Up Next with Gabriella Mirabelli

Gabriella Mirabelli
  • 5.0 (32)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

New ideas and new technology are causing seismic shifts the media industry. Meet the innovators, the risk-takers and the disrupters on the front lines of change from Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and beyond. This is the "Up Next Podcast" with Gabriella Mirabelli.

  1. 6D AGO

    UN 409 - Ron Rubin. Gold in Your Backyard.

    Ron Rubin, entrepreneur and author of Gold in Your Backyard, built the Republic of Tea and River Road Family Vineyards over five decades while maintaining debt-free operations. His book, named after his father's expression about recognizing opportunities right in front of you, compiles 50 life lessons drawn from Ron's entrepreneurial career. The conversation covers his approach to risk evaluation, premium brand positioning in commodity markets, finding mentors by direct outreach, and building company culture through values rather than just compensation. The conversation touches on everything from practical decisions about work-life boundaries and incorporating feng shui principles into business design to budgeting for mistakes to reduce innovation pressure.

    28 min

  2. APR 23

    UN 408 - Paul D'Arcy. AI + Marketing.

    Paul D'Arcy, CMO at Moloco, explores how AI has fundamentally shifted the balance between human and machine decision-making in marketing, with digital advertising leading this transformation over the past decade. The conversation examines the tension between operational efficiency and strategic thinking as consumer behavior undergoes generational shifts in how people discover and purchase products. D'Arcy argues marketers are too focused on using AI to optimize internal workflows while missing the larger strategic implications of AI-driven changes in consumer search, discovery, and purchase behavior that require rethinking brand relevance, community building, and owned digital experiences.

    27 min

  3. APR 16

    UN 407 - YPulse. Loyal Consumers & Cool Brands.

    MaryLeigh Bliss, Chief Content Officer at YPulse, has been tracking what young consumers find cool and what keeps them loyal to brands. The two things turn out to be driven by different forces, and understanding the gap between them can change how brand investment decisions should be made. Bliss brings data from YPulse's brand tracker, which covers affinity for over a thousand brands among 13-to-39-year-olds, alongside a separate brand loyalty study. The findings on loyalty, in particular, point to a shift in consumer behavior that happened fast and has a specific cause.

    28 min

  4. APR 9

    UN 406 - Rick DeLisi. AI ROI.

    Rick DeLisi, Lead Research Analyst at Glia and co-author of The Effortless Experience, discusses research showing that less than 30% of organizations achieve full value from customer support AI investments. The conversation covers the "AI maturity gap" where adoption does not equal adaptation, why focusing solely on cost reduction limits AI potential, and barriers, including organizational readiness gaps and measurement challenges. DeLisi explains how high-performing organizations approach AI differently through operational changes beyond technology deployment, why low-effort experiences drive loyalty more than delight, and how contact centers can transform from cost centers into strategic growth engines.

    28 min

  5. APR 2

    UN 405 - IJRM. Regressive Nostalgia.

    Finola Kerrigan, professor of marketing at Birmingham Business School, spent ten years with colleagues studying James Bond fan communities online. Their findings, published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, upend a basic assumption in brand management: that loyal, vocal fans are always an asset. The research identifies a pattern called regressive nostalgia, where a subset of fans resists a brand's cultural evolution and pulls it toward an idealized past. The conversation covers how brand stewards can distinguish between constructive loyalty and regressive attachment, why listening to the loudest voices can backfire, and what the Bond franchise reveals about managing heritage brands through social change.

    27 min

  6. MAR 26

    UN 404 - Mickie Kennedy. Smarter PR.

    In this episode, Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, explains how small businesses can access national press distribution at a fraction of standard costs through eReleases' partnerships. The conversation covers why 97% of press releases fail to generate earned media, the importance of story arc elements like use case studies, and strategic approaches, including industry surveys and contrarian viewpoints. Kennedy discusses how AI replicates unsuccessful patterns, why journalist inboxes have become chaotic from database blasting, the limited value of pay-for-play placements, and how earned media functions as social proof that improves conversion rates and reduces customer churn.

    29 min

  7. MAR 19

    UN 403 - YPulse. Tweens & Screens.

    MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, breaks down new survey data on how 8-to-12-year-olds consume media. Based on a survey of 1,500 tweens in North America, the findings show YouTube operates as the dominant platform in this age group's life, preferred over streaming services by 66% of respondents. Bliss explains what Mr. Beast's formula gets right, why 70% of tweens still have weekly family movie nights, how short-form content breadcrumbs viewers into bingeable series, and what it means that 87% of tweens want diverse representation on screen.

    26 min

  8. MAR 12

    UN 402 - Rachel Bouchar. Event Marketing.

    Rachel Boucher, head of content at Event Marketer magazine, discusses how experiential marketing has evolved from tactical activations to strategic campaign hubs. The conversation covers how the pandemic accelerated planning cycles and hybrid integration, why networking ranks as the top attendee goal at B2B events, and how Gen Z drives demand for offline connection around niche digital communities. Boucher explains why content generation became the number one investment area, how nano-influencers with under 100,000 followers enable personalized messaging at scale, where AI meaningfully improves personalization, and why mobile tours remain among the most affordable and effective formats.

    28 min
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About

New ideas and new technology are causing seismic shifts the media industry. Meet the innovators, the risk-takers and the disrupters on the front lines of change from Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and beyond. This is the "Up Next Podcast" with Gabriella Mirabelli.

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