New Digital Age

NDA Editor Justin Pearse and Publisher Andy Oakes are back due to popular demand with series three of the It's Always Media Thursday podcast, taking a 'unique' look back on a week in the digital marketing and media industry.

This week's high-level dose of insight includes discussion of Halloween, Christmas, Mariah Carey, boxing, and a deep dive into Peppa Pig.

We also touch on sustainability in digital advertising, Out of Home excitement and welcome this week's special guest, Channel Factory's Commercia Director David Guy.

Dave opened Channel Factory's Manchester office and with the city a prime focus for NDA, we discuss the booming media scene there and the similarities and differences to London's digital industry.

In the latest episode of the NDA Meets podcast, we sit down with Brian Morrissey, Founder, The Rebooting, and previously President and Editor in Chief of Digiday.

The Rebooting is dedicated to exploring 'The mechanics of building sustainable media businesses' and there is no one better placed to discuss the future of the publishing industry.

In a wide-ranging interview, we discuss subjects including commerce, first-party data and why the definition of Made for Advertising (MFA) could be troubling for publishers if examinbed too closely.

We also dig into the meaing of several typically-fprthright statements from Morrissey:

“Publishers need to get rid of adversarial business models”

“Display advertising a lost cause, strewn with atrocities’

and

“Digital publishing been hunting for a saviour for so long”.

Terence 'Terry' Kawaja, is the Founder and CEO of LUMA Partners, a strategic advisory firm focussed on digital media and marketing. As famous for his parody videos featuring leading industry figures, and colourful on-stage appearances as for his deep knowledge of the digital sector and the $300 billion of deals he's been been behind, he is one of our industry's most influential figures. 

On the health of the adtech market: "This is an industry that has been called dead many times over the years, for many reasons, but it never is. This is a sector that has demonstrated a resiliency that's almost unrivalled. We keep throwing existential challenges in its way and we somehow manage to innovate or iterate our way to keep growing."

On the potential ressurection of Twiter's ad business by new CEO Linda Yaccarino: "I want it to work. I have great respect for Elon Musk but he doesn't understand media. This will be Linda's greatest challenge. My mantra is just let he do her job." 

On sustainability in digital advertising: Do it whether you want to save the planet or make more profits. They're both green." 

On retail media: "This could usurp 20-25% off the open internet better targeted towards conversion of goods. Commerce is advertising perfected, so it makes a lot of sense." 

On industry events: "Ignore the data and the tech and the software and ultimately this industry just comes down to people. You have to build. personal relationships, real-life relationships are irreplaceable to build trust." 

Out of home (OOH) was traditionally seen as a standalone media channel, but digital screens are changing this perception. Now, thanks to the data-targeting and measurement of programmatic, brands can fully integrate digital out of home (DOOH) into their omnichannel campaigns. 

In this special video podcast, NDA Editor Justin Pearse is joined Will Brownsdon, Managing Director, EMEA, Hivestack, and Joel Livesey, Lead Senior Director of Inventory Partnerships, EMEA, The Trade Desk, to discuss the benefits of including programmatic DOOH in a multi-channel approach to media buying, allowing advertisers to leverage data, measurement and precision on a global scale.

Topics discussed in this indepth conversation include the biggest benefits of including programmatic DOOH in a cross-channel campaign; how it works most effectively with other channe; the role of first-party data in DOOH campaigns; how DOOH and programmatic OOH are helping advertisers measure impact more effectively and much more.

Paul Wright is a true digital veteran, with experience across companies like Apple, Amazon and Omnicom and many more He joined Uber six months ago to set up its advertising operations in London.

The discussion explores how Uber is building its advertising business in the UK, part of the company's ambition to create a $1bn business in the next two years.

We discuss the value of Uber's unique data, the ad formats proving most success across both its ride and Eats businesses, the role of retail media, and the role advertisers are playing in adding value to the Uber riders' user experience. 

The reception from every advertiser I've spoken to has been incredibly positive, mainly because of the clarity but also because a lot of the products we have our solus advertiser, so you don't need to compete with other brands within the experience," he says.

NDA Editor Justin Pearse and Publisher Andy Oakes are back for another essential trawl though a week in digital media and marketing.

Reflecting on last week's Cannes Lions festival, this week's podcast turns out to be an events special.

We're joined by good friend and Madfest Co-Founder Dan Brain who reveals the treats in store for attendees at next week's festival and we discuss the must-attend industry events this year. Many of which unaccountably turn out to be run by NDA.

We of course also talk about attention in advertising and Andy wears a baseball cap and large earphones in an upgrade of his podcasting uniform.

*apologies for the sound quality, this week we were out of the studio.....

The fast-moving nature of this industry means that even the most digitally experienced may well not be fully up to speed with sectors outside their day-to-day area of focus. 

Which is why NDA has launched our Media 101 podcast series. We'll be talking to experts across the industry for a deep dive into different sectors.

Out of home is one the oldest ad mediums but it's being supercharged by programmatic technologies to make programmatic OOH one of the most dynamic and burgeoning areas of our industry, 

To launch NDA's Media 101, we sit down with VIOOH's Global Business Lead, Jem Djemal for a introductory briefing on the opportunities offered by programmatic OOH.

Topics covered include: trends, especially consumer behavioural trends, driving its growth; the main challenges of leveraging programmatic DOOH and how they can be overcome; how programmatic DOOH can be deployed as part of an omnichannel campaign; how it is most effectively integrated with other channels like audio or CTV; how it fits into clients' existing attribution and effectiveness models; the biggest challenges around audience targeting & campaign measurement; and the state of creativity in programmatic OOH, especially DCO.

In this podcast series, we’ll be talking to agency leaders to discover the stories behind their journey to the top of the industry and what lessons others can learn from them.

Anne Stagg is the UK CEO of dentsu's Customer Experience Management Line of Business (CXM). Leading a business of 940 people, she was previously Head of Client Services at Merkle UK. 

"I started in the engine room of marketing, data. And who knew data would one day be cool," she says. "The pace of digital acceleration has been dramatic in recent years but prior to that it felt a gradual process getting into data. But now it's at the heart of the end-to-end customer experience."

She may now be at the very top of the industry but in the conversation below, she is disarmingly frank and honest about her own challenges and how she overcome her own perceived failings, always putting people first, then and now. 

How to find mentors and coaches and the critical difference between the two is an area of huge importance to her. 

"It begins with self-reflection, we need to know and understand our own failings or limitations. You need a really good view of exactly what you want to get out of it. 

The best advice I was given was 'stop working like you have something to prove' as you'll be focussed on the wrong things. like pace or impressing the right people, rather than focussing your efforts in the right areas.Just do what you do best and the rest will follow."

She also discusses how to step up into the role you don't think is rightfully yours but actually is perfect for you. 

"I always say to my managers, look around your team to identify the people that are diong a great job and make sure you pull them with you, rather than focus on the people who should loudest." 

In this 'Cannes special' episode of It's Always Media Thursday we discuss the highlights of the opening day at Cannes 2023 with Charlie Crowe of Crowe Advisory.

We talk about the ANA (The Association of National Advertisers) and transparency in advertising plus why Cannes is still really important despite sometimes being seen as solely a networking event. 

Andy, Justin and Charlie discuss seeing business being transacted in front of their very eyes, proving that Cannes does offer ROI despite of (or because of?) the glitz and glamour.

This year Cannes is bigger than ever, there are more yachts, more people and more Americans. CMOs and big agency leaders are in town and Cannes is buzzing.

NDA Editor Justin Pearse and Publisher Andy Oakes are back with yet another insightful discussion - or slightly-foggy chat - about a week in the digital media and marketing industry.

This week we wonder why AI keeps dominating headlines in NDA and beyond, discuss the unfeasibly-large number of events beind run by ourselves and the industry ast large. 

We're joined by special guest Paul Coggins, CEO or Adludio to discuss the rising excitement around Cannes Lions 2023.

"The impression I'm getting this year is that it's back, back in a big way!," he sums up. 

We also discuss media optimisation, optimising for attention and why he sees such opportunity in the talent available in Africa today.