Business of Marketing

AI is reshaping digital advertising. But in an increasingly automated world, trust could be the industry's most valuable currency.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Emma Newman, Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA at PubMatic, for a sharp conversation about the forces transforming ad tech.

From agentic AI and supply chain simplification to publisher value, transparency and the power of human relationships, Emma explores what's changing, what's next, and where the real opportunities lie.

Plus, why embracing calculated risks, learning from mistakes and keeping people at the heart of business still matter in the age of AI.

The future of advertising is being rewritten. Is the industry ready?

In this episode, we also explore:

As Emma puts it:

“We are still a human-to-human industry.”

Programmatic promised to make advertising smarter. Instead, for many brands and agencies, it became an increasingly complicated web of platforms, partners, inventory, data and fees.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, Justin Cooke sits down with Christoph Berg, CEO and founder of Mint Square, to ask a simple question: why did programmatic get so difficult?

Christoph argues that the problem isn't the technology itself. It's knowing how to use it. From choosing the right DSP and understanding where budgets actually go, to measuring performance properly and knowing when human intervention matters, the conversation gets into what separates effective programmatic operations from expensive black boxes.

They also explore why comparing programmatic with Google and Meta can create the wrong expectations, why teams need months rather than days to properly understand a new platform, and the skills advertisers and agencies should now be hiring for.

And then there's AI. Christoph believes much of the trading process will eventually be automated, potentially transforming the role of the programmatic trader altogether. But we're not there yet.

Numerous topics are covered including; transparency, measurement, automation and what it actually takes to make programmatic work.

In this episode:

For years, marketing has tilted towards performance: measurable clicks, immediate conversions and short-term returns.

But is the pendulum swinging back towards brand?

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, John Horsley sits down with John Morris, CEO of Design Bridge and Partners, to explore why long-term brand building is returning to the boardroom agenda, and why creativity and design need to be understood as drivers of business growth, not simply marketing outputs.

John argues that the strongest brands combine something timeless with the ability to remain timely. They know what they stand for, build distinctive assets around that truth and tell the same story consistently enough to earn recognition and trust.

That becomes even more important in an AI-driven world. As LLMs increasingly influence discovery and shortlisting, brands with a clear, consistent meaning may have a significant advantage over businesses trying to communicate dozens of competing messages.

The conversation also explores the changing role of the CMO, why marketers need to speak the commercial language of the boardroom, the relationship between CMOs and CFOs, and why CEOs increasingly need to become their organisation’s chief storytellers.

They discuss:

• Why marketing is shifting back towards long-term brand building

Plus, John shares three pieces of advice he would give his younger self: don’t seek perfection, remember that careers are marathons rather than sprints, and smile a little more along the way.

A conversation about brand, creativity, commercial growth and what it takes to build businesses that endure.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions.

The rules of marketing and media are being rewritten in real time.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, John Horsley sits down with Matt Sanchez, Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo, for an in-depth conversation about what comes next for one of the internet’s most recognisable companies, and for the industry built around it.

Yahoo reaches nine in ten Americans every month. But scale alone is no longer enough.

Matt talks about Yahoo’s transformation, its investment in AI and Scout, and a future in which people increasingly expect technology not simply to give them links, but to understand what they want, provide an answer and help them get things done.

That shift has profound implications for marketers, publishers and brands.

If AI increasingly sits between businesses and their customers, what happens to the traditional customer journey? What becomes of search, traffic and the open web? How should publishers be rewarded when their expertise helps power AI? And what happens to advertising when an audience may be smaller, but arrives with dramatically greater intent?

Matt argues that we are moving away from an internet built around scale, volume and clicks towards one built around quality, utility, trust and outcomes.

That means publishers creating genuinely differentiated content and building useful experiences around it. It means advertisers understanding intent rather than simply buying reach. And it means marketers confronting a world in which AI can increasingly handle tactical workflows while humans concentrate on strategy, creativity and the connections machines might otherwise miss.

The conversation also goes inside the changing role of the CMO: growing pressure to demonstrate commercial outcomes, the influence of CFOs and procurement, the importance of brand in driving growth, and why companies willing to recognise just how much has changed may have an extraordinary opportunity ahead of them.

And underneath all of it is trust.

As AI becomes a guide, researcher and increasingly an agent acting on our behalf, the businesses we trust with our questions, data and decisions will matter more than ever.

This is much more than a conversation about the reinvention of Yahoo.

It’s a conversation about the reinvention of marketing, media and the internet itself.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions.

The Business of Marketing. Conversations That Matter.

Advertising is changing at extraordinary speed. AI is reshaping how work gets done, agencies are rethinking their commercial models, and a new generation is entering an industry that looks very different from the one before it.

So what is advertising actually worth now?

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Sharon Lloyd-Barnes, Commercial Director of the Advertising Association, for a wide-ranging conversation about the economic and social case for advertising, and what the industry needs to do next.

They explore why responsible advertising and commercial success increasingly go hand in hand; what AI means for the value of human creativity and expertise; why trust remains one of advertising's biggest challenges; and how the industry can attract, develop and retain the next generation of talent.

Sharon also shares the thinking behind the Advertising Association's All In initiative, how greater inclusion can create better businesses and better work, and why the best partnerships are built around collaboration rather than simply delivering a service.

And amid all the technology and transformation, there is a distinctly human message: relationships, intuition, communication and creativity still matter.

A conversation about advertising's value today, and the industry it needs to become tomorrow.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, Justin Cooke sits down with Brendan McCarthy, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Seedtag, to explore one of the biggest challenges facing marketers in ad tech: how do you stand out when everyone has an AI story?

After senior roles at Criteo, Nielsen and Edelman, Brendan has lived through successive waves of change across data, advertising and technology. But he argues that AI is different. As agentic systems begin to reshape how decisions are made and potentially collapse the traditional funnel, the battle for differentiation is shifting back towards something fundamental: data.

Brendan and Justin discuss what that means for marketers, why customer stories matter more than technology claims, and how Seedtag is using AI and contextual intelligence to understand interest, emotion and intent without relying on traditional identifiers.

They also explore how marketing, communications, product and sales need to work together, why measurement and proof are fundamental to trust, and how the role of communications itself is changing.

A conversation about cutting through the AI noise, making complex technology real, and building a brand people can actually believe in.

Sustainability used to live in the press release. Increasingly, it lives in the P&L.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Richard Davis, Co-founder and CEO of 51toCarbonZero, joins Business of Marketing to discuss how sustainability is moving from ambition to action across media, marketing and advertising.

Richard previously led global business strategy at Dentsu Media and now works with brands, agencies, publishers and adtech companies to help them turn climate commitments into practical, measurable change.

In this episode, we discuss why sustainability has become a business risk issue, not just a CSR issue, and how climate can affect everything from operations and infrastructure to insurance costs, data centres, client portfolios and profitability.

We also cover:

As Richard puts it:

“Data move decisions, but data don’t really move people. You need to move the hearts as well.”

A discussion about sustainability, growth, risk and what comes after the press release.

AI is no longer just changing how agencies work. It is starting to rewrite the economics of the entire services business.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Dr. Ali Alkhafaji, CEO of Apply Digital, joins The Business of Marketing to explain what an AI-first services company actually looks like once you move beyond the hype and into delivery, pricing, talent and client outcomes.

Ali argues that the biggest opportunity does not come from layering AI onto existing workflows and chasing 20–30% efficiency gains. It comes from reimagining how work gets done entirely, creating the potential for 20–30x improvements.

He explains Apply Digital’s move towards what it calls an “agentic customer experience” model, with humans setting the direction and AI agents helping execute at scale. That shift has profound implications for a services industry historically built around people, hours and utilisation.

The conversation explores why:

• outcomes are beginning to matter more than billable hours

Ali also discusses building AI at scale inside Omnicom, Apply Digital’s work towards ISO 42001, the growing “graveyard” of AI applications built without a clear purpose, and what happens to agency margins when both client and partner are incentivised to innovate.

And on the question of jobs, his view is clear:

“AI will not replace your job. Someone with AI will replace your job.”

A conversation about what happens when AI stops being a pitch-deck story and starts fundamentally changing the business.

Commerce media is emerging as one of the biggest shifts in digital advertising.

Search defined the 2000s. Social reshaped the 2010s. Now retailers, travel companies and other businesses are building media businesses around something potentially even more valuable: first-party customer relationships, purchase data and proximity to the transaction.

In this special edition of The Business of Marketing, John Horsley is joined by Matt Conlin, Founder & Chief Customer Officer at Fluent, to explore where commerce media goes next. Matt describes it as the third major wave of digital media, with the category now tracking towards $100 billion in annual spend.

They discuss why the industry is moving from impressions and clicks towards measurable business outcomes, how retail media is expanding beyond onsite advertising into offsite audiences, non-endemic offers and physical stores, and why more businesses are beginning to think and act like publishers.

The conversation then turns to Matt’s own founder story: building Fluent from zero to $40 million in revenue in its first year, navigating acquisition and public-company life, and making the decision to remove $100 million of revenue from the business in order to reinvest in what Fluent believed would be its next growth engine.

They also discuss leadership, culture, resilience, hiring and why Matt looks for three qualities above almost everything else: curiosity, grit and tenacity.

A conversation about the next era of digital advertising, and what it takes to keep reinventing a business while the market changes around you.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, Justin Cooke is joined by Sarah Robertson, Chief Product Officer at Experian, for a conversation about one of the persistent challenges facing modern businesses: turning data into something genuinely useful.

Sarah argues that organisations often start in the wrong place. Rather than asking what data they have or what technology they should deploy, they need to begin with the outcome they are trying to create.

They discuss why more data does not necessarily produce better decisions, why data quality remains fundamental in the age of AI, and the challenge of connecting fragmented identities, legacy systems and increasingly complex customer journeys.

Sarah also takes Justin inside the product mindset at Experian: how to establish whether customers genuinely value an idea, why product teams need to work closely with sales and marketing without simply building whatever they ask for, and what it takes to turn an insight into something customers will actually pay for.

They also explore AI's impact on product development and data engineering, the growing importance of identity and measurement, why emotional intelligence and critical thinking are becoming more valuable skills, and the potential consequences of AI for people entering the workforce.

As Sarah puts it: “The data isn’t the exciting bit. It’s really what you can do with that data.”

A practical conversation about data, product, AI and how businesses move from information to outcomes, recorded live at Cannes Lions.