Avsnitt
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Achieving true cross-channel attribution remains an uphill battle as walled gardens restrict access to critical log-level data.
Key Highlights
Georgia Pacific's Vice President of Integrated Media and Brand Analytics, Javier Bustillos, reveals how his team combats these fragmentation challenges by accelerating in-house Marketing Mix Modeling and adopting a disciplined, test-and-learn approach to automation.📊 Walled gardens continue to choke cross-channel attribution by withholding log-level data, forcing brands to rely on a mosaic of complementary measurement frameworks rather than a single source of truth.
🎯 Strategic mass awareness is shifting toward a hybrid model that blends broad linear reach with hyper-targeted digital video tactics like CTV and YouTube to balance scale and precision.
📺 Premium addressable and data-driven linear television formats frequently fail to generate the performance lift required to justify their steep upfront cost premiums.
👥 Independent content creators should be treated as dynamic ad formats and flexible engagement assets deployed across diverse platform verticals rather than being siloed as a standalone media channel.
📈 Bringing Marketing Mix Modeling in-house can drastically condense operational reporting loops, shifting analytics cadences from lagging annual retrospectives to agile, granular quarterly deployments.
🧪 AI applications in programmatic media yield immediate dividends for algorithmic bidding and supply-path optimization, but agentic decision-making still requires strict human guardrails for multi-million-dollar budgets.
🏗️ Building a high-functioning in-house programmatic operation demands a multi-year road map focused on incremental scaling, specialized talent retention, and direct ad-tech relationship management.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Javier Bustillos on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction
1:28 Georgia Pacific's Role and Brand Portfolio
2:20 Evolution from Mass Reach to Integrated Targeting
4:05 Cross-Channel Integration Challenges
5:00 Upfront Evolution and New Players
7:10 Creator Economy Integration Across Platforms
8:31 Marketing Mix Modeling Evolution and In-House Capabilities
11:00 MMM Limitations and Supplementary Measurement
13:04 Business Outcome Accountability and Long-term Impact
14:36 AI Implementation and Agentic Capabilities
16:28 Future of Agencies and In-House Teams with AI
18:36 CFO Relations and Marketing Value Communication
19:55 In-Housing Reality Check and Implementation Timeline
21:16 In-Housing Challenges and Relationship Building -
As television viewership shifts, NBCUniversal is proving that premium IP like live sports and reality television can compete with digital channels by integrating advanced programmatic ad tech.
Key Highlights
Through initiatives like real-time AI context-scanning and the Performance Insights Hub, they are closing the data loop to deliver immediate, measurable outcomes across the entire marketing funnel.📺 Premium, year-round unscripted programming creates sustained fan communities that offer brands continuous, high-engagement cultural relevance instead of the brief campaign windows typical of limited series.
🚪 Operating systems like Vizio OS are becoming the critical "front door" of television, capturing consumer attention during the search and discovery phase before they enter ad-free environments.
🤖 The traditional boundary between upper-funnel awareness and lower-funnel performance is dissolving as media networks deploy advanced data hubs to compress measurement cycles from months to days.
📱 Embracing automation and programmatic infrastructure in linear and streaming environments allows major networks to onboard thousands of emerging, niche advertisers who were previously priced out of premium TV inventory.
🏈 Real-time, AI-driven content scanning enables hyper-contextual dynamic creative insertion immediately following specific live broadcast triggers, drastically increasing brand resonance.
🎯 Maximizing sports viewership monetisation requires a dual broadcast and streaming infrastructure, recognizing that the vast majority of premium ad impressions still occur on linear television.
🗓️ Establishing consistent, predictable programming blocks across distinct sports leagues creates a unified destination for viewers and a year-round narrative platform for advertisers.
🎪 In-person experiential events act as powerful content factories, allowing brands to super-serve live audiences while generating digital assets that scale across streaming and social platforms.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Alison Levin on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Chapter Timestamps00:00 The Power of Year-Round Reality TV Communities and Advertising Integration
00:32 Vizio OS as the Solution to TV Fragmentation
1:44 The Cultural Phenomenon of Reality TV and Community Building
5:29 Advertising Scale and Integration Strategies
7:12 Performance TV Advertising and Data Feedback Loops
9:09 AI and Dynamic Creative Capabilities
11:09 NBA Return and Sunday Night Sports Strategy
13:15 Dynamic Ad Insertion and Programmatic Sports Advertising
15:12 Current Advertising Market Conditions and Upfront Dynamics
16:58 BravoCon as a Content Creation Phenomenon -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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After briefly de-emphasizing targeted TV ads during the Discovery merger, Warner Bros. Discovery has rapidly rebuilt its infrastructure to offer clients unprecedented transparency and accountability.
Key Highlights
In this live recording from the GoAddressable upfront breakfast, learn how premium IP content is joining forces with sophisticated data waterfalls to challenge the dominance of walled gardens.🔄 Warner Bros. Discovery is correcting a four-year-old strategic pivot by aggressively reinvesting in addressable TV advertising to bridge the performance gap between linear and digital video inventory.
🎯 Roughly 80% of audience-driven TV campaigns now leverage client-supplied first-party segments, signaling a massive shift toward data-ownership and customized targeting in premium environments.
📉 Traditional media companies must radically streamline their back-end infrastructure to eliminate the crippling operational friction that still makes buying TV inventory too slow and clunky for modern brands.
🤝 Legacy publishers are abandoning old rivalries and uniting within consortiums like OpenAP because collective ecosystem collaboration is the only way to successfully compete against tech titans like Amazon, Google, and Meta.
📉 Direct-to-consumer and small-to-medium digital-native advertisers expect the exact same level of performance, accountability, and transparency from television that they grew up using on Meta and Google.
🌊 Relying on a single persistent identifier like an IP address is no longer sustainable, forcing publishers to adopt flexible, composable data waterfalls that combine multiple deterministic and modeled signals.
📊 By guaranteeing reach and incremental reach through their StreamX solution, networks are successfully using top-of-funnel control as a reliable proxy to prove downstream business lift.
🎭 Pairing high-impact sponsorships like premium series premieres with deterministic retargeting allows brands to orchestrate a complete full-funnel strategy from culture-shaping moments down to precise suppression and competitive conquesting.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Bridget Jayaram on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction
1:46 Bridget's Background and Warner Brothers Discovery's Addressable Journey
3:33 The De-emphasis and Return to Addressable
4:26 Current Addressable Demand and Client Profiles
5:31 First-Party Data Usage and WBD's Own Data Assets
6:29 Operational Challenges and Infrastructure Needs
7:34 Industry Collaboration vs. Competition
8:38 Outcomes Measurement and Performance Guarantees
10:30 Identity Strategy and Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Approaches
12:12 Serving Different Advertiser Categories and Expectations
13:25 Education and Industry Knowledge Gaps
14:32 WBD's Approach to Performance and Brand Advertising -
Discover how the future of TV advertising is shifting toward outcome-based measurement and AI-driven optimization coming out of the 2026 upfronts .
Key Highlights
iSpot CEO Sean Muller joins the show to break down their fundamental "Creative + Audience = Outcome" equation, the integration of their new AI platform Sage, and why the industry must prioritize trusted, neutral data over ongoing currency debates.📺 Following the 2026 upfronts, publishers and networks are shifting from traditional linear metrics to embrace outcome-based models because they recognize that advertisers make major budget allocations based on direct business performance.
🎯 The traditional debate over alternative audience measurement currencies is largely a publisher-driven concern, while modern brands remain strictly focused on concrete performance and cross-platform ad effectiveness.
🧪 True attribution requires a paradigm shift that treats creative and media as an inseparable equation, proving that creative quality is just as critical to the final business outcome as audience targeting.
⏱️ Holistic media measurement must capture a four-quadrant grid that balances short-term performance metrics like immediate website visits with long-term brand equity indicators like purchase intent and favorability.
⚖️ Advertisers are standardizing multi-touch attribution frameworks that pair conversion rate with lift/incrementality to ensure they are tracking true behavioral causality rather than just hitting consumers who would have purchased anyway.
🤝 The real competitive advantage for publishers lies in moving beyond basic outcome reporting toward actively optimizing campaigns in real time using trusted, neutral third-party measurement signals.
🤖 While building autonomous AI agents for campaign optimization is technically trivial, achieving industry adoption depends entirely on training platforms on verified, historical data that marketers can transparently verify via traditional dashboards.
📈 Although streaming and programmatic buying are gradually lowering the barriers to entry for smaller advertisers, total television ad spend remains highly concentrated within sports and a handful of legacy industries.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Sean Muller on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction to TV Outcomes and Industry Readiness
4:29 Defining iSpot's Role and Measurement Philosophy
5:42 TV Disrupt Event and Industry Focus Areas
8:45 Defining Short-term vs Long-term Outcomes
11:59 The Creative + Audience = Outcome Equation
15:06 Measurement Methodology and Industry Partnerships
17:53 Publisher Optimization and the Roku Partnership
19:24 AI Implementation and the Trust Factor
24:01 Legal Dispute with EDO
26:52 Industry Growth and SMB Adoption -
Jubilee Media founder and CEO Jason Y Lee joins Next in Media to break down how the digital-first studio builds scalable, format-driven IP that captures Gen Z's massive attention span without relying on a single face.
Discover the monetization strategies behind their unscripted content, why creators are turning down Hollywood, and how authentic human conversation is outperforming AI in the modern creator economy.Key Takeaways:
The Creator Economy Flip: Top digital creators no longer view Hollywood as the ultimate graduation point, reversing the media power dynamic as traditional studios now seek out digital-first strategies to survive.
The Attention Span Myth: Massive engagement metrics on 90-minute videos prove that younger audiences aren’t suffering from short attention spans; they are simply starving for unscripted, long-form authenticity.
Format Over Face: Designing repeatable, host-agnostic IP rather than relying on a single charismatic personality eliminates key-person risk and unlocks true operational scalability for digital studios.
Contextual Brand Storytelling: The next frontier of monetization rejects one-off, disruptive advertisements in favor of naturally embedding brands into existing, high-performing video franchises.
The Anti-Echo Chamber Demand: Algorithms have hyper-fragmented public discourse, creating a massive, untapped market of viewers who actively seek out raw, multi-perspective content to escape their own echo chambers.
The TV Screen Takeover: Digital-first production must now default to cinema-grade standards like 4K, as YouTube’s massive growth on connected televisions blends the boundary between streaming networks and independent creators.
The Human Premium in an AI Era: As artificial intelligence commoditizes automated content creation, media companies that double down on raw, real-life human connection will hold the ultimate competitive advantage.
IP Upcycling and Windowing: Legacy distribution strategies like FAST channels and AVOD licensing represent the most lucrative secondary revenue streams for creators sitting on deep libraries of episodic content.
Resources & Next Steps:
Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Key Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Jubilee's Mission and Content Philosophy
1:09 Introduction and Background
2:07 Jubilee's Format Strategy and Studio Approach
3:44 Building a Scalable Business Model
4:57 Format Development and Longevity
6:16 YouTube's Evolution and Connected TV
7:54 Multi-Platform Strategy
8:54 Brand Partnerships and Controversial Content
10:01 Successful Brand Integration Examples
11:23 Brand Partnership Philosophy
12:19 YouTube's Creator Economy Evolution
13:44 Creator Content Boosting vs Investment
15:19 Hollywood and Streaming Industry Relations
16:32 Content Licensing and Distribution
17:41 Short-Form Fiction and Experimentation
18:25 Microdrama and Asian Market Trends
19:05 AI Integration and Human-Centered Content
20:09 Generational Media Habits and Public Discourse
21:34 Gen Z's Media Consciousness
22:21 Future Political Engagement and Partnerships -
Gen Alpha has completely fragmented away from traditional TV, leaving advertisers scrambling to connect with kids and parents across YouTube, FAST channels, and gaming platforms.
This week, Mike sits down with Emma Witkowski, VP of Media Solutions at WildBrain, to unpack the massive market disconnect in children's media, the power of nostalgia in family co-viewing, and how upcoming privacy regulations like COPPA 2.0 are rewriting the rules of digital targeting.
Key Highlights:
📺 The Great Gen Alpha Fragmentation: Children's media consumption has shattered across Netflix, YouTube, FAST, social, and gaming platforms, completely ending the era where a single traditional network like Nickelodeon could capture the majority of the audience.
🔌 The Linear Co-Viewing Ad Dollar Gap: While toy and entertainment brands have successfully followed kids to digital spaces, a major market disconnect remains with non-endemic advertisers whose linear TV budgets failed to migrate alongside the parents they were trying to reach.
🛑 The Death of Traditional Tracking Metrics: Regulatory protections like COPPA make standard digital tactics like cookies, pixels, and multi-touch attribution entirely obsolete in children's media, forcing buyers to shift their mindset from tracking to context and from targeting to trust.
🛋️ The Rise of "Shared Screen Time": Shared viewing remains a vital family bonding ritual—with nearly nearly all parents watching alongside their kids weekly and over half doing so daily—yet it continues to challenge standard digital reporting because impression-level verification of who is watching is fundamentally impossible.
🚀 Single-IP FAST Channels as Fandom Hubs: Single-franchise FAST networks are seeing massive year-over-year audience growth by leaning into consistent, curated curation that gives super-fans a dedicated, lean-back destination to immerse themselves in trusted IP.
🧸 Nostalgia as a Direct Purchase Driver: Modern parents deliberately choose content featuring the beloved characters they grew up with, creating an emotional connection that drastically boosts brand recall, purchase intent, and consumer product sales.
📜 The High Operational Stakes of COPPA 2.0: Emerging regulations expanding legal protections up to age 17 and limiting algorithmic AI targeting will severely challenge automated ad resellers, leaving structurally compliant, human-vetted, publisher-direct environments as the safest bet for brands.
💰 A Critical Content Sustainability Crisis: Premium educational and kids' programming faces an existential funding threat from the decline of public broadcasters and linear ad revenue, making direct publisher relationships essential to ensure ad dollars are reinvested back into the content ecosystem rather than lost to third-party reseller leakage
Resources & Next Steps:
Emma Witkowski
Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and SpotifyChapter Timestamps:
00:00 Audience Fragmentation and Platform Challenges
1:37 Wild Brain's Business Model and Emma's Background
4:24 The Advertising Dollar Disconnect
6:58 Rethinking Success Metrics in Kids' Media
8:00 The Prevalence and Importance of Co-Viewing
9:36 FAST Channels Strategy and Success
11:05 Strategic Advantages of FAST Over YouTube
14:07 The Power of Nostalgia in Content Selection
16:31 Measurement Challenges and Audience Insights
19:17 COPPA 2.0 Impact and Compliance
21:37 Industry Education and Compliance Standards
23:10 The Future of Kids' Content Funding -
In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Alan Moss, VP of Global Advertising Sales at Amazon Ads, to talk about Amazon's rapid transformation into a full-funnel advertising powerhouse. Alan walks through how he joined Amazon mid-COVID in 2020 and within a few years helped land an 11-year NFL deal, launch Prime Video ads, and close an NBA partnership that made Prime Video a year-round sports network.
He and Mike dig into what's working in the upfront market, why Amazon sees retail media and streaming as one unified full-funnel business, and how Amazon DSP's partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, and others now reach 90% of household audiences. They also get into the growing role of Twitch and creators as a mid-funnel marketing lever, and why Alan believes the future is AI agents — not just for creative optimization, but for full campaign orchestration.
Key Highlights🏈 From COVID Hire to Year-Round Sports Network: Alan joined Amazon in July 2020 and within months helped land an 11-year NFL deal, followed by Prime Video ads and the NBA — turning Amazon into a full-year live sports destination.
📺 Prime Video as the Biggest Ad-Supported Streamer: Flipping the switch in January 2024 made Amazon the largest premium ad-supported streaming platform overnight, though the team had to scramble for scatter dollars outside the upfront window.
🚀 Amazon Is Democratizing Live Sports Advertising: Amazon brought 80 net-new advertisers to the NFL and 30 to the NBA in year one — opening up inventory that was previously an exclusive club.
🔗 Retail Media and Streaming Are the Same Business: Alan pushes back on treating Amazon's retail and streaming sides as separate, arguing the real value is a single full-funnel offering from brand awareness to measurable outcomes.
📡 The Amazon DSP Reaches 90% of Households: Partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, Spotify, and SiriusXM extend Amazon's authenticated graph well beyond its own properties.
🎮 Creators Are a New Mid-Funnel Marketing Lever: Twitch's 105 million monthly viewers are increasingly bundled with Prime Video and sports buys rather than treated as a standalone offering.
🤖 AI Agents Are the Big Upfront Story: Alan predicts that the integration of premium content with AI-driven ad tech — from creative adaptation to chat-based campaign execution — will define this upfront season.
📈 The Upfront Market Is Showing Positive Signals: Despite macro headwinds, Alan says agency conversations reflect focus rather than anxiety, with demand clustering around scarce inventory like live sports and custom sponsorships.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Alan Moss on LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Amazon Ads
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open
00:43 Introducing Alan Moss, Amazon's VP of Global Ad Sales
01:48 From Thursday Night Football to Prime Video ads — the rapid expansion
04:48 The NBA deal and becoming a year-round sports network
06:58 Bridging retail media and streaming — why Amazon sees it as one business
08:30 The upfront marketplace: positive signals despite macro uncertainty
10:05 Sponsor break: Why the household graph is a differentiator
11:28 Why premium content + AI-driven ad tech is this year's big story
13:30 Prime Video Signature sponsorships and brand partnerships
14:20 Amazon DSP and partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, Spotify, SiriusXM
15:35 Twitch update: 105M viewers, creators as a mid-funnel marketing lever
17:58 How durable AI agents make marketing dollars work harder
20:19 Wrap up -
Episode description
In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Kristina Canada, CMO at Net Conversion, a 19-year-old independent marketing and analytics agency based in Orlando that's in the middle of a serious growth push — with a new Chicago office, a recent acquisition of CTV specialists Elevate the Outcome, and a philosophy rooted in measurable business outcomes over vanity metrics.
Kristina and Mike dig into why independent agencies are experiencing a renaissance right now as clients seek out agility and transparency. They unpack Net Conversion's approach to making CTV a true performance channel without losing the brand-building benefits, and get into the agency's pragmatic but skeptical stance on AI — from arguing with Google reps about Performance Max to building their own internal chatbot and copilot tools for analysts.
Key Highlights🏢 The Independent Agency Renaissance: Clients are gravitating toward independents for agility, transparency, and freedom from holdco conflicts of interest.
📺 CTV as a Performance Channel: Net Conversion splits CTV into demand capture and demand creation, applying measurement rigor without forcing direct-response KPIs on brand-building.
🤖 AI as Co-Pilot, Not Pilot: The agency's internal mantra is "everyone gets an intern" — they've built their own chatbot but remain vocal skeptics of handing everything to PMAX.
🔍 AI Search Is Merging Paid and Organic: Kristina advises shifting from keyword matching to intent matching, and shares early learnings from piloting ads inside ChatGPT.
🤝 Against Principal-Based Buying: When agencies pre-buy media, incentives shift away from the client — Net Conversion keeps its model firmly aligned with client outcomes.
📈 Undervalued Platforms: Reddit and YouTube are two channels Kristina says deserve more attention from performance-minded advertisers.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Kristina Canada on LinkedIn
🌐 Net Conversion
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open
01:51 Introducing Kristina Canada and Net Conversion
04:23 The Elevate the Outcome acquisition and CTV/OTT push
06:03 Why independent agencies are having a "renaissance"
08:00 Making CTV a performance channel without losing brand value
10:23 Sponsor break: Reaching the right audiences on streaming TV
11:21 Being a healthy skeptic of PMAX and Advantage+
13:19 AI adoption in staff workflows and training
16:00 OpenAI's advertising push and AI-powered search
18:18 The problem with principal-based media buying
19:37 Why YouTube and Reddit are still undervalued
21:02 Wrap up -
In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Andrew Yaffe, CEO of Dude Perfect, to talk about how the iconic trick-shot brand has evolved into one of the most diversified properties in digital media. Eighteen months into the role after a long run at the NBA, Andrew walks through Dude Perfect's three-part strategy of content, products, and experiences — including a 22-city summer tour, middle-grade novel series, new outdoors channel, and experiential concepts.
Mike and Andrew dig into why Dude Perfect now looks more like a sports league than a creator business, what made their Xfinity co-created ad the best-performing spot on YouTube, and why reaching the family unit has become one of the most valuable propositions in fragmented media. They also cover YouTube's role in the upfront, the long-form content shift, the wishlist for better cross-platform measurement, and Andrew's reluctant NBA Finals pick.
Key Highlights🏗️ Tripling Headcount in 18 Months: Andrew has scaled Dude Perfect from a small content team into a much larger operation spanning production, commercial, and product.
🎯 Three Buckets — Content, Products, Experiences: Dude Perfect's strategy spans far beyond YouTube, including a live tour, board games, sporting goods, and a novel series.
📺 A Media Business, Not a Creator Business: Andrew argues Dude Perfect's partnership model with brands like BODYARMOR looks more like a sports sponsorship than a one-off creator deal.
🤝 The Xfinity Co-Creation Playbook: Andrew breaks down how Dude Perfect, YouTube, and Xfinity built one of the platform's standout ads of the past year, earning C-level accolades.
👨👩👧👦 The Family Audience Is the Moat: Reaching kids and parents simultaneously is a near-extinct value proposition in fragmented media — and Dude Perfect owns it.
📱 As Big as the NBA on TikTok: Dude Perfect's TikTok following rivals the NBA's, and their multi-platform strategy reaches different audiences with different content than YouTube.
⏱️ Longer Content Is Working: Watch time and retention now drive the strategy, leading to 40-minute videos and a new variety show being built like a network TV asset.
🎬 Format and Talent IP Is the Real Unlock: New talent and ownable formats like Squad Games and All Sports Golf are how Dude Perfect extends the franchise beyond the original five.
🎢 Trick Shot Town, Not a Theme Park (Yet): Andrew clarifies Dude Perfect’s experiential roadmap — what's actually being built in Austin, and the bigger vision for their own family entertainment concept.
Resources & Next Steps🌐 Dude Perfect on YouTube
🔗 Follow Andrew Yaffe on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open
00:49 Introducing Andrew Yaffe and Dude Perfect
02:05 Summer tour, Squad Games, and new channels
03:55 The three buckets: content, products, experiences
07:00 Why Dude Perfect looks like a media (not creator) business
08:30 Reaching the family audience in our fragmented era
09:30 BODYARMOR partnership and shifting share from Gatorade
10:42 Sponsor break: Elevate YouTube advertising with Cadent VuePlanner
11:22 Making YouTube’s top performing ad, with Xfinity and Google
13:01 Multi-platform strategy — TikTok, Instagram, CTV
15:38 Building out the talent roster and owning formats
17:21 Trick Shot Town and the family entertainment concept
18:38 The marketing wishlist: better cross-platform measurement
20:14 NBA Finals pick & wrap up -
In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Emily Ketchen, SVP & CMO of Intelligent Devices Group & International Markets at Lenovo, to talk about what it actually looks like to operationalize AI inside a global marketing organization. Emily shares how Lenovo is standing up the AI PC and AI phone category, why contextual and generative AI drove efficiency gains in the brand's Formula One partnership, and what it means to be "the first generation of leaders tasked with managing an agentic workforce."
Emily walks through Lenovo's AI governance council, the grassroots prompt library her team built, and tangible and intangible measurement frameworks behind big sponsorships. We also dig into Lenovo's Creator Odyssey campaign — a Sundance-recognized global collaboration — and close on the tension every marketer is navigating right now: how to use AI-driven media optimization without giving up control, transparency, or human judgment.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS:
🧭 Three Fronts for AI in Marketing: Emily frames Lenovo's AI work across category creation, internal upskilling, and marketing applications — with governance at the center.
🏎️ AI in the Most Precious Media: Rather than starting with low-stakes creative variants, Lenovo deployed contextual and generative AI in its Formula One sponsorship to sharpen targeting and creative impact.
🤖 The First Generation Managing an Agentic Workforce: Emily reflects on leading teams that now include agents alongside humans — a workforce that doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, and isn't looking for a raise.
📚 Grassroots Prompt Library: After Lenovo's governance council rolled out AI training, two employees built an internal prompt library that's now a go-to resource for the whole marketing org.
🎨 The Creator Odyssey: For the Yoga line, Lenovo built a global creator chain where digital artists around the world built on each other's work — a process-first campaign that picked up a Sundance brand storytelling award.
⚖️ Personal, Useful, Human: Emily's framework for talking about AI with wary consumers and creators: lead with what it feels like in everyday life, not what it is.
🛡️ Not All Agents, No People, No Agencies: On AI-driven media optimization, Emily argues the black-box version isn't the answer — experimentation has to come with guardrails and human judgment.
RESOURCES & NEXT STEPS:
🌐 Learn more about Lenovo: Lenovo.com
🔗 Follow Emily Ketchen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/emilyketchen
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
CHAPTER TIME STAMPS:
00:00 Cold open — Where Lenovo sits on the AI adoption curve
01:34 Introducing Emily Ketchen and Lenovo's AI mandate
03:56 Betting on Formula One with contextual + GenAI creative
05:52 Human judgement and Lenovo's AI governance council
07:33 Ecosystem marketing & AI category creation
10:11 The first generation managing an agentic workforce
13:50: Sponsor break: Reaching the right audiences on CTV
14:47 Measuring big sponsorships in a performance era
18:02 Creator strategy, Yoga product line, Sundance accolades
21:05 Talking to creators and consumers who are wary of AI
22:39 AI-driven media optimization without the black box
00:00 Wrap up and thanks
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Michael Wolf, CEO and Founder of Activate Consulting, to break down the findings from the firm’s 11th annual Technology and Media Outlook. Michael walks us through Activate's "Attention Clock" and how multitasking stretches the average American's day well past 24 hours, leaving brands to fight for partial attention while still paying like they're getting all of it.
We also get into the state of television. Michael explains why TV is more fragmented than Madison Avenue admits, why YouTube still doesn't get full credit despite dominating CTV, and what the Paramount-Warner deal actually changes. From there, we turn to predictions: Michael makes the case for virtual product placement as the next frontier in creator and in-game ads, and explains how sports gambling is changing live sports. He closes with his biggest sleeper story of 2026: spatial computing and the data layer that will power it.
Key Highlights:
⏰ The Attention Clock Hits 32 Hours a Day: Activate's research shows multitasking is pushing daily media consumption past the limits of a 24-hour day, leaving advertisers fighting for partial attention.
📺 TV Is More Fragmented Than Anyone Admits: Even the biggest TV players hold surprisingly small slices of total viewership, and a merged Paramount-Warner barely moves the needle.
🎬 Why YouTube Still Isn't "TV" to Madison Avenue: YouTube dominates CTV but lacks the big simultaneous tentpole events that brand advertisers use to reach huge audiences at once.
🛒 The Shopping Journey No Longer Starts at Google: For younger consumers, product discovery now begins directly at Amazon, Target, and Walmart — reshaping how brands think about the funnel.
🎮 Virtual Product Placement Is the Next Ad Frontier: Michael argues the future of in-game and in-content ads is authentic integration powered by AI, not interruption.
🎰 Sports Gambling Is Quietly Saving Long-Form Sports: In-game betting and prop bets are driving Gen Z viewers to watch entire games front to back.
👓 Spatial Computing Is the Most Underrated Story of 2026: Nearly every major tech company is betting on AI glasses and spatial devices, but the real battleground will be the visual data layer in the cloud.
Resources & Next Steps:
💡 Download the full Tech & Media Outlook at activate.com
🔗 Follow Michael J. Wolf on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
Chapter Time Stamps:
00:00 Cold open – Why YouTube is winning on every screen
1:29 Introducing Michael Wolf, CEO & Founder of Activate Consulting
2:31 Activate's Attention Clock: 11 years of measuring multitasking
4:35 How fragmented is TV viewership, really?
6:33 How YouTube quietly took over social and CTV
7:46 Why video is eating the internet
8:54 Why Madison Avenue still hesitates to treat YouTube like TV
12:05 Sponsor break: Why the household graph is a differentiator
13:24 What the Paramount-Warner deal actually changes
14:45 Why CTV still isn't built for small brands
15:54 AI, personalization, and the future of video creative
16:22 The bottleneck holding back creator marketing
18:01 How can video games finally get advertising right?
19:19 Live sports, Gen Z, and the gambling effect
20:54 Michael's biggest sleeper call for 2026
24:17 Wrap up and thanks
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Explore how the "cookie apocalypse" evolved into a hyper-fragmented identity landscape where iPhone users, cookieless browsers, and diverse CTV signals have created massive monetization gaps for the unprepared.
I sit down with Intent IQ’s Fabrice Beer-Gabel to reveal why the future of programmatic advertising isn't a choice between deterministic or probabilistic data, but a high-stakes race to balance scale with the 99% accuracy required to prevent AI from amplifying inaccuracies at scale.
Episode Takeaways:
🌐 The "Cookie Apocalypse" didn't disappear; it simply evolved into a hyper-fragmented landscape of "idealist" environments across 150 million iPhone users and 70 million cookieless desktop browsers.
⚖️ True identity accuracy isn't a binary choice between deterministic and probabilistic methods but a strategic effort to strike the perfect balance between massive scale and reliable user recognition.
🌍 Global compliance requires a nuanced, jurisdiction-specific approach because adopting a single "strictest" standard unnecessarily limits reach and creates a massive competitive disadvantage.
🌉 Bridging the gap between proprietary "data spines" and "biddable identifiers" is the only way to actually translate deep audience insights into real-world programmatic transactions.
🤖 AI acts as a powerful force multiplier for identity resolution, but it poses a systemic risk by amplifying bad data into "inaccuracy at scale" if the initial training sets are flawed.
🕷️ Publishers face a sustainability crisis as non-monetizable crawler traffic now outweighs human visitors by a staggering 200-to-1 ratio.
📈 Mastering identity resolution delivers a massive ROI punch, with the potential to double advertiser reach and lift publisher ad revenue by as much as 60%.
Time Stamps:00:00 Introduction to Identity Resolution Challenges and Intent IQ Overview
1:53 The Fragmented Identity Landscape and Signal Constraints
4:06 Deterministic vs Probabilistic Identity Debate
5:33 Mobile Identity Evolution and Cross-Platform Similarities
7:25 Regulatory Complexity and Compliance Strategies
9:36 Intent IQ's Business Model and Client Examples
12:45 Walled Gardens vs Open Ecosystem Competition
15:00 AI's Impact on Identity Resolution and Industry Transformation
17:54 Agentic AI and Content Protection Concerns
19:38 Identity Accuracy Crisis and AI Amplification Risks
21:45 ROI Impact and Business Outcomes
22:50 Strategic Advice for Brands in a Changing Landscape
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Mike Law, CEO of Carat North America, to talk about one of the biggest tensions in modern media: the push for more targeted TV advertising versus the risk of going too narrow and losing brand growth. Mike and I discuss how brands have at times gotten too addressable, siloing themselves into repeat customers while forgetting to grow the top of the funnel. We dig into the fragmentation challenge across streaming, CTV, and social video, and why defining your audience has never been harder with a million data sets and walled gardens competing for attention.
We also get into how YouTube is becoming more like TV every day, the evolving role of creators in upfront conversations, and whether creator media belongs in the same budget bucket as a big show on CBS. Mike shares how Carat is using AI agents to run multiple media plan scenarios in minutes instead of hours, and we explore what the next generation of media planners (AI native, digital native) will bring to the industry. We wrap up talking about measurement, why the industry needs to come together to solve identity and addressability, and what Go Addressable is doing to advance deterministic audience-based advertising at scale.
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Key Highlights📺 CTV Targeting vs. Brand Growth: Mike argues that brands have sometimes gotten too addressable, squeezing existing customers dry before realizing they need to find new audiences to grow the business.
🔀 Fragmentation Is the Core Challenge: With a million data sets, walled gardens, and consumers bouncing between streaming, search, and LLMs in seconds, the media planning landscape is what Mike calls a "bowl of spaghetti."
📱 YouTube as TV Replacement: Mike sees YouTube becoming more like television every day, but its dual identity as both a TV replacement and a social video performance platform makes it tricky to plan against.
🎥 Creators in the Upfront: Long-form, episodic creators are increasingly part of upfront conversations, but the question remains whether they belong in the TV budget or require their own planning approach.
🤖 AI Agents for Media Planning: Carat is using AI agents to generate eight to ten versions of a media plan at once, letting planners compare trade-offs and craft strategy faster than ever.
📊 The Measurement Gap: Cross-platform measurement remains fragmented, and Mike believes the industry needs to come together to solve identity and comparability across CTV, linear, and digital.
🌐 Go Addressable and Industry Collaboration: The episode is part of a special series with Go Addressable, the trade organization working to advance deterministic audience-based advertising across the full TV ecosystem.
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Resources & Next Steps🌐 Learn more about Go Addressable at GoAddressable.com
🔗 Follow Mike Law on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
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Timestamps00:00 Cold open: the state of TV targeting and brand growth
01:07 Introducing Mike Law, CEO of Carat North America
01:43 Where we are with CTV targeting today
03:25 When brands get too addressable and forget reach
05:00 The cycle of squeezing audiences and finding new ones
06:50 Fragmentation, walled gardens, and identity challenges
08:50 How identity resolution tools are evolving
10:15 YouTube as a TV replacement and where it fits
12:53 YouTube in the upfront: TV bucket or something else?
14:47 Creators in upfront conversations and long-form episodic content
17:30 The premium creator economy and brand integrations
19:30 AI in media planning: what is changing day to day
22:00 AI agents running multiple plan scenarios at Carat
23:13 The next generation of media planners (AI and digital native)
25:30 Measurement challenges across platforms
27:30 Industry collaboration and lessons learned
28:42 Wrap up and Go Addressable sponsor message
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential, the creator marketing company that was acquired by Publicis in 2024. Since the acquisition, Influential has seen massive growth, also acquiring Captiv8 to build out a global offering combining technology, services, and measurement all in one place. Ryan and I dig into how brands are structuring their creator teams, why a center of excellence led by media is where the most success is happening, and how technology (especially brand safety tools) has become the non negotiable foundation for scaling influencer campaigns.
We also cover the measurement question that every marketer is asking: can you prove creator ROI? Ryan walks us through how MMMs are finally capturing creator value, why always on strategies beat tentpole campaigns, and how platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are each fighting for attention in different ways. We get into the AI question too, from "slop" concerns to the future of creator likeness licensing and NIL rights. Ryan makes the case that AI will transform the back end of the business (speed, sourcing, brand safety) long before it replaces human creators in the feed. Plus, Ryan shares why the greatest ROI often comes from 100 micro creators rather than one mega deal.
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Key Highlights🚀 Influential's Post Acquisition Growth: Since being acquired by Publicis in 2024, Influential has seen "massive multiples" of growth and also acquired Captiv8 to consolidate technology, measurement, and services into one global platform.
🛡️ Brand Safety as the Foundation: Ryan calls it the "Hippocratic Oath" of influencer marketing. With 15 million plus creators in their database, technology is essential for vetting creators across profanity, nudity, hate speech, and reputational risk before any campaign launches.
📊 Proving Creator ROI Through MMMs: Influencer marketing is a $35 billion TAM because it works. Ryan explains how media mix models are finally capturing creator value, and why brands need to break down creator spend by platform, paid vs. organic, and on vs. off social to get accurate measurement.
📺 The Platform Attention Wars: YouTube dominates long form because it pays creators the most. TikTok owns the meteoric rise. Instagram is aspirational. Meta is a messaging platform. Every platform has both a live strategy and a TV strategy, and all are competing for the same attention.
🤖 AI and Creator Content Transparency: AI is "not a dirty word" as long as it augments a real human. Ryan believes brands will embrace AI generated creator content only when NIL licensing ensures creators are compensated and consumers don't feel duped.
🎯 Micro Creators vs. Mega Deals: For brands with a $2 million budget, 100 targeted micro creators often outperform a single mega creator deal. Ryan compares it to buying one Super Bowl ad vs. going deep across cable networks.
🔄 Always On Beats Tentpole Campaigns: Brands that only activate around the Super Bowl, summer, and holidays are letting competitors eat their lunch in between. Long term creator partnerships drive both efficiency and authenticity.
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Resources & Next Steps🌐 Learn more about Influential
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
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Timestamps00:00 Cold open on creator marketing growth and AI
01:13 Meet Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential
02:07 Life after the Publicis acquisition
04:04 Where creator teams fit inside brand organizations
06:04 Technology's role in scaling influencer marketing
07:00 Brand safety as the non negotiable first step
08:52 Managing creator campaigns at scale
09:44 Proving creator ROI through measurement and MMMs
12:43 YouTube on TV and the platform attention wars
16:11 Micro vs. macro creators and where the real ROI lives
18:22 AI transparency and the slop problem
20:46 Creator likeness, NIL, and AI generated content
23:05 Episodic content and always on brand partnerships
25:04 The future of creator marketing in three to five years
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Adam Roodman, General Manager of Yahoo DSP, to talk about how Yahoo has quietly built one of the most compelling demand side platforms in the market. Adam walks through Yahoo's positioning in the ongoing DSP wars, why their identity graph and ConnectID solution give advertisers an edge in a world of increasing signal loss, and how the platform's deep roots in connected TV and live sports are creating new opportunities for performance marketers. We also get into Yahoo's massive supply path optimization efforts and why having fewer, higher quality paths to inventory is becoming a real differentiator.
Adam and I also dig into the rapidly evolving world of agentic AI in advertising and what it actually means today versus the hype. He shares Yahoo's perspective on the protocol debate between A2A and MCP, why data quality and content accuracy are table stakes for AI agents, and how Yahoo is building an "AI librarian" function to ensure agents can operate with the right context. We also explore how CTV inventory has exploded on the platform, why live sports are changing the addressable advertising landscape, and Adam's take on whether AI will truly reduce headcount or just shift how teams operate.
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Key Highlights🏆 Yahoo DSP in the DSP Wars: Adam explains why Yahoo is committed to the DSP business for the long haul, leveraging their unique combination of owned and operated properties, a massive identity graph, and deep integrations with premium supply.
🔐 Identity as a Competitive Moat: Yahoo's ConnectID and proprietary identity graph give advertisers access to durable, individual-based data across browsers, devices, and CTV, driving better performance in a signal-loss world.
📺 CTV and Live Sports Explosion: The amount of live sports on Yahoo's platform has doubled in nine months, and addressable, biddable premium CTV and audio inventory continues to surge, opening new opportunities for performance marketers.
🤖 Agentic AI and the Protocol Debate: Adam shares Yahoo's view on the A2A vs MCP protocol discussion, emphasizing that agentic AI is not a strategy in itself. It's about how you operate it and ensuring agents have access to accurate, contextual data.
📚 The AI Librarian Function: Yahoo is evolving from a "tech writer" approach to an "AI librarian" model, ensuring that content, documentation, and data fed into AI systems are high quality, accurate, and written with good context.
🔗 Supply Path Optimization at Scale: Yahoo has reduced tens of thousands of supply paths down to focused, high quality routes, improving auction dynamics and giving advertisers cleaner access to premium inventory.
⚡ AI Won't Replace Teams, It Will Reshape Them: Adam argues that AI adoption in advertising is less about replacing people and more about conviction and operational change, predicting that early movers will see compounding advantages.
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Resources & Next Steps🌐 Learn more about Yahoo DSP and ConnectID
🔗 Follow Adam Roodman on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
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YouTube Chapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open: identity, CTV, and agentic AI in advertising
01:46 IntentIQ ad: privacy-first identity resolution
02:10 Meet Adam Roodman, GM of Yahoo DSP
03:30 Yahoo's commitment to the DSP business
05:20 ConnectID and Yahoo's identity advantage
07:30 How identity drives better CTV performance
09:45 Live sports doubling on the platform
11:30 Supply path optimization and auction quality
13:40 The DSP wars and competitive positioning
16:00 Agentic AI: what it means today vs the hype
18:30 The A2A vs MCP protocol debate
20:45 Building the AI librarian function at Yahoo
23:00 Data quality as table stakes for AI agents
25:30 Will AI reduce headcount in advertising?
28:00 CTV inventory explosion and addressable audio
30:30 Advice for brands getting started with AI
33:00 Wrap up: Yahoo's Adam Roodman, Sabio, and IntentIQ
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Sam Garfield, Head of Digital Strategy for CMT Data and AI Platforms at Adobe, to explore how Adobe is quietly becoming the backbone of modern marketing. Sam breaks down how Adobe operates across three core layers: the creative layer (Creative Cloud and Firefly AI), the content supply chain layer (Workfront and asset management), and the data and experience layer (customer data platforms and analytics). Together, these tools form what Sam describes as an operating system for marketers -- a full-stack solution that takes a brand from ideation all the way through activation and measurement.
We also dig into the rise of creative intelligence and what it means for brands, agencies, and the future of advertising. Sam unpacks Adobe's Winterberry Group research showing a 23% increase in investment in creative intelligence, and explains why creative can no longer be treated as a fixed cost. We cover how generative AI is accelerating asset production at scale, why agencies are leaning into Adobe's platform rather than building from scratch, and how agentic AI is beginning to appear inside existing workflows. Sam also reveals that traffic to brand sites and publishers is down 40% as LLMs reshape discovery, and shares how Adobe's new LLM Optimizer tool is helping brands regain visibility in a generative search world.
Key Highlights🖥️ Adobe's Marketing Operating System: Sam breaks down how Adobe's three-layer platform -- creative, content supply chain, and data -- functions as an end-to-end OS for brands and agencies.
🤖 Generative AI and the Asset Scale Problem: Sam walks through the math problem facing global brands -- producing assets across formats, languages, and channels -- and why generative AI is the only scalable solution.
📊 Creative Intelligence Is the Next Frontier: Adobe's research with Winterberry Group found a 23% increase in creative intelligence investment -- and Sam explains why understanding why content performs is becoming as systematic as audience targeting.
🏢 Agencies Are Building on Top, Not From Scratch: Major holding companies are integrating Adobe into their proprietary platforms rather than building from scratch -- including a recently expanded WPP partnership.
🔍 LLMs Are Reshaping Brand Discovery: Adobe's research shows traffic to brand sites is down 40% as AI changes how consumers find information. Sam shares how Adobe's new LLM Optimizer helps brands monitor and improve their visibility inside AI-generated results.
⚡ Agentic AI Is Here but Still Early: There is no end-to-end agentic advertising solution yet. Adobe's approach is to embed agentic tools inside existing workflows so teams can get started without overhauling their entire operation.
Resources & Next Steps🌐 Explore Adobe's Marketing and AI Solutions
🔗 Follow Sam Garfield on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
YouTube Chapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open -- AI's impact on advertising and brand discovery
01:00 Mike introduces Sam Garfield and Adobe's role in ad tech
01:30 Sam's background and Adobe's history in advertising
02:00 Adobe's three-layer marketing platform explained
03:00 The 'operating system for marketers' concept
03:50 Who is Adobe's customer -- brands, agencies, or publishers?
04:20 The expanded WPP and agency partnership announcement
05:10 Where creative AI optimization stands today
05:40 The asset scale math problem facing global brands
06:20 Laying the generative AI foundation for creative
07:10 From production efficiency to intelligent automation
08:00 Precor creative intelligence and variation at scale
08:40 How conservative vs. progressive brands approach AI
09:10 Adobe Firefly and legally obtained training data
09:40 Workflow integration as the real barrier to adoption
10:10 Humans as creatives, AI as the production layer
10:50 How Adobe fits alongside platform-native AI tools
11:30 Why CMOs won't hand over full creative control to platforms
13:30 Adobe's Winterberry Group creative intelligence research
14:00 Creative as a performance driver, not a fixed cost
14:30 The 23% increase in creative intelligence investment
15:00 Where creative intelligence works -- display, social, CTV
15:30 Early findings and the testing and learning phase
16:10 Are creative agencies threatened or empowered by AI?
16:30 How major holding companies are building on Adobe's OS
17:10 Automating rote work to free up strategic creative thinking
18:20 Creative AI and media buying converging
19:00 Data and creative intelligence coming together at Adobe
19:40 The future of always-on marketing vs. campaign flights
20:20 The network operations center vision for marketing
21:00 Agentic AI in advertising -- where things actually stand
21:30 Adobe's approach to building agentic tools inside workflows
22:00 What agentic audience pulling looks like in practice
22:30 The future of media agencies in an algorithmic world
23:10 People doing higher-value strategic work, not less work
23:40 How brands are showing up inside LLMs
24:00 Adobe's research -- traffic to brand sites down 40%
24:30 Introducing the LLM Optimizer tool
25:00 Structuring content for generative engine optimization
25:40 Will search ad budgets shift to LLM visibility strategies?
26:20 The unknown future of advertising inside AI-generated results
27:10 Wrap-up -- the fulfillment of advertising's long-promised future
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Philip Inghelbrecht, Co-Founder and CEO of Tatari, to unpack why one of the most innovative companies in TV advertising has built its entire thesis on a contrarian idea: that programmatic CTV is the wrong tool for most of the television market. Philip walks through how Tatari operates as a full infrastructure holding company, combining a demand-side platform, a supply-side solution called Upstream, and a privacy and identity layer called Vault. From day one, Tatari has argued that unlike display advertising, connected TV is dominated by a small number of premium publishers, and that automating around them rather than through open exchanges is the smarter path forward.
Philip breaks down the $30 billion US CTV market, explaining how roughly half flows through programmatic channels and how up to half of that programmatic slice is fraud or low-quality inventory. The premium inventory that actually drives results, including sports, tentpole events, and top-tier streaming placements, lives almost entirely outside programmatic pipes and has historically required massive budgets and manual negotiation to access. That is exactly the gap Upstream was designed to close. By building custom, direct integrations with the five biggest TV publishers, including Disney, Warner Bros., NBCUniversal, and Paramount, Tatari has automated that direct buying process end to end, giving a much broader range of brands access to premium TV inventory without sacrificing pricing control, brand safety, or transparency.
Key Highlights📡 Programmatic CTV Is Built on the Wrong Foundation: Philip explains why the SSP/DSP model designed for display advertising is a poor fit for connected TV, where 90% of streaming impressions come from the same top 10 publishers and the most valuable inventory never appears in an open exchange.
💰 The $30 Billion Reality Check: Of the roughly $30 billion US CTV market, about $15 billion flows through programmatic. Philip reveals that up to half of that programmatic pool is fraud or low-quality supply, meaning only $7 to $8 billion represents genuinely premium inventory.
🚀 Upstream Brings Automation to Direct TV Deals: Tatari spent nearly two years building one-to-one tech integrations with Disney, Warner Bros., NBCUniversal, and Paramount, enabling fully automated direct buys that preserve the brand safety and pricing control of traditional direct sales while eliminating manual overhead.
📺 Premium TV Is Now Within Reach for More Brands: Upstream shifts TV advertising from a big-budget brand privilege to something accessible to a much broader set of advertisers. Brands that never could have accessed premium placements now have a real path in, and early publisher partners have already seen doubled transaction volume during the test period.
🤖 AI in TV Advertising Has Promise But Real Limits: Philip is measured about AI's near-term impact on TV. He sees immediate wins in automating creative pre-approval and longer-term potential in data-driven yield optimization for publishers, but pushes back on the idea that AI will quickly transform the TV creative production process.
Resources & Next Steps🔗 Follow Philip Inghelbrecht on LinkedIn
🌐 Explore Tatari
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
Chapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open - the programmatic CTV reality check
01:18 Introducing Philip Inghelbrecht and Tatari
01:58 Tatari's three-product infrastructure stack explained
03:30 Why programmatic does not fit connected TV
05:00 The problem with SSP aggregation in a concentrated market
06:17 How Upstream was born from supply-side tech
07:22 Breaking down the $30 billion CTV market
08:06 Half of programmatic CTV is fraud or low quality
09:44 Building direct integrations with Disney, Warner, NBCU, Paramount
10:17 How automation benefits publishers and speeds up transactions
11:45 Doubling volume with early publisher partners
12:28 Is TV right for SMBs? Philip's honest take
13:47 Where Upstream takes the market next
15:00 Using first-party data to drive higher publisher yield
16:21 Programmatic still has a role, just not the biggest one
17:17 What Dentsu and WPP's open path retreat signals
18:26 Will the walled gardens ever join Upstream?
18:52 What changes for existing Tatari advertisers
20:00 AI and the future of TV advertising
22:11 AI creative tools: impressive but still five days of editing
22:56 AI for creative pre-approval: what works today
24:16 First-party data capture is harder than it looks
25:36 Measurement, look-alike audiences, and machine learning loops
26:13 Closing thought - the biggest TV inventory is not in programmatic
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In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Leanne Perice, founder and CEO of Made by All, one of the creator economy's most distinctive talent management firms. Leanne shares how she built the company from the ground up over nine years, starting with a single $1,000 deal in 2014 and growing it into a global powerhouse that doubles revenue year over year. She explains how her early career at a celebrity endorsement agency gave her the blueprint for what great talent management looks like, and how she applied those lessons to an entirely new generation of digital creators. From signing Vine stars before the term 'creator economy' even existed, to opening a new office in Dubai, Leanne has built Made by All on the belief that creators deserve the same strategic investment as Hollywood's biggest names.
Leanne also introduces her framework DASI (Distribution, Attention, Storytelling, and Impact) to explain what creators truly offer brands, and why so many marketers are still only tapping into the first letter. She opens up about the CMO turnover crisis slowing momentum in the creator space, why she launched Made by Us as a social storytelling studio, and why she believes YouTube's long-form monetization is the best opportunity in the market right now. She also gives her take on platforms like YouTube and TikTok brokering brand deals directly, the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley financial models, and what brands still get wrong about building a presence on social media. This episode is a must-listen for anyone at the intersection of media, marketing, and the creator economy.
Key Highlights 🚀 From $1,000 to Global: Leanne closed her first creator deal in 2014 for just $1,000. By 2015 to 2017, those deals were stacking to $10K, $15K, and $25K a week. Today, Made by All doubles its revenue annually and has just opened its first international office in Dubai. 🎯 The DASI Framework: Leanne coined the term DASI to capture the four things creators offer brands: Distribution, Attention, Storytelling, and Impact. She argues most brands stop at the 'D' and miss the deeper value creators can deliver when treated as true partners rather than just reach vehicles. 🎬 Creator Hollywood: While streaming platforms like Tubi and Netflix are building bridges toward creators, Made by All is betting on the reverse: bringing Hollywood-level IP and infrastructure to the creator world. Leanne describes this as 'Creator Hollywood,' a model she has been building the financial and conceptual vision for over the past eight months. 📣 The CMO Turnover Problem: Leanne points to constant executive turnover at major brands as one of the biggest obstacles to sustained creator partnerships. Her solution is relationship-first thinking, including getting creators in the room with senior brand teams and building personal connections that outlast any single campaign or budget cycle. 📺 Betting Big on YouTube: Leanne is pushing all of her clients toward long-form content on YouTube, calling it the best monetization opportunity in the creator space today. With more ad slots per video and growing ad revenue, she sees YouTube's long-form model as the foundation for sustainable creator businesses, especially as the platform increasingly dominates living room screens. 💡 Made by Us: Leanne's newest venture inside Made by All is a social storytelling studio that positions top creators as creative directors for brands. Rather than just placing clients in sponsorship deals, Made by Us helps brands develop viral content strategies, serialized IP, and stronger owned social platforms using the expertise of creators who understand audiences from the inside out. 🏆 The Power of the Collective: One of Leanne's standout success stories involves six Made by All clients who traveled to Las Vegas for a UFC fight with Paramount. They fulfilled their individual contracts, then spontaneously created one extra post together just for fun. That single unplanned post generated over 1.5 million likes, 30 million views, and 20,000 comments in the first 48 hours.Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Follow Leanne Perice on LinkedIn 🌐 Explore Made by All 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple PodcastsChapter Timestamps00:00 Cold open: Creator economy and building household names
00:53 Intro: Mike sets up the episode
01:00 Meet Leanne Perice and Made by All
01:32 The origin story: nine years and one thesis
02:20 What makes Made by All different from a talent agency
03:10 Holistic creator management: more than just deals
04:30 Leanne's career path: from middle school dream to Hollywood
05:20 First job at a celebrity endorsement agency
05:50 Signing Vine stars before 'creator economy' was a term
06:10 The first $1,000 deal and stacking to $25K a week
07:00 How marketers have evolved in dealing with creators
07:40 Introducing the DASI framework
08:00 Made by Us: creators as creative directors for brands
09:00 Brand spend and the challenge of executive turnover
09:40 Going global: opening the Dubai office
11:10 Hollywood vs. creator economy: two separate financial models
11:50 Building the bridge to Creator Hollywood
12:40 Why Hollywood is still holding on but change is coming
13:20 Alarming speed of the creator world vs. legacy media
14:10 Brokering brand deals: management vs. agents
15:00 Cold calling and building brand relationships since 2014
15:50 Weekly email blasts to 5,000 brands and agencies
16:30 Why management has an edge over agents in the creator space
16:50 Streamlining brand deals with AI and tools like KOMI
18:00 When creators should lead the creative brief
19:00 The Made by Us social storytelling incubator
19:30 CMO turnover and the need for relationship-first brand strategy
20:00 How intentional creator relationships unlock better campaigns
21:00 Success story: UFC fight with Paramount, 30 million views
22:00 Qatar Airlines, Abu Dhabi, and global creator deals
22:20 The NFL's creator-first approach as a model for brands
23:00 YouTube and TikTok brokering deals internally
23:40 What Leanne wants to see improved: local and global platform metrics
25:00 YouTube's rise in the living room and long-form monetization
25:40 Pushing creators toward long-form content strategy
26:20 TikTok and Instagram moving into TV: will it work?
27:00 Short form on TV vs. the intentional social media experience
27:30 What brands still get wrong about social media
28:00 Closing thoughts and final takeaway
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In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down live at the Kochava Summit in Sandpoint, Idaho, with Charles Manning, founder and CEO of Kochava. We go deep on one of the most pressing questions facing the industry right now: how profound is the shift to agentic advertising and AI-driven workflows? Charles argues it is not a decade-long evolution like programmatic was. It is breathtakingly faster, and the companies that understand how to use their first-party data as a competitive kernel, rather than leaking it to the walled gardens, are the ones that will come out ahead. He draws a compelling analogy: if programmatic changed the auction, AI is about to change the workflow.
We also dig into Kochava's CTV journey, from its mobile app roots to building measurement tools adopted by LG, Samsung, Vizio, and Roku, and how the view-and-do combo between the TV screen and the mobile device is creating powerful new outcome-based measurement opportunities for brands. Charles breaks down what holding companies should fear (and fix), why the ad tech supply chain is due for serious consolidation, and why he predicts a wave of take-privates and roll-ups followed by a bonanza of public offerings over the next two years. He also introduces Station One, Kochava's integrative AI hub that acts like a Slack for AI workflows, designed to help teams transform how they work without giving up control of their data.
Key Highlights:⚡ AI vs. Programmatic: Charles explains why the shift to agentic advertising is moving breathtakingly faster than programmatic did. While programmatic took over a decade to fully reshape the auction, AI is set to transform the entire workflow within the next 16 months.
🔒 Protect Your Data: Charles identifies the two biggest risks brands face in the AI era. First, leaking proprietary data to platforms like Meta and making them smarter without benefiting your own organization. Second, failing to develop a unique "how" that cannot be replicated when everyone has access to the same AI tools.
📺 CTV Measurement Evolution: Kochava's Atlas Performance product now powers CTV measurement for LG, Samsung, Vizio, and Roku by connecting the view on the television screen with the action on the mobile device, giving brands a clear picture of real business outcomes from their CTV spend.
🤖 Station One, a Slack for AI: Charles introduces Kochava's Station One platform, an integrative AI hub that lets teams connect models, codify skills, build knowledge bases, and containerize workflows into shareable workspaces, all while keeping data ownership firmly in the hands of the brand.
📉 Ad Tech Consolidation Is Coming: Charles predicts a significant collapse in the ad tech supply chain, with SSPs and DSPs already moving into each other's territory. He also foresees a wave of take-privates and roll-ups over the next 16 months, as companies use the cover of private ownership to restructure for the AI era, followed by a major IPO bonanza.
💼 The Future Workforce: As AI handles more of the analytical grunt work, Charles argues the most valuable skill in the industry is shifting away from data science and toward clear communication. The ability to articulate your goals to an AI model is becoming the defining talent of the next generation of media professionals.
Resources & Next Steps:🌐 Explore Kochava and learn more about Atlas Performance and Station One
🔗 Follow Charles Manning on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
Chapter Timestamps:00:00 Cold open - AI disruption and the next 16 months
01:00 Welcome and introducing Charles Manning of Kochava
01:20 Revisiting a past conversation and what has changed
01:45 Setting the stage - agentic advertising and the metaverse PTSD problem
02:20 The next decade is really the next 16 months
03:10 How fast is this vs. the programmatic shift?
03:50 MCP, APIs, and how AI wraps the workflow
05:20 Machine learning from reach optimization to business outcomes
06:10 From post-campaign briefs to real-time workflow automation
07:20 Why big platforms like Meta and Google got even stronger with AI
08:00 The two biggest risks brands face in the AI era
09:00 The "how" is as important as the "what" - competitive differentiation
09:50 Can agencies avoid being commoditized by AI?
10:20 Vertical AI and why domain expertise matters
12:00 Measurement as an odometer vs. measurement as a decision engine
13:20 The racing clutch analogy - agile measurement for agile goals
14:00 Who fills the seats next? The shift from data scientists to communicators
15:00 Tasks that get reallocated and skills that become more valuable
16:00 How far away is autonomous agentic media buying?
16:30 Guardrails, budget constraints, and agent managers
17:10 Introducing Station One - Kochava's AI workflow hub
18:10 How teams transition from human workflows to AI-assisted execution
19:00 Kochava's CTV journey - from mobile app roots to the living room
20:10 The 80-inch mobile device and why OEMs saw the pattern
21:20 Why OEMs pushed back and how Atlas Performance was born
22:10 LG, Samsung, Vizio, Roku - how they became Kochava customers
23:00 Is CTV performance TV? How should we measure it?
23:40 The view-and-do combo - TV impressions and mobile actions
24:10 QSR and loyalty programs - CTV driving real consumer behavior
25:00 Why AI optimization has not hit CTV the way it has Meta and Google
26:00 Station One as the connective tissue for CTV and the broader ecosystem
27:20 Will more ad dollars flow to television? Charles says yes, and soon
28:30 Audience Q&A - how to prove CTV incrementality to your CFO
29:00 The Machine Zone story and what it taught Charles about media mix
31:30 Why media mix modeling finally works in the AI era
32:10 What happens to ad tech? The daisy chain gets disrupted
33:00 SSPs and DSPs are already moving into each other's territory
34:00 More money in media, less ad tax - where the dollars go next
35:00 Premium inventory, exclusive access, and the sports betting parallel
36:10 IO-level programmatic guaranteed - a bold prediction
37:00 The biggest obstacle ahead - take-privates, roll-ups, and an IPO bonanza
38:30 Wrap-up and closing thoughts
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This week on Next in Media, I sat down with Matt Spiegel, EVP of Marketing Solutions Growth Strategies at TransUnion, to unpack one of the most pressing questions in advertising right now: what's actually changed since cookies started disappearing and privacy laws started piling up? And just as importantly, what hasn't changed? Matt brings a refreshingly practical perspective to the conversation, explaining how disconnected data infrastructure remains the biggest obstacle for most brands, even as everyone races to adopt AI-powered marketing. He breaks down why walled gardens still have an inherent advantage, how signal loss is forcing marketers to rethink their strategies, and why the industry's obsession with the "easy button" might be holding progress back.
We also tackled some uncomfortable truths about where the industry is headed. Matt shared his thoughts on agentic advertising and whether bots will really replace media planners, the noisy MarTech landscape that's overwhelming CMOs, and why he believes the next economic downturn could trigger massive layoffs in marketing and advertising. Throughout our conversation, Matt emphasized that while the tools and technology are evolving rapidly, the fundamentals of good marketing haven't changed. It's about understanding your customers, connecting your data, and applying that intelligence at scale. This is a conversation for anyone trying to make sense of the chaos in modern marketing, wondering how to navigate identity resolution in a post-cookie world, or just trying to figure out which AI tools are actually worth the hype.
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Key Highlights🔌 The Infrastructure Problem: Most brands lack connected data ecosystems. Their CRM, transaction records, and marketing databases exist in silos, making it nearly impossible to achieve the precision marketing everyone's chasing.
🏰 Walled Gardens Still Win: Large platforms have a scaled, dimensional view of consumers that few brands can match. The "easy button" appeal is real, but it comes at the cost of transparency and cross-platform measurement.
🤖 AI Won't Replace Humans (Yet): Agentic advertising is coming and will automate significant portions of media buying, but Matt believes we'll keep humans in the loop. The idea that bots will fully control everything is overdone, at least for now.
📊 Data Hygiene Still Matters: Simple things like ensuring "Matt" and "Matthew" are recognized as the same person remain real obstacles. Many organizations are still working through basic data cleaning before they can even think about advanced AI applications.
📉 Layoffs Are Coming: Matt predicts the next economic downturn will trigger massive job losses in marketing and advertising as automation takes over manual tasks. New roles will emerge, but there will be a painful transition period.
📈 The Measurement Mess: Between attribution debates, walled garden metrics, and inconsistent cross-platform views, CMOs are struggling to prove ROI. The complexity isn't just technical, it's political inside organizations.
🎯 Outcomes Over Tactics: Despite all the noise around cookies, signal loss, and AI, the fundamentals haven't changed. Great marketing still comes down to understanding consumers holistically and applying that intelligence strategically.
⚡ It's a Noisy Time: Marketers are juggling CIOs demanding new tech, CFOs questioning results, platforms promising exclusive deals, and measurement reports that don't add up. It's chaotic, but navigable with the right analytical mindset.
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Resources & Next Steps🌐 Learn more about TransUnion Marketing Solutions
🔗 Follow Matt Spiegel on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
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YouTube Chapter Timestamps00:00 Intro -- Consumer insights and AI limitations
00:35 The complexity of modern marketing
01:00 Episode introduction and Matt Spiegel
01:34 Where we are in the identity and data landscape
02:15 The marketer's challenge -- Disconnected data
03:45 Why data infrastructure is the core problem
05:20 The reality of data hygiene issues
06:30 Signal loss and privacy regulations
07:45 Platform advantages in identity resolution
09:10 Walled gardens vs transparency
11:00 The programmatic ecosystem revisited
12:40 How agencies are investing in data capabilities
14:20 The measurement and attribution challenge
16:00 AI's impact on marketing decisions
17:30 Why consumer insights still matter
18:45 The current state of MarTech noise
20:15 Startup consolidation and hype cycles
21:50 Will agentic advertising replace media planners?
23:20 Keeping humans in the loop
24:40 The coming wave of marketing layoffs
26:10 New opportunities emerging from automation
27:30 The complexity brands face daily
28:50 CMO tenure and pressure
29:40 Final thoughts and wrap-up
- Visa fler
