Ad Age Insider

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.