New Digital Age

NDA’s podcast series, Masters of Media talks to heads of media at brands to understand how advertisers are able to keep pace with the frenetic speed of development of media and its fragmentation across channels. In this episode we meet Peter Rowe, Head of Media at NatWest Group.

On moving from procurement to marketing: In procurement, I looked at inputs, such as how many agencies you need, and at outputs but also outcomes And procurement teams have output targets where marketing has outcomes, so they're not always aligned.  Outcomes are what got me excited, hence the move into media."

On media fragmentation. "You can’t do it on your own, you need brilliant people around you. Communication is critical here to mange the complexity You need to operate a very simple model in a complex situation. 

Essentially you need to make sure we are backing the things we know work well, that we can measure it all and optimise it At that point was know we’re mature enough to add to that mix." 

On telling a consistent brand story; "The thing that’s challenging about consistency is scale and pace. In media we need to make sure that when the customer sees something from us that it’s relevant to them on any channel."

Agency relationships: A one team culture if what work, when everyone’s working to the same outcomes. Relationships used to be transactional and binary but now we need a multiple of expertise from multiple sources. The relationship is  now more flexible. 

On search marketing: "Search is not a media channel but a behaviour and it tells you that the way people’s behaviour changes as they go from platform to platform."

n the latest in our NDA Meets podcast, Editor Justin Pearse sits down with James Hill, Chief Commercial Officer, Exte.

With an industry career spanning twenty years, James is two months into the new job, with responsibility of driving growth in new markets as the Spanish-born adtech company embarks on ambitious global expansion. 

The conversation covers subjects including: how Exte is planning to solve the disconnect between media, technology and creativity in digital advertising; the role of AI-enhanced contextual targeting; the fragmentation of CTV advertising and its solution; innovation in ad formats; and the challenges and opportunities of cookieless advertising. 

"With contextual 2.0, if you can provide macro targeting at scale - we read 4 million URLs every day - we can understand the exact sentiment of that content, build a sophisticated targeting model and then overlay that with attention-grabbing formats and guaranteed KPIs, you have a very compelling proposition for a world post cookie."

In the latest NDA Meets podcast, NDA Editor Justin Pearse sat down in Cannes with David Winstone, Trading Director  UK, Channel Factory to discuss the future of the digital advertising industry.

Topics covered included contextual alignment and how Channel Factory is helping brands align with the right content and using context as a proxy for performance. 

“Context is one of the main strategies in preparing for a post-cookie world,” he says.  We’re looking at signals like geo and IDs and working with partners like Comscore which provides us with predictive audiences.

What surprises clients most is the granularity we can go into with context to let you really hone in on the audience you are after.”

Other areas of discussion included how to deal with issues of mis-attribution in CTV advertising, how AI is helping to close the loop between ad delivery, context and creative, sustainability in digital media, attention and more.

“Attention is a leveller as it’s the closest we’ve been able to get to a real-world measure of if people actually are watching ads, and it’s a much better predictor of brand uplift. We’re now starting to trade campaigns based on attention sessions.”

At the year's Cannes Lions Festival, NDA Editor Justin Pearse sat down with Kumar Amrendra, Head of Digital Marketing, Planning & Data Science, Sky and Elizabeth Brennan, Manager Advertising, Permutive.

In a wide-ranging discussion, we examine the stage of the nation for brands today as they prepare for a world post cookie.

In the second of our special ‘An Audience With’ podcasts from Canne 2024, NDA editor sits down to chat with Sir Martin Sorrell, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of S4 Capital. 

One of the ad industry’s biggest names, Sorrell shares his thoughts on how Cannes has changed over the past two decades, considers whether brands are ready for a first-party future and offers his take on the current marketplace. (“Digital keeps expanding, linear keeps contracting.”)

In the first of our special 'An Audience With' podcasts from Cannes 2024, NDA editor Justin Pearse speaks with Terence 'Terry' Kawaja, founder and CEO of LUMA Partners. 

One of the most influential people in the industry, Kawaja tells why he still loves Cannes, explains why M&A activity is back with a bang and describes how ad industry has been been transformed from an art to a science...

In this episode of the NDA Meets podcast, New Digital Age Editor Justin Pearse sits down with Theo Theodorou, UK Managing Director at Microsoft Advertising, to discuss the topic of digital transformation.

Theodorou, in his second stint at the tech giant, talks about the role of AI in the new era of digital transformation, how the technology is impacting the different stakeholders within the advertising ecosystem, and how Microsoft is empowering businesses through Copilot. 

Based on his more than two decades of experience, he also shares advice on how people within the industry can best navigate the rapidly changing world.

In the latest episode of the NDA Meets podcast, NDA Editor Justin Pearse is joined in the studio by Hannah Walker, Head of Mid Market UK at Reddit.

Reddit has been bolstering its advertising business in recent months to make the platform more attractive and effective for brands to communicate with its highly-engaged and passionate audience.

Walker, previously at Snap, discusses how she is driving that ambition for mid-market brands,the power of community,and how Reddit is countering misplaced views of Reddit and its community.

And she offers tips and advice for how brands can achieve success on the platform.

In the latest It's Always Media Thursday podcast, Editor Justin Pearse and Publisher Andy Oakes are back for another irreverent take on a a week in the digital media and marketing industry.

After an unusual departure into a serious discussion on European regulation, it's back to more reliable ground for IAMT including WhatsApp industry communities, Digital Leading Ladies, preparations for Cannes, and Zoe Ball.

We're joined this week by special guest Mary Keane-Dawson. 

Mary was one of the first interviewees in our original 50 Over 50 series, recently relaunched on NDA, we discuss the industry's need to increase its focus on this sector. And how a lack of understanding of different demographics is letting down brands in their ability to properly build relationships with all consumers.

In the latest NDA Meets podcast, NDA Editor Justin Pearse sits down with Jonny Whitehead, Strategy Director at Skyrise, an audience targeting platform powered by mobile network data.

The conversation is focussed on how the digital media industry is shifting into a new era of media effectiveness, driven by regulatory shift and the huge issue of signal loss, throwing up challenges to the digital ad industry's approach to digital attribution and tracking .

"Moving into the third age of media effectiveness, we're embracing historical media planning and buying theory but with the added benefit of better data, a focus on ad quality, inventory and interaction," says Whitehead. 

There is a growing philosophical divide between people still trying to find a replacement for cookies and IDs and those who think there is massive value to be had in breaking free and finding new ways of approaching media." 

We also discussd how these macro shifts is leading to a renaissance in location data.