The 37 | A Podcast for Marketing and Media People

Fortune reported that Meta allegedly used 60 trillion tokens in 30 days. At a blended $3.60 per million tokens, Chris puts that at about $221 million. 

Chris Pyne and Jayde Chiaravalle start with the news: the cost of AI tokens, the leaderboard of “Token Legends” at some companies, Coca-Cola’s media review, Amazon merging its DSP with sponsored ads, and Super Bowl 61 selling out. Then the main topic: consumer confidence is at record lows, yet people keep spending. They read the numbers, talk through shrinkflation and the push to private label, and land on three things brands can fix. 

In this episode: 
00:00 Intro 
00:29 Mighty Mike’s dad and a $100,000 Google Ads bill 
01:40 Tokens are real money 
02:13 Meta’s 60 trillion tokens 
03:18 The token leaderboard 
05:06 Token maxing and the $1,500 cap 
07:18 Coca-Cola’s media review 
08:47 Amazon merges its DSP and sponsored ads 
11:49 Super Bowl 61 on Valentine’s Day 
16:22 Holiday ad fire sales 
18:51 Main topic: can brands fix consumer confidence? 
21:13 Skint but still spending 
23:06 The Omnisend survey 
24:01 Fix one: explain the price 
26:04 Shrinkflation 
28:14 Private label and the race to the bottom 
31:40 Why premium brands win 
34:34 The three fixes 
36:16 Coke and Pepsi 
37:52 What gives us confidence 
39:50 Sign-off 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Chiaravalle, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

A TikTok panel promised a 50% time savings based on two advertiser accounts. Then it announced a new ad network with one billion users and said almost nothing else about it. 

Chris Pyne talks with Kayla Stass, Jr. Partner, Social / Performance at Junction 37, about what Advertising Week actually delivered. Kayla says most sessions felt like intro marketing seminars, the crowd was mostly agency people, students and creators, and AI and tech salespeople cornered her between sessions. They ask who is buying those pitches, why vague claims get a pass, and whether she’d go next year. Kayla also shares the one session that taught her something and the one she liked most. 

In this episode: 
00:00 Intro 
00:05 Chris’s welcome and Kayla’s intro 
00:54 How was Advertising Week? 
02:29 Who was actually there? 
04:14 The AI and tech salespeople 
05:02 Who is buying these pitches? 
06:31 What Kayla learned: group creative by the problem it solves 
10:01 The hype: a vague TikTok ads network announcement 
13:28 When did we stop asking questions? 
14:55 Chris’s theory: how one quote moves a whole industry 
16:06 Would you go next year? 
17:36 The session she loved: live social commerce 
19:42 How does a regulated brand go live? 
22:09 Sign-off 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Chiaravalle, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

A multi-step campaign build dropped from 40 hours to 10 with an agentic workflow. It was one of the few hard numbers at Advertising Week, and Jordan Broihier says only about 15% of the sessions were great. 

Chris Pyne talks with Jordan, Marketing Engineer at Junction 37, about what he took away. They cover why AI tools that look essential today may be built into the platforms next year, whether faster work means better work, and what hyper-personalized ads inside chatbots could mean for consumers. They also ask how much was vendor pitch, where the robots, the Teletubbies and a DeLorean fit in, and the three things Jordan is bringing back to the team. 

In this episode: 
00:00 Intro 
00:38 Jordan’s role at Junction 37 
00:57 How was Advertising Week? 
02:02 Sherlocking: when a platform absorbs your tool 
02:40 Don’t build what you can download 
05:13 Should you wait for the next model? 
07:10 Is any of this tangible? 40 hours down to 10 
07:54 Faster work or better work? 
10:26 What was actually new: hyper-contextual ads in LLMs 
12:12 Personalization’s track record and what changes 
13:32 The skeptic’s view: slop emails and chatbot brand moments 
16:03 The vendors, and where the value was 
17:03 The pie chart: great, meh and okay 
18:52 The weird stuff: robots, Teletubbies, a DeLorean 
20:02 Any snake oil? 
21:02 Three things Jordan is taking back to work 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Chiaravalle, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

A panel at Advertising Week showed a campaign with three times its expected add-to-cart rate, higher household penetration and higher ROAS. It won on strategy. Nobody explained why it worked. 

Jayde Chiaravalle sits down with Adrienne Mireau, Partner, Strategy at Junction 37, who went to seven to ten sessions on creators and came back with a question. Brands and creators both say creators need more freedom, so why isn’t it happening? Adrienne explains why attention isn’t enough anymore and fandom is, what the Bose CMO said about fixing performance before rebuilding the brand, why the Teletubbies stuck with her, and why the same shopper wants different things on Tuesday at 8 a.m. and Friday at 9 p.m. They close on which brands will break through. 

In this episode: 
00:00 Intro 
00:41 Adrienne’s role at Junction 37 
01:43 Creators and brands both say give creators the reins 
03:55 Attention isn’t enough anymore. Fandom is. 
06:05 The panel that won on strategy and never said why 
07:55 The Bose CMO: shore up performance, then build the brand 
10:16 Teletubbies and the shiny object problem 
11:19 Luck isn’t a strategy 
13:20 Same shopper, different intent: Tuesday 8 a.m. vs Friday 9 p.m. 
14:15 AI is a shiny tactic. What actually helps brands win? 
15:56 Who breaks through? 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Chiaravalle, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

Conversions will double. Cost per click will drop 25%. Those are the claims from platform-run beta tests, and Joe has a name for them: controlled experiments designed to make the platform look good. 

Jayde Chiaravalle sits down with Joe Mefford, Senior Partner, Performance at Junction 37, fresh from Advertising Week in New York. They ask whether an AI agent can plan your kid’s birthday party (Jayde would let it get three quarters of the way), what guardrails to set before you hand an agent your budget, and why brand versus retail is turning into brand through retail. Joe explains why he thinks the platforms win when they take the controls. Plus the session that named an agency by dropping a vowel from a random word, and ads on robots, twenty years later. 

In this episode: 
00:00 Intro 
00:39 Joe’s role: retail media at Junction 37 
01:18 Advertising Week: the good, the bad and the ugly 
02:57 Amazon Unboxed, Prime Days and Walmart Deal Days 
03:23 Would you let an AI agent do your grocery shopping? 
06:39 AI agents for marketers: handing over the budget 
07:34 What guardrails do you set before you hit spend? 
09:26 The sessions that hit the mark, and the ones that didn’t 
11:11 Coca-Cola, Keurig Dr Pepper and “brand through retail” 
12:31 Amazon wants the controls: DVA+ and the full funnel 
15:22 Who wins when platforms run the budget? 
18:09 The ugly: platform beta tests and AI that won’t say why 
20:03 Ads on robots: everything old is new again 
21:50 Was it a successful Advertising Week? 
22:57 Walmart’s moves: Vizio, Vibe.co and The Trade Desk 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Chiaravalle, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

CPM means cost per thousand. Reach isn’t impressions. Demand Gen isn’t Lead Gen. And a bibliography at the end of your POV tells the client exactly who wrote it. 

Dwight Schrute has a decision-making test: would an idiot do that? If so, don’t do that thing. Chris and Jayde run the media industry through it. The terms people throw around without knowing them, the “insights” that are just a reading of the weather, and the AI-generated decks, emails and question lists that are quietly costing agencies their accounts. 

Plus: Advertising Week in New York, where they sent four employees to find out what’s real. Omnicom discovers that people avoid ads, then announces a fix that’s twenty-year-old technology with fresh paint. And Acxiom hosts a webinar on tracing results back to who you targeted, in 2026. 

In this episode: 
00:05 Intro 
00:31 Advertising Week: long lines, no clients, and four employees sent to investigate 
01:26 Omnicom says 65% of consumers avoid ads, then partners with Rembrand 
02:51 Mirriad renamed: two-decade-old tech, reskinned for 2026 
03:19 Acxiom’s webinar on things we’ve done for years 
05:39 Main topic: the Dwight Schrute test 
06:33 The creator who thinks CPM means cost per million 
08:23 SEO, SEM, AEO, GEO and GAIA are five different things 
10:25 Reach is not impressions 
11:29 Demand Gen is not Lead Gen 
12:30 An insight is not a reading of the weather 
14:04 The detergent story: asking why five times 
15:03 Why “best practice” is generic advice for someone else’s budget 
16:02 eMarketer: 61% use AI for media buying, 86% for creative 
17:02 You can spot an AI deck a mile off 
18:33 Show your work 
19:27 “I’m training it to sound like me.” No, you aren’t 
19:59 How to use AI without outsourcing your judgement 
22:05 The bibliography tell 
22:35 AI-written emails to a client you’ve had for years 
24:09 Getting AI-generated questions back about your own deck 
25:46 Remove critical thinking and you’ll get fired 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Levesque, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

$10,000 for access to senior leadership. $26,000 to use your own sales data. It’s JBP season, the asks are up 20 to 100%, and almost none of it is media. 

A nine-year-old runs $118,000 through his dad’s company card on YouTube ads and gets a better CPV than most media plans. LiveRamp and OpenAI build the first real measurement layer for ChatGPT. Tubi passes Apple TV. Then Chris and Jayde get into retail media: why 89% of incremental dollars go to Amazon and Walmart, what the closed-loop ROAS isn’t telling you, and what you stop looking at when the shiny object is working. 

In this episode: 
00:00 Intro 
00:23 A nine-year-old spends $118,000 on YouTube ads 
05:26 Dad loses his job, then threatens to sue the critics 
08:07 You don’t have a media problem, you have a controls problem 
09:38 LiveRamp, OpenAI, and measuring a zero-click environment 
13:27 Forrester: big media growth engines hit their limit 
14:14 Tubi passes Apple TV as FAST channels accelerate 
20:13 We cut the cord and ended up back where we started 
21:19 The IAB says 43% of CTV buyers don’t trust what they’re buying 
23:59 Main topic: 51 retail media networks and counting 
25:39 JBP season and the 20-100% ask 
31:44 $10,000 for access to senior leadership 
32:22 Paying to use your own data 
36:00 What retail media makes you stop looking at 
37:48 Closed-loop ROAS vs what the MMM actually says 
40:19 What do you ask for next year? 
43:19 Three actions to take into planning 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Levesque, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they’re still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don’t miss next week. 

Open the kimono. Double-click into that. Can I get a copy of the deck? We rank the call phrases we can't stand, and the one that costs clients. 

Cox Media Group's "Active Listening" pitch turns out to be resold email lists, ad fraud is forecast to pass $100 billion, and Google starts adding AI-generated creative to campaigns without asking. Then Chris and Jayde get to the big one: why "I'll get back to you" damages client relationships, and the simple in-meeting habit that fixes it. 

In this episode: 

00:00 Intro 

00:22 Is your phone listening? The "Active Listening" story 

02:13 Programmatic's growth and a $100 billion fraud problem 

04:46 Google adds AI creative to your campaigns without asking 

08:07 Main topic: The call phrases we can't stand 

11:04 Growth hacking and "creative velocity" 

12:08 Meetings that should have been an email 

12:52 How to spot AI-written content 

15:39 Why "I'll get back to you" costs agencies clients 

17:52 The one habit that fixes it 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Levesque, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they're still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don't miss next week. 

Tech cut about 1.6% of its workforce this year. Advertising and media cut about 4%. Everyone blames AI, so this week we look at offshoring instead. 

Holding companies, publishers and newsrooms keep cutting. Chris and Jayde set AI aside to look at offshoring, nearshoring and the "follow the sun" model: what it saves on paper, what it costs the teams who wake up to clean up the mistakes, and what it tells people about how their work is valued. 

In this episode: 

00:00 Intro 

00:24 Coca-Cola's CMO wants a new kind of agency 

02:16 Holding company layoffs and the one exception 

03:41 Publisher cuts: BuzzFeed, the Washington Post newsroom and more 

05:40 A newscast with no anchor 

08:08 Ad and media layoffs vs. tech, by the numbers 

09:12 Main topic: Offshoring, nearshoring and "follow the sun" 

11:59 Waking up to an offshore team's mistakes 

13:21 What offshoring tells the people doing the work 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris Pyne, founder and CEO of Junction 37, and Jayde Levesque, Chief Client Officer, have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they're still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don't miss next week. 

General Mills cut prices and lost volume. Conagra held prices and lost more. Kraft Heinz spent more on marketing. Guess which one is turning around? 

Marketing is almost always the first line item cut, and the damage doesn't show up for a year or more. Chris and Jayde dig into why CFOs and CEOs ignore what their marketing mix models tell them, the year-end budget cut trap, and how one brand facing a 7% volume decline invested instead and finished up 10%. 

In this episode: 

00:00 Intro 

00:36 Amazon ads inside ChatGPT, and Amazon DSP vs. The Trade Desk 

04:16 Will AI really manage only 27% of US ad spend by 2030? 

05:55 Main topic: Running from the truth 

06:08 General Mills, Conagra and Kraft Heinz: three CPG playbooks 

08:17 Private label, GLP-1s and the race to the bottom 

11:09 Marketing's share of revenue hits a multi-year low 

13:05 Why the C-suite ignores the mix model 

15:55 The year-end budget cut trap 

17:06 How one brand turned a 7% decline into a 10% gain 

The 37 is a show for media and marketing people where we remove the real from the rhetoric. Hosts Chris and Jayde have 50+ years in the business between them. Unlike most, they're still in the weeds doing the work every day. 

Questions or topics you want us to cover? Leave a comment or email [email protected]. Follow the show so you don't miss next week.