The Human Element: A Carat Podcast

This week The Human Element hosts Robert Schwartz, Global CMO, and Chelsea Radovanovic, Director of Marketing, and Producer Jason Oberholtzer attempt to make a few predictions about one of the most historic US elections. While the predictions across the presidential, senate, house and select ballot initiatives are serious - the tone of our little crew is not.

We invited a new perspective into the pod this week as Donna Halper, Boston-Based Historian, Radio Consultant and an Associate Professor of Communications joined us to discuss the evolution of radio, this political moment for her communications students, media ethics, and the moment that helped define her career: discovering the band Rush.

Dylan Collins, CEO at SuperAwesome, joins us again for a discussion of recent developments in kids digital media and privacy, the implications for advertisers and social platforms alike, and the recent news that SuperAwesome is joining the Epic Games family.

In this special edition we gathered Stef Michalak, Creator and Producer of The Michalaks YouTube channel, Denia Souli-Vounisiou, Client Account Director at Carat UK; and Amy Bryant-Jeffries, Partnerships Director at Gleamfutures. They joined us to discuss our recent proprietary report about unlocking growth through influencer marketing and digital-first talent.

This week Erin Schmidt, Chief Strategy and Client Service Officer at Branded Entertainment Network, joins us to share her perspective on the biggest shifts in content development and distribution, building trust with consumers through human insight, and how her mom led her into the marketing business.

In this episode Mike Law, US President at Amplifi; Martha Matthews, SVP Group Director Local at Carat, and Eric Bryant, VP Director of Local Media Activation at 360i join us to discuss the implications of the upcoming US election on brands, from inventory and pricing to market pressures, all based on our weekly, proprietary 2020 political briefings.

Melissa Hobley, CMO at OkCupid, joins us to discuss the business of love. From shifts in the online dating landscape to leveraging human insight to build genuine experiences and connections, Melissa shares her perspective on all elements of marketing.

Dan Calladine, Global Head of Media Futures and Haley Paas, EVP, Head of US Strategy and Insights at Carat sit down with us to revisit some of the media trends and predictions we initially had for 2020. (Hint: a few things have changed since January).

JiYoung Kim, Chief Digital Officer at Carat USA, sits down with us for a chat on all things digital. From marketer’s biggest concerns of the moment, balancing performance and brand strategies, and how to handle advertising during the upcoming election.

Alex Heath, Reporter at The Information who covers all things Facebook and its competitors, joins us for a special edition of the pod as we talk about Facebook’s past few months, how employees have texted internally, where they go next, and what on the earth the government may have in mind for them. (Oh, plus a TikTok update!)

Xavier Jernigan, Head of Cultural Partnerships at Spotify and host of the podcast, The Window, joins us to share an insider look at podcasting, his approach to servant leadership, and advice for CMOs in an era of social unrest.

Alex Lieberman, Founder & CEO at Morning Brew, joins us for a special episode of The Human Element to discuss the responsibilities of a new media company, supporting journalism, the real challenges of boycotts - and leading a company through it all.

Samir Sheth, Head of Content at Morning Brew, joins us to continue our discussion on race and equality in marketing and media. We talk about social media boycotts and the role of media companies to better serve underrepresented communities.

It's been a very, very heavy few months, so we decided we could all use a lighter hearted episode. So, our Human Element hosts and producer sat down to do just that - and this is what happened...

Nandi Welch, Head of Business Strategy at Rupture Studio and Ed Cotton, Creative Strategist and Consultant and former CSO at BSSP, join us to continue our discussion of race and equality within the marketing industry.

In this episode Elekia Akhuetie, Media Account Director at Gyro UK, and Venya Wijegoonewardene, Strategy Partner at Carat UK, both co-founders of the REPRESENT diversity network within Dentsu UK, join us to continue our discussion of race and equality we must have across the industry.

In this episode Chantl Martin, Senior Associate of Analytics at Merkle, and John Santiago, CEO at M8, both leaders in our multicultural group across Dentsu join us to begin a conversation that we must have all across this industry.

In this episode, we are joined by Josh Sternberg, formerly of Adweek & Washington Post and founder of The Media Nut newsletter, to discuss the current state of the media business, the real obligations of brand purpose, and CMO's new realities.

Catalina Salazar, Chief Operating Officer at iProspect Colombia joins us to share the latest developments on marketing amidst the pandemic from Latin America.

Julie Arbit, Global SVP of Insight at Vice Media joins us to discuss their recent COVID research highlighting the hopes and fears of younger generations during this crisis and beyond.

Christi Olson, Head of Evangelism for Search and Advertising at Microsoft and Jeremy Hull, SVP Innovation at iProspect join us to discuss their recent research on the empowered consumer and the intersection of brand privacy, trust and truth.

We are joined by Dan Calladine, Global Head of Media Futures; Cristina Moyano, Madrid CSO; and Graham Deneys, South Africa Group Strategy Director at Carat to discuss the latest trends in consumer behavior that are emerging from the global quarantine.

In our next episode of The Virus mini-series, we invited Sean Healy, Global CSO, and Lucy Barbor, Global Strategy Partner at Carat to join us and discuss what the post-pandemic consumer mindset might look like, how brands can best be prepared for moving out of quarantine, and how the nature of leadership is changing.

Dylan Collins, CEO of SuperAwesome joins us for our mini-series on the impact of COVID-19 on marketing and media to discuss how the pandemic is changing how kids are connecting with brands and each other.

In this episode of our series on the impact of COVID-19 on the marketing and media industry, Ryan Duffy, Emerging Tech Writer at Morning Brew joins us to discuss his recent COVID Traffic Report highlighting how much we are changing our behavior online, and off.