The Media Leader Podcast

We’ve entered a new era of search. Google’s dominance is being challenged: social platforms like TikTok and Reddit were already upending traditional means of information and product discovery, and the rise of large-language models for search has created an entirely new and nascent market. Google itself is leaning into the new era with its Gemini model and AI Mode search experience, which launched...

How to bring creative and media together? It’s a question that has perplexed advertising leaders for years. The big money in advertising has been shifting away from creative and towards media; from the big creative idea to data-led measurement of a brand’s performance. But it’s also true that it’s almost impossible to succeed without both sides of the coin working in your favour. Barney Worfolk-Sm...

This episode was produced in partnership with LG Ad Solutions. It’s no secret that TV is undergoing a transformational shift — both in terms of user experience and brand opportunities. LG Ad Solutions chief marketing officer Tony Marlow joins Jack Benjamin to discuss how the home screen has become more important for users and brands, the opportunities in CTV and FAST, TV's move down the marketing...

There’s a lot going on at the BBC at the moment. A pair of scandals relating to a Gaza documentary and former MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace have caused a stir. And the timing isn’t great a year before negotiations on a new royal charter, especially as a further 300,000 households have reportedly stopped paying the licence fee. But the Beeb’s commercial arm is in rude health, achieving record...

This episode was produced in partnership with Salesforce. AI is changing the world of media and marketing at a rapid pace. But how are brands using the technology to drive better business outcomes and efficiencies? In part two of a series of special episodes, Robin Tapp, chief intelligence officer at events giant RX Global, and Felicity Starr, regional vice-president at Salesforce, join host Jack...

Everyone is fighting over slivers of attention. In an era marked by the massive popularity of short-form video, changes in behaviour around second-screening and increased but fractured media consumption, getting an edge over the competition could be the difference between someone spending three seconds looking at your ad as opposed to 1.5 seconds. Will Parrish is chief strategy officer at VCCP Med...

This episode was produced in partnership with Salesforce. AI is changing the world of media and marketing at a rapid pace. But how are brands using the technology to drive better business outcomes and efficiencies? In part one of a series of two special episodes, Rob Pickering, chief technology officer for Tottenham FC, and Felicity Starr, regional VP at Salesforce (and a Spurs fan), join host Jac...

One of the great laws of advertising is that everyone wants to reach and understand young consumers. Earlier this month on the podcast, host Jack Benjamin spoke with Hasbro ’s global heads of media to get the perspective of one brand with a vested interest in speaking to younger cohorts. And last week, he also prodded Channel 4 about its own research into Gen Z. But there's more to unpack, particu...

This episode was produced in partnership with Channel 4 Channel 4's chief commercial officer Rak Patel and head of sales strategy Sam Hicks join Jack Benjamin for a conversation in the south of France during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. UK broadcasters stole the show this week, with Channel 4, ITV and Sky announcing a pioneering collaboration with Comcast Advertising to p...

Brands are navigating choppy waters this year amid macoreconomic uncertainty, meaning media strategies are having to remain nimble and adaptable. One brand that has an especially interesting challenge is Hasbro. The toy company owns a huge swathe of major brands and intellectual property – much of it primarily consumed by children – and managing the portfolio and the different media tactics needed...

There is a lot going on at Paramount. There's a proposed merger with Skydance on the horizon, a sudden change in its media agency, strong growth for Paramount+, managing a rebrand with 5 – and it’s all happening against a challenging TV ad market. Amid the state of play, Paramount president of international ad sales Lee Sears joins Jack Benjamin to unpack how he and his team are working to dr...

We all get older and with age comes wisdom and, especially today, a whole lot of purchasing power. But the ad industry is appearing to suffer from a severe bout of ageism. According to the latest IPA Agency Census , just 8% of people working in agencies in the UK are over the age of 51. Meanwhile, over-51s account for over 33% of the overall UK workforce and 22% of the information and communicatio...

There is an interesting tension brewing between broadcasters and platforms as we enter into a rapidly shifting era of media consumption. The two types of media owners are increasingly working together. Incremental audiences are being found by the likes of ITV and Channel 4 on YouTube. News publishers are needing to disseminate information to especially young consumers via TikTok, Instagram and Sna...

It’s not often you hear of a media agency going out and acquiring a venture capital fund. But in February, independent shop MNC bought Grwth, a VC fund with a focus on consumer brands. Luke Bristow, who has been MNC’s CEO for nearly a year, told The Media Leader at the time of acquisition that the model gives MNC skin in the game with clients. “It’s a great way for us to not only have an exciting...

Something big is going on in Austria. Last year, Austrian broadcasters and media buyers launched an upgraded linear TV audience measurement system and adopted a whole new currency. Austrian advertisers can now access real-time audience data on linear TV . Not addressable TV, streaming or programmatic. But for the purpose of advertising, linear is now acting a lot more like digital. Sebastian Hinte...

How do brands keep up with social trends? It’s a perennial question in an era marked by the sheer speed at which social media moves. But as brands continue to lean further and further in to advertising on platforms and with creators, it’s important to understand best practice for driving positive outcomes, especially as metrics like views and impressions become less valuable than building and spea...

Ahead of The Future of Brands on Tuesday, Jack Benjamin is joined by Specsavers head of media, connections planning and insights Ian Maybank to discuss how the retail chain has built a strong brand through media investment. The pair speak about how brands can work to bring creative and media closer together, the importance of consistent brand messaging and humour, and how agency-client relationshi...

Social media gets a lot of flak. Its critics accuse platforms of causing massive negative externalities on society – everything from crumbling democracies to mental health crises gets blamed on social media. And “social media” as a term has even become so toxic that social media companies themselves prefer to call themselves anything but “social media” . The tagline to Snapchat’s marketing campaig...

Alan Rusbridger is one of Britain’s most acclaimed journalists. As editor of The Guardian for 20 years, he oversaw the outlet’s transition into the digital world and landed a Pulitzer Prize for publishing information leaked by Edward Snowdon about the US National Security Agency. Since 2021, he has worked as editor of Prospect , a leading British current affairs magazine celebrating its 30th anniv...

At the tail end of March, Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the UK’s largest cinema ad sales house, hosted its annual upfronts in the Leicester Square Odeon. It was a way to celebrate cinema’s strong start to the year and look ahead to the 2025 and 2026 film slates, but also an opportunity for brands to consider whether to position the channel more prominently on their AV plans. Among the presentations,...

The creative industries' fight to protect their intellectual property from AI companies reached a crescendo last month amid the end of a government consultation on how it should handle copyright in the age of AI. But will public pressure be enough to convince governments to maintain copyright laws and not cave to tech giants promising strong economic growth? Alongside the wider creative industries...

This month, JCDecaux reported strong fiscal year 2024 earnings: the global business saw 9.7% organic growth, while JCDecaux grew 18.4% in the UK — a growth figure more typically associated with tech giants. Meanwhile, the broader OOH industry is in rude health, with total ad revenue hitting record highs (£1.4bn) in 2024. JCDecaux UK co-CEOs Chris Collins and Dallas Wiles joined host Jack Benjamin...

This episode was produced in partnership with The Guardian . Last month,  The Guardian  promoted its chief advertising officer, Imogen Fox, to a new global role to drive commercial growth not only in the UK, but also in markets like the US and Australia, where the news outlet has seen a substantial influx of new readers. "We're growing," Fox told senior reporter Jack Benjamin. "I'm not s...

Last week, digital advertising trade body IAB UK unveiled new research forecasting a matured digital market, a fast-growing video and retail media market, and strong potential for gaming. It also found, based on interviews with 40 industry leaders, that the marketing funnel as we have known it may well not survive a digital future in which more media channels become shoppable and generative AI pro...

Last month, concerns around brand safety and the opaque nature of programmatic advertising flared up again following a report from adtech transparency startup Adalytics, which found that a huge number of big-name brands have been accidentally placing ads on a website that hosts a great deal of child sexual abuse material (also known as CSAM). How did this happen? Do brands actually care about bran...