Marriott’s Monique Perlmutter: 75% Of Travelers ‘More Open To Discovery’ During Travel Moments
Marriott Media, in partnership with research firm Kinective and United Airlines’ media network, released a study mapping traveler mindsets across the entire journey—from pre‑trip planning to on‑property stay. The report highlights a striking shift: roughly three‑quarters of guests become markedly more receptive to new brands once they step onto a hotel property. The research identifies a psychological “reset” at arrival, moving travelers from a planning mindset to an active discovery phase. In this window, optimism and openness surge, making it the optimal moment for advertisers. Marriott leverages over 500 targetable attributes to deliver tailored messages—whether sunscreen two weeks before a beach trip or ski‑transfer services for a Colorado vacation—aligned with each stage’s intent. Monique Perlmutter notes that most brands still concentrate spend on pre‑trip touchpoints, overlooking the high‑impact on‑property moment. United’s airport and in‑flight data, combined with Marriott’s hotel presence, enable a seamless, sequential messaging strategy that follows the traveler from gate to room, filling a previously untapped advertising gap. For marketers, the insight translates into higher engagement and ROI by shifting budget toward in‑destination media and crafting travel‑centric creative. The collaborative model also offers advertisers a unified, data‑driven platform to maintain brand relevance throughout the traveler’s entire experience.
OpenX’s Erika Loberg: Attention Should Measure ‘Real Human Engagement,’ Not Just Screen Presence
OpenX’s chief product officer Erika Loberg explained that the next evolution in connected‑TV (CTV) advertising is shifting the attention metric from a retrospective, post‑campaign gauge to a real‑time, pre‑bid signal that reflects genuine human engagement with the screen. Traditional viewability only...
FreeWheel’s Alex Ibarguen: CTV Fragmentation Is ‘Very Much An Identity Problem’
Alex Ibarguen of FreeWheel frames connected‑TV (CTV) fragmentation not merely as an inventory issue but as a fundamental identity problem. He argues that deterministic household data—anchored by Comcast’s ISP‑assigned IPs—provides the stable identifiers needed for accurate political and brand messaging,...
Streamers Line Up to Support the Kids of Puerto Rico
The video announces a coordinated industry effort, led by Beet.TV and spearheaded by Andy Plesser, to donate streaming ad inventory in support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico. Alma Frontera, the organization’s CEO, thanks the partners and...
WPP Media’s Adam Shlachter: Gaming ‘Might Be Ultimate Environment’ For Retail Media
WPP Media’s Adam Shlachter argues that gaming environments represent the ideal setting for retail media, offering real‑time moments to align brand messages with shopper intent. He emphasizes that authentic integration—understanding gamer psychology and specific platform nuances—is essential for effective campaigns....
Ad Industry Needs Standards Before AI Agents Start Buying Media: IAB Tech Labs' Anthony Katsur
Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, warned that the ad industry must establish clear standards before AI agents begin buying media. He unveiled the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols (AMP) to ensure data transparency, audience‑signal quality, and recency for autonomous...
AI Is Moving Fast but Work Still Gets Done in the Present: Hearst’s Lee Garfield
Lee Garfield, Hearst Magazines' VP of programmatic sales, says AI’s real value lies in today’s workflows, not distant forecasts. AI tools are already speeding up branded‑content production while safeguarding brand messaging. The company’s first‑party data platform, Aura, has been refined...
‘Neuro Contextual’ Ads Offer Relief From The ‘Intrusive’ Retargeting Trap
Seedtag is promoting "neuro contextual" advertising that aligns ads with a viewer’s real‑time emotional state rather than past browsing behavior. Research with Columbia University showed a 3.5× lift in neural engagement versus traditional retargeting. The approach also delivered a 600%...
For TransUnion’s Spiegel, Human Oversight Will Be The Governor on AI’s Engine
Matt Spiegel, EVP of TruAudience growth strategy at TransUnion, argues that while AI will automate many marketing tasks, human oversight remains essential. He debunks the myth that AI will render granular consumer identity irrelevant, insisting deeper data insights are needed...
AI Agents Are ‘Nascent’ but Data Clean Rooms Are Ready for the Collaboration Era
AI agents are still in their infancy, but their hunger for data is prompting enterprises to revisit data clean rooms as essential guardrails. Snowflake, after acquiring Samooha, has rolled out Snowflake Data Clean Rooms to let organizations share and analyze...
Jeremi Gorman of Fanatics Advertising Says the Business Is Bigger Than Your Closet
Jeremi Gorman, chief revenue officer of Fanatics Advertising, highlighted the company’s $8 billion annual commerce engine that spans licensed merchandise, trading cards, collectibles and betting. Fanatics now owns Topps, Lids and the NBA Store, and has built the FanGraph data platform...
In-Store Is Retail Media’s Blind Spot: Michele Roney of Mars United Commerce
Michele Roney of Mars United Commerce says retail media has largely ignored the in-store experience, where advertising remains mass-market and untailored compared with pixel-level precision online. She argues retailers and brands must integrate data and collaborate with transparency and scale...
Horizon Media’s Alex Stone: AI Dynamics Making Deal Negotiations ‘Take More Time’
Alex Stone, head of Enterprise Partnerships at Horizon Media, says the agency is reshaping deals to prioritize technical alliances, data collaboration and client-focused solutions alongside traditional commercial terms. Horizon pairs high-level joint business partnerships (JBPs) with joint technical plans (JTPs)...
Gen AI Ads: Consumers More Bearish Than Ad Execs, and the Gap Is Widening
New research from Sonata Insights and IAB finds a widening "AI Ad Gap": young consumers are increasingly negative about AI-generated advertising, and ad executives continue to underestimate that sentiment. Despite greater exposure to AI ads in year two of the...
TV Buyers Need Better Signals Not Just More Floss Data: Alliant's Suvadip Choudhury
In a recent interview, Alliant’s Suvadip Choudhury argued that TV buyers need better quality signals—not just more raw data—to sharpen audience targeting. He traced the industry’s evolution from simple demographic slices to behavior‑driven segments that can identify, for example, “moms...
Contextual Targeting Gains Ground in CTV: Magnite’s Ryan Kenney
Contextual targeting is emerging as the primary method for buying Connected TV inventory, offering relevance at scale without relying on user identifiers. Ryan Kenney of Magnite highlighted that viewers choose content they love, making context a natural fit for CTV....
IAB’s Zoe Soon: Media Agencies Increasingly Consider Creator Economy ‘A Must Buy ’
IAB executive Zoe Soon says the creator economy has become one of the fastest-growing areas of brand investment, with roughly 50% of U.S. buyers now treating it as a “must buy” alongside search and social. Brands are shifting to creator-first...
Trustworthy Data Beats Shiny AI at CES 2026: Horizon Media's Dominic Venuto
Horizon Media is prioritizing trustworthy, transparent data over flashy AI features as it rolls out its Blue AI-native platform, enriching client data and enabling natural-language interrogation down to atomic-level records so customers can validate and act on insights. The agency...
AI Is Everywhere, but Human Marketers Still Get the Credit: Horizon’s Jeremy Flynn
In a recent interview, Horizon’s Jeremy Flynn explained how the agency is embedding artificial intelligence into every stage of its media services, reflecting a broader shift in chief marketing officer (CMO) expectations from simple media execution to measurable growth experiences. Flynn...
Walmart Connect’s Khurrum Malik: CTV Plus Linear TV Delivers 55% Reach Increase
Walmart Connect senior executive Khurrum Malik used the forum to highlight the rapid evolution of retail media, from a lower‑funnel, on‑site placement to a multi‑surface storytelling engine that now includes CTV, linear TV and over‑the‑top platforms. He announced the company’s recent...
IRIS.TV’s Field Garthwaite: Contextual Targeting Enables Privacy-First CTV Performance
IRIS.TV is turning Connected TV into a performance‑driven channel by using contextual signals and emotional data to serve ads at moments that resonate with viewers. The platform’s privacy‑first approach identifies what content is being watched without tracking personal identities, enabling...
Beyond the Niche: Unity Exec Urges Marketers to Rethink Gaming
Unity senior vice president Chris Feo urges marketers to treat gaming like any other high‑engagement media channel, arguing that outdated stereotypes limit ad spend despite comparable scale. He highlights Unity’s expansive platform—used by automakers, slot‑machine makers and more—supporting 160 million U.S....
Audio Gets Programmatic: Lisa Coffey Of IHeartMedia Says 'Guaranteed Human' Wins Trust
IHeartMedia’s chief business officer Lisa Coffey announced a beta version of Audiograph, a platform that makes broadcast radio addressable, measurable and programmatically purchasable. Early proof‑of‑concept tests with five advertisers across retail, wireless and quick‑service restaurants showed addressable radio outperformed traditional...
Dentsu’s Will Swayne: Advertising Enters Its Third Phase, ‘The Algorithmic Era’
Will Swayne, global practice president at dentsu, announced that advertising has entered its third, algorithmic era, where media planning relies on addressable, outcome‑focused marketplaces powered by AI. He emphasized that despite technological advances, stable consumer behaviors remain the foundation for...
AI Will Make Agencies Feel Human Again: Carat’s Carrie Drinkwater
Carat chief Carrie Drinkwater said the agency is prioritizing AI and tech to capture cultural insights and make them media-actionable, using proprietary studies and ‘agentic’ tools to identify the right cultural moments for each brand. She argued AI is shifting...
For AI in Ads to Work, IAB Says Fix the ‘Garbage In’ Problem First
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced that its new Project Eidos will tackle the “garbage‑in” problem that is limiting AI‑driven advertising measurement. The initiative comes as the ecosystem wrestles with fragmented data sources, privacy‑driven signal loss, and an expanding mix of...
Lenovo’s Rick Corteville: B2B Marketers Must Focus On ‘Quality Places’ For CTV
Lenovo marketing executive Rick Corteville says deterministic, first‑party data is transforming B2B connected-TV (CTV) by improving audience precision, reducing waste and boosting incrementality across media mixes. He cited a recent enterprise AI campaign that used target account lists and media...
Data and Context Drive Performance in Connected TV: OMD’s Tej Desai
The video features OMD’s Tej Desai explaining how data and contextual signals are reshaping performance measurement on Connected TV (CTV). He argues that advertisers are moving beyond isolated metrics such as video completion rates toward holistic outcomes like sales, app...
Index Exchange’s Andrew Casale: Containerization Brings Buyside Decisions ‘Closer To The Sell Side’
Andrew Casale of Index Exchange explains a shift in programmatic advertising where decisions traditionally made by buyers are now being executed on the sell‑side, thanks to containerization technology. By moving curation, data processing and custom bidding algorithms closer to the impression...
Ubiquitous Video Expands High-Impact Ad Inventory: VideoElephant’s Brian Cullinane
VideoElephant is a video‑content platform that curates roughly five million assets and ingests 5,000 new videos each day, alongside 300,000 hours of long‑form programming. The company’s core business is to syndicate, distribute, and monetize this library for media owners, publishers,...
Advanced Audience Planning Drives TV’s Next Phase: ISpot’s Dan Hickox
As TV budgets shift from linear to connected TV, marketers are increasingly using direct-to-audience targeting in CTV while linear TV is embracing big-data planning to build campaigns against advanced audiences rather than broad demographics. For healthcare advertisers, on-target reach, frequency...
Dentsu X’s Maggie Summers: CTV Finally Hit Critical Mass for Performance Marketing
Dentsu X’s Maggie Summers says connected TV has finally reached critical mass as a performance marketing channel thanks to improved measurement, shoppable video, stronger identity resolution and better attribution. Advances in contextual intelligence and AI-driven scene detection let advertisers pair...
Market Transparency, AI Reshape Ad Buying in Connected TV: Horizon Media's Samantha Rose
Horizon Media is rethinking connected TV (CTV) buying by treating CTV as multiple subcategories—live CTV, AVOD, FAST and others—and planning and optimizing differently across each. Clients are demanding program- and scene-level transparency so they can measure where ads run, bid...
Behavioral Data Holds Key to Unlocking CTV’s True Potential, EDO’s Weiss Says
EDO CEO Charlie Weiss argues that behavioral intent data—especially real-world search and website visitation—can turn noisy signals into near-real-time predictors of CTV ad effectiveness, linking engagement to future sales and market-share shifts. He says “precision at scale” for SMBs requires...
Gracenote’s Bill Michels: Scene-Level Targeting Only Works If You Can Do It At Scale
Gracenote says its long-standing content metadata and universal IDs are enabling advertisers to move beyond app- or IP-level CTV buys toward content-aware buying at scale. Advances in standardized IDs and richer metadata — including scene-level signals — are increasing the...
