Ad Age Insider

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' Chief Creative Officer Margaret Johnson explains how the agency has created more than 30 campaigns for 80 percent of its clients remotely--and how working from home has opened up new avenues of inspiration.

Longtime agency exec Sarah Hofstetter joins to talk about her new role as president of e-commerce analytics firm Profitero, which serves more than 4,000 clients. We discuss the coronavirus-induced e-commerce surge and whether or not it's sustainable. She also talks about her career journey and why she took this job after previous stints at 360i and Comscore. And, Sarah shares some personal tips on...

Today's podcast guest is, well, me. After three wonderful, challenging, intense, stressful and exhilarating years, I'm sad to say I'm parting ways with this iconic institution. Friday was my last day. Working with the Ad Age newsroom in both good times and weird has been an honor. In a conversation with my colleagues Judy Pollack and Alfred Maskeroni, we take a look back on my time. Thank you for...

Ad Age is working from home, just like you. As the coronavirus has become the new reality for all of us, Jason DeLand has some thoughts about the likely lasting implications of the pandemic on all aspects of life and business, from brand behavior to consumer behavior, the environment, the cannabis industry and more. There will be no "returning" to life as it was, he says. Rather this is an opportu...

The U.S. restaurant industry is in a grim predicament, particularly high-end, dine-in restaurants that can't be open as the coronavirus pandemic grinds on. Chicago-based restaurant executive Nick Kokonas has helped prepared his restaurants as well as others to navigate the situation in creative ways. The moves include a shift to carryout, something that until now was unheard of for high-end eateri...

Mira Kaddoura grew up in Beirut, where she witnessed war firsthand. With a striking head of frizzy red hair, Kaddoura learned early on how to live life as someone who stands out: The themes of inclusion, representation and the other have all colored her work. Kaddoura joins the podcast to discuss the Red & Co. ethos. The agency has partnered with Google on an initiative to teach girls to code and...

When Debra Lee stepped down as Chairman and CEO of BET in May of 2018, she put a cap on a 32-year run at the network. Today, we talk about her legacy—among other things, she took programming in a new direction, pivoting away from music videos and into original fare. We discuss life after BET and the media landscape today compared to three decades ago, including a look at the streaming wars. Lee al...

Taylor Lorenz covers internet culture and trends for the Gray Lady--memes, yes, but also influencers, TikTok, YouTubers and more. She has a knack for identifying zeitgeisty moments just before they break through to mainstream consciousness. Her recent headlines include a look at the Bloomberg campaign's meme strategy, a visit to the so-called Hype House group home for LA Tok Tok influencers and mo...

The founder of the world's largest privately held media company joins us to look back on a career that flourished along with the rise of the modern media agency era. We talk about the explosion of data that digital has brought with it, and why he has chosen to rent rather than own data. We look at the streaming wars and talk about Horizon's loss of Disney as a client last year, plus where the comp...

For the first decade of her career, Louisa Wong worked at pioneering digital media outlets in the U.K., starting with CNET and then Skye. Today, as the chief operating officer at Carat, Dentsu Aegis Network's flagship media agency, Wong applies that background in media as she navigates at the intersection of tech and disruption. Here, we discuss addressable TV, data as the new currency, privacy an...

Today's guest needs no introduction. And yet, over the past 21 months, the financial wizard who built WPP into the world's largest advertising holding company has been busy reintroducing himself as the executive chairman of S4 capital. Days before his 75th birthday, we discuss everything from what motivates him today, why the holding company model he helped create is an "albatross," what the game...

Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, founders of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, worked on four Super Bowl brands this year, including Pepsi, Cheetos, Doritos and SodaStream. The team who created the infamous "Got, Milk?" slogan is taking their advertising expertise to the MasterClass platform where they will lead a series of classes, including one on Super Bowl advertising. In the podcast, the duo di...

In 2016 Astley, a Condé Nast lifer, inherited a stodgy brand and was tasked with brining a fresh voice and new vision to it. Architectural Digest, which turns 100 this month, had hardly any digital presence to speak of: No video footprint, fewer than a million followers on Instagram. Today it is coming up on 5 million Instagram followers and has more than 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube. Astley...

In a wide-ranging conversation on all things WPP, Read discusses his early moves, including merging agency brands VML with Y&R and JWT with Wunderman. In the past 18 months, WPP has shared more than 40 assets in a bid to become more streamlined. Read, the chief executive of the world's largest advertising holding company, talks about creativity, and examines what's holding WPP back in North Amer...

The founding Fugee has in recent years become a fixture at CES and at Cannes Lions, where he will be the president of the music jury this year. Here, he describes what brands can better understand about working with music and musicians. We talk about his childhood in Haiti, where he lived until he was 9 before emigrating to Brooklyn. He also shares a bit about his relationships with two very diffe...

The industry's collective mind was blown when David Droga announced in April that his namesake agency, Droga5, would be acquired by Accenture Interactive. The consultants are coming for the creatives, the narrative went. Not so fast, says Droga. In this conversation, recorded in July, he discusses the three-year journey toward acquisition—and what comes next.

Andrew Robertson is by all accounts the longest-running agency CEO working today. And he's got a track record to back it up:  Renowned for its creativity, you've seen BBDO Worldwide's imprint on work for Ford, for which it is the lead agency, Snickers, Macy's, M&Ms, Sandy Hook Promise, Avocados from Mexico and more. It's been named network of the year at the International Festival of Creativity in...

In a conversation that ranges from the upcoming streaming wars to the ongoing direct-to-consumer trend to a look ahead at next month's CES, Terence Kawaja gives a general sense of the state of things from his vantage point of an investment banker obsessed with digital media and marketing. Oh, he is also, pretty funny. For an investment banker.

Now in their 24th year, the Webbys are currently accepting submissions for what's been called the Oscars of the internet. Joining the podcast today is David-Michel Davies, the CEO of the Webbys, presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. We discuss the trends he's been watching in the online space and what it even means to be a website in 2020. We also unpack the...

Last week in New York, Ad Age brought together executives from some of the best media brands in the world to explore the industry's challenges and, more interesting, opportunities. This podcast is a live recording of a conversation with three media execs about what they've learned from leaning into the subscription model. Joining us on stage were Pam Wasserstein, president of Vox Media, Scott Have...

David & Goliath founder David Angelo looks back at a three decade career that started as a junior art director at DDB New York, followed by stints at Chiat/Day and Cliff Freeman & Partners. We talk about what prompted him to hang his own shingle 20 years ago and how the industry has changed in the past three decades. David & Goliath, a creative independent shop, was bought in 2017 by Innocean, the...

In a space where the word "innovation" gets tossed around a lot, Jarrod Dicker seems to actually be building a better mousetrap. Dicker's remit is to make advertising, subscriptions and technology better at the Bezos-owned media giant. He'll discuss how media companies can no longer rely solely on advertiser and subscriber revenue alone, plus we get into his early career as a music blogger and Dea...

A three-time entrepreneur, Paul Woolmington is the founding CEO of media agency Canvas Worldwide and a keen observer of the marketing landscape. He is a former vet of holding companies IPG and WPP, founded and ran Media Kitchen, an MDC Partners agency, and he can rock a jaunty cravat. Paul joins us for a wide ranging conversation on just about everything in the media space—from the holding company...

In October of last year, at just 32 Jessica Pels was named the youngest-ever editor in chief at Cosmopolitan. Now exactly one year into the gig, web traffic is through the roof, even as single issue print sales continue to decline (just as they do everywhere else). We dig into her web-driven, data-centric approach to content strategy as we discuss where she's taking the storied glossy.

A producer, composer and technologist, Barak Moffat heads UMG's content and strategy. UMG's massive catalog includes 40 percent of all of the world's music. He discusses that, and what it means to be creating new commercial opportunities for audio visual content across all of UMG's labels. Essentially tasked with charting the company's next chapters, he also discusses the rise of voice and smart s...