Business of Marketing

Business of Marketing
  • 5.0 (33)
  • Marketing
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Business of Marketing is the podcast of marketing intelligence. John Horsley and Justin Cooke sit down with the people running marketing and commercial functions at the world's biggest brands, agencies and platforms. In-depth, conversations on the record. Published at businessof.co.

  1. 1d ago

    Special Edition: The $100bn Commerce Media Opportunity - Matt Conlin, Founder & Chief Customer Officer, Fluent

    Commerce media is emerging as one of the biggest shifts in digital advertising. Search defined the 2000s. Social reshaped the 2010s. Now retailers, travel companies and other businesses are building media businesses around something potentially even more valuable: first-party customer relationships, purchase data and proximity to the transaction. In this special edition of The Business of Marketing, John Horsley is joined by Matt Conlin, Founder & Chief Customer Officer at Fluent, to explore where commerce media goes next. Matt describes it as the third major wave of digital media, with the category now tracking towards $100 billion in annual spend. They discuss why the industry is moving from impressions and clicks towards measurable business outcomes, how retail media is expanding beyond onsite advertising into offsite audiences, non-endemic offers and physical stores, and why more businesses are beginning to think and act like publishers. They also look at how AI and agentic commerce could reshape product discovery, purchasing and the wider customer journey, and what brands need to consider as consumers increasingly use AI to research complex decisions. The conversation then turns to Matt’s own founder story: building Fluent from zero to $40 million in revenue in its first year, navigating acquisition and public-company life, and making the decision to remove $100 million of revenue from the business in order to reinvest in what Fluent believed would be its next growth engine. They also discuss leadership, culture, resilience, hiring and why Matt looks for three qualities above almost everything else: curiosity, grit and tenacity. A conversation about the next era of digital advertising, and what it takes to keep reinventing a business while the market changes around you.

  2. 2d ago

    Cannes Lions Special: Sarah Robertson, Chief Product Officer at Experian, on Turning Data Into Outcomes

    Recorded live at Cannes Lions, Justin Cooke is joined by Sarah Robertson, Chief Product Officer at Experian, for a conversation about one of the persistent challenges facing modern businesses: turning data into something genuinely useful. Sarah argues that organisations often start in the wrong place. Rather than asking what data they have or what technology they should deploy, they need to begin with the outcome they are trying to create. They discuss why more data does not necessarily produce better decisions, why data quality remains fundamental in the age of AI, and the challenge of connecting fragmented identities, legacy systems and increasingly complex customer journeys. Sarah also takes Justin inside the product mindset at Experian: how to establish whether customers genuinely value an idea, why product teams need to work closely with sales and marketing without simply building whatever they ask for, and what it takes to turn an insight into something customers will actually pay for. They also explore AI's impact on product development and data engineering, the growing importance of identity and measurement, why emotional intelligence and critical thinking are becoming more valuable skills, and the potential consequences of AI for people entering the workforce. As Sarah puts it: “The data isn’t the exciting bit. It’s really what you can do with that data.” A practical conversation about data, product, AI and how businesses move from information to outcomes, recorded live at Cannes Lions.

  3. 3d ago

    Cannes Lions: Pierce Cook-Anderson of Mail Metro Media on Publishing’s Existential Moment

    Recorded live at Cannes Lions, John Horsley is joined by Pierce Cook-Anderson, Managing Director, Advertising at Mail Metro Media. After more than 20 years spanning publishing, media sales and ad tech, including roles at Future, Sky, the FT, Newsweek, OpenX and Equativ, Pierce has returned to publishing at what he describes as an “existential moment” for the industry. They discuss how AI and zero-click search are reshaping publishing, why trusted journalism could become more valuable as AI-generated content proliferates, and the growing question of how publishers receive fair value when their journalism is used by LLMs. Pierce also explains why Mail Metro Media is working with fewer, more strategic technology partners, how first-party data is changing the publisher proposition, and why relationships between brands and publishers are becoming less transactional and far more collaborative. They also explore premium advertising, trust, creativity, the renewed importance of brand building, and why the best briefs should challenge publishers to create something brands haven’t seen before. Recorded live at Cannes Lions, this is a timely conversation about the future of publishing, advertising and quality journalism in an AI-driven world.

  4. Sep 10

    Cannes Lions: Olaf van Gerwen of Chuck Studios on Why Food Advertising Sells the Category, Not the Brand

    What makes a burger look like your burger? Or a beer look like your beer? For Olaf van Gerwen, Founder & Global Creative Director of Chuck Studios, that question gets to the heart of a problem facing some of the world’s biggest food and drink brands: too much advertising makes the category look good, while doing very little to make the brand distinctive. Recorded at Cannes Lions, Olaf joins John Horsley to talk about the craft and science of building brands through food. They explore why years of performance marketing have pulled attention away from long-term brand building, why consistency beats constantly reinventing the campaign, and how brands can develop a distinctive “culinary identity” in much the same way they build a visual or sonic identity. Olaf also shares the thinking behind Chuck Studios’ work with brands including McDonald’s, KFC and Lipton, why subtle brand cues can become incredibly powerful over time, and why his decision to specialise completely in food and drink transformed his own career. His advice for anyone coming into the industry is equally clear: find the thing you want to be known for, then go deep. A conversation about creativity, distinctiveness, specialism and what it really takes to build a brand people remember.

  5. Sep 9

    Special Edition: Travis Clinger, LiveRamp on the New Infrastructure of Marketing

    The customer journey is fragmenting fast. AI is creating entirely new consumer touchpoints. And the marketing infrastructure underneath it all is having to change with it. In this episode of The Business of Marketing, John Horsley sits down with Travis Clinger, Chief Connectivity & Ecosystem Officer and GM, International at LiveRamp, to explore what that change actually looks like. Travis sits at the centre of an ecosystem connecting brands, publishers, platforms, data partners and technology companies across almost 30 international markets. That gives him a rare view of where marketing is heading next. They discuss why identity has become the connective tissue between channels, how brands can bring together fragmented customer signals, and why the long-predicted death of the cookie ended up accelerating a much bigger shift towards interoperable identity. The conversation also moves into AI and agentic marketing. Travis explains how LiveRamp is building infrastructure that allows brands to bring their own agents, why the company launched its LiveRamp Agent Builders programme, and how AI is already beginning to reshape measurement, clean rooms and everyday marketing workflows. They also explore why markets including the UK, Australia and the Middle East are moving at different speeds, what LiveRamp is seeing from partners including Netflix, TikTok and OpenAI, and why the next generation of marketing could become increasingly agent-led. Plus, Travis shares the two pieces of career advice he believes have made the biggest difference to his own career: show up, and never walk past a problem just because it is not technically yours. A conversation about identity, connectivity, AI and the infrastructure being built for the next era of marketing.

  6. Sep 8

    Cannes Lions: Luca Filardo CRO, Adlook on AI, Accountability and the Future of Programmatic

    For years, programmatic advertising has been optimised around clicks, viewability and other proxy metrics. But marketers increasingly want a much simpler answer: what did this investment actually do for the business? Recorded live at Cannes Lions, John Horsley sits down with Luca Filardo, Chief Revenue Officer at Adlook, to explore how AI is changing the economics, speed and expectations of digital advertising. Luca explains why marketers are moving beyond media metrics towards ROAS and real business outcomes, and how AI is making it possible to change targeting, creative and campaigns in real time as market conditions shift. They also get into conversational campaign building using LLMs, AI-powered audience creation, connected TV, attention and creative optimisation, the growing problem with publisher ad overload, fraud, and why the role of a modern CRO now extends far beyond simply running a sales team. Plus, Luca shares why relentless curiosity matters in an industry moving this quickly, and the Japanese principle of Kaizen: getting a little better every single day. A conversation about what happens when programmatic stops simply buying media and starts responding intelligently to the world around it.

  7. Sep 7

    Cannes Lions: Why First-Party Data Still Isn’t Working with Rob McLaughlin, AUDIENCES

    Most brands say they have a first-party data strategy. Far fewer are actually using that data to shape the media they buy. Recorded live at Cannes Lions, John Horsley sits down with Rob McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of AUDIENCES, to explore why so much customer data still fails to make it into media activation and what needs to change. Rob argues that less than 3% of media spend is currently informed by first-party data, creating what he calls the “activation gap”: businesses have the permission, technology and customer intelligence, but still fail to put it to work. They discuss why brands may already have most of the data and technology they need, why chasing a 360-degree customer view can be both unrealistic and intrusive, and why CMOs and CTOs need to work far more closely together. Rob also explains AUDIENCES’ new partnership with Snowflake, how bringing activation capability directly into a company’s existing data infrastructure can remove months of complexity, and why customer data should remain with the organisation it was originally entrusted to. The conversation also goes behind the business, from bootstrapping AUDIENCES and building enterprise-grade software from day one to Rob’s experience founding and exiting Loop Horizon, hiring the right early team and why he remains unapologetically optimistic about entrepreneurship. A conversation about making first-party data genuinely useful, building software businesses from scratch and closing the gap between having customer intelligence and actually doing something with it.

  8. Sep 2 ·  Video

    Cannes Lions: Luis Miguel Messianu, MEL on Why Culture Will Win in the Age of AI

    Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Luis Miguel Messianu, Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer of MEL, for a conversation about cultural intelligence, creativity, AI and where brands will find their next wave of growth. Luis has spent decades challenging the way brands think about multicultural marketing, building award-winning agencies and leading creative work across some of the world’s biggest brands. His argument is increasingly relevant far beyond multicultural marketing: the brands that win will be those that understand culture deeply enough to make people feel genuinely understood. Luis explains why specificity creates authenticity, why multicultural thinking belongs at the centre of the brief rather than at the edge of a campaign, and why brands looking for growth need people inside their organisations who have actually lived the cultures they want to reach. Justin and Luis also explore the impact of AI on creativity. Luis describes AI as “augmented imagination” and argues that, as technology makes execution faster and easier, human nuance, taste, cultural insight and the quality of the underlying idea will become even more valuable. They discuss: • Why multicultural marketing can no longer be treated as a niche • How cultural intelligence creates stronger brand connections • Why changing the brief is often the first step towards changing the work • What leading McDonald’s creative work across 46 markets taught Luis about human behaviour • Why AI could make cultural insight and creative originality more important, not less • How agencies can protect their creative soul while still building successful businesses They also talk about agency reinvention, creative standards, mentoring the next generation of talent and why Luis believes advertising is ultimately “the business of optimism”. A wide-ranging conversation about culture, creativity, growth and what will differentiate great brands in an increasingly AI-powered world.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
33 Ratings

About

Business of Marketing is the podcast of marketing intelligence. John Horsley and Justin Cooke sit down with the people running marketing and commercial functions at the world's biggest brands, agencies and platforms. In-depth, conversations on the record. Published at businessof.co.

Information

  • Creator
    Business of Marketing
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    143
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Business of 2026. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Business of Marketing

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