Floor 9

Welcome back to Floor 9. This week, we are tackling the hottest innovation territory of the year, generative AI, and its impact on the ad industry with the help of two brilliant UM thought leaders: James Fox, Global Chief Strategy Officer, and Andrew Littlewood, Global Chief Product Officer. Together with the Lab’s managing director Adam Simon, the trio discussed the state of generative AI, especi...

Welcome back to Floor 9. In this episode, we had the honor of having Kara Manatt, EVP of Intelligence Solutions at MAGNA, and Edwin Wong , SVP, Insights & Innovation at Vox Media, to chat about their recent blockbuster research on the persuasive power of podcasters and podcasting’s growing influence. When asked which media figures’ influence matters most, their study found that 75% of listener...

In this episode: What the Lab thinks about Vision Pro, Apple’s first spatial computing device, and its potential impact on media consumption habits. Plus, various other interesting tidbits from Apple’s WWDC event this week, including the unified presence of widgets across OS’s, and Apple’s deliberation omission of generative AI.  Floor 9 is a podcast created by the IPG Media Lab to bring you...

Welcome back to Floor 9! As usual, we are kicking off the year with a CES recap episode that features the entire IPG Media Lab team, plus Chad Stoller, Global Chief Innovation Officer of UM Worldwide. Listen now to hear about our team’s thoughts on the biggest trends in digital health, entertainment, mobility, smart home, and vice economy coming out of this year’s CES show floors!  If you'd l...

Come one, come all! ‘Tis the season for our annual holiday episode of Floor 9. This year, we’re closing out the year with a not-so-Secret Santa gift exchange featuring co-hosts Ryan and Adam, along with the entire Strategy team here at the Lab — Chelsea, Katy, and Richard.  All the gifts given in this episode have ties to one or more of the Innovation Territories that we track throughout the...

Welcome back to Floor 9! 'Tis the season again to talk about holiday shopping trends. Listen now to hear co-hosts Adam and Ryan walk you through the following trends in holiday shopping and recent news from the streaming services: Highlights from recent holiday shopping reports from Insider Intelligence and the Deloitte holiday survey ; The looming recession’s impact on holiday shopping (or the la...

This week on Floor 9, we welcome a panel of experts on direct mail, including Dave Fink, Founder and CEO of Postie , Paul Tracey, VP of Advisory Services at Matterkind, and Lauren Banks, Brand Marketing Specialist at USPS. Moderated by Ryan Miller, Senior Manager of Partnerships at the Lab, our group of industry insiders dive into the unique capabilities of direct mail as a media channel, dispel s...

The Lab team is back on the mic to discuss the latest announcements from Apple. Host and Senior Manager of Partnerships, Ryan is joined by Adam and Katy from our Strategy team to chat about everything Apple unveiled during Wednesday’s “Far Out” event, from the funky Dynamic Island design for the new iPhone 14 Pro to the rugged Apple Watch Ultra with new emergency SOS features, as well as all the b...

This week on Floor 9, we’re delighted to chat with Jennifer Solomon-Baum, North America Marketing at Microsoft Advertising and Innovation Lab Lead, to learn about how the maker of Windows has emerged as the latest heavy-hitting player to join the digital advertising arena. In this episode, we talked about Microsoft’s growing advertising capabilities (many of which were announced at the Microsoft B...

Welcome back to Floor 9! This week, we welcome back Joshua Lowcock, UM’s Global Chief Media Officer, for an in-depth discussion about all things metaverse with our SVP, head of strategy, Adam Simon. From where the metaverse currently sits in the hype cycle, to the competitive landscape of the platforms with “metaverse aspirations," to understanding the metaverse as a operating system, Joshua and A...

Welcome back to Floor 9! This week, co-hosts Adam and Ryan bring you the must-know highlights from the 2022 WWDC keynote that Apple gave on Monday. From new lock screen UI design to new Apple Wallet features, they chat about how Apple continued to show commitment to creating seamless user experiences, with a newfound emphasis on customization and shared experiences. Innovation-minded brands know t...

This week on Floor 9, we’re delighted to welcome audio ads expert Alyssa Meyers, who works as a reporter for Morning Brew's Marketing Brew newsletter. Adam Simon, US Head of Innovation at UM, talked with Alyssa about the state of podcast advertising, a booming ad market that is forecast to exceed $2 billion in revenue in 2022. From major growth drivers like Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) and programma...

Welcome to another recap episode of Floor 9! This week, Adam and Ryan will walk you through all the major announcements from the latest Google I/O developer event, where the search giant announced several brand-friendly features on visual search, voice assistant, digital wallet, data privacy, and more. In addition to these software updates, Adam and Ryan also talk about Google’s hardware news from...

For this episode, we had the pleasure of chatting with Randall Rothenberg, Executive Chair at IAB, and ​​Chris Bruderle, Vice President of Research & Analytics at IAB, about the insights on social commerce from their brilliant annual Brand Disruption report . Together with your host Ryan Miller, we discussed the rise of direct brands and storeless commerce, how social media has become the...

Floor 9 is back with a special post-event recap episode! Co-hosts Adam Simon and Ryan Miller are joined by Chelsea Freitas, our VP of Strategy & Innovation, to discuss the 2022 Snap Partner Summit. Listen now to hear our thoughts on the new creator tools and brand-friendly features that the Snapchat parent company announced during its annual media event, in addition to some brand suggestions o...

Welcome to Floor 9. This week, we chatted with Arielle Garcia, Chief Privacy Officer at UM Worldwide and our resident expert on online safety, about how companies are taking actions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.  Many international companies, including big tech companies, have paused marketing operations in Russia, or pulled out of the market entirely. Adam Simon, UM’...

Welcome back to another new episode of Floor 9. This week, co-host Ryan Miller and Adam Simon are back on the mic to share their hot takes on the latest Apple event that took place on Tuesday, including our thoughts on Apple’s content strategy and its MLB content deal, its 5G approach, and its pursuit of faster, better CPU chips with Apple Silicon. In addition, they also talked about some latest n...

Episode 133 — Outlook 2022 Trends: Embracing Entropy, Part 2 Welcome back to Floor 9! In this episode, the Lab’s strategy team will continue to walk you through the remaining two trends in our Outlook 2022 report : The Multiplayer Internet, and The Great Escape. Co-hosts Ryan and Adam will be joined by Richard Yao to chat about things like: what our increased sense of online “presence” can unlock...

Welcome back to Floor 9! To kick off the year, the Lab’s strategy team will be walking you through each one of the key trends in our Outlook 2022 report with a two-part special. In this first half, you will hear Ryan talk with strategy team members Adam, Katy, and Chelsea on the first half of our Outlook report, including insights on trends like:  what "hyperobjects" are and why they matter t...

The Lab team assembles once again at the beginning of the year to take on CES, the biggest consumer tech event of the year. With Ryan Miller, manager of partnerships, as our MC, the Lab team recapped the most interesting trends and discoveries from this year’s show floors, including: Ben Hone talks about the key cross-category trends from CES - starts at 0:25 Chelsea Freitas explains how CES vendo...

Join us as the Floor 9 team makes merry with our annual holiday special episode! Joined by UM’s Global Chief Innovation Officer, Chad Stoller, we bring you a special edition of a drafting game, in which we look back on the previous annual Outlook trend reports from the Lab to draft the all-star innovation trends. Competing with each other, Chad, Adam, and Scott pick their favorite Outlook trends f...

In this episode, we are delighted to chat with Kenton Langstroth, CMO at Decubate , a blockchain-powered social investing platform, all about how the DeFi movement impacted the personal investing space and changed investor mindset. Before the conversation, you will hear co-hosts Adam and Scott having a lively discussion about the latest news in the world of NFTs, the metaverse, and, funnily enough...

In this episode, we are back to the basics with co-hosts Adam and Scott doing a deep dive into the current competitive landscape that is shaping up for the metaverse. Following Facebook’s splashy rebranding as Meta, Adam and Scott discuss Facebook motivations behind its newfound metaverse ambitions, why the metaverse adoption may start on the enterprise front, how Microsoft and Apple are positioni...

In this episode, we had the pleasure of chatting with Gabriel Nicolau, Global Head of Vertical Ads Solutions at TikTok, to discuss the inaugural TikTok World event. Together with guest co-host Ryan Miller, Scott interviewed Gabe on topics such as what made TikTok so popular, what’s the best strategy for brands to engage with TikTok’s vibrant communities, and how brands can identify the right creat...

In this episode, we celebrate the launch of our 2021 UM Innovation Annual (the U.S. edition) by talking with Arielle Garcia, Chief Privacy Officer at UM Worldwide, about the latest news on the consumer privacy debate.  As always, Arielle shared some great insights into this important topic, including how the new privacy settings in the new iOS 15 are accelerating the arrival of a cookieless f...