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What if the app you grew up watching PBS on is actually one of the most sophisticated digital platforms in media — serving 400 to 500 million streams a month on a fraction of the budget of its competitors? Ira Rubenstein, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at PBS, pulls back the curtain on how a 50-year-old public media institution is navigating the AI era, fighting for its financial future, and rethinking what it means to reach audiences in a world where the app itself might soon disappear. In this episode, Ira explores how PBS built a federated digital infrastructure serving 300 local stations, pioneered frictionless giving with a 12% conversion rate, and is using generative AI to make content discovery smarter. He also gets candid about what terrifies him as a marketer and what excites him as a technologist.
This is a conversation about leading transformation inside a mission-driven organization, building for scale without losing the local, and why the future of public media might depend on getting the right content to the right person at the right moment — before someone else's AI does it first.
Key Quotes
On AI replacing the app entirely:
"This whole notion of an app, I can see a possibility where that goes away and now you're just having conversations with your Gemini-powered television on what you might want to watch."
On the marketer's paradox with AI:
"As a marketer, that terrifies me, but also it excites me as a technology person of like, Okay, how can we leverage this more and bring our content more?"
On PBS being an underestimated digital giant:
"I do feel like we're the biggest digital secret, we're really a digital powerhouse. No different than anyone else, just on a much, much smaller budget."
On the power of frictionless giving:
"The conversion rate when someone hits that donate page is 12%, and anyone who knows anything about e-commerce knows that 12% you would kill for."
On leading transformation inside a complex organization:
"You have to be tenacious. You're going to get ‘no’ a lot. You just have to keep pushing in a way where you can have small wins and demonstrate what you're doing is actually helping and bring the data to back that up."
Episode Timestamps
00:36 Meet Ira Rubenstein — the man turning a 50-year-old broadcaster into a digital powerhouse
01:54 The defunding of public media and why PBS isn't going anywhere
03:07 PBS's best-kept secret: 400–500 million streams a month
05:06 Building a digital strategy from scratch, consumer-first at scale
06:37 Using AWS, Bedrock, and gen AI to power content discovery across 300 stations
08:42 One Click giving: the 12% conversion rate that e-commerce would envy
11:14 Growing the brand in a fragmented media landscape
13:42 Accessibility as a core value: deaf advocacy and ASL on kids' shows
15:47 What's next: AI, tenacity, and advice for enterprise transformation leaders
Links
Connect with Ira Rubenstein on LinkedIn
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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For enterprise marketing leaders, the challenge isn't just executing campaigns—it's proving their value to the CFO. In this episode, Kay Vizon, Media Director at Kroger, reveals how the retail giant manages engagement for 11 million daily customers by treating their mobile app as the anchor for omnichannel growth.
Kay breaks down her rigorous measurement framework, explaining why Kroger moved from annual models to 4-week Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) readouts to pivot spend in real-time. She also candidly discusses the "language barrier" between marketing and finance, the reality of enterprise AI adoption, and why she defends a 60/40 brand-to-performance split to drive long-term customer value.
Key Quotes
On the always-on nature of grocery media:
"We are on all the time. We are doing all media channels, offsite media channels, traditional and digital. We are live always."
On the power of first-party data:
"We know our customers incredibly well. They're shopping with us weekly, sometimes twice, sometimes three times a week — so we have a really good view into their preferences."
On balancing brand and performance:
"If you've got both happening simultaneously, that is the key to unlock long-term growth for a brand. We've tried to strike the balance of a 60/40 blend — 60% towards brand awareness, 40% towards short-term performance tactics."
On the language gap between marketing and finance:
"Marketing people — we get very caught up in our own language. The way we measure things is constantly changing, and so it kind of makes it hard for us to communicate to the rest of our organization or our finance team."
On creative as an untapped growth lever:
"We're reaching the right person on the right channels at the right time — we should absolutely be doing everything we can to make sure that the messaging we're putting in front of them is the best messaging we can possibly put out."
On the foundation required for speed and agility:
"In order to move with the speed and agility that our businesses require today, you've gotta make sure your foundational house is in shape — your data, your ad tech, your measurement systems are all in a good place."
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Why speed and agility rely on "foundational data" health
03:59 - The Scale: Servicing 11 million customers every single day and the data advantage that creates
05:02 - Refreshing the 15-year-old app to unify pharmacy, coupons, and shopping lists
10:11 - How inflation drives loyal customers to check competitor prices in the aisle via mobile
16:07 - The Strategy: Applying Les Binet’s "Long and Short of It" (60/40 split) to balance brand equity with immediate sales
20:56 - How to stop using "marketing language" and start using "finance language"
24:00 - Moving from annual/biannual measurement to 4-week MMM readouts for real-time optimization
30:24 - AI Reality Check: Why data governance and security are the biggest hurdles to Generative AI in the enterprise
Links
Connect with Kay Vizon on LinkedIn
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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What happens when you decide not to advertise during the Super Bowl — and your campaigns spend $20,000 anyway? In this live episode recorded at AppsFlyer's MAMA San Francisco 2026, Brian Quinn sits down with marketing leaders from TickPick, Fubo, and Reddit to pressure-test the modern playbook against the biggest moments in sports.
The conversation moves fast across three very different vantage points: the marketplace selling the ticket, the streamer delivering the broadcast, and the community platform where fans actually talk about what they just watched. Along the way, the panel digs into why marketing FOMO can cost more than it returns, why late-game subscribers are surprisingly sticky, how a US men's hockey gold medal moved NHL ticket sales overnight, and why 20,000 different communities can be talking about the same Super Bowl at the same time.
Whether or not live sports is part of your strategy, this episode is a practical look at how to show up in high-intensity moments, find the human truth inside a tentpole event, and turn spikes of attention into durable customer relationships.
Key QuotesOn finding the human truth in tentpole moments:
"These large tentpole events from sports and entertainment are sort of like the last tribal experiences. Your message will resonate if you can connect on a more human level rather than a marketing and performance level."
— Matt Ferrel, TickPick
On marketing FOMO:
"Marketers feel that FOMO too… and the avoidance of marketing FOMO can bite you way harder than it can be a benefit."
— Matt Ferrel, TickPick
On Reddit as the search layer for live events:
"Reddit is added to a Google search 250 times a second. A lot of that activity around sports is planning for how and when to watch."
— DJ Capobianco, Reddit
On communities vs. audiences:
"Over 20,000 communities talked about the Super Bowl on the day of. Communities are different from audiences — they have shared understanding, shared boundaries, shared rules."
— DJ Capobianco, Reddit
On mobile as the entry point:
"No matter the differences between users or how they view the content, the acquisition always starts on mobile."
— Vincent Eterlet, Fubo
On choosing not to advertise the Super Bowl:
"We knew users who wanted to watch the Super Bowl were going to come on their own — and retention was going to be low. So we decided not to advertise it."
— Vincent Eterlet, Fubo
On riding cultural moments instead of creating them:
"It's a lot easier to ride a wave than to create a wave."
— Matt Ferrel, TickPick
On moving from commerce to connection:
"A big focus for us is to pull ourselves out of just the commerce moment and into the connection moment — speaking the fans' language."
— Matt Ferrel, TickPick
Episode Timestamps01:21 - Meet the panel: ticketing, streaming, and community
04:19 - Inside TickPick's Super Bowl: speaking the fan's language
05:05 - Why Fubo chose to sit out Super Bowl advertising — and spent $20K anyway
06:47 - Reddit's fandom flywheel: always-on community engagement
08:19 - Marketing FOMO: when the pressure to show up backfires
11:16 - How consumer behavior shifts across screens during live events
12:27 - The late-game subscriber: why last-minute sign-ups stick
14:00 - Reddit + search: 250 times a second
17:12 - Riding the cultural wave: hockey gold and the US/Canada split
18:51 - Treating the World Cup like a full season
21:50 - Rapid fire: what NOT to do at your next tentpole moment
23:25 - Beyond sports: applying live-event thinking to any tentpole
LinksConnect with Matt Ferrel on LinkedIn
Connect with Vincent Eterlet on LinkedIn
Connect with DJ Capobianco on LinkedIn
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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What if your app wasn't just a shopping tool — it was a storytelling platform that deepened customer relationships? Ian Dewar, who shaped customer experience strategies at The North Face, Anthropologie, and across the VF family of brands, makes a compelling case for rethinking how apps serve customers. In this episode, he explores how leading retailers have transformed their apps from transaction engines into discovery platforms: from rewarding customers for hiking national parks instead of just spending money, to pioneering "in-store mode" that bridges digital wishlists with physical retail, to using curated personalization that introduces customers to products they didn't know the brand even made.
This is a deep dive into building brand affinity, using behavioral data to drive frequency over acquisition, and what it actually means to make an app worth opening — not just for checkout, but for connection.
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On customer frequency vs. acquisition:
“The metric for growth for established and mature retailers is not customer acquisition. It's customer frequency."
"We don't want to sell people product they're not going to use."
On the app being a brand extension:
“By creating these other engagement opportunities on the app, it becomes that brand extension versus mobile web or desktop.”
On apps sitting at the center of the omnichannel experience:
“Apps should have visibility to everything you've bought in the store, online, everything that's sitting in your cart, what's in your wishlist.”
On the app as a discovery tool:
"The future of where apps really add value is this ability to intertwine content, storytelling, brand messaging with the ease to product discovery."
On personalization done right:
"It's not marketing gobbledygook to trick people into buying things they don't need. It's really adding to utility."
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Episode Timestamps
01:28 From bike tours to The North Face — Ian's unconventional journey into retail
03:43 National Parks check-in: Rewarding exploration, not just transactions
06:35 Getting internal buy-in when the ROI isn't immediate
09:34 How the app became the hub for better customers
12:17 In-store mode: Making the app work inside physical store
14:37 The jeans problem: Why omnichannel data silos still break the customer experience
16:59 App strategy — quality over quantity in user acquisition
19:12 Frequency over acquisition — the growth metric that actually matters
21:17 Becoming the brand of choice, not just a consideration
24:48 The future of discovery — curated personalization vs. frictionless checkout
27:56 Using behavioral data to show customers what they didn't know you made
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Links
Connect with Ian Dewar on LinkedIn
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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What if your app wasn't a sales channel — it was your face to the customer? Stephane Godoy, who leads eCommerce and digitization at KFC, has spent years proving exactly that across a complex, multi-market, franchise-operated footprint. In this episode, he breaks down how KFC turned its app into a relationship engine: from the moment leadership stopped seeing mobile as a cost and started seeing it as the connective tissue between every other channel, to running 70+ simultaneous personalized campaigns, to using AI to discover that the restaurant — not the app — was driving customer churn.
This is a masterclass in change management, behavioral data, and what it actually means to build loyalty without leaning on discounts.
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On what the app actually is:
"Stop seeing the app as a sales channel. It's what connects every other channel you have. It becomes the heart of it."
On app design philosophy:
"It's not about the speed to checkout. It's the speed to confidence."
On loyalty programs:
"Loyalty is not about discounts. Loyalty is a way of creating behaviors in our customers."
On personalization:
"Once you understand that personalization is not about surveillance — it's about service — the game changes."
On the closing philosophy:
"Stop thinking in channels. Start thinking in relationships."
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Episode Timestamps
→ 00:00 — Cold Open: The Confidence Problem
→ 01:34 — What Mobile First Actually Means Inside a Business
→ 03:29 — The Moment KFC Leadership Took the App Seriously
→ 05:46 — Designing for Context, Not Pages
→ 07:37 — Why Loyalty Is Not About Discounts
→ 09:31 — Personalization: The Abandoned Cart Family Example
→ 12:07 — Running 70–100 Campaigns Simultaneously With Data
→ 15:10 — The AI Chatbot Flop (And What They Learned)
→ 16:31 — When the Restaurant Is Causing the Churn, Not the App
→ 19:02 — Connecting Intent Before Arrival: What's Next
→ 19:55 — Final Advice: Stop Thinking in Channels
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Featured Resource
AppsFlyer recently published The Omnichannel Business Advantage — a practical playbook for connecting channels, measuring real impact, and scaling app-led growth. It covers the four-value-stream ROI model Stephane references (direct revenue, influenced revenue, operational savings, and lifetime value lift), the behavioral intelligence framework, and a 90-day proof-of-value sprint you can run inside your organization.
→ Download the playbook
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Links
Connect with Stephane Godoy on LinkedIn
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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David LoPresti reveals how U-Haul's Moving Help program grew from $30M to $190M by reimagining their mobile app as a profit engine. In this episode, discover U-Haul's strategic focus on customer lifetime value, their approach to cross channel marketing attribution, and why their analytics-driven strategy leads them to benchmark against Starbucks rather than industry competitors.
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On anticipating customer needs:
“ Now I know that if the user opens up the app and they don't have a truck reserved, and I know that this particular customer moved 10 months ago, so they're likely in an apartment and they're moving two months later, now is my opportunity to make sure that this customer is in the frame of mind that this is the thing that they're likely to need. So how do I make it accessible to them without them having to search for it? And I think that's ultimately what we're trying to do is anticipate what the customer's trying to find and just put it front and center in front of them so they don't have to search for it.”
On presenting the right services at the right moment:
“ You have truck rental, you have self storage, you have labor, you have boxes. You have all these individual business units that of course are laser focused on their individual piece of that pile. But the reality is is that customer is moving across multiple product lines. There's a flow and there's a balance of when these things need to be presented. Those recommendations and those things were presented need to be rooted in an actual data-driven source. I am offering this or am I presenting this piece of information or this product or service at this point in time because the data reflects that.”
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Episode Timestamps:
*(01:50): David's 21-Year Journey at U-Haul
*(03:15): How U-Haul transformed the rental experience with self-service mobile access
*(06:45): Why U-Haul prioritizes customer lifetime value over acquisition
*(09:05): Mining first-party data to understand behavior and anticipate needs
*(12:16): A new homescreen experience that presents the right information at the right time
*(17:30): Lessons learned
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Links:
Connect with David LoPresti on LinkedIn
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Your customer’s home screen, it’s the most valuable real estate in the digital world. So why let it go to waste?
Home Screen Advantage is the podcast for enterprise leaders who know mobile isn’t just another channel. It’s the front line of loyalty, growth, and long-term customer value. Hosted by Brian Quinn, President and GM at AppsFlyer.
In each episode, he sits down with decision-makers behind today’s most effective mobile strategies. You’ll learn about how the best apps tap into consumer habits to drive growth, turn engagement into real revenue, and the role apps play in this new AI era.
Want to know how iconic brands are winning on mobile? We’ve got the playbook.
Home Screen Advantage. Get on the home screen. Get in the game.
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Links
Connect with Brian Quinn on LinkedIn
Learn more about AppsFlyer
Learn more about Caspian Studios
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
