The Digiday Podcast

The hosts discuss top trends in the media industry, the challenges and events of 2023, the evolution of influencer marketing, and the impact of generative AI on various industries.

Ana Milicevic, digital media industry expert, discusses the blurred lines between data management platforms, customer data platforms, and data clean rooms. She examines the influence of privacy legislation on investment in ad tech and the role of Big Tech in the future. The podcast explores the rise of ad tech, the significance of data breaches, the power of ad tech and the role of venture capitalists, big investments and rapid consolidation, the impact of GDPR, and industry adaptation to legislation.

Semafor is about to close the book on its first full calendar year, having launched in October 2022 as a media and events company. And despite launching during a tumultuous time for any media organization, Semafor’s co-founder and CEO Justin Smith said that his team had profitable months this fall, even coming close to breaking even in the fourth quarter of 2023.This accomplishment was made possible thanks, in part, to a combination of designating events as a core segment of the business as well as keeping the team as lean as possible for as long as possible, Smith said on the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast.And in the coming year, a continued focus on events, expanding the brand to additional international markets and investing in the website are all central to Semafor’s second year growth strategy.

Joanna O’Connell is one of the most recognizable names in ad tech, a fame she built over the course of three decades as an industry analyst, and marketer, among other roles. O’Connell is now evp of innovation at R3.In this episode of Digiday’s Oral History of Ad Tech, she speaks with Seb Joseph about her role in helping to build one of the media industry’s first agency trading desks at Publicis Groupe during her role at Razorfish in the mid-to-late 2000s.In this discussion, she covers The desire to illuminate the black box of programmatic advertising Holding companies’ desire to use ad tech as a means of carving out new revenue in austere times  How the ‘agency-friendly’ model of ad tech prevailed In the coming weeks, Digiday’s History of Ad Tech, produced by Digiday Media’s audio producer Sara Patterson, lifts the lid on some of the key undercurrents in ad tech over the last 20 years with Seb Joseph, senior news editor, and Ronan Shields, senior reporter, advertising technology, in conversation with some of the key players during that time.

In the wake of measurement woes and data privacy initiatives muddying digital targeting capabilities, a number of companies have pivoted to become less reliant on targeting customers via third-party cookies to generate quick sales via performance marketing. Instead, they've become more focused on boosting brand awareness to re-familiarize customers with their brand.Airbnb is one of those companies that has made that pivot, moving up the marketing funnel to more brand awareness tactics to bring new customers to Airbnb, said Hiroki Asai, global head of marketing at Airbnb. Notably, the company has recently been grappling with local government efforts to squash short term rentals and consumer backlash over increased pricing. In the midst of those things, the company is looking to carve out its own share of voice and better own its brand narrative.“We have a lot of messages that we want to put out there that are our messages,” Asai said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast. “When you’re over reliant on those performance channels, you end up either reacting to other people’s messages, or in that vacuum, other people will just create stories and messages about you that you can't control."

There are few better placed to critique and narrate the history of the digital media landscape, never mind the sub-sector of ad tech, than Ari Paparo.The serial entrepreneur and ‘first influencer of ad tech’ – sorry @AdtechGod – now helps to demystify and humanize the often dry milieu of digital media PR in his missives over at Marketecture.This week, he speaks with Digiday reporter Ronan Shields in the second installment of Digiday’s Oral History Of Ad Tech in a conversation that focuses on the state of the industry during the opening decade of the 21st Century. His insights include: The hustle that was ad tech in the 1990s Paparo’s input to DoubleClick’s turnaround, and eventual sale to Google The incredible business model of ad networks in the 2000s How the rise of the ad exchange became the fall of the ad network And just who invented what in ad tech In the coming weeks, Digiday’s History of Ad Tech, produced by Digiday Media’s audio producer Sara Patterson, lifts the lid on some of the key undercurrents in ad tech over the last 20 years with Seb Joseph, senior news editor, and Ronan Shields, senior reporter, advertising technology, in conversation with some of the key players during that time.

Big advertisers are seemingly ready to abandon X (formerly Twitter) for good this time thanks to owner Elon Musk’s latest antics and an uptick in anti-semitic posts on the platform.In X’s absence, advertisers may once again find themselves looking for the social media’s next town square after failing to be wooed by X alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky earlier this year. Enter Spill. It’s been just over a year since the iOS social media platform with a ‘meme-forward’ aesthetic launched with former Twitter employees Alphonzo "Phonz" Terrell and DeVaris Brown at the helm. It’s not that the duo are trying to re-create Twitter. In fact, Terrell says Spill is an online safe space for LGBTQIA+, POC and other historically marginalized communities. The two have spent the last year on product developments for users as well offerings for advertisers in hopes to mark Spill’s territory in a rapidly changing social media landscape. “There's been some very organic integrations and opportunities for brands to plug in and put some shine on what the [Spill] community is already doing,” Terrell said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast, “and also create some new opportunities to just have really rich, fun conversations.”

Brian O’Kelley, one of the Godfathers of ad tech, discusses creating the industry, competing with Big Tech, and why he didn’t join AT&T. He shares insights on building the first ad exchange, AppNexus' battle with Google, and concerns over AT&T's strategic misalignment.

Between the Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Google and the impending self-imposed deadline for removing third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, there is a lot on the technology megacorp’s plate.But Dan Taylor, the company’s vp of global advertising, is confident that nothing will change the timeline that Google has set for cookie depreciation: “Cookies will be phased out completely from Chrome at the end of 2024.”On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Taylor discusses how he and his team are continuing to get the third-party cookie alternative solutions off the ground and testing their efficacy ahead of the end of year 2024 deadline. He also speaks on why he’s confident that the ad business will remain intact despite the DOJ lawsuit addressing its dominance in ad tech infrastructure.“We disagree with the DOJ’s claims. We have no intention of selling or divesting this business. In fact, we’re focused more than ever on helping our publisher partners and our advertiser partners deliver great ROI and great monetization, especially in a time of economic and geopolitical and many other types of uncertainty that we’re all living in today,” said Taylor.

Lizzie Widhelm of SiriusXM Media discusses the growth of programmatic audio ads and the importance of targeting audiences based on demographics and interests. She highlights the increase in programmatic revenue for podcasting and the potential of generative AI in automating ad sales. The chapter descriptions touch on various topics including the holiday shopping season, programmatic advertising, and the press event for Sirius XM's new app and streaming capabilities.