Welcome to Next in Marketing

Media Executive, John Kosner, who spent two decades at ESPN, discusses sports media’s challenge of catering to younger viewers, who have grown up with mobile devices and video games. Kosner sees Amazon’s exclusive deal to stream Thursday Night NFL games as an opportunity to completely reinvent how leagues engage fans- think Twitch- and is betting on other tech giants to follow.

The restaurant industry was already adopting digital tools before COVID. Mobile ordering, third-party delivery services, and digital loyalty programs were becoming brand differentiators, but the pandemic accelerated the digitization of the restaurant industry, forcing proprietors to choose between battling for space on delivery aggregation apps or diving head-first into the world of direct to consumer and mobile marketing.

Erin Matts, Global Chief Experience Officer at OPMG (Omnicom Precision Marketing Group), dives into the ongoing industry battles regarding how digital ad targeting will operate thanks to Google and Apple’s recent update to privacy guidelines.

Bonin Bough, Chief Growth Officer at Triller believes that the future of marketing rests in brands communicating directly with consumers via mobile phones. Bonin also provides insight into why Triller is investing so much in original series as he looks to build what he sees as the ultimate culture-defining video app.

Gabby Cohen, Head of Brand Marketing at Harry’s, discusses how CMOs are likely to be looking to tap into pent-up consumer demand this summer as vaccines are distributed more widely – and that marketers have the perfect opportunity to play a role in bringing back branded experiences.

Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems and Blockchain at IBM, discusses how the advertising industry must come to grips with the fact that digital ad targeting as we’ve known it is vanishing – and why he’s actually okay with testing Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) alternative.

YouTube Ad’s Nicky Rettke, Director of Product Management, discusses how YouTube is working with retailers to develop ads that feature highly personalized lists of products for sale – even as its parent company is leaning away from supporting highly targeted ad messaging across the web.

TIME President, Keith Grossman, broaches how the news industry is being forced to rethink how best to get information out to a public that is divided on politics, as well as public health. Additionally, Cyrus Krohn, Senior Vice President, Business Development at consumer intelligence research platform, CivicScience, shares how his company is helping publishers adjust to being in the first-party data business, while preparing for future privacy regulations.

Lisa Valentino, Executive Vice President, Client and Brand Solutions at Disney Advertising Sales, doesn’t think the TV upfront is dead, but Disney – owner of traditional TV networks like ABC and ESPN – is pushing further than ever into programmatic ad selling and data in a way that would have been unimaginable a few years ago.

According to Sandie Hawkins, GM of US Global Business Solutions at TikTok, as ratings for linear TV shows decline, the social video platform is delivering TV-sized audiences “every single day”. We talked to Hawkins about why she thinks that TikTok’s reach, coupled with the emotional response so many creator videos generate, should position the company to compete for TV ad budgets soon.