New Digital Age

The NDA Podcast this week features the usual gentle hike across the digital media and marketing industry with Editor-in-Chief Justin Pearse and Publisher Andy Oakes.Topics this week include Andy’s heroic, brave, and deeply dramatic battle against man flu; and the evolution of unconventional B2B media models.With the festive season approaching we dive into memories of Beano and Whizzer and Chips annuals; Apple’s latest privacy curveballs, and why no one misses "full-day" 9-to-5 conferences.And for the latest in our No NDA interview strand, we sit down with the fantastic Cadi Jones, SVP Emea, Index Exchange."The hardest feedback I ever got was early on when a manager told me, 'You're trying to be liked by everyone, and it's stopping you from making the tough decisions.' It hit really hard because I thought being friendly was my strength," she says."It made me realise that leadership isn't a popularity contest. Respect is much more important than being liked, and delaying a difficult decision just to avoid conflict usually makes things much worse for everyone down the line."

Welcome back to the NDA Podcast, hosted as always by Justin Pearse, Editor-in-Chief and Andy Oakes, Publisher of NDA. After a longer-than-planned summer break, we are back with our usual ramblings on the digital media and marketing indusrtry.In this episode, Andy kicks things off by sharing his experiences from Advertising Week in New York, touching on the burgeoning creator economy, why creators are bypassing traditional agencies to work directly with brands, and the ever-shortening duration of event panel discussions. We also discuss the shifting tone around AI, moving away from future-gazing speculation into real-world operational changes.This week also marks the launch of a brand-new weekly strand on the podcast: The NO NDA Interview: The real person behind the job title. NO NDA is NDA’s new series meeting some of the most influential people in media, marketing, and technology to get to know who they really are. We don't want to talk about their actual job. Instead it's an honest, unfiltered discussion about personal beliefs, career mistakes, and key influences.Our very first guest on the series is adtech legend Ari Paparo. A prominent leader and veteran in the adtech space for over two decades, Ari played pivotal product roles at DoubleClick, Google, AppNexus, and Nielsen. He went on to co-found and lead Beeswax as CEO, creating the industry’s first Bidder-as-a-Service platform before its acquisition by Comcast, authored the foundational VAST specification for video advertising, wrote the book Yield, and is currently the founder and CEO of Marketecture Media. In this conversation, Ari opens up about his career journey, his biggest missteps, and the individuals who shaped his perspective on the industry.And why getting fired by Brian O'Kelley was actually a good thing. 

A Cannes conversation about how the festival shifted from creative hub to tech-platform spectacle. A deep look at platform dominance, hyperscaler CapEx and why algorithmic media buying is reshaping ad markets. Discussion of AI’s role, automated media products, and the growing push for radical transparency. Thoughts on geographic strategy, talent stratification and which verticals face existential pressure.

In the latest of our exclusive interviews from this year’s Cannes Festival, NDA’s editor-in-chief Justin Pearse meets Lori Goode, Chief Marketing Officer at Index Exchange. With more than 20 years in digital advertising, Goode has held senior leadership roles at Amazon Ads, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Microsoft. Beyond Index, Lori is an active industry leader, serving on the Leadership Group for Ad Net Zero, the board of BRIDGE, and the Executive Achievements Committee for She Runs It.

Benjamin Masse, Chief Product Officer at Triton Digital and president of AgenticAdvertising.org, leads work on fair standards for agentic AI. He discusses defining agentic versus other AI types. He describes real-world agent deployments in planning and buying. He outlines cross-functional leadership and open governance to ensure transparency and prevent collusion.

In our latest interview from this year's Cannes Festival, New Digital Age's editor-in-chief Justin Pearse meets social media influencer and entrepreneur Brandon B.Brandon is the Founder and CEO of Studio B, an independent creative studio. As one of Europe’s most-watched digital creators, he has built a global audience of more than 28 million followers and generated over 18 billion views across his content. Through Studio B, he helps leading brands including Google, Netflix, Disney, Adobe, LEGO, and O2 create creator-led content, branded entertainment, and social-first campaigns designed to earn attention and drive cultural relevance.

Brian O'Kelley, adtech founder and CEO of Scope3, shares his take on AI and the future of media buying. He separates agentic AI hype from reality. He outlines hurdles for agentic systems, the untapped value of publishers, and why creativity and wisdom will retain premium value.

Terence Kawaja, LUMA Partners CEO and adtech dealmaker with 30+ years in media finance, shares takes from Cannes. He talks about AI noise and the need to rationalize lumiscapes. He discusses AI’s effect on agency workflows and which solutions will drive real effectiveness. He covers retail media growth, ad spend concentration among tech giants, and the push for industry standards to avoid fragmentation.

With MAD//Fest just weeks away, in this episode of the NDA podcast Editor in chief Justin Pearse and publisher Andy Oakes are joined by MAD//Fest co-founder Dan Brain for a wide-ranging chat covering this year's event, the state of the industry, and why we all need a human touch.This year's MAD//Fest, for which NDA is a long-time partner, theme is "the human touch", a deliberate counterweight, Brain explains, to an industry currently obsessed with AI. As the pendulum swings from hype to widespread implementation, MAD//Fest's line-up is focussing on human creativity, craft and connection rather than chasing the robots.The trio also dig into how AI is changing perceptions in content, PR and marketing. Press releases obviously ChatGPT createdd are increasingly ignored, and we discuss a growing sense that audiences can spot, and instinctively devalue, anything that looks AI-generated. On the speaker front, Brain reveals Louis Theroux will appear at MAD//Fest for the first time, off the back of his Netflix Manosphere documentary, to explore the role brands play in funding online content. He's joined by comedian Munya Chawawa, plus the CMOs of Burger King and McDonald's.Brain discusses the sheer scale of pulling MAD//Fest together: coordinating 560-plus speakers, navigating the quirks of the Truman Brewery as a venue, and the year-round sales and rebooking effort behind a three-day show. Looking ahead, MAD North will expand beyond Manchester into Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with Amsterdam mooted as a possible future market.And we discover they Dan Brain's spirit animal is a seal.

In the latest episode of the NDA podcast, Retail Media Age Editor sits down with Meredith O'Brien, Group Agency Director at MiQ, and Paul McGee, Head of Video at Goodstuff, to unpack exactly how programmatic advertising can meet the challenges posed by rapidly-shifting consumer behaviour.O'Brien and McGee dive into the complexity of the current media landscape, how advertiser outcomes are defined, and the challenges of solving for fragmentation, while also exploring the so-called 'collapse' of the funnel and how the advent of AI has upended the traditional customer journey.They then take a close look at a case study that shows how brands - not solely well-resourced, major brands but also smaller, nimble emerging brands - can reach consumers and resonate amidst this fast-moving landscape. Working with Goodstuff and MiQ, challenger men's grooming brand Dr Squatch managed to successfully land its message with its target young, male, urban demographic via YouTube and CTV.O'Brien and McGee also reveal how commerce data allowed them to understand exactly who the campaign resonated with and to link the upper-funnel messaging of the video campaign to retail sales.The conversation is a brilliantly detailed 'under the hood' look at exactly how an effective online video and CTV campaign is built and executed and how it can translate into measurable results for brands.Pulling back to look at the bigger picture, MiQ's Meredith O'Brien also explores the challenges of linking channels such as CTV to tangible ROI, how performance metrics can be brought into an awareness-focused ad medium, and how an openness to experimentation and innovation helps advertisers to stand out.