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Connected TV is leaving behind its reputation as an awareness-only vehicle as media buyers pair deterministic LinkedIn professional data with Amazon DSP supply to convert high-intent viewers directly on the glass.Monks' North American digital investment lead Tom Burchill breaks down the media planning behind Quicken’s 80% cost reduction and details how Amazon Marketing Cloud unlocks real-time audience portability. Key Highlights📺 You don't have to sell physical goods on Amazon to benefit from Amazon DSP—B2B and software brands can tap its streaming inventory and purchase data to reach premium viewers on and off the platform.🎯 Stacking LinkedIn job roles on top of Amazon buying habits gives you verified, deterministic user profiles instead of relying on fuzzy modeled guesswork.⚖️ When you're chasing niche job titles on streaming TV, open up your inventory controls to as many premium publishers as possible or your campaign will starve for reach.📉 Taking an audience profile you've already vetted elsewhere and dropping it into clean first-party streaming environments pays off fast—Quicken slashed its cost per visit by 80% out of the gate.🔗 IP matching has largely replaced the old TV attribution guessing game by directly tying living-room screen exposure to concrete web actions and conversions.🧪 Treat your initial run like a controlled lab experiment to establish clean benchmarks before handing the reins over to automated machine-learning optimization. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Tom Burchill on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Intro1:41 Amazon DSP opportunities for non-endemic advertisers3:18 TV targeting technology is advancing, but scale remains essential5:51 Quicken combines LinkedIn and Amazon data in CTV7:58 Deterministic identity signals strengthen audience activation9:52 Identity resolution supports customer understanding and prospecting10:29 Balancing in-market targets with lookalike models11:34 Controlled testing now, automated optimization next12:58 Streaming TV evolves from awareness medium to performance channel14:25 Amazon Marketing Cloud enables portable, actionable audience insights

When Epson launched its high-end LightStudio home-cinema projector to consumers who only knew them for desktop printers, relying on lower-funnel search ads was a dead end.Live from Amazon Unbox, Amerge's Laura Abadias and Amazon's Charlotte Maines, discuss how connecting Fire TV, Prime Video, and Amazon Marketing Cloud drove 25 million viewers and an 80% new-to-brand purchase rate. Key Highlights🎯 If you only run search ads, you're stuck fighting over existing demand; streaming TV is how you actually create demand before someone ever touches a search bar.📺 Catching someone on the couch with a full-screen Fire TV ad plants the seed while they're unwinding, teeing them up to convert later on Prime Video or retail search.☁️ Instead of guessing with broken third-party tracking, Amazon Marketing Cloud uses real first-party signals to show exactly which touchpoint sparked the sale.🤖 Let AI like Performance+ handle the daily bid grinding and micro-adjustments, but keep humans in the driver's seat for campaign strategy and structure.🔄 Amazon ad spend doesn't have to stay locked inside Amazon—link-out campaigns can send connected TV viewers directly to your own D2C storefront.📊 Judging top-of-funnel video purely on immediate ROAS is how teams accidentally kill the exact campaigns feeding their sales pipeline; track brand lift and search volume instead. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Laura Abadías on LinkedIn🔗 Charlotte Maines LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Intro2:01 Epson’s challenge: moving from printer recognition to home-cinema awareness4:02 Amazon’s full-funnel model across Fire TV, Prime Video, DSP, and sponsored ads6:28 Identity, privacy, and AI-ready customer data7:36 AMC connects funnel metrics and explains the path to conversion11:33 Campaign results: 25 million viewers and more than 80% new-to-brand purchases12:49 Video as a demand-creation tool rather than an isolated awareness tactic14:45 Performance+ combines AI optimization with human campaign control17:22 Link-out campaigns, D2C outcomes, and Alexa+ as future connective infrastructure

As corporate titans like Unilever commit half their marketing budgets to creators, brand leaders face an aggressive operational reset across media, infrastructure, and measurement.Former YouTube executive Tara Walpert Levy breaks down why the creator economy must be treated as an enterprise capability—demanding automated ad-tech plumbing, CFO-level financial accountability, and real-time content agility. Key Highlights🏢 Stop boxing creators into a single media line item; treat them as a core company capability that injects speed and cultural relevance straight into your product and brand strategy.⚙️ Pouring half your ad budget into creators won't work on manual spreadsheets—brands need automated, third-party ad tech to handle creator matchmaking, logistics, and tracking at real scale.📊 The free pass from finance is over, and creator campaigns now have to prove their worth the old-fashioned way: hard sales, clean marketing metrics, and bottom-line profit.🎬 Legacy networks will burn cash if they treat creators like expensive movie studios instead of running high-volume, low-cost rosters that adapt to audiences on the fly.🤖 AI pays off when creators use it behind the scenes for workflow heavy lifting like ideation, editing, and auto-dubbing—not when platforms flood feeds with cheap, fully synthetic junk.📺 TV and creator video aren't in a winner-take-all fight; the ad dollars are stacking across both, so smart marketers have to pull cash from social, linear, and streaming pots at the same time. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Tara Walpert Levy on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Intro00:55 Unilever’s creator-budget commitment and the challenge of scale2:17 Creators as a capability rather than a single budget line3:01 Building cross-platform creator infrastructure4:07 AI’s promise and unresolved boundaries in creator content5:09 Measuring creator marketing against sales and profit6:25 Social video, television, and streaming compete for creator budgets7:19 Advice for traditional media: more creators, lower cost, faster optimization8:06 Brand experimentation, organizational change, and CEO-level relevance

Nestlé Global Head Daniele Tundo and CreativeX CEO Anastasia Leng unpack how Fortune 500 brands build the operational infrastructure needed to professionalize creator partnerships and measure real business impact.From integrating creative observability tools to applying core advertising hygiene standards on paid boosts, this masterclass reveals what it takes to scale creator investments beyond vanity metrics. Key Highlights🏗️ Stop splitting creator campaigns across PR and media teams—run it as its own unified practice with a single budget and clear rules.🧼 The moment you put paid ad dollars behind an organic creator video, it has to follow basic advertising rules to actually build your brand. 🔍 Audit creator videos against your proven ad effectiveness data before throwing real ad spend behind them.📊 Cap your creator spend around 10% to 20% of your total media budget, as performance tends to drop off past the 30% mark.🌐 Platform-native tools are fine for trends, but major advertisers need one central platform to run creators across all channels.🛡️ Prevent brand safety disasters by using knowledgeable ground teams for pre-launch checks rather than burying creators in endless approval chains. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Anastasia Leng on LinkedIn🔗 Daniele Tundo on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Intro2:20 Nestlé’s three waves of creator marketing4:22 CreativeX’s role as a creative observability layer6:08 Nestlé’s infrastructure audit and global operating model7:34 Centralizing creator activation, approval, and technology8:12 Applying Nestlé advertising learnings to creator ads9:45 Integrating CreatorIQ and CreativeX before paid amplification10:20 Authenticity for organic posts, advertising standards for paid work11:11 Using creator learnings to improve traditional branded advertising13:10 Balancing creator authenticity with long-term advertising impact15:05 Creator-spending growth and apparent budget limits17:21 Platform partnerships versus cross-platform control18:51 Brand safety, governance, and the limits of creator-specific blame21:17 Organic creator value and the role of paid boosting23:19 Selecting creator content for paid media rather than standardizing everything24:12 Creator content, LLMs, and consistent brand messages

Discord Global VP of Advertising Adam Bauer breaks down why marketers must stop treating gaming as a niche vertical and start targeting it as an active consumer behavior. Discover how Discord's new self-service Ads Manager, real-time PlayQuest+ rewards, and community-led brand servers are reshaping digital advertising for Gen Z. Key Highlights🎮 Treat gaming as an active habit people lean into, not just another passive channel on a spreadsheet. 🚫 Gen Z blocks and skips forced ads, so reaching them requires optional perks with a clear give-and-take. ⚙️ Self-serve ad tools make it easy for mainstream brands to launch, track, and scale rewarded video campaigns. ⚡ Real-time SDK integrations drop rewards directly into a game the second a player hits their goal. 🔄 Rewarded gameplay challenges give players who haven't logged in for a month or more a real reason to come back. 🛠️ Building custom assets for one virtual world lets you reuse them across platforms like Roblox and Fortnite to save budget. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Adam Bauer on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Intro4:19 Identity resolution for cross-channel marketing4:52 Discord’s deliberate, opt-in advertising strategy8:36 Self-service buying and the expansion beyond gaming11:10 PlayQuest+ and real-time in-game rewards13:47 Why in-game advertising is gaining renewed momentum15:20 Gaming budgets, participation, and measurement18:25 Gaming as an essential consumer behavior, not a vertical19:55 e.l.f. Cosmetics as a nontraditional Discord community example21:35 Discord’s upcoming products and immersive Mission activations

Spy Ninjas President Shelly Soriano breaks down how the YouTube-native serialized franchise scaled to 47 million subscribers and expanded beyond digital video into live entertainment, licensing, and retail.She reveals why keeping production values intentionally accessible maintains viewer trust, how a $25 million investment fuels their expansion, and why traditional entertainment talent must adapt to platform-native storytelling. Key Highlights🤼 Borrowing WWE's formula—big characters mixed with unscripted improv; gives digital shows a proven blueprint for keeping fans hooked long-term.🪆 Fancy Hollywood cameras can actually hurt engagement on YouTube; keeping video production simple makes creators feel relatable and lets kids play along at home.🎪 Turning online fans into real-world visitors at physical venues like theme parks builds a profitable business that platform algorithms can't touch.📱 Simply copy-pasting the same video to TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube doesn't work; each platform has its own audience and requires tailored content.📊 When platforms tweak how they count views, creators have to show advertisers the difference between passive scroll-by views and real, intentional watch time.🎯 Kids and parents respond much better to brands when products are built into the storyline or video challenge instead of sitting in standard ad breaks. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Shelly Soriano on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction1:56 Spy Ninjas’ franchise model, audience, and scale2:38 Soriano’s digital-business background and the company’s revenue mix6:14 Brand partnerships for children and family audiences8:18 Authenticity over expensive production10:42 YouTube’s rise, platform-specific strategy, and short-form opportunity13:01 Spy Ninjas HQ: the Las Vegas live entertainment business14:10 Algorithm stability and changing definitions of YouTube views16:27 The $25 million investment and plans for expansion17:40 The need for specialized creator-economy talent19:53 Improving advertising infrastructure for creator media21:11 The Creative Class: training the next generation of digital-entertainment workers

IQVIA Digital’s Justin Rosen reveals how addressable TV and CTV targeting are evolving beyond basic reach to demand high-fidelity data, rigorous privacy compliance, and proven closed-loop measurement.From identity resolution to the trap of the AI doom loop, discover how top media professionals connect upper-funnel audience quality directly to real-world business results. Key Highlights🎯 Basic CTV targeting is now standard; the real edge comes down to data precision, scale, and accuracy.🔒 Privacy can't be a post-campaign checklist—it has to start upfront with anonymized datasets and double-blind matching.⚠️ AI speeds up media buying operations, but if your underlying audience data is bad, automation just speeds up your failure.🤝 Addressable TV pays off quickest for brands sitting on strong first-party data who can directly link ad views to offline conversions.📊 Outcome measurement is taking over as the true test of ROI, even if traditional panel ratings stay around to settle the bills.🏛️ Clean rooms make cross-platform tracking possible across walled gardens by analyzing campaign performance without physically moving sensitive consumer data. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Justin Rosen on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction2:46 TV targeting becomes standard, while data quality becomes the differentiator5:28 Shared goals across advertisers: accurate targeting and real outcomes6:39 Pharmaceutical targeting: privacy compliance as the starting point8:43 Fierce Pharma discussion: meaningful signals and the link to outcomes10:56 AI can accelerate workflows, but cannot correct weak data13:27 Addressable-TV growth depends on first-party data, simplicity, and trust15:00 Nielsen’s continuing role and the rise of outcome-based measurement16:35 Holistic cross-platform measurement and publisher transparency18:06 Data clean rooms enable privacy-safe collaboration across walled gardens19:50 Identity resolution is a foundational element of marketing accuracy20:51 Measurement everywhere: flexibility across client identity systems

Betches senior video producers Tess Tregellas and Madeline Mahoney reveal how they transformed a viral social media premise into their flagship scripted comedy series Sisters. They outline the operational mechanics of building an in-house creator studio, maintaining a sponsor-free first season to protect brand voice, and driving multi-platform distribution completely organically. Key Highlights🎬 Short-form skits let you test creator chemistry and prove audience interest before committing big budgets to long-form shows.🔒 Keeping your first season sponsor-free protects your characters and tone, making the show much more attractive to advertisers later.⚡ A lean in-house crew skips Hollywood's endless development cycles, letting you film polished episodes in just a few days.📐 Frame horizontal shots with vertical cutdowns in mind to get free organic reach across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.🎭 Casting guest stars with dedicated niche followings sneaks your show right into brand-new algorithmic communities.🤝 Sponsor deals actually work when brands trust your sarcastic, natural voice instead of forcing corporate ad scripts.📲 Turning audio podcasts into video vodcasts fits how people actually watch content—streaming YouTube on their living room TV. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Tess Tregellas on LinkedIn🔗 Madeline Mahoney on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction1:22 Introduction to Betches and the interview guests2:18 Roles at Betches and the company’s video-first transformation5:57 From a real-life coincidence to a scripted sister comedy7:17 Short-form, premium long-form, and production quality09:24 Why Betches produced the show in-house12:15 Sponsor-free first season and a more natural future brand opportunity15:10 Writing for one-minute clips and learning platform behavior17:49 Betches’ in-house talent model and external creator network19:18 Branded content works when partners trust the Betches voice20:30 Season two and a potential streaming adaptation21:27 Advice for brands and publishers entering bigger video formats

As The Trade Desk confronts negative growth guidance, executive turnover, and a 15% workforce reduction, media analysts Brian Wieser and Luke Stillman dissect the structural missteps behind the company's valuation drop.They reveal how an insistence on open-web transparency manifestos lost ground to buyer demands for price, convenience, and direct supply path performance. Key Highlights🎯 Marketers care about price, performance, and convenience—not speeches about saving the open web.👁️ Founder vision works early on, but ignoring market feedback once you're big creates massive blind spots.🧩 Buyers are sick of bloated tech stacks and want a simpler, direct path to ad inventory.📺 Connected TV won't fetch crazy software margins when brands manage it like standard TV budgets.🤝 Going straight to brand clients burns bridges with the agencies that built your business.💸 Taking a 20% cut of ad spend works in boom times, but buyers won't tolerate high fees in a slowdown. Resources & Next Steps🔗 Brian Wieser on LinkedIn🔗 Luke Stillman on LinkedIn🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps00:00 Introduction2:04 Analysis of recent earnings, market valuation drops, and the 15% workforce reduction.3:06 Marketers prioritize performance, pricing, and convenience over open-web transparency debates.5:02 Jeff Green's persistent founder mindset versus changing organizational market dynamics.09:34 AdTech tech stack collapse and the industry-wide push toward supply path optimization.11:49 Sustainability challenges regarding total platform take rates exceeding 20%.13:50 Leveraging newly hired executive talent to challenge internal consensus.18:38 Missed capital allocation and acquisition opportunities during peak equity valuation.

Traditional sports broadcasts are evolving into multi-platform cultural ecosystems driven by social media, gaming metaverses, and athlete creators. NBA Take-Two Media CEO Andrew Perlmutter explains how media brands can build participatory off-court entertainment that converts casual viewers into lifelong fans. Key Highlights 🏀 Live sports remain one of the few shared cultural anchors, using basketball as a natural entry point into fashion, music, and lifestyle programming. 🎮 Video games like NBA 2K function as interactive virtual spaces where fans build real connections by playing directly against actual NBA stars. 📱 Content strategy requires building custom video formats tailored specifically to how people consume media on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. ⚡ Younger fans demand hands-on participation over passive watching, preferring interactive features like call-in hotlines and fan-driven video game simulations. 🎙️ Digital media brands must maintain a strong, distinct point of view to avoid getting doused in a sea of generic content. 📺 Live game broadcasts are adapting to second-screen habits through alternate commentary casts and player-specific camera views. 👟 Successful brand partnerships weave products naturally into entertaining social storylines rather than forcing scripted endorsements or rigid ad reads. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Andrew Perlmutter on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Intro 2:22 NBA 2K as a metaverse-like participatory experience 5:30 Sports as an expanding cultural gateway 7:19 NBA R&D and accessible basketball-pop-culture formats 9:05 Joakim Noah’s Nomad and athletes becoming creators 11:08 Building shows for platforms, brand voices, and talent 14:19 Gen Z: preserving live-sports drama while enabling participation 17:00 Co-creation, fan experiments, and new sports entry points 18:57 Native brand partnerships in basketball-adjacent culture

Rushed methodology changes implemented mid-season by Nielsen have severely shaken the NFL's confidence in standard television ratings. NFL Chief Data Officer Paul Ballew explains how media fragmentation is forcing leagues and networks to demand radical transparency or switch to new transactional metrics. Key Highlights 📉 Changing ratings math in the middle of ad sales season destroys trust and throws billions in ad deals into chaos. 🤝 Traditional demographic panels aren't dead, but they are useless unless paired with hard transactional data. 📱 Streaming platforms are far more likely to ditch legacy ratings than traditional TV networks. 👥 Broken co-viewing math leaves huge money on the table for blockbuster events like the Super Bowl. ⚖️ Old-school measurement giants are trapped in the innovator's dilemma, trying to overhaul the engine while driving the car down the highway. 💳 TV ad buying will eventually trade on verified subscriber counts and device IDs instead of estimated viewer headcounts. 🔄 When measurement firms constantly issue "whoops" restatements, sports leagues have to publish their own audience numbers to save face. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Paul Ballew on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Intro 1:50 Grading Nielsen's Progress: Mixed Results 3:57 Three Core Problems Holding Nielsen Back 5:34 The Currency Wars: More Noise Than Change? 9:01 CreatorTV Sponsor Segment 10:07 Why the NFL Cares Beyond Top-Line Numbers 11:40 The Integrated Weighting Problem and Its Impact on Sports 13:33 The NFL's Collaborative Approach and Its Limits 15:54 Panels vs. Big Data: The Right Balance 17:54 The NFL's Own Data Capabilities and the Transactional Data Argument 20:04 Nielsen's Cultural Challenge and the Innovator's Dilemma 22:06 The NFL's Measurement Wish List 26:38 Could TV Measurement Move Beyond Viewership as a Currency?

As US video ad spend reaches $82 billion, media buyers are demanding granular audience targeting capabilities alongside bottom-funnel performance metrics. IAB Vice President Chris Bruderle breaks down the shifting dynamics between CTV and social video, the rise of multimodal contextual AI, and why live sports platforms must prove direct ROI to capture long-tail budgets. Key Highlights 🎯 Targeting Outweighs Raw Performance: Hitting sales numbers isn't enough anymore—media buyers want to know exactly which audiences drove those conversions before committing budgets. 📱 Why Social Beats TV for Small Businesses: Social platforms are pulling away from CTV by giving smaller advertisers easy self-serve AI tools and direct in-app checkout. 🌐 The Open Web Isn't Dead: Web video is still a $20 billion market because publishers are using native video to keep audiences engaged as search traffic drops. 📊 A View Isn't Equal Everywhere: Real measurement normalizes cross-platform data under one framework without pretending a TikTok scroll carries the same weight as a living room CTV impression. 🛡️ Ad Fraud Is a Transparency Problem: Buyers aren't panicking about sudden fraud spikes; they're anxious because publishers still won't clearly disclose where programmatic ads actually run. 🤖 Smart AI Beats Blunt Keyword Blocking: Multimodal AI actually understands video context, saving brand-safe news and pop culture content from being needlessly blocked. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Chris Bruderle on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 4:15 The Overall Health of the Video Ad Market 6:21 Is the Open Web Dead? Websites Still Matter 7:05 Measuring Video Across Platforms: Unified but Differentiated 9:03 Social Video Overtakes CTV: Why SMBs Prefer Social 10:49 In-Stream vs. Out-Stream: Clearing Up Confusion 13:43 Ad Fraud and Trust in Programmatic Video 16:01 Contextual Advertising: AI-Powered Classification as a Solution 17:42 Agentic AI: Back-End Efficiency vs. Autonomous Spending 19:29 Shoppable Formats in Video: CTV Must Catch Up 20:58 TV Branding vs. Performance: Navigating the Full Funnel 23:06 Advice for Streamers: Live Sports and the SMB Challenge

Traditional media buying breaks down when attitudinal audience data gets lost between upstream research and downstream media activation. Bright Mountain's Andy Davidson and Deep Focus's Kyle Krueger unpack how synthetic personas, unified YouTube-to-CTV strategies, and responsible creator management keep ad campaigns aligned and effective. Key Highlights 🔄 Audience research usually gets mangled like a game of telephone once an agency hands off a campaign brief to platforms and creators. 📺 TV networks ingest data much faster now, letting buyers target real-time viewer interests instead of relying on six-month-old demographic reports. 📲 Independent agencies view YouTube as equal to traditional TV because it gives mid-sized brands better targeting, lower costs, and clearer ROI tracking. 🤖 Synthetic audience models allow planners to vet creator selections and test campaign ideas before spending actual media dollars. 🏝️ Travel creators who expose "hidden gems" without ground rules drive over-tourism and trigger serious backlash from local residents. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Andy Davidson on LinkedIn 🔗 Kyle Krueger on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Intro 1:28 Introduction to Bright Mountain and Deep Focus 2:46 YouTube Ecosystem Challenges and Creator Studios 4:04 Data-Driven Audience Targeting and Platform Selection 7:11 Caribbean Tourism Client Case Study 8:01 Creator Selection and Audience Validation 9:12 Synthetic Audience Techniques and Data Ecosystem 11:17 YouTube's Journey Toward TV Legitimacy 12:49 Creator Control and Brand Messaging Challenges

Ace Hardware's RedVest Media is rewriting the retail advertising playbook by turning a late market entry into a strategic advantage across its 5,200 store footprint. Head of Retail Media Molly Hjelm joins Mike Shields to explain why friction-free Pacvue integration, closed-loop endemic attribution, and re-embracing physical stores outperform legacy off-platform tactics. Key Highlights ⏰ The Late-Mover Edge: Launching a network today means skipping years of clunky tech builds and plugging straight into mature e-commerce and delivery setups. 🤝 Meet Advertisers Where They Work: Brands hate learning new dashboards; plugging into existing buying platforms like Pacvue removes friction and gets campaigns funded faster. 🏢 Co-Ops Require Local Buy-In: You can't force thousands of independent store owners into a corporate playbook—you have to prove the model boosts local store revenue first. 📈 Big-Ticket Items Drive Market-Wide Sales: High-priced hardware like grills won't hit impulse CPG conversion rates, but they pull in massive overall revenue across entire markets. 📊 Standard Measurement Builds Instant Trust: Using accredited third-party platforms like CitrusAd gives brands reliable metrics, whereas legacy tools like Marketing Mix Modeling fail in retail media. 🏷️ Physical Aisles Drive the Real Volume: E-commerce gets the attention, but most transactions happen in physical stores, making in-store signage essential for moving product. 🛑 Off-Platform Expansion Kills Retail Context: Dumping shopper data across the open web strips away the store context, breaking closed-loop attribution and frustrating endemic brands. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Molly Hjelm on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Intro 1:10 Ace Hardware's Late Entry and Co-op Structure 3:16 Late Mover Advantages and Strategic Timing 6:42 Building from Experience and Vendor Insights 7:37 Pacvue Partnership and Portfolio Launch Strategy 8:44 Industry Experience and Channel Differences 10:20 Hardware Category Unique Characteristics 12:43 Non-Endemic Opportunities and Audience Targeting 14:35 In-Store Media Strategy and Heritage 16:20 Industry Standardization and Measurement Challenges 18:05 Consolidation Perspectives and Scale Requirements 21:46 Creator Content Integration and Social Amplification

Collective CIO Natalie Silverstein joins Next In Media to explore how creators are evolving into full-fledged media networks and what it takes for brands to scale authentic partnerships in a hyper-fragmented landscape. Natalie, also breaks down real-time crisis agility, strategies for training AI language models on video content, and how to combat the algorithmic reach recession with targeted paid media. Key Highlights 📺 YouTube Creator Networks: Creators aren't just making one-off sponsored videos anymore—they're running multi-show media networks with their own IP. 🤝 Scale Without Losing the Soul: Pulling off massive creator runs like L’Oréal’s (think thousands of activations) doesn't mean producing generic slop. ⚡ Real-Time Crisis Agility: Social platforms run on outrage, and minor issues turn into viral fires fast. 🤖 Targeting the AI Audience: LLMs are becoming a key target audience, and they love structured content. Writing scripts and captions with clear, direct Q&As helps AI models pick up your video as an authoritative answer. 📐 Matching ROI to the Surface: You can't measure all creator content the same way. 🏢 Creator Marketing Goes Core: Major ad holding companies buying up influencer agencies isn't a fluke; it's proof that creator strategy is now table stakes for every serious media plan, not a side experiment. 🧠 The Limits of Tech: AI can overhaul campaign data and software tools, but it can't read a room. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Natalie Silverstein on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Intro 2:03 YouTube's Creator-Centric Strategy and Content Evolution 3:12 Scaling Creator Marketing 6:27 ROI Measurement and Performance Optimization in Creator Marketing 8:08 Optimizing Creator Content for Large Language Models 11:26 Industry Consolidation 13:27 Creator Reach Recession