Floor 9

To celebrate making it into the three-digit club, the floor 9 crew is taking it to the club! Just kidding; but we did dive into Clubhouse, the hottest social app de jour, in this milestone episode. Joined by special guest Brian Morrissey, former president/editor-in-chief at Digiday Media, we discuss the curious rise of Clubhouse, Twitter’s pending copycat product, and the marketing potential of li...

This week on Floor 9, co-hosts Adam and Scott are back to discuss the remaining two trends from the Outlook 2021 reports: the Splinternet, and the reinvention of social context online. Of course, we couldn’t pass on the opportunity to talk about the biggest news of the week — the Gamestop stock drama, and how it connects to the two Outlook trends in this episode. Our content manager Richard Yao al...

This week on Floor 9, co-hosts Adam and Scott discuss the latest trend report from the Lab — Outlook 2021, which details the key trends emerging at the intersection of technology, media, and culture. In this episode, you’ll hear the first half of the conversation where they break down the first three segments of the report, which includes the overall framework of the forward momentum towards digit...

This week we’re proud to present the best moments from our extensive CES 2021 programs. Listen now to hear the highlights from the opening remark by Chad Stoller, UM’s Global Chief Innovation Officer & Head of the IPG Media Lab, discussions our partnerships team had with interesting startups such as Standard Cognition , Community , and MarsBot , as well as clips from our virtual CES show floor...

Welcome back to Floor 9. We are gearing up for the first all-virtual CES, which kicks off next Monday, and we couldn’t be more excited to share what we will see from this biggest tech industry confab with you. In this episode, co-hosts Adam and Scott chat about what they expect to see next week, how different this year’s CES will be, and go through some of the industry trends that marketers s...

We’ve got a full house on Floor 9 this week! Get yourself a warm drink and cozy up to join our holiday party where we play a fun game called “Trends Yule Love.” Here’s how it works: Each of the Lab team members has picked a virtual gift that points to a specific trend we covered in a Floor 9 episode released this year, and it is up to co-hosts Adam and Scott to guess what trend it is and who the g...

For the last regular episode of 2020, we welcome back an old friend of the Lab, Brent Bushnell, CEO of LA-based micro-amusement park Two Bit Circus . Together with co-hosts Adam and Scott, we talked about how the location-based experience businesses have pivoted online, using virtual events as a new customer channel, new experiments in ticketing and hybrid events, and how out-of-home entertainment...

This week, we are delighted to welcome Jing Gao, the mastermind behind viral hot sauce sensation Fly By Jing , to Floor 9 to share her incredible journey as a D2C brand founder. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the pandemic, the importance of storytelling and community-building for D2C brands, and how the overall D2C space is evolving. As...

For a second helping of Floor 9, we hope you enjoy this unabridged conversation of our last episode on the future of startups with special guest David Rosenthal, venture investor and co-host of Acquired. Scott talked with David for over an hour, and here you get to hear a lot of interesting parts of our conversation that were left on the cutting room floor last week.  You can find Adam and Sc...

For this year’s Thanksgiving special, co-hosts Scott and Adam catch up on two important leftover news items from last week: Wonder Woman 1984 to be released on HBO Max and Apple to reduce their App Store commission cut from 30% to 15% . Together, Adam and Scott break down the various implications these two news stories have on the future of Hollywood and the mobile app ecosystem, respectively.&nbs...

This week, we are glad to have seasoned VC investor David Rosenthal join us to discuss the current state and the future of startups, investing, and innovation. Together, Scott and David talked about how the pandemic has changed startup funding, the emerging innovation categories, the merits of buying vs. building, and other key trends in the startup world that all innovation-minded brands should k...

This week, we welcome back Joshua Lowcock, Global Brand Safety Officer at UM, to talk about the ten Media Responsibility Principles (MRPs) that our parent agency IPG Mediabrands to improve brand safety & brand responsibility in advertising. Click here to read more about our “ten commandments” on media responsibilities, and listen to we discuss everything from potential monetization paths for s...

Welcome back to another episode of the award-winning Floor 9 ! This week we welcome Sean Ahearn, Senior Manager of Client Services at the Lab, to chat all about technology’s impact on mental health. From social media and information overload, to Zoom fatigue and digital wellness, we cover the good, the bad, and the unintended consequences of adopting new technologies on our collective psyche. For...

This week on Floor 9, we are joined by Victoria Sakal, Managing Director of Brand Intelligence at Morning Consult, to talk all about the upcoming holiday shopping season. From how people are planning to celebrate the holiday, how shopper behavior has changed, to how holiday spending may be shifting, we covered all aspects of holiday shopping, along with insights for what brands can do to prepare f...

This week on Floor 9, we welcome back Arielle Garcia, Chief Privacy Officer of UM, along with first-time guest David Mihalek, SVP, Digital Strategy of UM, for a follow-up discussion to the “Data Privacy as a Business Imperative” episode we had with Arielle last month. Together, we dived deep into how brand advertisers and publishers are preparing for the disappearance of cookies as privacy regulat...

This week on Floor 9, co-hosts Scott and Adam chat about the top tech and media news of the week before diving into a timely discussion on the pandemic’s impact on the adoption of digital and contactless payments. If you want to learn about the accelerated adoption of digital payments and its implications for retailers and financial service brands, this episode is a must-listen! You can find Adam...

This week on Floor 9, we are very happy to chat with Phil Libin, CEO and co-founder of All Turtles and creator of virtual presentation software mmhmm . He is also co-founder and former CEO of Evernote, and makes the perfect guest to talk about the future of work given the accelerated shift towards remote work. Starting with the need for better remote work tools like mmhmm, to the ramifications of...

In this episode of Floor 9, Scott was joined by two repeat guests: Christina Adranly from Lab’s strategy team and Chelsea Freitas from UM’s strategy team, to talk about fashion! Specifically, our knowledgeable guests explained the impact that digital media and COVID-19 have had on the fashion industry, with a focus on street fashion, and how the future of digital apparel will play out.  As us...

In this episode of Floor 9, co-hosts Adam and Scott recap the two major tech events of the week: Apple’s “Time Flies” event on Tuesday and Facebook Connect 7 event on Wednesday. Together, they cover everything from these two events that brand marketers should know, along with some insights into how the two tech giants are preparing for a post-mobile future and how brands can do today in response....

This week on Floor 9, we are taking a step back and evaluating this new normal we’ve all found ourselves in, six months into this pandemic, from a personal perspective. Joined by Christina Adranly, Director of Strategy, the trio discussed their experience of working from home, new pandemic social etiquette, changes in media consumption, and overall a first-hand review of this new reality that all...

On this special episode of Floor 9, we welcome Arielle Garcia, the newly appointed Chief Privacy Officer of UM , to a timely discussion on data privacy. From the regulatory landscape, to consumer sentiments, to real-life examples of how to conduct responsible collection and use of data, Arielle talked us through them all and affirmed our stance that data privacy is a business imperative that needs...

On this special episode of Floor 9, we bring you a thought-provoking and important conversation with the legendary Nikole Hannah Jones, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for covering civil rights and racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the 1619 project . Conducted as part of the 2020 UM Impact Day , this conversation between Nikole and Deidre Smalls-Landau, CMO and EV...

This week on Floor 9, we welcome back an old friend, Brian Hughes, who leads the Audience Analysis Practice for MAGNA, to talk about the latest developments in the ongoing streaming wars. But before we get to the frontrunners, cord-cutters, and brand implications, Adam and Scott tackle the top news stories of the week, especially what the high-profile feud between Epic Games and Apple is really ab...

This week on Floor 9, co-hosts Adam and Scott tackle one of the top questions in every media and tech professional’s mind these days: what is going to happen to TikTok? Together, Scott and Adam dived deep into the proposed ban and its various potential ramifications for the technology industry as well as for brands. Before this insightful main discussion, they shed some light on the top news story...

On this week’s episode of Floor 9 Ader CEO, Justin Warden and streamer DuckyTheGamer (Sam Hatch) join Scott and Ryan for a conversation about the current state of gaming, the explosive growth in mobile gaming and how they see the overall space continuing to develop.  Check out DuckyTheGamer on YouTube and you can find Justin on Twitter @justin_warden. We welcome your constructive feedback! Yo...