Ad Age Ad Lib
Ad Lib features unscripted conversations with some of the biggest personalities in media and marketing, speaking off the cuff with Ad Age editors and reporters. The goal here is to do away with spin and jargon, and get to know some of the more influential and innovative people in this space — and understand the humans behind the titles.
Wed, December 16, 2020
Why Rick Astley is never gonna give up snacks or drums
The 80s pop star takes a break from shooting a Frito-Lay commercial to discuss the music industry, becoming a meme, and what he's been up to during the pandemic.
Fri, December 11, 2020
How The Lincoln Project’s endless stream of viral ads were actually made (in record time)
Ben Howe of Howe Creative, one of The Lincoln Project’s key video collaborators, on the making of ‘Mourning in America’—and what it takes to go viral
Thu, December 03, 2020
Behind Hendrick's Gin's quirky ad approach
On this week's episode of Ad Lib, E.J. Schultz is joined by Harvey Purchese, senior VP of marketing at liquor marketer William Grant & Sons. We get behind Hendrick's quirky ad approach, which has included stunts like the " Hendrick’s High Wheel,” a decidedly old-fashioned exercise bike. It's part of the brand’s Luddite marketing shtick, which has included the Horatio, a “somewhat smart” speaker and the Hendrick’s Streaming Service, which consists of videos of actual streams— yes, running water.
Tue, November 24, 2020
Behind Calm's unexpected Election Night win
In this week's episode Ad Age's Jeanine Poggi is joined by Katie Shill, senior director of brand marketing at Calm. The meditation app won election night with its sponsorship of CNN’s “Key Race” alerts, encouraging viewers to take a break and find a moment of calm. Shill discusses how the sponsorship came together, results of the buy and how the meditation company plans to sustain the momentum moving into 2021.
Thu, November 19, 2020
How Activision Blizzard found success amid a global pandemic
On this week's episode of Ad Age Ad Lib, senior editor Jeanine Poggi speaks with Brandon Snow, senior VP, chief revenue officer, esports, Activision Blizzard. Pandemic lockdowns were a boon for esports, with viewers flocking to gaming as other live sports and entertainment were shut down. Activision Blizzard was one of the benefactors of the pandemic, garnering impressive momentum around its leagues, including the inaugural season of the Call of Duty league.
Thu, November 12, 2020
How streaming news channels made their mark in the 2020 election
On this week's episode of Ad Age Ad Lib, senior editor Jeanine Poggi speaks with Christy Tanner, executive VP and general manager of CBS News Digital, and Elaine Quijano, anchor, CBSN, about the state of the streaming news marketplace.
Wed, November 04, 2020
How to not miss the mark in multicultural marketing
Senior editor Jeanine Poggi and agency reporter Lindsay Rittenhouse, speak with industry leaders Jill Kelly, U.S. chief marketing officer, GroupM, Kimberly Paige, exec VP and chief marketing officer, BET Networks, Soon Mee Kim, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer and executive VP at Omnicom Public Relations Group, and Tiffany Edwards, global head of diversity and inclusion, Droga5, on how to move multicultural marketing beyond a check box.
Thu, October 01, 2020
The state of the CMO
Lisa Mann, a former CPG marketer who recently joined an executive search firm, joins to discuss CMO hiring trends and look at how the role is changing—in some cases for the worse.
Thu, September 24, 2020
How a microbe from Yellowstone could shake up the food industry
When Karuna Rawal got a call from a recruiter about a marketing gig at a startup using a microbe to make protein-packed, animal-free food, she was intrigued. The lifelong vegetarian joined the company, now called Nature's Fynd, as its chief marketing officer and first marketing hire. Now, she and her Chicago-based team are just starting to get the company's name out in the world while preparing to launch its first products next year.
Thu, September 10, 2020
LinkedIn’s head of global sales on the early pandemic ad panic
Ad Age spoke with Penry Price, LinkedIn’s VP of global sales, to understand how the site managed through the crises that have hit all industries. The pandemic affected digital advertising as sectors like travel pulled back on spending while other industries pulled ads temporarily to make them more appropriate for the national mood.
Thu, August 27, 2020
Omnicom Media Group CEO on how covid has changed the ad landscape
In a time period when there seems to be little cause for optimism, Ad Age spoke with Omnicom Media Group CEO Scott Hagedorn on where he sees bright spots starting to emerge within his agency and the industry overall.
Thu, August 20, 2020
Marketing a Mexican import
Oscar Martinez, Senior Brand Director of Tecate, joins the pod to talk about the brand’s marketing overhaul, which includes a move away from boxing and into music. We break down the brew’s “Mexico is in US” campaign that emphasizes the brand’s border-town heritage while seeking to appeal to drinkers who are unapologetically Mexican-American.
Fri, August 14, 2020
Main Street One CEO Curtis Hougland on the launch of a senior political influencer network
Curtis Hougland, the founder and CEO of communications and strategy shop Main Street One, explains the social and political science behind voter/consumer persuasion, and why the time is right for campaigns and brands to leverage older (55+) influencers.
Thu, August 06, 2020
Defeating D.C. Council's ad and personal information tax
4A's Executive VP of Government Relations Alison Pepper discusses how she and other industry organizations fought a 3 percent tax on advertising services and the sale of “personal information" proposed by The Washington, D.C. City Council as part of a plan to combat a growing budget deficit, and won. She says the fight isn't over though.
Thu, July 30, 2020
Moving from CMO to CEO
Pernod Ricard North America CEO Ann Mukherjee describes why the liquor marketer will resume social media spending after pausing it in July. The longtime marketer also describes what it’s like moving into the CEO job, and she explains her leadership style, which involves bringing your personal experiences to the job.
Thu, July 23, 2020
Marketing the (delayed) Olympics
Christopher Carroll, director of digital engagement and marketing for the International Olympic Committee, joins the pod to talk about how the IOC is going about plugging the Tokyo games, which were delayed by a year due to the pandemic.
Thu, July 16, 2020
The latest ad law news
Ad lawyer Linda Goldstein joins to discuss what brands need to know about sponsorship contract changes during COVID-19, new ‘Made in the USA,’ ad regulations and what to expect at the FTC if Democrats take over. Plus, she explains how ad lawyers can co-exist with creatives.
Fri, July 10, 2020
Mark Robinson
The author of “Black on Madison Avenue” talks about what it was like getting a job in advertising 40 years ago and how much the industry has failed to change since that time.
Thu, July 02, 2020
Taking Latin-inspired creative to the mainstream
Former LatinWorks chief creative Sergio Alcocer joins to talk about his 3-year-old cultural marketing shop Rest of the World and give his take on how brands and agencies should respond to new calls for diversity. He weighs in on other topics, like his love of jazz music and how he would rebrand the Catholic Church.
Thu, June 25, 2020
Publicis CMO Justin Billingsley on the Power of One and what his client-side past brings to his new role
Justin Billingsley has one hell of a Lego set. Publicis Groupe’s first global chief marketing officer used the famed building blocks in an analogy during the Ad Age Ad Lib podcast to explain how the holding company’s Power of One works for clients. Billingsley said that for client Mercedes-Benz the company constructed a shop, Publicis Emil, composed of 650 people in 39 countries customized specifically to the automaker’s needs.
Thu, June 18, 2020
Behind the AP’s new marketing push
Julie Tucker, global marketing director for the Associated Press, on the news wire service’s new marketing and what separates it from the ‘Truth’ campaign she oversaw at The New York Times. We also discuss newsroom diversity and how the AP is preparing for the 2020 election. Plus, Tucker explains why she left agency life behind.
Thu, June 11, 2020
There’s no mistaking Leeann Leahy
Portland Maine’s Via agency CEO talks about the moral renaissance, directing a commercial with Jim Perdue via iPhone, her Catholic school education and the disco ball in her home.
Thu, June 04, 2020
Auto marketing during the pandemic
Allyson Witherspoon, VP of marketing communications and media at Nissan North America, on how the automaker responded in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak and what it is doing now to restore buyer confidence. She also weighs in on online car-buying and why she thinks it’s here to stay. Plus, she shares management tips she learned while working in Japan.
Thu, May 28, 2020
The pandemic paradox
Anush Prabhu, chief strategy officer at Mediacom, talks about the new—and often contrasting—behaviors that have come about since COVID, and how smart marketers should navigate them as the world opens up.
Fri, May 22, 2020
Marketing cannabis during the pandemic
Greg Butler, chief commercial officer at Cresco Labs, explains how the cannabis firm has pivoted during COVID-19, which has forced the firm to rely more on digital and less on retail and experiential activations that had been critical components of cannabis marketing. The former Molson Coors marketer also discusses Cresco’s strategy on taking a brand portfolio approach with each offering geared for a specific set of consumers.
Fri, May 15, 2020
Finding creative inspiration in a pandemic
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners’ Chief Creative Officer Margaret Johnson explains how the agency has created more than 30 campaigns for 80 percent of its clients remotely--and how working from home has opened up new avenues of inspiration.
Tue, May 05, 2020
Behind the e-commerce surge
Longtime agency exec Sarah Hofstetter joins to talk about her new role as president of e-commerce analytics firm Profitero, which serves more than 4,000 clients. We discuss the coronavirus-induced e-commerce surge and whether or not it’s sustainable. She also talks about her career journey and why she took this job after previous stints at 360i and Comscore. And, Sarah shares some personal tips on how to stay calm during the pandemic.
Mon, April 20, 2020
Brian Braiker, former editor, Ad Age
Today's podcast guest is, well, me. After three wonderful, challenging, intense, stressful and exhilarating years, I’m sad to say I’m parting ways with this iconic institution. Friday was my last day. Working with the Ad Age newsroom in both good times and weird has been an honor. In a conversation with my colleagues Judy Pollack and Alfred Maskeroni, we take a look back on my time. Thank you for listening.
Wed, April 08, 2020
Jason DeLand, founding partner, Anomaly
Ad Age is working from home, just like you. As the coronavirus has become the new reality for all of us, Jason DeLand has some thoughts about the likely lasting implications of the pandemic on all aspects of life and business, from brand behavior to consumer behavior, the environment, the cannabis industry and more. There will be no "returning" to life as it was, he says. Rather this is an opportunity to bounce forward. This conversation is a recording of a live video broadcast that was streamed online last week.
Thu, April 02, 2020
Nick Kokonas, author and restaurateur
The U.S. restaurant industry is in a grim predicament, particularly high-end, dine-in restaurants that can't be open as the coronavirus pandemic grinds on. Chicago-based restaurant executive Nick Kokonas has helped prepared his restaurants as well as others to navigate the situation in creative ways. The moves include a shift to carryout, something that until now was unheard of for high-end eateries like his.
Fri, March 13, 2020
Mira Kaddoura, founder and ECD, Red &. Co.
Mira Kaddoura grew up in Beirut, where she witnessed war firsthand. With a striking head of frizzy red hair, Kaddoura learned early on how to live life as someone who stands out: The themes of inclusion, representation and the other have all colored her work. Kaddoura joins the podcast to discuss the Red & Co. ethos. The agency has partnered with Google on an initiative to teach girls to code and developed global brand strategy for Netflix and created the “Make Room” campaign to boost representation of those missing in most mass media.
Thu, March 05, 2020
Debra Lee, former Chairman and CEO, BET
When Debra Lee stepped down as Chairman and CEO of BET in May of 2018, she put a cap on a 32-year run at the network. Today, we talk about her legacy—among other things, she took programming in a new direction, pivoting away from music videos and into original fare. We discuss life after BET and the media landscape today compared to three decades ago, including a look at the streaming wars. Lee also sits on a number of corporate boards and is a champion of diversity and inclusion, herself having paved the way for others like her.
Thu, February 27, 2020
Taylor Lorenz, New York Times reporter
Taylor Lorenz covers internet culture and trends for the Gray Lady--memes, yes, but also influencers, TikTok, YouTubers and more. She has a knack for identifying zeitgeisty moments just before they break through to mainstream consciousness. Her recent headlines include a look at the Bloomberg campaign’s meme strategy, a visit to the so-called Hype House group home for LA Tok Tok influencers and more. She may be the reason you've heard the expression OK Boomer, quite possibly leveled directly at you.
Thu, February 20, 2020
Bill Koenigsberg, founder and CEO, Horizon Media
The founder of the world’s largest privately held media company joins us to look back on a career that flourished along with the rise of the modern media agency era. We talk about the explosion of data that digital has brought with it, and why he has chosen to rent rather than own data. We look at the streaming wars and talk about Horizon's loss of Disney as a client last year, plus where the company is growing today. Plus, a discussion of culture, talent, the pros and cons of remaining defiantly independent--and under what circumstances he'd ultimately sell.
Fri, February 14, 2020
Louisa Wong, COO, Carat
For the first decade of her career, Louisa Wong worked at pioneering digital media outlets in the U.K., starting with CNET and then Skye. Today, as the chief operating officer at Carat, Dentsu Aegis Network’s flagship media agency, Wong applies that background in media as she navigates at the intersection of tech and disruption. Here, we discuss addressable TV, data as the new currency, privacy and regulation, life in a post-cookie world, the coronavirus and more.
Thu, February 06, 2020
Martin Sorrell, S4 Capital
Today’s guest needs no introduction. And yet, over the past 21 months, the financial wizard who built WPP into the world’s largest advertising holding company has been busy reintroducing himself as the executive chairman of S4 capital. Days before his 75th birthday, we discuss everything from what motivates him today, why the holding company model he helped create is an “albatross,” what the game plan is for S4 and why he bristles at the old criticism that he is not a creative person.
Thu, January 30, 2020
Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, founders of Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, founders of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, worked on four Super Bowl brands this year, including Pepsi, Cheetos, Doritos and SodaStream. The team who created the infamous “Got, Milk?” slogan is taking their advertising expertise to the MasterClass platform where they will lead a series of classes, including one on Super Bowl advertising. In the podcast, the duo discuss some of their Big Game top hits, such as the E-Trade monkey and the Budweiser lizards. They also talk about Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg advertising in the game, the inclusionary nature of many of the spots, the boundaries of taste in Super Bowl spots and the demise of Mr. Peanut.
Tue, January 21, 2020
Amy Astley, editor-in-chief, Architectural Digest
In 2016 Astley, a Condé Nast lifer, inherited a stodgy brand and was tasked with brining a fresh voice and new vision to it. Architectural Digest, which turns 100 this month, had hardly any digital presence to speak of: No video footprint, fewer than a million followers on Instagram. Today it is coming up on 5 million Instagram followers and has more than 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube. Astley joins the podcast today to talk about modernizing the mag without losing touch with its DNA. And the ads. All those beautiful ads.
Mon, January 13, 2020
Mark Read, CEO/executive director, WPP
In a wide-ranging conversation on all things WPP, Read discusses his early moves, including merging agency brands VML with Y&R and JWT with Wunderman. In the past 18 months, WPP has shared more than 40 assets in a bid to become more streamlined. Read, the chief executive of the world's largest advertising holding company, talks about creativity, and examines what’s holding WPP back in North America, the companies data play, his response to his feisty predecessor’s potshots and more.
Mon, January 06, 2020
Wyclef Jean
The founding Fugee has in recent years become a fixture at CES and at Cannes Lions, where he will be the president of the music jury this year. Here, he describes what brands can better understand about working with music and musicians. We talk about his childhood in Haiti, where he lived until he was 9 before emigrating to Brooklyn. He also shares a bit about his relationships with two very different mentors: Quincy Jones and, uh, Gary Vaynerchuk.
Thu, December 26, 2019
David Droga (Repeat)
The industry’s collective mind was blown when David Droga announced in April that his namesake agency, Droga5, would be acquired by Accenture Interactive. The consultants are coming for the creatives, the narrative went. Not so fast, says Droga. In this conversation, recorded in July, he discusses the three-year journey toward acquisition—and what comes next.
Mon, December 16, 2019
Andrew Robertson, CEO, BBDO Worldwide
Andrew Robertson is by all accounts the longest-running agency CEO working today. And he's got a track record to back it up: Renowned for its creativity, you've seen BBDO Worldwide’s imprint on work for Ford, for which it is the lead agency, Snickers, Macy's, M&Ms, Sandy Hook Promise, Avocados from Mexico and more. It's been named network of the year at the International Festival of Creativity in Cannes seven times in the last 12 years, including in 2017 and 2018. We discuss BBDO, the work, parent company Omnicom, Ford as a client and more.
Thu, December 05, 2019
Terence Kawaja, CEO, Luma Partners
In a conversation that ranges from the upcoming streaming wars to the ongoing direct-to-consumer trend to a look ahead at next month’s CES, Terence Kawaja gives a general sense of the state of things from his vantage point of an investment banker obsessed with digital media and marketing. Oh, he is also, pretty funny. For an investment banker.
Wed, November 27, 2019
David-Michel Davies, CEO, the Webby Awards
Now in their 24th year, the Webbys are currently accepting submissions for what’s been called the Oscars of the internet. Joining the podcast today is David-Michel Davies, the CEO of the Webbys, presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. We discuss the trends he’s been watching in the online space and what it even means to be a website in 2020. We also unpack the deeply critical viral speech comedian Sacha Baron Cohen made at the Anti-Defamation League last week about Facebook and the so-called “Silicon Six.”
Thu, November 21, 2019
Live from Ad Age: Next
Last week in New York, Ad Age brought together executives from some of the best media brands in the world to explore the industry’s challenges and, more interesting, opportunities. This podcast is a live recording of a conversation with three media execs about what they’ve learned from leaning into the subscription model. Joining us on stage were Pam Wasserstein, president of Vox Media, Scott Havens, global head of digital and media distribution for Bloomberg Media Group and Nina Lassam, executive director of ad innovation at the New York Times.
Mon, November 11, 2019
David Angelo, co-founder, David & Goliath
David & Goliath founder David Angelo looks back at a three decade career that started as a junior art director at DDB New York, followed by stints at Chiat/Day and Cliff Freeman & Partners. We talk about what prompted him to hang his own shingle 20 years ago and how the industry has changed in the past three decades. David & Goliath, a creative independent shop, was bought in 2017 by Innocean, the agency created by Hyundai. He talks about life after acquisition, life in LA and his cause célèbre: bravery.
Fri, November 01, 2019
Jarrod Dicker, vp commercial technology and development, Washington Post
In a space where the word “innovation” gets tossed around a lot, Jarrod Dicker seems to actually be building a better mousetrap. Dicker’s remit is to make advertising, subscriptions and technology better at the Bezos-owned media giant. He’ll discuss how media companies can no longer rely solely on advertiser and subscriber revenue alone, plus we get into his early career as a music blogger and Deadhead.
Thu, October 24, 2019
Paul Woolmington, CEO, Canvas
A three-time entrepreneur, Paul Woolmington is the founding CEO of media agency Canvas Worldwide and a keen observer of the marketing landscape. He is a former vet of holding companies IPG and WPP, founded and ran Media Kitchen, an MDC Partners agency, and he can rock a jaunty cravat. Paul joins us for a wide ranging conversation on just about everything in the media space—from the holding company existential crisis to the recent Disney media agency review and even to the rebate mishegoss of the past four years.
Thu, October 17, 2019
Jessica Pels, editor-in-chief, Cosmopolitan
In October of last year, at just 32 Jessica Pels was named the youngest-ever editor in chief at Cosmopolitan. Now exactly one year into the gig, web traffic is through the roof, even as single issue print sales continue to decline (just as they do everywhere else). We dig into her web-driven, data-centric approach to content strategy as we discuss where she’s taking the storied glossy.
Thu, October 10, 2019
Barak Moffit, Universal Music Group
A producer, composer and technologist, Barak Moffat heads UMG's content and strategy. UMG's massive catalog includes 40 percent of all of the world's music. He discusses that, and what it means to be creating new commercial opportunities for audio visual content across all of UMG’s labels. Essentially tasked with charting the company's next chapters, he also discusses the rise of voice and smart sneakers, and how UMG thinks about both data and metadata.
Thu, October 03, 2019
Morgan Spurlock, filmmaker, and David Littlejohn, founder of Humanaut
It’s been 15 years since “Super Size Me” came out. Today Spurlock is back with a sequel. With “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken” Spurlock asks whether fast food has gotten any healthier in the intervening years. As the title suggests he focuses on industrial chicken farming—going so far as to open his own chicken farm to raise birds for a chicken sandwich shop. Along the way, Spurlock teamed up with David Littlejohn, founder and chief creative officer of the small agency Humanaut, to learn about the misleading ways fast food is marketed today.
Thu, September 26, 2019
Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of MDC Partners
Mark Penn, the president and managing partner of Stagwell Group, raised industry eyebrows six months ago when he plonked $100 million into the flailing agency holding company MDC Partners—and became its CEO in the process. Six months in, we take a look at what the polarizing pollster has been up to (both in the agency world and the political sphere), what he’s learned and where he’s taking the holding company.
Thu, September 19, 2019
Jen Wong, COO, reddit
Reddit is on a roll. The self-styled “front page of the internet” is on target to double its ad revenue in the U.S. from $100 million in 2019 to $200 million in 2021, according to eMarketer. This growth is the result of tightening moderation on the platform and building out its advertising business. To discuss Reddit’s evolution, strengths and next steps, chief operating officer Jen Wong joins the “Ad Lib” podcast—and questions host Brian Braiker’s faith in humanity.
Thu, September 12, 2019
Andrew Essex, co-founder and CEO, Plan A
What do you do after writing a book called “The End of Advertising?” If you’re Andrew Essex, you co-found an advertising company. But Plan A, he says, is built on a different model than the traditional holding company. A former journalist and the co-founding CEO of Droga5, Essex brings with him an impressive pedigree. We get into that background, where the industry is going, consultancies, the breakdown of the traditional models and what’s next for Plan A.
Fri, September 06, 2019
Ad lawyer Jeffrey Greenbaum, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
With a trade war brewing, there's a lot more focus on products Made in the USA—but don't believe everything you see. There are some cases of marketers blurring the lines when it comes to products actually made here, and the FTC rules enforcing truthful “Made in USA” claims lack teeth. But that could be changing.
Fri, August 23, 2019
Why Ryan Kutscher joined the circus
Ryan Kutscher may have been a noted chef if he didn’t decide to go into advertising. Today he is chief creative officer and founder of Circus Maximus, a New York shop which has won its fair share of Ad Age Small Agency awards over the years. In this Ad Lib podcast, he talks about everything from his early days at Crispin Porter & Bogusky and the creation of “Whopper Freakout” to where he and his agency fit into today’s project-led world.
Fri, August 16, 2019
Kai Devereaux Lawson, advocate, agitator and associate operations director at Essence
An associate operations director at the GroupM shop Essence by day, Lawson writes and podcasts extensively and candidly about diversity and inclusion issues on the side—on the Mixed Company podcast and her own blog. In an industry where young black women are too often unseen and unheard, she’s making a point of speaking up.
Thu, August 08, 2019
David Droga, founder & creative chairman, Droga5
The industry’s collective mind was blown when David Droga announced in April that his namesake agency, Droga5, would be acquired by Accenture Interactive. The consultants are coming for the creatives, the narrative went. Not so fast, says Droga. Here, he discusses the three-year journey toward acquisition—and what comes next.
Thu, August 01, 2019
Lindsey Slaby, founder, Sunday Dinner
Lindsey Slaby is a one woman three ring circus: In one ring is her brand consultancy, Sunday Dinner, which coaches clients through various stages of organizational transformation. The second ring is networking on steroids, be it on her invite-only Slack channel or through the invite-only brainstorming dinners that gave Sunday Dinner its name. The third ring is, well, just any old conversation with her, like this one, which can ricochet into myriad directions at any moment.
Thu, July 25, 2019
Laurent Ezekiel, chief marketing and growth officer, WPP
Laurent Ezekiel has his work cut out for him: The Publicis vet joined WPP in May to serve as its first CMO and growth officer. It’s a new position at the world’s largest advertising holding company, which was the worst performing agency holding company in 2018. He discusses how WPP aims to dig out of its hole and explains what his new boss, WPP CEO Mark Read, means when he talks about becoming a “creative transformation company.”
Thu, July 18, 2019
David Fischer, CEO and publisher, Highsnobiety
David Fischer started Highsnobiety in 2005 as personal blog dedicated to his passion for sneaker culture and fashion. Today it is a multi-pronged media brand, a magazine that prints twice a year and a creative agency. With 500 million social media impressions, and nine million unique visitors a month, Highsnobiety is about to enter a new phase: The company is partnering with Prada this month for a limited edition product launch this month as it rolls out its new commerce business.
Thu, July 11, 2019
Rob Reilly, Global Creative Chairman, McCann Worldgroup
In an industry with no shortage of Negative Nancies, Rob Reilly is a perpetual, evangelical optimist. But he wasn’t always: He once had an employer require him to take a year’s worth of classes to learn how to be more respectful of others. Reilly credits that work—among other things—with why he’s having such a good run now: The Global Creative Chairman for McCann Worldgroup since 2014, Reilly and his team picked up network of the year for the first time in the agency’s history.
Wed, July 03, 2019
Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman
According to a global survey of more than 25,000 respondents, consumer trust in brands is down across the board — and expectations of social responsibility from brands is up. That is the core takeaway from the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, released last week. Richard Edelman joins the podcast to discuss this crisis of brand trust and opportunities for companies. We talk about what his clients increasingly want from him as he evolves his own business—the largest PR firm in the world--to include more advertising capabilities. We also get a little personal and discuss what it’s like running an independent family-owned company that was started by his father, Daniel J. Edelman . Plus he describes a visit from Orville Redenbacher .
Fri, June 28, 2019
Bradley Johnson, director of data analytics, Ad Age Datacenter
If you want to see what’s driving ad spending, just look for the net gains. Bradley Johnson joins us to break down the most interesting findings in our annual Leading National Advertisers report, out this week (hint, FANG has developed a big bite). We also dive into Datacenter’s 2019 agency rankings to draw some big and small conclusions about the state of the industry in 2019.
Fri, June 21, 2019
Nick Kelly, Anheuser-Busch
What happens when Big Football meets Big Beer? Until now active pro athletes could not appear in beer ads during games. The head of sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch discusses what a rules change means for Bud Light, and dishes on the brewer’s overall sports marketing strategy.
Thu, June 13, 2019
Avi Dan, CEO, Avidan Strategies
An advertising vet who started his own search consultancy in 2007 Avi Dan brings with him close to 4 decades of experience. As the rest of the agency world packs for Cannes, he breaks down how the festival has changed over the years, and who he thinks win big. We take a 30,000 foot view of the entire landscape, from consultancies in the agency space, the in-housing trend, data and creativity, and more. Avi also gets a little personal and describes his life growing up in Tel Aviv and his stint in the military, including a volunteer tour during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Fri, June 07, 2019
Linda Yaccarino & Josh Feldman, NBCUniversal
Depending on whom you ask, this is either the worst time to be in TV, or the most exciting. Count Linda Yaccarino and Josh Feldman among the hopeful. The two share the company’s moves to modernize measurement across the industry, and NBC’s plans to launch an ad supported streaming over the top service next year--to do battle with the Netflixes and Hulus of the world. They also explain why Cannes is going through something of a renaissance.
Thu, May 30, 2019
Bhavana Smith, chief client officer
Usually when you hear about consultancies in the marketing and advertising space these days, it’s in the context of them luring talent away from agencies or making full blown acquisitions. But last year when MediaCom was looking to hire a new chief client officer, it went right into the lion’s den. In hiring Bhavana Smith, a six-and-a-half year Accenture vet, the WPP media network is seeking to burnish its digital transformation capabilities—and take a page from the consultancy playbook.
Fri, May 24, 2019
Rishad Tobaccowala, chief growth officer, Publicis
Rishad Tobaccowala, who has logged nearly four decades at Publicis, joins the podcast to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. In a conversation that kicks off by unpacking Publicis’s recent announcement that it will be acquiring data marketing juggernaut Epsilon, Rishad breaks down the industry from his own unique vantage point as someone who has spent time in creative, digital and media. We discuss how the holding company model is being forced to evolve and what it means to be a brand in 2019. And we get into what growth means to him both as a chief growth officer and as a human being. Stick around and you might pick up a few life hacks.
Fri, May 17, 2019
DDB’s Keith Reinhard: ‘Betty Crocker was my first pin-up girl’
In this week’s Ad Age Ad Lib podcast, we interview the chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, who tells us about his legendary 65-year history in advertising, including why he pointed a cannon--literally--at Leo Burnett’s offices and the inside story of the “Big Bang” merger that created Omnicom (and why he had to keep changing rooms at The Palace Hotel.) Reinhard also discusses his admiration for Bill Bernbach, who he calls “the Picasso of the business," and tells us where he sees the ad industry going in the future.
Thu, May 09, 2019
Peter McGuinness, CMO of Chobani
Peter McGuinness wasn’t always a yogurt guy. Before joining Greek yogurt brand Chobani in 2013, he had a career in ad agencies. On this episode of the podcast, he discusses making the transition to the brand side, and the fresh self-awareness that brought him. He describes working for a brand with purpose and how Chobani is grappling with the current dip in U.S. yogurt sales as more alternatives come to market.
Fri, May 03, 2019
Alex Magnin, Giphy head of revenue
People are conducting more than a billion searches for GIFs on messaging apps a day. At the heart of their results is, usually, Giphy, a shareable online database of those short looping soundless videos. Giphy’s Alex Magnin who claims to net in the ballpark of 10 percent of the search traffic of Google, joins the podcast today to discuss all things GIF and messaging, what it looks like from an advertising and branded content perspective, plus what the most popular GIF search terms are. (Hint: They might just restore your faith in humanity!)
Thu, April 25, 2019
Shelly Lazarus, chairman emeritus, Ogilvy
Our conversation with Shelly Lazarus, Ogilvy’s chairman emeritus, covered a lot of ground—from what it was like to be a woman ad exec in the 1970s to today’s #MeToo movement to where holding companies are going in the future.
Thu, April 18, 2019
Jeff Goodby, Chairman and co-founder, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners are on a roll. The agency nabbed the number two spot on the Ad Age A-List, released this week. Its founders, Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, will be in Cannes this summer to pick up the prestigious Lion of St. Mark, rewarding a career filled with creative triumphs, including, most famously, the “Got Milk?” campaign. Goodby joins the podcast to discuss career highs and lows, his philosophy of openness, his favorite David Ogilvy story, his next chapter and more.
Wed, April 10, 2019
Ad Block: Tiffany R. Warren, chief diversity officer and SVP at Omnicom, founder and president of the diversity advocacy organization AdColor
Tiffany R. Warren talks about the skin care tradition handed down through her family and the ways she’s improved upon it. “In a way, when I take care of my skin, it’s a connection to my grandmother,” she says. She also weighs in on her ideal breakfast, what to do with your privilege and the enduring legacy of New Edition.
Thu, April 04, 2019
Alicia Hatch, CMO, Deloitte Digital
Deloitte Digital is one of the world’s 10 biggest agency companies: In 2017 Ad Age ranked Deloitte Digital as the world’s second-largest digital network, behind rival Accenture Interactive. Hatch joins me today to explain what, exactly, it is Deloitte Digital does. “We exist to make old companies new again,” she says. She explains what that means, how data and tech like AI come into play and discuss her early career on a disease control project during an outbreak in West Africa.
Wed, April 03, 2019
Deutsch North American CCO Pete Favat on woodworking,
Pete Favat talks about building useful things from scrap and renovating his home on “This Old House.” The C-suite leaves less time to get his hands dirty on the job, he says. “You’re using your brain, which is good, but there’s no physical gratification at all. We weren’t put on this earth to just bang keys on a keyboard.” So he creates on his own time, putting together whatever strikes his fancy: a dog sled, a chandelier, a garden.
Thu, March 28, 2019
Nicolas Bidon, CEO, Xaxis
When Nicolas Bidon talks about his business, he talks about becoming an “outcome” media company. As part of WPP and GroupM, Xaxis is a billion-dollar business — arguably the world's largest global programmatic media and technology platform — boasting some 3000 clients across 47 markets. The evolution to an outcome-based focus, Bidon says, represents a shift away from fairly crude metrics like CPMs to more real, specific business goals—with an assist from emerging tech like artificial intelligence. We get into all of that, plus some weedy topics like arbitrage, transparency and FBI investigations.
Wed, March 27, 2019
Ad Block: Joan CCO Jaime Robinson on knitting
Joan Creative CCO Jaime Robinson keeps both a spinning wheel and a loom in her closet so she can spin yarn and knit blankets and sweaters, “like the lady in Rumpelstiltskin.” She also reveals her favorite Joan and goes deep on the allure of “Russian Doll” and her childhood memories of the Sears Wish Book.
Thu, March 21, 2019
Bryan Yasko, president, Johannes Leonardo
It’s been a busy couple months for Johannes Leonardo. In February the shop announced that it would buy a "significant" portion of itself back from WPP. Then, weeks later, another tantalizing bit of news: Volkswagen named JL its lead agency. Bryan Yasko joins the podcast to discuss these developments, plus working with Adidas, the broader trend toward project work and why he doesn’t like holding companies.
Tue, March 19, 2019
Marketer’s Brief
Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group, is overseeing a 10-year, $2 billion investment on zero-emissions vehicle technology and awareness. The group's marketing director, Richard Steinberg, discusses what it is doing to help nudge the EV sector into the mainstream, including how charging stations might create branding opportunities.
Thu, March 14, 2019
Sebastian Tomich, global head of advertising, New York Times
In a digital media landscape littered with layoffs, mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcy, the New York Times remains a bright spot. Last week, the Times reported adding more than a quarter million new digital-only subscriptions in its fourth quarter earnings call. The publisher’s success invites the question: what does a subscription-first model mean for the paper’s ads business? Tomich joins the podcast to answer that — and more. We get into the runaway success of “The Daily” podcast, and how it has informed the publisher’s new video product, “The Weekly.” Tomich will break down the Times’ wary relationship with platforms and how it looks at innovation in tech. And we also discuss the paper’s antagonistic relationship with a certain sitting president.
Tue, March 12, 2019
Marketer's Brief
In a 20-year marketing career with Anheuser-Busch, Bob Lachky oversaw some of the most memorable ad campaigns in beer, including “Whassup,” the Budweiser Frogs and Real Men of Genius. Lachky, now a consultant, joins us to talk about the brewing marketing war between his old company and MillerCoors over corn syrup, as well as why Lachky thinks the beer industry has lost its way.
Thu, March 07, 2019
Ryan Ford, Chief Creative Officer and EVP, Cashmere
The brand wizards behind Snoop Dogg’s career, Cashmere has done work on “Black Panther,” “Get Out,” “Atlanta” and more. Beyond entertainment, it also counts as clients BMW, Jack in the Box, Adidas, and Diageo among others. Cashmere’s Ryan Ford joins us to break down what it means to be a multicultural agency in 2019, the current state of the influencer landscape, and what brands get right — and wrong — when it comes to tapping into the culture.
Mon, March 04, 2019
Marketer's Brief
Iconic brands are struggling to remain relevant in today's food industry. More evidence came with Kraft Heinz’s recent $15 billion asset write-down. We examine the fallout and why Kraft’s fall could be good for ad agencies.
Thu, February 28, 2019
Ben Lerer, CEO, Group Nine Media
Group Nine Media was formed in 2016 with a $100 million investment from Discovery and today rolls up four media brands: Thrillist, NowThis, the Dodo and Seeker. The rationale for consolidation, according to CEO Ben Lerer: Bigger is better. By combining the brands under one holding company, he says, he has gained a seat at the table with advertisers. He joins us today to discuss those conversations and his relationship with platforms like YouTube and Facebook. He also addresses the rumors that Group Nine and BuzzFeed have been in consolidation talks of their own lately.
Thu, February 21, 2019
Bob Pittman, CEO, iHeartMedia
If you wrote iHeartMedia off as DOA last year, you may have made the call too soon. Last month the radio giant gained court approval for a plan that would allow it to emerge from bankruptcy. Its CEO, Bob Pittman, joined the company in 2010 as an investor when it was still called Clear Channel. His mandate: completely transform the company. A quick glance at a few recent stats suggest how far he’s come: The multiplatform player boasts more than 120 million registered users, is the number one all-in-one digital audio service with more than a billion downloads and is the top commercial podcast producer in the business. Pittman—a co-founder of MTV and one-time CEO of AOL Networks--joins the podcast to talk all things radio, streaming and his remarkable career.
Thu, February 14, 2019
Tim Cadogan, CEO, OpenX
Independent ad exchange OpenX raised eyebrows in the programmatic realm last month when it announced a five-year agreement totaling more than $110 million with Google to use its cloud computing services. The news came just a month after the supply-side platform laid off some 100 employees as it prepared for the deal and continues to push into the video arena. Tim Cadogan, CEO of OpenX, joins the podcast to discuss the arrangement and how the programmatic landscape looks in 2019.
Thu, February 07, 2019
Marla Kaplowitz, president and CEO, 4A's
In a time where there is no shortage of gloom and doom in the agency landscape, the job falls to Marla Kaplowitz to be its biggest booster. Kaplowitz joins this episode of Ad Lib to field questions about the agency talent crunch, consultancy creep, brands bringing advertising capabilities in-house and, of course, that little FBI investigation into agency media-buying practices launched last fall.
Thu, January 31, 2019
Laura Hutfless, FlyteVu Agency
With its first Super Bowl ad, Bumble set out to empower women both in front of and behind the camera. On this special Super Bowl edition of the Ad Lib podcast, Laura Hutfless, partner at FlyteVu Agency, which worked on the ad, discusses how the social networking app pulled together a Big Game commercial in six weeks with a team composed almost entirely of women.
Tue, January 29, 2019
Azania Andrews, Michelob Ultra
Michelob Ultra will air two commercials in Super Bowl LIII – one featuring robots and the other making a direct appeal to female football viewers. Azania Andrews, VP marketing, at the Anheuser-Busch brewer, joins this special Super Bowl edition of the Ad Lib podcast to discuss just what goes into creating an ad for the Big Game and how Michelob is trying to change how women are portrayed on marketers’ biggest stage.
Thu, January 24, 2019
Erika Nardini, CEO, Barstool Sports
A publisher of podcasts, radio shows and online articles about sports and sports culture, Barstool Sports has a robust commerce and pay-per-view events business to feed its rabidly dedicated fanbase, known as Stoolies. It is, to hear CEO Erika Nardini tell it, the publisher model of the future. All of this despite — or perhaps because of — a habit of courting controversy. The company has repeatedly been taken to task for language and behavior that ranges from juvenile to full-blown misogynistic. Nardini unpacks all of that and more on this episode of Ad Lib.
Thu, January 17, 2019
Keith Grossman, Bloomberg Media global chief revenue officer
Bloomberg Media has been experimenting across the board lately — from its consultancy play to an aggressive over-the-top streaming strategy to TicToc, a video partnership with Twitter. Joining us on the podcast is chief global revenue officer Keith Grossman, who breaks down why these are both the best of times and the worst of times to be in digital media -- and why there's never been a better moment to be a media brand that knows what it stands for.
Thu, January 10, 2019
Meg Goldthwaite, CMO, NPR
Twenty-one percent of the population now owns at least one smart speaker. A full 14 million people in the U.S. got their first smart speaker device in 2018 — meaning voice as a topic of fascination is not going away any time soon. From the floor of the Las Vegas Convention center this week, NPR CMO Meg Goldthwaite joins us to discuss the revolution in voice, and what it means for marketers and consumers alike.
Thu, December 20, 2018
Shannon Simpson Jones and Yadira Harrison, co-founders, Verb
Launched in January, Verb is a hybrid shop that claims to have a new approach to the agency space. Verb boasts both traditional agency chops and consultancy offerings for both brands and other agencies — with a specialty in experiential marketing. It is the brain child of Shannon Simpson Jones and Yadira Harrison, both former VPs of the Civic Entertainment Group. We discuss the challenges and opportunities in the experiential, and the gap between brand expectations and reality. Both executives who happen to be women of color, they also weigh in on diversity and inclusivity and why it’s important to take a step back to look at who is in the room with you.
Thu, December 13, 2018
Ben Wiener, CEO, Wongdoody
The Seattle-based creative shop Wongdoody (yes, that’s its real name) celebrated its 25th anniversary this year — and as it did so, it was acquired by Indian tech giant Infosys, once known for offshoring jobs. It is, says CEO Ben Wiener, a great time for an agency like Wongdoody. As the big advertising holding companies continue to fumble, Wongdoody is seeing double digit growth, he says. It is winning new business and expanding globally. A Wongdoody lifer, Wiener started at the company as an intern in 1994. Now he runs the show from his perch in Los Angles. We discuss industry trends at large as the year winds to a close and what’s next for in 2019.
Thu, December 06, 2018
Edward Felsenthal, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Time magazine
Days after Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne closed on their purchase of Time, the new owners gave its editor, Edward Felsenthal, the additional title of CEO. Felsenthal joins Ad Lib to discuss his role in the negotiation process with the Benioffs – and where he plans to take things under the new ownership. Time is on something of a roll: it won an Emmy in 2017, a National Magazine Award in 2018 and will see nearly 2 billion video streams this year. And, despite declining print revenues, Time remains the largest U.S. print title in news, with 2 million subscribers.
Thu, November 29, 2018
Julio Bruno, CEO of Time Out Group
In 2015, when Julio Bruno took over as the chief executive at Time Out, it was taking on heavy losses. An executive who had held senior positions at Diageo and TripAdvisor, Bruno saw an opportunity. Now, three years on, as Time Out celebrates its 50th anniversary, Bruno has not only begun to turn the publisher around and make it digitally relevant, but he’s taken it public, leaned into an ecommerce strategy and is building a chain of physical market places.
Tue, November 20, 2018
Karina Wilsher, Anomaly’s next global CEO
After 14 years at Anomaly, founding partner Karina Wilsher will be assuming the global CEO title at the agency. Currently the global COO, Wilsher has long been groomed for the new role and will assume the chief executive position in January. True to its name, Anomaly is an outlier in its space, a non-traditional agency that was founded with a commitment to intellectual property and creating products. Wilsher joins me today to discuss the news and what it means for her and for Anomaly. We discuss its most famous product, the legal cannabis pen Dosist, the breaking down of the holding company model, Brexit — which the London-based Wilsher describes as a “shit show.” We get into the struggles of Anomaly’s parent company MDC Partners, evolving consumer behaviors and what 2019 looks like for Anomaly.
Thu, November 15, 2018
Aaron Walton, co-founder, Walton Isaacson
The co-founder of 14-year-old agency Walton Isaacson first went to work for the brand side in 1983 — Pepsi specifically. As it happens Pepsi at the time was working with a singer by the name of Michael Jackson. Walton’s job would take him on tour with Jackson. Now, some 35 years after that first incredible gig, Walton is not only still in the business of telling brand stories, he’s still at culture’s cutting edge. It was Walton Isaacson client Lexus that teamed up with Marvel for the Black Panther ads that ran during this year’s Super Bowl. More recently the agency added the New York Police Department to its roster, where the mandate is to help the department integrate its ranks.
Thu, November 08, 2018
Lizzie Widhelm, Pandora svp of ad innovation
In September, satellite radio company Sirius XM offered to plunk down $3.5 billion to acquire streaming music service Pandora. Joining us today is Pandora svp of ad innovation Lizzie Widhelm to break down what the Sirius offer means to Pandora — and vice versa. Sirius has more than 36 million subscribers in North America, Pandora has 70 million monthly listeners — fewer than 6 million of whom pay for the service. We discuss the state of advertising in the streaming space, the future of audio and why she’s bullish on podcasts. We also discuss why she thinks she didn’t experience noticeable gender discrimination until she reached senior leadership positions. Oh, and we get into what her favorite TV show was growing up.
Thu, November 01, 2018
Rich Antoniello, CEO of Complex Media
This weekend some 60,000 sneakerheads, hip hop aficionados, jocks, gamers, design nerds and foodies will descend on Long Beach, California, for the fourth annual ComplexCon. The consumer-facing pop culture bonanza is the physical expression of media brand Complex, which CEO Rich Antoniello has been driving for the past 17 years. Rich — who is outspoken on just about any topic you can throw at him — joins us today for a wide-ranging conversation covering everything from media’s pivot to revenue diversification (after it’s failed pivot to video) and how Complex’s joint acquisition by Hearst and Verizon in 2016 has been playing out for the brand. We talk about why he’s bullish on over-the-top streaming platforms and how his own background as an agency and print guy left him perfectly unprepared to be a modern media CEO.
Thu, October 25, 2018
Troy Ruhanen, president and CEO, TBWA Worldwide
An Aussie giant of a former Rugby player, Troy Ruhanen joined TBWA as president and CEO four years ago. Today he joins us on the Ad Lib podcast to spill some tea on his competitors — including WPP and Publicis — and give us some insight into clients including Apple, McDonald’s and Nissan. We discuss what their pain points are, what his agency’s big wins over the last four years have been, and growing up blue collar in Brisbane.
Thu, October 18, 2018
Frances Webster, co-founder and CEO, Walrus
Launched in 2005 in the ashes of Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Walrus is a fiercely independent shop that’s worked with such clients as Amazon, HBO, and Staples. Frances Webster — who co-founded Walrus with her husband, Chief Creative Officer Deacon Webster — has been outspoken about the need to train more women for agency leadership roles. She discusses the decision to offer media and buying services, reconciling programmatic with creative, and her clients’ biggest pain points as marketers gear up for the ANA conference next week.
Thu, October 11, 2018
Andrew McKechnie, chief creative officer at Verizon
For the past 18 months, Andrew McKechnie has been building Verizon’s in-house agency, 140. It’s no easy task. Networks, unlike the smartphones that run on them, are tough to make especially sexy. Still, he comes by the gig honestly. McKechnie had most recently served as global group creative director at Apple, after holding creative director titles at agencies including DDB, Y&R and JWT. Andrew joins us to discuss the pros and cons of moving from adland to the brand side, the tension between creativity and technology, and the challenges specific to Verizon.
Thu, October 04, 2018
Jon Steinberg, Cheddar founder
After a five-year stint at BuzzFeed and a brief run as the CEO of DailyMail.com the last thing you would probably think to do is start a TV network. From scratch. Yet that’s precisely what Jon Steinberg did. The former President and COO of BuzzFeed launched Cheddar Inc in 2016, a new media company with the initial goal of becoming the CNBC for millennials. Two and half years in, Cheddar is a bona fide media concern, a live and on demand video news network that broadcasts weekdays from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ Marketsite, and the Flatiron Building in New York alone. Steinberg joins us to discuss the Cheddar business model, skinny bundles, the future of over-the-top streaming video and where he goes from here.
Thu, September 27, 2018
Refinery29’s Philippe von Borries and Piera Gelardi
As two of the four co-founders of media and entertainment company Refinery29, Philippe von Borries and Piera Gelardi have used a pro-women, taboo-shattering ethos to build a behemoth catering to the interests and cravings of young women that reaches an audience of upwards of half a billion globally across platforms. It is an audience that brands love (and to hear Refinery's founders tell it, an audience that loves brands back). The couple joins the podcast today as their 29Rooms event packs up in New York and prepares to head to California in December. The two of them — who have also spent the last 13 years as a married couple — discuss the journey, working and living together, and what comes next.
Thu, September 20, 2018
Nick Brien, CEO Americas of Dentsu Aegis Network
“We’re not in the advertisement business. We’re in the engagement business,” says Nick Brien, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Americas. The advertising company was formed in 2013 to manage parent company Dentsu’s operations outside of Japan. Dentsu now generates more than half of its revenue — 59 percent last year — from outside its home market. Yet Dentsu and Dentsu Aegis Network are less known and less understood in the U.S. than the big holding companies WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and IPG. Dentsu, and therefore Brien, has a stated goal of becoming a 100 percent digital business by 2020. We get into that, his background in an industry that he says he loves, creativity (something Dentsu Aegis Network is not particularly known for), acquisition goals and why he’s tired of the narrative of the big bad consulting companies infringing on agency turf.
Thu, September 13, 2018
Studio 71 co-founder Reza Izad
Chances are, even if you are an avid consumer of short form streaming videos, you’ve never heard of Studio 71. But you’ve seen their work — or at least your kids have. From Canadian YouTube superstar Lilly Singh to vlogger Roman Atwood to Good Mythical Morning with Rhett and Link — Studio 71 is the media agency behind videos that generate a reported 9.5 billion views across platforms every month. The company, co-founded by Reza Izad, helps creators make money and grow their offering for advertisers, and through merchandizing and intellectual property. Izad joins us today to talk about the streaming media space, where there’s been no shortage of sturm und drang over the past year or so.
Thu, September 06, 2018
Wondery founder and CEO Hernan Lopez
When Hernan Lopez left his post as president and CEO of Fox International Channels in 2016 to launch a podcast company people asked him a straightforward question: Are you nuts? But he saw parallels between the nascent medium of podcasting and the cable industry of the early 2000s. The company he started is called Wondery, and today it produces premium podcast fare like Dirty John and Business Wars. Wondery’s newest show is called Dr. Death. It was released just this Tuesday and is already topping the iTunes charts. Lopez joins me today as the podcast upfronts get underway in New York to break down the landscape as he sees it.
Thu, August 30, 2018
Sub Rosa founder Michael Ventura gets empathic
Michael Ventura wrote the book on empathy. Literally. The founder of the New York strategy and design consultancy Sub Rosa is a multi-hyphenate. When he’s not advising a portfolio of Fortune 500 clients and progressive start-ups, he is running an experiential shopping venture called Calliope with his wife, running an art gallery and event space, publishing a newsletter called La Petite Mort — the french expression for orgasm — and running an eastern and indigenous medicine and healing practice. Now he’s an author, too. His book “Applied Empathy” came out earlier this spring and aims to promote how empathy can be a competitive advantage in business. He joins us on this episode of Ad Lib to discuss empathy, what he means by it, how he arrived at it as a guiding principle and how it’s won him some surprising clients, like West Point Military Academy.
Thu, August 23, 2018
How Terry Young, CEO of Sparks & Honey, is mapping culture
When Terry Young founded the agency Sparks & Honey in 2012, it was billed as a “next-generation” agency that really gets culture. Last month the Omnicom shop announced that it was — you guessed it — repositioning as a technology-led cultural consultancy. If it sounds like yet another agency scrambling to maintain relevance with buzzwords, Young says it’s an outward reflection of what they’ve been up to internally for years. He joins us on the Ad Lib podcast to talk about how the agency maps culture. Every day at noon everyone stops what they’re doing for an hour for a briefing that distills the Internet’s latest (and next) obsessions. We get into what frontiers fascinate him today – space and voice top the list -- and how a mid-career Peace Corps stint continues to inspire.
Thu, August 16, 2018
USA Today Network CRO Kevin Gentzel
A zen koan for 2018: How, as a media company today, does one build both scale and trust? It might be easy to cultivate one, but it often comes at the expense of the other. The USA Today Network has managed to do both. With 109 local papers scattered throughout the country, the newspaper company has certainly cobbled together scale. And the journalists on the ground are putting the lie to the idea of “fake news,” picking up three Pulitzers for the network this year alone. Still, news is a tough business. And local news is even tougher. USA Today Network has seen continued growth in digital revenue, but not enough to offset declines in traditional advertising. Tasked with solving that riddle is Kevin Gentzel, who joins us on the podcast today.
Thu, August 09, 2018
Arnold Worldwide CEO Kiran Smith
On the first day of her job as CEO, Kiran Smith broke her left foot. What could easily be interpreted as a bad omen turned out to be a blessing in a cast: Smith says the boot she’s had to wear these past five weeks have endeared her to new staffers and broken the ice with clients. She could use all the help she can get: In its second quarter earnings release last month, parent company Vivendi blamed weak organic results of its agency network Havas on “the impact of Arnold’s underperformance.” A veteran marketer — her most recent gig was as CMO at Brookstone — with no agency experience, Smith says she brings with her a fresh perspective to a gig that is sorely in need of one. She joins the podcast today to discuss the challenges she faces in her new job, what she brings to the table as a former marketer and what she’s learning from clients like Progressive and Jack Daniels.
Fri, August 03, 2018
Carla Serrano, CEO of Publicis New York and Chief Strategy Officer of PublicisCommunications
Publicis Groupe has had quite a year. In June of 2017 Maurice Levy stepped down as the holding company’s CEO, handing the reins over to Arthur Sadoun. That same month, the company made waves at Cannes for saying it would abstain from sending work to awards shows for a full year in order to devote resources to an internal tech platform called Marcel. Still, Publicis missed its revenue targets in second-quarter earnings reported last month -- despite winning some major accounts in the first half 2018. Serrano joins the podcast to discuss what distinguishes the Publicis strategy at a time when holding companies are under pressure from clients to cut costs and under siege from consultancies and tech giants Google, Facebook and Amazon. Plus we talk about her childhood as the family’s black sheep — and she tells us about the time she gave advertising legend Lee Clow some really bad advice.
Wed, July 18, 2018
Bill Holiber, President & CEO of US News
For a publication with “news” in its title US News doesn’t focus much on what’s happening in the papers these days. Formerly known as US News and World Report, the publisher is perhaps best known to the average reader for its annual college rankings. But it is actually something of a digital pioneer. The media brand ditched its print magazine in 2010 to go all digital and shifted its focus to pure service. While its core business is still advertising-based it does a monster business in lead generation, or, as CEO Bill Holiber calls it, performance marketing. Something seems to be working: The brand sees roughly 40 million monthly visitors, about 10 million going to each of its four core subject areas: education, health, government and money.
Tue, July 10, 2018
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business
The Fox Business anchor joined the "Ad Lib" podcast before her news-making interview with President Trump last week. Here, Bartiromo discusses her evolution from a CNBC pioneer—where she was the first reporter to broadcast from the stock exchange floor—to a somewhat more ideological Fox Business headliner. We discuss her "Money Honey" nickname and industry sexism, the future of cable news and the demographics of her audience.
Thu, July 05, 2018
Mark DiMassimo, CEO of DiMassimo Goldstein
With 22 years heading up an independent agency under his belt, DiMassimo Goldstein’s Mark DiMassimo believes traditional advertising’s days are numbered. Of course, he would say that. A long-ago JWT creative who logged years at holding companies, DiMassimo says he saw the light when he realized agencies fundamentally failed to meet clients needs. Proud to never have been to Cannes over the span of his entire career, DiMassimo discusses using advertising to fight the opioid epidemic and why, for the first time in his life, he finds himself agreeing with Martin Sorrell.
Thu, June 28, 2018
The Trade Desk’s Brian Stempeck
At a time when ad tech is besieged by brand safety concerns, transparency issues and industry-wide consolidation, the Trade Desk has been having a solid run. The demand side programmatic ad buying platform — have we lost you yet? — generated $85.7 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2018, a 61 percent jump from the same period last year. Today we are joined by Brian Stempeck, chief client officer for the Trade Desk and rhythm guitarist for the company band, whose job is, in part, to translate the bewildering jargon of the industry and parse the challenges and opportunities around things like cross-device targeting and leveraging data, specifically as it pertains to addressable TV. We get into all that, plus what it’s like going toe-to-toe with Google, what GDPR means for the future of ad tech consolidation, and what this week’s AT&T acquisition of AppNexus means for the industry.
Wed, June 20, 2018
Michael Wolff
Michael Wolff has some thoughts about conflict. A consummate media insider for decades, the journalist-provocateur-entrepreneur shot into the public consciousness in January with the publication of his sensational peek inside the Donald Trump White House, “Fire and Fury.” He, along with the rest of the advertising and media ecosystem, is in Cannes for the International Festival of Creativity. In a panel with adman Jeff Goodby, Wolff riffed on Trump’s psyche. On this episode of Ad Lib, recorded earlier this week on the Croisette, Wolff opened up about the success of the book, the nature of fame – and our collective fascination with conflict, understanding Trump, the role of the journalist and more.
Mon, June 18, 2018
Shingy, digital prophet, Oath
You may not have heard of David Shing, but you probably know about Shingy. The self-styled “digital prophet” at Oath – the Verizon-owned juggernaut that comprises AOL, Yahoo, the Huffington Post and some 50 media and b-to-b brands – is in Cannes on a mission that seems counterintuitive to what a digital prophet ought to be all about. He wants people to dial down their anxiety-inducing reliance on their phones. On this pop-up Cannes-themed edition of the Ad Lib podcast, we caught up with Shingy, who was en route to his keynote address. Here, we discuss tech dependence, Oath, 5G, living a bit more mindfully – and what exactly it is that he does.
Thu, June 14, 2018
Havas Creative North American Chairman and CEO, Paul Marobella
In a challenging time with so much gloom and doom out there, Paul Marobella remains a consummate optimist. The North American Chairman and CEO of Havas creative says the current climate reminds him of the mid-1990s, “when digital was going to change everything.” Marobella joins the Ad Lib podcast today to discuss the advantages of being owned by Vivendi as opposed to a traditional advertising holding company, creating a culture of creativity and what he’s looking forward to in Cannes.
Thu, June 07, 2018
Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar
An expansive marketer in an era of the incredible shrinking CMO, Rajamannar joins the Ad Lib podcast to discuss what he calls the CMO existential crisis. We talk about marketing at scale in a time when people hate ads and have the power to block them, the surprising durability of the 20-year-old “Priceless” campaign and increasing gender diversity at his company’s ranks. We also talk about a recent Mastercard campaign that received a bit of social media backlash for promising to donate meals to starving children every time footballers Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr score a goal during the World Cup – an ad that the company ended up pulling.
Tue, June 05, 2018
Ken Auletta, 'Frenemies' author
You're going to be hearing Ken Auletta's name a lot this month. Auletta, who has been writing the Annals of Communication column for The New Yorker since 1992, is the author of a new book about the industry's current existential crisis. "Frenemies" comes out June 5. He'll also be at Cannes at the end of the month interviewing Martin Sorrell on stage. This, however, is our moment to turn the tables on Auletta and interview him for the Ad Lib podcast. We discuss privacy, Sir Martin, platforms, publishers and his least favorite ad of all time.
Thu, May 31, 2018
Andrew Swinand, Leo Burnett North America CEO
When Andrew Swinand was tapped to be Leo Burnett’s North America CEO last January, he had a daunting remit. Burnett had long been a flagship Chicago agency, but after losing McDonald’s in September 2016 — and a few other accounts — the legendary creative shop had lost some of its luster. Swinand, who had most recently been at sister Publicis shop Starcom Mediavest, brought in a history of data and analytics to the role of burnishing Burnett. He joins us today to discuss all things Leo Burnett and Publicis, data and creativity, sitting out Cannes, consultancy creep and how an incident when he was an infantryman during the Gulf War helps inform him what’s really important.
Thu, May 24, 2018
Terri & Sandy’s Terri and Sandy
Terri Meyer and Sandy Greenberg are the co-founders of the New York independent shop Terri & Sandy. Both refugees from the big holding company world — Meyer and Greenberg had worked together as a creative team at both J. Walter Thompson and FCB — the two bring a big sensibility toward small agency life. On this episode of Ad Lib we discuss life as a small agency, building—and maintaining—agency culture, and how to get on the radar of big marketers. (Side note: it’s not too late to buy your tickets for our Small Agency Conference and Awards July 17 and 18 in beautiful Marina Del Rey Los Angeles! Check it out at adage.com)
Fri, May 18, 2018
Upfront and personal: The week’s big TV takeaways
The major broadcast networks wound down the 2018 upfront week Friday. Top-line takeaways: In 2019, look forward to more reboots, shorter ad slots and lots of live sports. If the scripted programming leaves a little to be desired there’s still a staggering amount of money on the table: Roughly $10 billion in advertising for the broadcast networks and an additional $10 billion for cable. Ad Age media reporters Jeanine Poggi and Anthony Crupi break it all down in a spirited special upfront edition of Ad Lib.
Thu, May 17, 2018
Ogilvy Worldwide CEO John Seifert
Earlier this year, John Seifert announced that Ogilvy would be undergoing a “refounding,” which he dubbed the shop’s “Next Chapter.” A 39-year veteran of the legendary agency, Seifert joins us to talk about what that entails. “Times are tough” he says in his surprisingly candid fashion. Not just at Ogilvy, but across the board — including for the agency’s clients. We discuss the encroachment of the consultancies into the advertising space. We’ll hear his take on his former boss, Martin Sorrell, and what his departure from WPP means for the holding company. We also get to hear some personal stories about David Ogilvy himself and why, as a child of a single mother in 1950s, the #MeToo and Times Up/Advertising movements resonate with Seifert personally.
Thu, May 10, 2018
Tim Leake, RPA
With giant clients like Honda and Farmer’s insurance, independent, LA-based agency RPA punches above its weight. Tim Leake’s mandate, when he joined the shop in 2014, was to nurture a culture of growth and innovation within the agency as it scaled. Having come most recently from Hyper Island, the Swedish school and consultancy, Leake brought with him a zest for business transformation that wasn’t yet quite all the rage it is. Now RPA’s chief marketing officer, Leake discusses the agency take on business transformation, the industry talent crunch, creativity and data, indie shops versus the holding company behemoths in a post-Martin Sorrell world and why ad agencies, despite being good at selling things, are so bad at selling themselves.
Thu, May 03, 2018
Bonnie Kintzer, Trusted Media Brands
When Bonnie Kintzer became president and CEO of Trusted Media Brands in 2014, it was still called the Reader’s Digest Association. Job number one became bolstering the brand, reviving it financially after a series of bad investments and changing just about everything in the way it operates — starting with the name. In addition to Reader’s Digest, the company also publishes Taste of Home, Family Handyman and a number of other titles. Kintzer joins the Ad Lib podcast to explain how Reader’s Digest, against all odds, has not only survived. but is thriving. A third of its 12 million monthly readers are millennials she says. She shares the strategy and tactics behind bringing Trusted Media Brands back from two bankruptcies, and the company’s digital play across all of its titles.
Thu, April 26, 2018
Hanya Yanagihara, novelist and T Magazine editor
For almost exactly a year now, Hanya Yanagihara has been molding T Magazine, the New York Times’ lifestyle and culture magazine, in her image. A recent refresh brought in a new logo and typeface, but the full bleed art, smart cultural journalism and yes the ads — so many ads — are still going strong. Hanya is also the author of the critically acclaimed 2015 novel A Little Life. Here, she discusses her tenure as T Magazine’s editor one year in, fiction writing versus non-fiction editing, where the lush magazine fits in the broader New York Times ecosystem, and why — in an era when the Times is doubling down on digital — she herself doesn’t tweet and has never been on Facebook.
Thu, April 19, 2018
Intermarkets’ Erik Requidan
Under the hood of the Drudge Report, and other conservative sites like it — including Political Insider, Smith & Wesson Forum and MRC Newscasters — is its advertising marketing firm Intermarkets. And under the hood of Intermarkets is Erik Requidan, vice president of programmatic strategy. In an era when the advertising community likes to talk about inclusivity and embracing divergent viewpoints, Requidan says he feels like the odd man out. He joins us on the Ad Lib podcast today to make the case for how Drudge and his other sites — for as video-free and Craigslist-looking as they still are — are actually innovative on the tech front. We get into ad blocking and key word filtering, how brands are often quick to blacklist certain points of view (especially in the current political climate) and how Intermarkets has dealt with its own brand safety issues.
Fri, April 13, 2018
Intel’s Alyson Griffin
Last year Intel, the PC maker best known to the wider world for its “Intel Inside” tagline, decided to pivot from being a PC-centric to a data-centric company. It invested heavily in artificial intelligence, the internet of things, drones, autonomous cars and more. Those data-centric businesses made up 47 percent of revenues in fiscal 2017, underscoring the diminished importance of the PC to its business. “We need to make sure the future tech buyers of the world understand we’re not just a chip in a PC,” says Intel’s Alyson Griffin, who is charged with telling that story. “We need to make sure we’re not stuck inside a PC.”
Thu, April 05, 2018
Patch CEO Warren St. John
Hyperlocal news has had a rough, ahem, patch in recent years. Undone by Craigslist and Facebook and Google, among others, local news sites have struggled to stay afloat. The end of 2017 alone saw the shuttering of both Gothamist and DNAInfo. Patch CEO and executive editor Warren St. John joins Ad Lib this week to tell us what’s going on at Patch. Among his many accomplishments as a writer and reporter for the New York Times and others, St. John also happens to be the guy who popularized the term “metrosexual” in 2005. Today he shares what he’s been up to as a CEO and how he hopes to make hyperlocal work where others have stumbled.
Thu, March 29, 2018
Forbes’ Randall Lane
Synonymous with powerful, rich and usually white male entrepreneurs, Forbes is, like many media companies, being forced to evolve. Randall Lane took over as editor of the 101-year-old publisher in December of 2017, after Lewis D’Vorkin went on to run the LA Times newsroom — leaving behind a large pair of wingtips. Under D’Vorkin, Forbes grew its army of contributors in a bid for scale and led the native advertising charge with its Brand Voice program. Lane joins Ad Lib today to help us get a handle on what Forbes is today — how it plans to expand its custom content offerings, dig into new “microbeats” and attract a younger set of readers.
Thu, March 22, 2018
Bleacher Report CEO Dave Finoccio
March Madness is well underway and if you’re a sports fan of a certain age, chances are you’re tracking your decimated bracket on Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report CEO Dave Finocchio joins us on this episode of Ad Lib to discuss its distributed approach to publishing, what makes Bleacher Report connect with younger audiences in an oversaturated sports market — and how it’s been working with Turner Broadcasting, which acquired Bleacher Report in 2012 for a reported $175 to $200 million.
Thu, March 15, 2018
Hearst’s Troy Young
It’s been five years since Troy Young came to Hearst to build out the magazine company’s digital division. Today as the global president of digital for a media empire that includes Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Elle, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country – the list goes on – Young is redefining what it means to be in a 130-year-old publisher with its roots in print.
Thu, March 08, 2018
360i’s Sarah Hofstetter
In this episode of Ad Lib, Sarah Hofstetter, the global CEO of full-service digital-first agency 360i, discusses the agency's new Amazon practice, the future of voice, the best kosher restaurants in Cannes and more. (She also admits to a few regrets about a certain Oreo Super Bowl tweet.)
Thu, March 01, 2018
Po.et CEO Jarrod Dicker
Last month, a subset of the media world snapped to attention when Jarrod Dicker left the Post, where he built out a lot of pioneering proprietary tech for the company, to become the CEO of something called Po.et, which bills itself as "an open, universal, and immutable ledger for managing the ownership and licensing of the world's creative works." It runs on blockchain, and today Dicker will explain what it is -- and how he hopes to upend the media business model as we know it.
Thu, February 22, 2018
Pop-Up Magazine’s Chas Edwards
Chas Edwards is a co-founder and publisher of both Pop-Up magazine—a roving circus that brings magazine journalism to life in staged events—and the print publication it spawned, California Sunday Magazine. Taken together, the two represent a new kind of media company. Edwards breaks down of what it all is, how its evolved and how its unique business model is helping the publisher thrive.
Wed, February 14, 2018
Aardman’s Heather Wright
You may know Aardman Animation as the creative force behind Wallace and Gromit, “Shaun the Sheep” and “Chicken Run.” This weekend its seventh feature film, “Early Man” comes to our shores. But the recognizably Aardman characters the studio is well known–and beloved–for, only comprise 5 percent of its branded content output. Heather Wright fills us in on the other 95 percent. An executive producer and head of partner content at the studio, Wright works with brands on storytelling in a wide array of media, not just animation – but AR and VR for clients including Google and the BBC.
Wed, February 07, 2018
HP’s Antonio Lucio
There’s a lot of talk in the marketing and advertising industries about diversity — but not a ton of walking. Antonio Lucio is one of the walkers. Lucio talks about his diversity drive on today’s podcast and also breaks down his view of the state of marketing in 2018. Along the way, he shares a little of his own personal journey, how his childhood in Spain and Puerto Rico shaped who he is today, and why a diagnosis of depression changed him.
Thu, February 01, 2018
Hungry Man Productions, Bryan Buckley
Bryan Buckley has nearly 60 Super Bowl credits to his name, directing spots for a bevy of brands ranging from Monster.com and Cash4Gold to Coca-Cola and Bud Light. In this podcast, Buckley discusses what it’s like working with high-profile celebrities like Alec Baldwin and Martin Scorcese, the Super Bowl ad he wishes he made and his most recent Super Bowl efforts for Febreze.
Wed, January 31, 2018
Avocados From Mexico’s Kevin Hamilton
Kevin Hamilton has experienced first-hand the pressure to pull off a Super Bowl ad. As the senior director of marketing at Avocados From Mexico, Hamilton is charged with promoting the produce on TV’s biggest stage. In this podcast, we explore the continued importance of TV advertising, the gender gap in Super Bowl ads and how he decides what’s funny.
Fri, January 26, 2018
Capitol Music Group’s Brian Nolan
Brian Nolan has a music fan’s dream job. As the senior vice president of Capitol Records’ in-house division focused on brand partnerships and licensing, Nolan is tasked with bringing new or under-exposed music to potentially huge audiences. In this podcast we touch on his work with artists ranging from Sam Smith to Migos to Halsey. We also explore how the music industry has adjusted to and evolved with the rise of streaming—and how he decides what to surface for advertisers, movies and TV shows.
Fri, January 19, 2018
Havas’ Harry Bernstein
If you’ve spent any time in agency circles, you haven’t seen a lot of people who look or talk like Harry. Tall, bearded, often tie-died and bolo tied, Bernstein, who goes by Harry Bee, is as apt to talk about clean living and guided meditation as he is trap music and Adidas collabs. In September, Havas acquired The 88, the social media and digital shop he founded in 2010, and brought him on as chief creative officer of the New York office. We talk today about his non-traditional approach to advertising.
Fri, January 12, 2018
Fresh Digital Group’s Doug Robinson
Recent research has found that smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home will be in 55 percent of all U.S. households by 2022. That’s a lot of skills. To help us break down what this all means — for consumers, marketers, content providers, non-profits and more — we’re joined by Doug Robinson, CEO of Fresh Digital Group. Robinson’s team has built some 400 skills for clients ranging from ESPN to BMW and UNICEF to Toys R Us among many others. Robinson breaks down how consumers are using these smart speakers, what’s coming down the pike in terms of the tech, and what people just get wrong about voice.
Thu, January 04, 2018
Jay Lauf
In a note at the end of 2017, Quartz publisher Jay Lauf gave his thanks to readers and advertisers, making it a point of pride that the commercial team at Quartz had been “very deliberate” about never putting its inventory on open exchanges. Sounds a bit in-the-weeds, but in a year where brand safety was top of mind for publishers and brands alike, Quartz’s five-year resistance to go the programmatic route seems downright prescient today. We discuss this perspective, as well as what it means to be “Quartzy,” and how the digital media landscape is shaping up in 2018.
Fri, December 29, 2017
Rafat Ali
The co-founder and CEO of the travel media company Skift, Ali is a digital media veteran. We talk about his childhood in India and what made him want to get into media. He takes us on a tour through internet 1.0 with stops at Inside.com and PaidContent, the first company he founded. And we arrive at the here and now, where Ali is an advocate for niche media brands and the pivot to quality.
Mon, December 18, 2017
Dave Morgan
The Simulmedia CEO helps us make sense of the Disney-Fox deal, breaks down the state (and future) of addressable TV, explains the agency “existential” crisis -- and more.
Fri, December 08, 2017
Wendy Clark and Ari Weiss
It’s been just under two years since DDB brought Wendy Clark — a former top marketer at Coca Cola — on board as its North American CEO. And it’s been just under one year since she brought on Ari Weiss as the Omnicom network’s first chief creative officer. Together the two discuss creativity, talent and the highs and lows of 2017 for DDB specifically and the industry at large.
Sun, December 03, 2017
Adam Moss
The New York Magazine editor is Ad Age’s Editor of the Year — and the title he’s edited since 2004 is the Magazine of the Year. Today he sits down with Ad Age editor Brian Braiker to discuss his time at New York, how the media landscape has changed in the past 20 years, the future of magazines in general, Harvey Weinstein, Rolling Stone and more.
Wed, November 22, 2017
Michael Rothman
The CEO and co-founder of Fatherly, a New York City-based media start-up that caters to millennial dads, is himself not a father. Rather Rothman, whose last gig was as Thrillist’s first business-side hire, is a digital media vet. On this episode of Ad Lib, he discusses building a media business on the back of curated content and newsletters — and ultimately scaling up original content, going deep on Facebook and expanding into events. He also shares the details of a certain X-rated patent he attempted to file at the ripe old age of 11.
Fri, November 10, 2017
Michael Kuntz
The senior vice president of digital revenue at USA Today Network sits down with Ad Age editor Brian Braiker to discuss Gannett’s local play, working with Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP, USA Today’s push into VR, Kuntz’s time at Gawker and the general perils of print.
Fri, October 27, 2017
Kay Hsu
As the global Instagram lead at Facebook Creative Shop, Kay is tasked with getting brands to adopt the Instagram Stories format. She discusses the challenges and opportunities brands see with the proliferation of ad formats – and the rise of ephemeral formats specifically. She also talks about her own career path from a legislative assistant in Canada, through stints in fashion, Hong Kong and agency life before landing at Facebook.
Fri, October 20, 2017
Neil Vogel
Since 2014, Neil Vogel has led the transition of About.com into Dotdash. Under his stewardship, the IAC-owned company has gone from an all-things-to-all-people approach to a publisher of discrete, focused verticals including Verywell (health), the Spruce (home), Lifewire (tech), the Balance (personal finance), Tripsavvy (travel) and Thought Co. (life hacking). We discuss the challenges and opportunities of that transformation – but first he talks about the life-changing experience, early in his career, when he hit the road for a year with the sole intent of getting bored. We also dig into his time at the Webby Awards, which he had a hand in founding and making the cultural touchstone it is today.
Thu, October 12, 2017
Jonah Disend
Jonah Disend is CEO and founder of Redscout, a branding a product development company with clients like Gatorade and Domino’s that he founded in his New York apartment in 2000. We talk about how his love of theater informs what he does, how the advertising industry has not especially embraced the LGBT community -- and a certain bar mitzvah that he threw his company when it turned 13, four years ago.
Fri, October 06, 2017
Where Creativity Meets Strategy
Alain Sylvain is the founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, an innovation and brand design consultancy. We talk about his background and the lack of diversity in media and marketing, his failures and his side hustles, which include launching a headphone brand and producing documentaries.
Fri, September 22, 2017
Pop Vox
As chairman and CEO of Vox Media, Jim Bankoff oversees eight vertices including The Verge, SB Nation and Vox.com . We discuss what’s next for Vox and his past life as a Web 1.0 executive at AOL before and during part of the fall.
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