🎙️ The ADOTAT Show – Hosted by Pesach Lattin

Welcome to the episode that brand safety tools wish never existed.

In this chaotic, hilarious, and dangerously insightful installment of The ADOTAT Show, host Pesach Lattin sits down with Brian O’Kelley — the legendary co-founder of AppNexus, the original architect of modern programmatic, and the only person alive who has both crashed CNN.com and reimagined how we think about suitability, AI, and the ad tech status quo.

Together, they unpack the uncomfortable truths of digital advertising, including:

🔥 Why traditional brand safety tools are medieval nonsense

🧠 How AI can actually understand context (and why that terrifies some vendors)

👀 What happens when bots unionize and demand PTO

📉 Why most point solutions in ad tech are either obsolete or about to be

🧩 How Brian’s building toward a world where every brand has its own AI agent

😱 And yes, the time he crashed a fifth of the internet from a basketball court

This is NOT a sanitized fireside chat. This is a full-blown tech therapy session meets startup roast meets future-of-advertising manifesto, where nothing is off limits and no acronym is safe.

💡 Sponsored By:

Troutman Amin – The legal team you call when you accidentally disrupt an entire industry. Smart, surgical, and ready to keep you compliant without killing your momentum.

Incremental – The measurement platform that tells the truth, not just what your media buyer wants to hear. Real lift, real outcomes, no smoke, no mirrors.

📌 Subscribe to stay ahead of the industry curve.

📢 Drop a comment if you’ve ever been flagged as unsafe by a keyword blocklist for saying “funeral.”

👁️‍🗨️ Stay bold. Stay curious. Know more than you did yesterday.

#ADOTATShow #BrianOKelley #AdTech #AI #ProgrammaticAdvertising #BrandSafety #Suitability #Incremental #TroutmanAmin #AdvertisingInnovation #Scope3 #PesachLattin

What do a cold wash detergent commercial from the 1980s, a Shih Tzu named Birdie, and Dynamic Creative Optimization have in common?

Apparently, everything—when Fred Godfrey is on the mic.

In this week’s wildly entertaining and unexpectedly emotional episode of The ADOTAT Show, we’re joined (again) by the inimitable Fred Godfrey, CEO of Origin and the most honest man in adtech, whether the industry likes it or not. And no, we’re not trying to get rid of him. We wouldn’t dare.

This isn’t your typical “best practices” snoozefest. This is a deep, hilarious, and slightly philosophical conversation that blows open the safe, soulless walls of performance marketing and asks a far better question:

👉 What if the best ad doesn’t try to sell you anything at all?

💡 In this episode, we cover:

Fred’s childhood obsession with a detergent ad that just said “brrrr”—and how that minimalist storytelling still crushes 99% of today’s over-engineered brand content.

Macy’s holiday ads and the British-inspired art of emotional storytelling that makes people cry and shop.

Why DCO isn’t the villain—but how we’ve used it like a blunt object instead of a scalpel.

How modern ads lost their soul chasing CTRs, and how to bring back curiosity, memory, and actual resonance.

The myth of personalization and the horror of creepy geo-inserted “Hey, [CITY]!” ads.

The ROI of saying less. Whispering instead of screaming. Leaving space for the viewer to feel something.

And yes: Birdie the Shih Tzu, who has stronger opinions on storytelling than most strategy decks you’ve seen this year.

🔥 This episode is for you if:

You’re tired of being told “optimize more” when your gut knows the problem is creative bankruptcy.

You believe branding can be emotional and effective—but the industry’s forgotten how to get there.

You want to make ads that people remember 30 years later—not ones they skip after 3 seconds.

You miss the days when advertising was closer to art than algorithm.

💬 Drop us a comment if you’ve ever made an ad that made someone cry, laugh, or actually remember your brand a week later.

👍 Like this episode?

🔔 Subscribe for more irreverent, insightful interviews with the smartest (and weirdest) minds in marketing.

🐾 Share with your favorite creative director, brand strategist, or dog lover with ad fatigue.

Huge thanks to our sponsors Incremental and Troutman Amin—for making sure this show stays on air and isn’t replaced by a generative AI that uses buzzwords like “omnichannel synergistic personalization.”

In this mind-expanding episode of The ADOTAT Show, we’re joined by the one and only Rishad Tobaccowala—marketing visionary, business philosopher, and the man who’s been calling out the corporate charade long before it became fashionable.

This isn’t your typical “future of work” fluff-fest filled with buzzwords and LinkedIn-safe predictions. Rishad dives headfirst into the uncomfortable truths most leaders are too scared—or too siloed—to admit. He drops hard truths about the death of traditional leadership, the failure of most org structures, and why Gen Z will never want your job (and probably shouldn’t).

💥 Topics we get into:

Why leadership training is a joke (unless you're Walmart)

What it means to live in the age of debossification

The rise of the Company of One—and why your top talent is already acting like one

Why optional, flexible, and freelance work models are the only ones worth building

And how to spot a real leader (hint: they don’t need a title to lead)

🔧 Rishad lays out a new blueprint for work, featuring: ✅ Permeable organizations

✅ Portable benefits

✅ Outcome-based pay

✅ Modular leadership

✅ Actual intelligence (not recycled best practices from 2012)

He’s not here to make you comfortable—he’s here to help you survive the next version of work before your business becomes a fossil.

In this Season Four premiere episode, Pesach Lattin (@ADOTAT) sits down with Jay Friedman, CEO of Goodway Group, the man who took one look at office coffee and said: “No thanks, I’ll scale 1,500x without it.”

🧠 This isn’t just another “how we’re using AI” episode. It’s a full-on teardown of the ad industry’s addiction to fluff, inefficiency, and the illusion of innovation. Jay drops enough truth bombs to qualify for a LinkedIn suspension — and we’re here for all of it.

🔍 What You’ll Hear Inside This Episode:

🎯 AI for Creativity, Not Just Cost-Cutting

Jay explains why using generative AI just to squeeze headcount misses the point—and why smart agencies are training AI to think alongside them, not just automate reports.

🎨 Is This a Picasso or a Coupon Clipper?

From executive coaching GPTs to bots that know your KPIs better than your interns, Jay reveals how real innovation requires imagination, not just procurement checklists.

🏝️ Remote Work Before It Was Cool

Goodway Group went fully remote in 2008 — long before anyone could spell “Zoom.” Jay shares the secret sauce for building culture, avoiding quiet hiring disasters, and yes... what happened when his team defused a bomb in a virtual escape room.

🛠️ Transparency vs. Shell Games

What if every agency had to show exactly how they spend your ad dollars? Jay says Goodway would grow 5X. And, honestly, he might be right.

🧾 Marketing ROI = The Ultimate Magic Trick

Jay breaks down why most CMOs are still treated like PowerPoint slide filler at board meetings—and how to change that by measuring what actually matters.

🎤 Also, We Talk About Nas, Peanut Butter, and Singing Like Adele.

Because of course we do.

📎 Get Connected & Learn More:

👨‍💼 Jay Friedman

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 / jayfriedman  

🏢 Goodway Group — Building marketing strategies that work in real life, not just slide decks.

🧠 Pesach Lattin

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 / pesach-lattin  

📨 Subscribe to his daily newsletter & podcast updates at:

👉 https://new.adotat.com/subscribe

In this episode of The ADOTAT Show, host Pesach Lattin sits down with Sean McCormick, a veteran of performance marketing and someone who has built a career balancing grit, growth, and unflinching transparency. Together, they wade into the murky waters of lead generation, industry ethics, and the all-too-familiar chaos of navigating client demands while trying to stay true to values.

Sean opens up about the "dirty secrets" of performance marketing—yes, we’re talking about blending margins, questionable partners, and why some advertisers shop for quality like it’s the clearance aisle at a gas station. From discussing why vendors shouldn't be treated like punching bags to tackling the consequences of regulators stepping in, this conversation pulls no punches.

You'll hear candid takes on why some metrics are more smoke and mirrors than meaningful, the risks of AI becoming a marketer's crutch, and why ethics often end up like kale at a BBQ—nice in theory, but left untouched.

Sean also shares personal stories about firing nightmare clients, surviving fraud scares, and why "never give up" is tattoo-worthy advice in this industry. Plus, we get real about desert island survival kits, family chaos, and the one meal worth swimming back to shore for.

Special thanks to our sponsors:

🔥 Incremental.com – Giving you attribution clarity without the headaches.

🔥 Rembrand.com – Making sure your CTV and DOOH ads don’t vanish into the void.

🔥 Troutman Amin – The legal eagles who help you stay compliant while others are getting subpoenas.

👉 Like, comment, and subscribe for more no-nonsense, brutally honest conversations about adtech, marketing, and the people crazy enough to stay in this game.

Stay bold, stay curious, and know more than you did yesterday.

Dan Rua has been coding since the internet was in diapers and is now on a mission to save publishers from their worst habit: giving Big Tech all the power (and all the cash). In this lost episode of The ADOTAT Show (yes, we found it buried under a pile of old banner ads), Dan breaks down how Admiral is teaching media giants to stop begging platforms for scraps and start building real relationships with their visitors.

We talk about ad blockers shaking down publishers like a back-alley mob, why most publishers are still measuring success like it’s 2005, and how to stop whistling in the graveyard of dead business models.

Subscribe if you’re ready to stop losing revenue and start acting like you own your audience.

Brought to you by our friends at Troutman Amin, who keep the ad industry out of handcuffs—and do it bigly.

he ad industry loves its buzzwords. Synergy, engagement, omnichannel, blah blah blah. But let’s cut through the nonsense—most of today’s marketing playbook is a house of cards, built on short-term thinking, meaningless metrics, and an addiction to performance marketing that’s turning brands into digital coupon machines.Enter Carl Fremont, CEO of Quigley-Simpson and a guy who’s been in this game long enough to see the same bad ideas resurface with shinier acronyms. In this episode of The ADOTAT Show, Carl tears into the industry's worst habits, including:🔥 Why ROAS is the junk food of marketing metrics (it looks good on paper but leaves your brand malnourished and dependent on constant ad spend)🔥 How brand loyalty died and why marketers are the ones who killed it (hint: it’s what happens when you treat customers like disposable revenue streams)🔥 Why real leadership has nothing to do with “synergy” and everything to do with actually giving a damn about your team (also, bagels. Seriously, bagels.)🔥 How the obsession with short-term wins is setting brands up for long-term failure (because you can’t buy your way into relevance forever)If you’re tired of marketing BS and want to hear what actually works in 2025, Carl’s got the answers—and he’s not sugarcoating anything. Watch, take notes, and maybe rethink your media strategy before you blow your entire budget on another useless CTR optimization.🔔 Subscribe for more brutally honest takes on adtech, marketing, and why half the industry is just making things worse.

Lizzie Chapman isn’t here for your performative diversity panels or your tired ad-tech excuses—she’s here to fix what’s broken. In this episode, we sit down with the VP of Partnerships at NextRoll, who’s been navigating the chaos of programmatic advertising for 17 years and has the battle scars to prove it. From the long-overdue demise of third-party cookies to why AI is mostly hype unless you actually know what to do with it, Lizzie breaks down what’s real, what’s nonsense, and what’s about to shake up the entire industry.

💡 Key topics in this episode:

🔥 The Cookiepocalypse Is an Opportunity—Why NextRoll isn’t waiting for a miracle but actually building for the future.

🛠️ The DSP Survival Guide—Real strategies for not getting buried in the cookie collapse.

🤖 AI & Machine Learning: The Reality Check—How NextRoll uses AI to actually drive revenue instead of just sprinkling it on PowerPoints.

🏗️ Building a Culture That Doesn’t Suck—Because free snacks don’t fix toxic workplaces, but real transparency does.

👩‍💻 Women in Tech: More Than Just a Token Seat—Why companies that don’t invest in diverse leadership won’t be around long enough to regret it.

And let’s be clear—this isn’t some sanitized LinkedIn-friendly take on “industry challenges.” Lizzie calls out the nonsense, drops real insights, and tells it like it is.

Shoutout to our sponsors who actually make this show happen:

👏 Troutman Amin—because in advertising law, you need real experts, not just someone who skimmed the terms of service.

👏 Rembrand.com—AI-powered creative that does more than just look pretty in pitch decks.

👏 Incremental.com—Because proving your ad spend is working shouldn’t be a guessing game.

🔔 Subscribe now for more unfiltered conversations, because the ad industry needs fewer fluff pieces and more actual truth.

🎧 In this episode, we dive deep into the wild world of digital advertising with the one and only Gavin Dunaway, Marketing Director at Media Trust. From malvertising monsters to digital trust, Gavin’s been on the front lines for nearly a decade, tackling everything from shady code to malicious redirects that threaten the very foundation of the digital ecosystem.

With a background in editorial at Adotas (my old publication) and years spent shaping the conversation at Ad Monsters, Gavin has seen it all. Now, he's helping brands lock their digital doors and rebuild trust in a landscape full of malicious squatters and outdated ad tech. 🚪💻

🔑 We break down the digital trust crisis, explore how the rise of retail media is shaking up the space, and dive into why legacy thinking in media is holding us all back. Plus, Gavin’s not just about keeping the bad guys out—he’s all about making the internet a safer, more transparent place for everyone involved. Spoiler: He's also a rockstar guitarist—so expect some seriously great analogies about ad tech and malvertising! 🎸🔥

If you’ve ever wondered where digital marketing is headed, how advertisers can stop getting duped, or how we might just need to rethink our entire approach to digital safety—this one’s for you. Let’s just say, this episode is one for the ages. 💥

👉 Don't forget to hit subscribe, and stay tuned for more insight, irreverence, and industry wisdom!

#AdTech #DigitalTrust #Malvertising #BrandSafety #RetailMedia #MediaTrust #Marketing #Innovation #AdEcosystem #DigitalSecurity #TrustInAdvertising

Ad tech has a $22 billion problem, and no, it’s not a new buzzword or the latest AI fad—it’s fraud. For decades, agencies and middlemen have pocketed billions while advertisers throw money into a black hole, convinced that “reach” and “frequency” actually mean something. Enter Matt Wasserlauf, ad industry veteran and founder of BlockBoard, who’s had enough of the BS and is using blockchain to demand real accountability.

In this no-holds-barred conversation with Pesach Lattin, Matt breaks down:

🚨 Why ad fraud refuses to die – and how the industry is built to keep it alive

🔎 The blockchain fix – not the crypto Ponzi nonsense, just actual transparency

🏢 Why the big agencies want NOTHING to do with accountability – and who’s fighting back

📉 The silent panic at holding companies – mergers, layoffs, and a whole lot of denial

💡 AI + blockchain = the future? – or is AI about to supercharge ad fraud to TRILLIONS?

⚾ Matt’s leadership playbook – surviving the ad tech circus, baseball metaphors included

🎸 The personal side – his thoughts on family, patience, Bruce Springsteen, and baseball cards

This is the episode the big ad players don’t want you to watch—because when you start asking where your media budget actually goes, you might not like the answer.

📌 Subscribe for more brutally honest takes on ad tech, marketing, and media.

💬 Comment below: Is blockchain the future of advertising, or is the industry too addicted to the grift?