Up Next with Gabriella Mirabelli

Kaley Mullin is a sociologist and cultural insights practitioner who cofounded Cool Shiny Insights after serving as Head of Youth and Trends at YouTube and working on Disney's ABC Family to Freeform rebrand. In this episode, she explains what semiotics does for brand strategy, how cultural listening differs from social listening, and how to use the residual/dominant/emergent framework to time market moves. The conversation covers why brands consistently enter cultural spaces too late, what made Carhartt's cool-by-accident trajectory so instructive, and what organizational structures most marketing teams are still missing.

MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, joins Gabriella Mirabelli to discuss new research on how tweens relate to gaming. Three-quarters of 8- to 12-year-olds now call themselves gamers, a rate that matches teens, and the identity carries real weight for how brands reach this age group. Bliss and Mirabelli talk through why gaming functions as a shared culture, how virtual purchases build brand loyalty that follows kids into adulthood, and why marketers without a gaming strategy are missing the biggest channel to young consumers.

Thomas Bunn is Global Chief Client Impact Officer at Zeno Group and the architect of Clarity 2030, a study of more than 1,400 communications professionals across 10 countries. The data surfaces a striking gap: 72% of respondents expect communications to have greater influence over business strategy by 2030, but only 29% feel fully ready. Thomas and Gabriella examine what's behind that gap, whether AI transformation is a technology problem or a people problem, and why earned media has become central to how brands get discovered in an LLM-driven world.

Ryan Webb, associate professor at the Rotman School of Management and director of the Management Data Analytics Lab, has spent years studying why consumer behavior is so hard to change, and why marketers are often measuring the wrong thing. His research, co-authored with experts across neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics, and published in the IJRM - International Journal of Research in Marketing, argues that what looks like brand loyalty in scanner data may be something else entirely: automated behavior that bypasses conscious choice. This conversation covers what habit means, why disruption backfires on market leaders, and how platforms and loyalty programs fit into the picture.

AdGood Foundation accepts CTV ad inventory that publishers donate, routes it to nonprofits at $5 to $6 CPM, and charges roughly 70% below market rates. The model sits inside the existing ad stack, uses the same targeting and reporting tools as any commercial buyer, and requires no production budget: a self-serve AI tool generates a broadcast-ready 30-second spot from a nonprofit's URL for a minimum spend of $250. Kris Johns, the founder and CEO, explains why publishers donate, what the fill rate economics look like, and what CTV can and cannot prove about donor behavior.

MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, joins Gabriella Mirabelli to discuss YPulse's Post-Social Playbook report, based on a survey of 1,500 13 to 39-year-olds in the US and Canada. The data makes clear that algorithm-driven feeds have made follower counts functionally irrelevant for brands, and that reaching young consumers now requires a different model entirely: entertainment focus, nano creators, and community building off the feed. The conversation covers platform-by-platform breakdowns, the Dr. Pepper jingle case, and where to start when budgets are limited.

Jesse Weinstein is a partner at Phillips & Associates, a former Bronx prosecutor, and a U.S. Navy combat veteran who now represents employees in discrimination, retaliation, and whistleblower cases. In this conversation, he breaks down what counts as discrimination under New York law, why vague complaints to HR can undermine your legal standing, and how retaliation often shows up not as termination but as isolation, removed responsibilities, or inclusion in algorithmic layoffs. Weinstein also explains how contingency fee structures work, what severance agreements waive, and how pre-suit negotiation can protect careers.

Arnd Vomberg, Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, and his colleagues have spent years studying how consumers respond when prices shift without notice. Their findings, published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, are directly relevant to every brand competing for attention in an algorithmically priced marketplace. He joins the show to discuss price fairness theory, the habituation effect, and why a guarantee that almost no one redeems can still shift consumer behavior. If dynamic pricing is already in your category, or it's coming, this conversation is where to start.

Most AI safety conversation focuses on what's happening inside the model. In this episode, Dr. Ilan Strauss, co-director of the AI Disclosures Project, shares why he thinks that's the wrong place to look. The bigger risks, he argues, live in the market — in how AI products get optimized for engagement, how infrastructure concentration replicates the platform economy's worst outcomes, and why content creators are unlikely to be compensated without new market mechanisms. If the web taught us anything, it's that open infrastructure and closed infrastructure produce fundamentally different power distributions. AI is at that same fork.

MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, brings proprietary brand tracker data to a conversation about how young consumers perceive entertainment and streaming brands right now. Media analyst Evan Shapiro joins her to connect those findings to the structural shifts reshaping the industry. Together, they make the case for why YouTube may already be winning, why fandom is the most durable business model in media, and why the companies still betting on legacy distribution models are running out of time to change course.