. By then, everyone was on every platform, so what mattered was what you were doing, not where. The graphic became a list of tactics, full stop. If I regret anything, it’s that version of it because it’s the one most professionals have glommed onto, and because of that, PESO has generally been relegated to a tactical play.

It’s not that at all—especially not now—but we did double down two years ago to make sure it was seen more as a strategic overview, and that graphic represented that shift. 

It had four interlocking circles, and the integrations between them were named. That version did real work in the industry. It taught a generation of marketers and communicators that paid, earned, shared, and owned weren’t separate disciplines—they reinforced each other, or they didn’t work at all. People still pull it up in pitch meetings, and they should.

But strategy is no longer the leading edge.

Boards are asking different questions than they were a few years ago. Are we showing up in the answers AI is giving our customers? Whose narrative is winning in our category? How do you contribute to pipeline, retention, and/or valuation? The former strategic overview doesn’t answer those questions. Outcomes do.

That’s what the new graphic is built around. It’s outcome-based. The four media types are still there, because the categories haven’t changed. What’s new is what they’re working toward—visibility, share of voice, pipeline, credibility—and how the system measures itself by what it produces.

This isn’t a redesign. It’s a new way to think about our work, and a new way to do it.

How to Read the New PESO Model Graphic

Look at the title first. Authority. Credibility. Discovery. Growth. Those four words aren’t decoration. They are what the four media types are actually for, and the entire model is organized around producing them.

Each circle owns one outcome:

• Owned media establishes authority. It is your home base. It’s the content you control, the source of truth that search and AI systems cite back to. Without owned, nothing else compounds, because there’s nowhere for the credibility, discovery, and growth to land.
• Earned media builds credibility. Other people talking about you is the fastest way to make decision-makers trust you faster, and it’s where AI systems now look for corroboration before they recommend you in an answer.
• Shared media drives discovery. It’s where attention actually moves—conversations, communities, audiences who participate rather than consume.
• Paid media amplifies what works. The new graphic is opinionated about this: paid doesn’t create credibility on its own. It scales what’s already producing it.

That’s the simple read. The richer read, IMO, is in the overlaps.

There are six pairings on the graphic, one for each pair of overlapping circles. Each names a specific compound outcome:

• Earned and owned build authority faster. Coverage creates attention; your content turns it into understanding. This is the integration AI systems reward most heavily right now.
• Earned and shared make credibility travel. Coverage that gets talked about keeps working for weeks. Coverage that doesn’t die on the publication date.
• Shared and owned accelerate conversion. Social sparks attention; your owned channels turn that attention into sign-ups, leads, and sales.
• Owned and paid speed up results. Paid is most efficient when the asset is already proven. Paying to distribute average content is where dollars go to disappear.
• Paid and earned amplify trust. This is not buying coverage. It’s putting third-party validation in front of the audiences who decide outcomes, so you are amplifying credibility, not manufacturing it.
• Paid and shared scale successes. When something resonates organically, paid extends its life and reaches more of the right people. The dollars work harder than paid spent on cold content.

The center of the graphic—where all four circles overlap—is where the operating system runs. It is not a fifth thing. It’s what happens when the integrations run simultaneously. 

That is what the line at the bottom of the graphic means: “The PESO Model® is an operating system. Integration is what makes it compound.”

Read it once, and it’s a clean visual. Read it twice, and it’s a checklist. Read it a third time, and it’s a planning tool to help you figure out which integrations you are actually running, which you are only claiming, and where the next dollar of effort is best spent.

Using the New PESO Model Graphic in Your Work

Most of you can put this graphic to work right now, today, with no paperwork beyond a simple download. Here’s how.

The graphic is available for download here. 

By downloading it, you agree to a short set of simple terms. Essentially, the terms are that you agree to attribute Spin Sucks with a link to a page on our site, don’t modify the graphic itself, and use the registered trademark on first mention.

For most non-commercial uses—internal team training, classroom slides, panel decks, conference talks where you’re not being paid to teach the model, blog posts, podcast episodes, articles, social posts—that’s all you need.

A few practical notes that will keep your use clean and the trademark defensible:

• In writing, use “the PESO Model®” on first mention, then “PESO” or “the PESO Model” thereafter. The ® matters legally; it’s how the trademark stays defensible.
• In a slide deck, include a small attribution line beneath the image: “The PESO Model® is a registered trademark of Spin Sucks.”
• When you describe what the model is, use the language at the bottom of the graphic: “The PESO Model® is an operating system. Integration is what makes it compound.” That sentence is the cleanest way to describe what the model does, and it’s the position the new graphic is built around.

If your use is commercial—a course, a book, a paid workshop, an online course, a software product, or paid or unpaid speaking that teaches the model—that requires a commercial license.

Where the Line Is

I have made my peace with most reuse over the last decade. Here is what I have not made my peace with: people selling courses, certifications, workshops, books, and “frameworks” built on PESO, charging real money for it, and not paying us for the privilege.

That happens because the rules have been ambiguous. Everyone kind of knew there was a line. Nobody has been told exactly where. So today, with the launch of the new graphic, I’m telling you exactly what it means.

What’s Free

Most of the things you’re already doing are free.

You can use the PESO Model—by name and by graphic—in your own non-commercial educational content. Blog posts, social posts, internal documents, classroom slides, panel decks, conference talks, where it’s a simple mention, but you are not teaching the model. Use it in your reporting to your CMO. Use it in your team training. Cite it in academic work. Reference it in journalism.

The rule is simple: if you are not charging anyone for access to the model itself, and you attribute it correctly to Spin Sucks, you are good. You always have been. That is not changing.

Today, though, we are requiring you to download it by giving us your email address and agreeing to the terms. This is not so we can add you to lead nurturing campaigns. This is so we can track who is using it and ensure you get an updated free (or otherwise) license every year. 

If you haven’t downloaded it from us and instead copy it from an image on the internet, you will be in violation of copyright law, and we will ask you to remove it. 

So head over to the landing page and get the goodies, while staying compliant!

What Requires a License

These are the uses we’re now formalizing:

• Commercial training and education—workshops, courses, certifications, cohort programs, paid masterminds, or any product where someone pays you to learn the PESO Model from you. Technically, you cannot teach it unless you’ve gone through our Train the Trainers program, but at the very least, you need a commercial license.
• Books and published work—chapters, sections, or significant treatment of the PESO Model in a commercially sold book or paid publication.
• Internal corporate training—if you are an in-house team building a paid internal training program around the model. Technically, we need to be part of creating that program, and you will need a commercial license.
• Software products—apps, tools, agents, or platforms that operationalize the PESO Model as a feature.
• Speaking—if your speech is materially tied to teaching PESO as the through-line of the talk. You can mention PESO in your speech, but you cannot teach it without a license, even if the speaking engagement is unpaid.
• Branded reuse—if you present the PESO Model under your own brand, your own framework name, or as your own intellectual property, you are breaking the law, and you can guarantee you will receive a cease and desist. This is the one most people don’t realize is a line. It is.

We are not interested in being difficult. We want you to use PESO—that’s why it was created. But it has to be used correctly, and just like any other brand with IP, we have to fiercely protect it.

Reach out to our Support team, and we’ll help you determine which license you need (free or otherwise). And we’ll also tell you up front if we think the PESO Model Certification® is a faster, cheaper, better path for what you’re trying to do.

The Cleanest Path

For most people who want to teach, sell, or operate under the PESO Model, the Certification is the answer.

It is the only place that grants commercial use rights as part of the program. It is built around running PESO as an operating system, comes with the licensed PESO OS AI ($1,000/year value), and is credentialed through our partnership with Newhouse. 

The cleanest way to use PESO commercially is to actually know how to run it.

Why This Matters Now

I’d be making a smaller deal of all of this if it were just about IP. It isn’t.

When PESO gets diluted—when six different people teach six different versions under six different brand names, with six different definitions of integration—the audience we are all trying to serve gets worse advice. 

The teams that need an operating system end up with a Pinterest board. The senior buyers who are trying to finally get their work taken seriously end up defending a framework that no longer matches what they’re actually doing.

That hurts the industry. It hurts our audience. And in an AI-driven information environment where answer engines actively choose which version of an idea to surface, dilution is no longer just annoying. It is a competitive risk.

So this is the cleanup. New graphic. Clear rules. A frictionless way to download the assets for legitimate use. A defined commercial path for everything else.

Take the graphic. Use it well. If your use is on the licensed list, inquire—we are easy to work with! 

And if you’re trying to build a real PESO operating system inside your organization, the 2026 Certification is open, and our team is available to help, as well.

PESO will keep doing what it’s done for 12 years: make your work integrated, measurable, and infinitely better. 

Take the Next Step

This is Part 1 of The PESO Operating System, a six-part series running through Q2 about why PESO has changed and what to do about it. Part 2 publishes next week: The Telephone Game — How AI Is Quietly Destroying Your Best Content.

© 2026 Spin Sucks. All rights reserved. The PESO Model is a registered trademark of Spin Sucks.

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