Next in Media

Mike Shields
  • 4.8 (43)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Everything we know about the media, marketing and advertising business is being completely upended thanks to technology and data. We're talking with some of the top industry leaders as they steer their companies through constant change.

  1. 3h ago

    How Georgia Pacific Modernized Its Marketing Mix Modeling

    Achieving true cross-channel attribution remains an uphill battle as walled gardens restrict access to critical log-level data. Georgia Pacific's Vice President of Integrated Media and Brand Analytics, Javier Bustillos, reveals how his team combats these fragmentation challenges by accelerating in-house Marketing Mix Modeling and adopting a disciplined, test-and-learn approach to automation. Key Highlights 📊 Walled gardens continue to choke cross-channel attribution by withholding log-level data, forcing brands to rely on a mosaic of complementary measurement frameworks rather than a single source of truth. 🎯 Strategic mass awareness is shifting toward a hybrid model that blends broad linear reach with hyper-targeted digital video tactics like CTV and YouTube to balance scale and precision. 📺 Premium addressable and data-driven linear television formats frequently fail to generate the performance lift required to justify their steep upfront cost premiums. 👥 Independent content creators should be treated as dynamic ad formats and flexible engagement assets deployed across diverse platform verticals rather than being siloed as a standalone media channel. 📈 Bringing Marketing Mix Modeling in-house can drastically condense operational reporting loops, shifting analytics cadences from lagging annual retrospectives to agile, granular quarterly deployments. 🧪 AI applications in programmatic media yield immediate dividends for algorithmic bidding and supply-path optimization, but agentic decision-making still requires strict human guardrails for multi-million-dollar budgets. 🏗️ Building a high-functioning in-house programmatic operation demands a multi-year road map focused on incremental scaling, specialized talent retention, and direct ad-tech relationship management. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Javier Bustillos on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 1:28 Georgia Pacific's Role and Brand Portfolio 2:20 Evolution from Mass Reach to Integrated Targeting 4:05 Cross-Channel Integration Challenges 5:00 Upfront Evolution and New Players 7:10 Creator Economy Integration Across Platforms 8:31 Marketing Mix Modeling Evolution and In-House Capabilities 11:00 MMM Limitations and Supplementary Measurement 13:04 Business Outcome Accountability and Long-term Impact 14:36 AI Implementation and Agentic Capabilities 16:28 Future of Agencies and In-House Teams with AI 18:36 CFO Relations and Marketing Value Communication 19:55 In-Housing Reality Check and Implementation Timeline 21:16 In-Housing Challenges and Relationship Building

    22 min

  2. 2d ago

    Why Live Sports and - Bravo (?) Are Dominating the Upfronts

    As television viewership shifts, NBCUniversal is proving that premium IP like live sports and reality television can compete with digital channels by integrating advanced programmatic ad tech. Through initiatives like real-time AI context-scanning and the Performance Insights Hub, they are closing the data loop to deliver immediate, measurable outcomes across the entire marketing funnel. Key Highlights 📺 Premium, year-round unscripted programming creates sustained fan communities that offer brands continuous, high-engagement cultural relevance instead of the brief campaign windows typical of limited series. 🚪 Operating systems like Vizio OS are becoming the critical "front door" of television, capturing consumer attention during the search and discovery phase before they enter ad-free environments. 🤖 The traditional boundary between upper-funnel awareness and lower-funnel performance is dissolving as media networks deploy advanced data hubs to compress measurement cycles from months to days. 📱 Embracing automation and programmatic infrastructure in linear and streaming environments allows major networks to onboard thousands of emerging, niche advertisers who were previously priced out of premium TV inventory. 🏈 Real-time, AI-driven content scanning enables hyper-contextual dynamic creative insertion immediately following specific live broadcast triggers, drastically increasing brand resonance. 🎯 Maximizing sports viewership monetisation requires a dual broadcast and streaming infrastructure, recognizing that the vast majority of premium ad impressions still occur on linear television. 🗓️ Establishing consistent, predictable programming blocks across distinct sports leagues creates a unified destination for viewers and a year-round narrative platform for advertisers. 🎪 In-person experiential events act as powerful content factories, allowing brands to super-serve live audiences while generating digital assets that scale across streaming and social platforms. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Alison Levin on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 The Power of Year-Round Reality TV Communities and Advertising Integration 00:32 Vizio OS as the Solution to TV Fragmentation 1:44 The Cultural Phenomenon of Reality TV and Community Building 5:29 Advertising Scale and Integration Strategies 7:12 Performance TV Advertising and Data Feedback Loops 9:09 AI and Dynamic Creative Capabilities 11:09 NBA Return and Sunday Night Sports Strategy 13:15 Dynamic Ad Insertion and Programmatic Sports Advertising 15:12 Current Advertising Market Conditions and Upfront Dynamics 16:58 BravoCon as a Content Creation Phenomenon

    20 min

  3. Jun 2

    Why Warner Bros Discovery Ditched and Rebuilt TV Targeting

    After briefly de-emphasizing targeted TV ads during the Discovery merger, Warner Bros. Discovery has rapidly rebuilt its infrastructure to offer clients unprecedented transparency and accountability. In this live recording from the GoAddressable upfront breakfast, learn how premium IP content is joining forces with sophisticated data waterfalls to challenge the dominance of walled gardens. Key Highlights 🔄 Warner Bros. Discovery is correcting a four-year-old strategic pivot by aggressively reinvesting in addressable TV advertising to bridge the performance gap between linear and digital video inventory. 🎯 Roughly 80% of audience-driven TV campaigns now leverage client-supplied first-party segments, signaling a massive shift toward data-ownership and customized targeting in premium environments. 📉 Traditional media companies must radically streamline their back-end infrastructure to eliminate the crippling operational friction that still makes buying TV inventory too slow and clunky for modern brands. 🤝 Legacy publishers are abandoning old rivalries and uniting within consortiums like OpenAP because collective ecosystem collaboration is the only way to successfully compete against tech titans like Amazon, Google, and Meta. 📉 Direct-to-consumer and small-to-medium digital-native advertisers expect the exact same level of performance, accountability, and transparency from television that they grew up using on Meta and Google. 🌊 Relying on a single persistent identifier like an IP address is no longer sustainable, forcing publishers to adopt flexible, composable data waterfalls that combine multiple deterministic and modeled signals. 📊 By guaranteeing reach and incremental reach through their StreamX solution, networks are successfully using top-of-funnel control as a reliable proxy to prove downstream business lift. 🎭 Pairing high-impact sponsorships like premium series premieres with deterministic retargeting allows brands to orchestrate a complete full-funnel strategy from culture-shaping moments down to precise suppression and competitive conquesting. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Bridget Jayaram on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 1:46 Bridget's Background and Warner Brothers Discovery's Addressable Journey 3:33 The De-emphasis and Return to Addressable 4:26 Current Addressable Demand and Client Profiles 5:31 First-Party Data Usage and WBD's Own Data Assets 6:29 Operational Challenges and Infrastructure Needs 7:34 Industry Collaboration vs. Competition 8:38 Outcomes Measurement and Performance Guarantees 10:30 Identity Strategy and Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Approaches 12:12 Serving Different Advertiser Categories and Expectations 13:25 Education and Industry Knowledge Gaps 14:32 WBD's Approach to Performance and Brand Advertising

    16 min

  4. May 28

    iSpot CEO on the Future of TV Ad Outcomes & AI

    Discover how the future of TV advertising is shifting toward outcome-based measurement and AI-driven optimization coming out of the 2026 upfronts . iSpot CEO Sean Muller joins the show to break down their fundamental "Creative + Audience = Outcome" equation, the integration of their new AI platform Sage, and why the industry must prioritize trusted, neutral data over ongoing currency debates. Key Highlights 📺 Following the 2026 upfronts, publishers and networks are shifting from traditional linear metrics to embrace outcome-based models because they recognize that advertisers make major budget allocations based on direct business performance. 🎯 The traditional debate over alternative audience measurement currencies is largely a publisher-driven concern, while modern brands remain strictly focused on concrete performance and cross-platform ad effectiveness. 🧪 True attribution requires a paradigm shift that treats creative and media as an inseparable equation, proving that creative quality is just as critical to the final business outcome as audience targeting. ⏱️ Holistic media measurement must capture a four-quadrant grid that balances short-term performance metrics like immediate website visits with long-term brand equity indicators like purchase intent and favorability. ⚖️ Advertisers are standardizing multi-touch attribution frameworks that pair conversion rate with lift/incrementality to ensure they are tracking true behavioral causality rather than just hitting consumers who would have purchased anyway. 🤝 The real competitive advantage for publishers lies in moving beyond basic outcome reporting toward actively optimizing campaigns in real time using trusted, neutral third-party measurement signals. 🤖 While building autonomous AI agents for campaign optimization is technically trivial, achieving industry adoption depends entirely on training platforms on verified, historical data that marketers can transparently verify via traditional dashboards. 📈 Although streaming and programmatic buying are gradually lowering the barriers to entry for smaller advertisers, total television ad spend remains highly concentrated within sports and a handful of legacy industries. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Sean Muller on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Introduction to TV Outcomes and Industry Readiness 4:29 Defining iSpot's Role and Measurement Philosophy 5:42 TV Disrupt Event and Industry Focus Areas 8:45 Defining Short-term vs Long-term Outcomes 11:59 The Creative + Audience = Outcome Equation 15:06 Measurement Methodology and Industry Partnerships 17:53 Publisher Optimization and the Roku Partnership 19:24 AI Implementation and the Trust Factor 24:01 Legal Dispute with EDO 26:52 Industry Growth and SMB Adoption

    29 min

  5. May 26

    How to Monetize Arguments - Without Getting Cancelled

    Jubilee Media founder and CEO Jason Y Lee joins Next in Media to break down how the digital-first studio builds scalable, format-driven IP that captures Gen Z's massive attention span without relying on a single face. Discover the monetization strategies behind their unscripted content, why creators are turning down Hollywood, and how authentic human conversation is outperforming AI in the modern creator economy. Key Takeaways: The Creator Economy Flip: Top digital creators no longer view Hollywood as the ultimate graduation point, reversing the media power dynamic as traditional studios now seek out digital-first strategies to survive. The Attention Span Myth: Massive engagement metrics on 90-minute videos prove that younger audiences aren’t suffering from short attention spans; they are simply starving for unscripted, long-form authenticity. Format Over Face: Designing repeatable, host-agnostic IP rather than relying on a single charismatic personality eliminates key-person risk and unlocks true operational scalability for digital studios. Contextual Brand Storytelling: The next frontier of monetization rejects one-off, disruptive advertisements in favor of naturally embedding brands into existing, high-performing video franchises. The Anti-Echo Chamber Demand: Algorithms have hyper-fragmented public discourse, creating a massive, untapped market of viewers who actively seek out raw, multi-perspective content to escape their own echo chambers. The TV Screen Takeover: Digital-first production must now default to cinema-grade standards like 4K, as YouTube’s massive growth on connected televisions blends the boundary between streaming networks and independent creators. The Human Premium in an AI Era: As artificial intelligence commoditizes automated content creation, media companies that double down on raw, real-life human connection will hold the ultimate competitive advantage. IP Upcycling and Windowing: Legacy distribution strategies like FAST channels and AVOD licensing represent the most lucrative secondary revenue streams for creators sitting on deep libraries of episodic content. Resources & Next Steps: Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Key Episode Timestamps: 00:00 Jubilee's Mission and Content Philosophy 1:09 Introduction and Background 2:07 Jubilee's Format Strategy and Studio Approach 3:44 Building a Scalable Business Model 4:57 Format Development and Longevity 6:16 YouTube's Evolution and Connected TV 7:54 Multi-Platform Strategy 8:54 Brand Partnerships and Controversial Content 10:01 Successful Brand Integration Examples 11:23 Brand Partnership Philosophy 12:19 YouTube's Creator Economy Evolution 13:44 Creator Content Boosting vs Investment 15:19 Hollywood and Streaming Industry Relations 16:32 Content Licensing and Distribution 17:41 Short-Form Fiction and Experimentation 18:25 Microdrama and Asian Market Trends 19:05 AI Integration and Human-Centered Content 20:09 Generational Media Habits and Public Discourse 21:34 Gen Z's Media Consciousness 22:21 Future Political Engagement and Partnerships

    24 min

  6. May 19

    The Power of Nostalgia: Reaching Gen Alpha Through Their Parents’ Childhood

    Gen Alpha has completely fragmented away from traditional TV, leaving advertisers scrambling to connect with kids and parents across YouTube, FAST channels, and gaming platforms.  This week, Mike sits down with Emma Witkowski, VP of Media Solutions at WildBrain, to unpack the massive market disconnect in children's media, the power of nostalgia in family co-viewing, and how upcoming privacy regulations like COPPA 2.0 are rewriting the rules of digital targeting. Key Highlights: 📺 The Great Gen Alpha Fragmentation: Children's media consumption has shattered across Netflix, YouTube, FAST, social, and gaming platforms, completely ending the era where a single traditional network like Nickelodeon could capture the majority of the audience. 🔌 The Linear Co-Viewing Ad Dollar Gap: While toy and entertainment brands have successfully followed kids to digital spaces, a major market disconnect remains with non-endemic advertisers whose linear TV budgets failed to migrate alongside the parents they were trying to reach. 🛑 The Death of Traditional Tracking Metrics: Regulatory protections like COPPA make standard digital tactics like cookies, pixels, and multi-touch attribution entirely obsolete in children's media, forcing buyers to shift their mindset from tracking to context and from targeting to trust. 🛋️ The Rise of "Shared Screen Time": Shared viewing remains a vital family bonding ritual—with nearly nearly all parents watching alongside their kids weekly and over half doing so daily—yet it continues to challenge standard digital reporting because impression-level verification of who is watching is fundamentally impossible. 🚀 Single-IP FAST Channels as Fandom Hubs: Single-franchise FAST networks are seeing massive year-over-year audience growth by leaning into consistent, curated curation that gives super-fans a dedicated, lean-back destination to immerse themselves in trusted IP. 🧸 Nostalgia as a Direct Purchase Driver: Modern parents deliberately choose content featuring the beloved characters they grew up with, creating an emotional connection that drastically boosts brand recall, purchase intent, and consumer product sales. 📜 The High Operational Stakes of COPPA 2.0: Emerging regulations expanding legal protections up to age 17 and limiting algorithmic AI targeting will severely challenge automated ad resellers, leaving structurally compliant, human-vetted, publisher-direct environments as the safest bet for brands. 💰 A Critical Content Sustainability Crisis: Premium educational and kids' programming faces an existential funding threat from the decline of public broadcasters and linear ad revenue, making direct publisher relationships essential to ensure ad dollars are reinvested back into the content ecosystem rather than lost to third-party reseller leakage Resources & Next Steps: Emma Witkowski Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps: 00:00 Audience Fragmentation and Platform Challenges 1:37 Wild Brain's Business Model and Emma's Background 4:24 The Advertising Dollar Disconnect 6:58 Rethinking Success Metrics in Kids' Media 8:00 The Prevalence and Importance of Co-Viewing 9:36 FAST Channels Strategy and Success 11:05 Strategic Advantages of FAST Over YouTube 14:07 The Power of Nostalgia in Content Selection 16:31 Measurement Challenges and Audience Insights 19:17 COPPA 2.0 Impact and Compliance 21:37 Industry Education and Compliance Standards 23:10 The Future of Kids' Content Funding

    28 min

  7. May 12

    Amazon Ads Chief Alan Moss on Connecting Live Sports, Streaming, and Retail

    In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Alan Moss, VP of Global Advertising Sales at Amazon Ads, to talk about Amazon's rapid transformation into a full-funnel advertising powerhouse. Alan walks through how he joined Amazon mid-COVID in 2020 and within a few years helped land an 11-year NFL deal, launch Prime Video ads, and close an NBA partnership that made Prime Video a year-round sports network.  He and Mike dig into what's working in the upfront market, why Amazon sees retail media and streaming as one unified full-funnel business, and how Amazon DSP's partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, and others now reach 90% of household audiences. They also get into the growing role of Twitch and creators as a mid-funnel marketing lever, and why Alan believes the future is AI agents — not just for creative optimization, but for full campaign orchestration. Key Highlights 🏈 From COVID Hire to Year-Round Sports Network: Alan joined Amazon in July 2020 and within months helped land an 11-year NFL deal, followed by Prime Video ads and the NBA — turning Amazon into a full-year live sports destination. 📺 Prime Video as the Biggest Ad-Supported Streamer: Flipping the switch in January 2024 made Amazon the largest premium ad-supported streaming platform overnight, though the team had to scramble for scatter dollars outside the upfront window. 🚀 Amazon Is Democratizing Live Sports Advertising: Amazon brought 80 net-new advertisers to the NFL and 30 to the NBA in year one — opening up inventory that was previously an exclusive club. 🔗 Retail Media and Streaming Are the Same Business: Alan pushes back on treating Amazon's retail and streaming sides as separate, arguing the real value is a single full-funnel offering from brand awareness to measurable outcomes. 📡 The Amazon DSP Reaches 90% of Households: Partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, Spotify, and SiriusXM extend Amazon's authenticated graph well beyond its own properties. 🎮 Creators Are a New Mid-Funnel Marketing Lever: Twitch's 105 million monthly viewers are increasingly bundled with Prime Video and sports buys rather than treated as a standalone offering. 🤖 AI Agents Are the Big Upfront Story: Alan predicts that the integration of premium content with AI-driven ad tech — from creative adaptation to chat-based campaign execution — will define this upfront season. 📈 The Upfront Market Is Showing Positive Signals: Despite macro headwinds, Alan says agency conversations reflect focus rather than anxiety, with demand clustering around scarce inventory like live sports and custom sponsorships. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Alan Moss on LinkedIn 🌐 Learn more about Amazon Ads 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Cold open 00:43 Introducing Alan Moss, Amazon's VP of Global Ad Sales 01:48 From Thursday Night Football to Prime Video ads — the rapid expansion 04:48 The NBA deal and becoming a year-round sports network 06:58 Bridging retail media and streaming — why Amazon sees it as one business 08:30 The upfront marketplace: positive signals despite macro uncertainty 10:05 Sponsor break: Why the household graph is a differentiator 11:28 Why premium content + AI-driven ad tech is this year's big story 13:30 Prime Video Signature sponsorships and brand partnerships 14:20 Amazon DSP and partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, Spotify, SiriusXM 15:35 Twitch update: 105M viewers, creators as a mid-funnel marketing lever 17:58 How durable AI agents make marketing dollars work harder 20:19 Wrap up

    21 min

  8. May 5

    Why Independent Agencies Are Having a Renaissance – with CMO Kristina Canada

    Episode description In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Kristina Canada, CMO at Net Conversion, a 19-year-old independent marketing and analytics agency based in Orlando that's in the middle of a serious growth push — with a new Chicago office, a recent acquisition of CTV specialists Elevate the Outcome, and a philosophy rooted in measurable business outcomes over vanity metrics. Kristina and Mike dig into why independent agencies are experiencing a renaissance right now as clients seek out agility and transparency. They unpack Net Conversion's approach to making CTV a true performance channel without losing the brand-building benefits, and get into the agency's pragmatic but skeptical stance on AI — from arguing with Google reps about Performance Max to building their own internal chatbot and copilot tools for analysts. Key Highlights 🏢 The Independent Agency Renaissance: Clients are gravitating toward independents for agility, transparency, and freedom from holdco conflicts of interest. 📺 CTV as a Performance Channel: Net Conversion splits CTV into demand capture and demand creation, applying measurement rigor without forcing direct-response KPIs on brand-building. 🤖 AI as Co-Pilot, Not Pilot: The agency's internal mantra is "everyone gets an intern" — they've built their own chatbot but remain vocal skeptics of handing everything to PMAX. 🔍 AI Search Is Merging Paid and Organic: Kristina advises shifting from keyword matching to intent matching, and shares early learnings from piloting ads inside ChatGPT. 🤝 Against Principal-Based Buying: When agencies pre-buy media, incentives shift away from the client — Net Conversion keeps its model firmly aligned with client outcomes. 📈 Undervalued Platforms: Reddit and YouTube are two channels Kristina says deserve more attention from performance-minded advertisers. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Kristina Canada on LinkedIn 🌐 Net Conversion 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00  Cold open 01:51  Introducing Kristina Canada and Net Conversion 04:23  The Elevate the Outcome acquisition and CTV/OTT push 06:03  Why independent agencies are having a "renaissance"  08:00  Making CTV a performance channel without losing brand value 10:23  Sponsor break: Reaching the right audiences on streaming TV 11:21  Being a healthy skeptic of PMAX and Advantage+ 13:19  AI adoption in staff workflows and training 16:00  OpenAI's advertising push and AI-powered search 18:18  The problem with principal-based media buying 19:37  Why YouTube and Reddit are still undervalued 21:02  Wrap up

    21 min
See All (294)

4.8
out of 5
43 Ratings

About

Everything we know about the media, marketing and advertising business is being completely upended thanks to technology and data. We're talking with some of the top industry leaders as they steer their companies through constant change.

Information

  • Creator
    Mike Shields
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    294
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Next in Media
  • Show Website
    Next in Media

You Might Also Like