The Media Leader Podcast

With more people turning to the likes of Instagram and TikTok for their entertainment, advertisers, including and especially luxury brands, have begun using influencers to help spread their brand messaging and sell their products in more ostensibly authentic ways. Working directly with such talent can be both a big creative boon, and a headache for brands and advertisers. Influencers are regularly...

At The Future of TV Advertising Global event this week in London, there was an air of anxiety over the future of TV and whether the medium can stave off threats from Big Tech to reduce its prominence on media plans. Editor-in-chief Omar Oakes breaks down takeaways from the event alongside reporters Ella Sagar and Jack Benjamin. The trio discuss the challenges facing the TV ad market, how Netflix a...

Each December, GroupM, the investment arm of WPP, releases its annual This Year Next Year report. The report highlights an all-encompassing view of the global ad market, summarizing both the past year, and looking forward to what we can expect from the next year and over the next five years. This year’s report estimated global ad revenue growth to be 5.8% to total $889bn. GroupM anticipates next y...

Host Jack Benjamin is joined by reporter Ella Sagar and The Guardian ’s director of clients, marketing, and research James Fleetham to discuss takeaways from The Guardian 's upfronts and how publishers are looking to highlight the importance of trust as misinformation on social media platforms runs rampant. "We've become a rarer commodity," said Fleetham. "If there's less stuff you can trust out t...

Renowned advertising effectiveness expert Peter Field joins editor-in-chief Omar Oakes for this interview. Field discusses why he will be telling our upcoming Future of TV Advertising Global conference that "TV is still at the heart of effectiveness". He will use the latest effectiveness evidence from the UK and Australia to explain why TV remains such a powerful medium, despite the well reported...

The Media Leader Podcast Host Ella Sagar is joined by editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and columnist Nick Manning to discuss takeaways and announcements from the ITV Palooza, the UK's biggest commercial broadcaster's annual upfront. The trio also talks about Manning's latest column about impact and effectiveness, and how a brand can grow through mass reach and a targeted approach. The proliferating opti...

What has made gaming so hard for marketers to crack? According to Rob Gay, the CEO of gaming adtech company Venatus, agencies and brands still need to get better educated about the burgeoning medium. Gay spoke with Jack Benjamin at our The Future of Gaming event in London last month about the different options brands have to speak to gamers, including in-game advertising, next-to-the-game advertis...

On Halloween, industry wellbeing charity Nabs released the results of its All Ears consultation. The report found that more than one-third of industry professionals feel unable to discuss mental wellness in the workplace, that stress and burnout are normalised, and that those with a minority ethnic background are significantly less likely than those with a white ethnic background to see a future f...

Host Jack Benjamin is joined by reporter Ella Sagar and Outvertising and Purpose Union's Cass Naylor to discuss fears of AI's ability to spread disinformation, Journalism Matters week takeaways, and the strength of the ad market as we approach the holiday season. The trio also digs into whether recent box office figures are sustainable, the IAB's first ever brand-building campaign, and whether CEO...

Is the metaverse dead? Was it ever alive to begin with? At last month's The Future of Gaming event in London, host Jack Benjamin took the stage alongside Shay Thompson to chat about her views on the gaming market. Thompson is a presenter and broadcaster covering gaming, and among the most respected journalists in the UK on the subject. She has collaborated with the likes of Bafta, McLaren, Xbox, A...

Host Jack Benjamin is joined by editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and columnist Nicola Kemp to discuss NABS' All Ears consultation results, hybrid working pressures, and the latest AA/WARC figures, which found that TV experienced a summer recession. The trio also digs into the latest earnings results for Meta and Amazon, and gives one word for what they think about Boris Johnson's new gig as a presenter...

Yannick Bolloré, CEO and chairman of Vivendi and Havas, talks to editor-in-chief Omar Oakes about the future of media, how Vivendi can compete on a global scale, what's the grand strategy behind the company's acquisitions and where Havas' new ad agency Uncommon fits in. Speaking at our recent The Future of Media conference in London, Bolloré also answered questions about greenwashing and working f...

Host Jack Benjamin and is joined by reporter Ella Sagar and editor-in-chief Omar Oakes to discuss this quarter's Rajar figures and how podcasts are not just an audio format anymore. So if podcasts aren't just audio, why are we still calling them "podcasts," asked Oakes. The trio also talks about the latest earnings results for Spotify, Netflix, and the major media agency holding companies, as well...

"The Duracell bunny" of advertising — that’s how ITV describes peak time TV spots, because, they say, their benefit keeps going and going. ITV and media investment analysts ViewersLogic have published a cross-market study that proves the value of peak airtime of responsive advertising. They say that peak TV spots deliver direct responses in the short term, but their hidden value is in their longev...

Digital ad platform Teads has in recent years expanded its footprint beyond its digital display roots into connected TV. And, like many digital players, it is looking to leverage AI and machine-learning tools to the benefit of clients. Teads co-CEO Jeremy Arditi caught up with host Jack Benjamin to talk about how AI is powering creative solutions while being capable of respecting user privacy. Spe...

Host Jack Benjamin is joined by reporter Ella Sagar and editor-in-chief Omar Oakes to unpack the key takeaways from last week's The Future of Media and The Future of Gaming events in London. The trio also discuss how the Israel-Hamas war has caused trouble for social media companies and the BBC alike. Read Raymond Snoddy's latest column: "BBC’s rigidity over ‘the T word’ is damaging its reputation...

Ahead of the online video giant's YouTube Festival event to woo UK advertisers this week, Kevin Allocca tells editor-in-chief Omar Oakes why being 'viral' is less important and how the rise of TikTok and changing attitudes to online video have impacted YouTube's strategy. Allocca and Oakes also discuss why YouTube's research claims more than half of YouTube viewers are happy to watch ads attached...

Over the past year, The Media Leader has been championing three key issues facing the media industry: declining trust in media, sustainability, and the talent crisis. Those issues have frequently been discussed in this podcast and our coverage this year. At last October’s The Future of Media conference, we held a debate on what we should champion and those were the topics chosen by the audience ....

Editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporters Jack Benjamin and Ella Sagar preview the Future of Media in London on 11-12 October. The trio look ahead to the big event and discuss some of the biggest stories from around the industry. The key players in The Telegraph sale: Jack lists who has thrown their hat in the ring for The Telegraph , and why Sir Paul Marshall in particular may have a tough time ju...

This summer, climate change-caused unseasonal weather events continued to devastate huge areas of the world, and yet, earlier this month the UK Government diluted its 2030 net zero commitments. As the climate crisis gets worse, it is more important than ever to ask what a sustainable media and advertising ecosystem looks like. Anne Coghlan, the chief operating officer and co-founder of carbon emis...

After months of it being an open secret that Facebook was looking to reduce its emphasis on news, parent company Meta announced this month it would be “deprecating” news on the platform in the UK, France, and Germany beginning in December. While publishers likely saw this coming, it is just the latest bit of news in what has been a challenging year for the digital publishing industry. Ozone CEO Da...

Why are women in media leaving the jobs they love? That is one of the questions The Media Leader has tried to tackle this year as part of our mission to promote talent in media and advertising. Issues raised this year, in our op-eds and analysis, include concerns about better flexible working, accommodating women going through menopause, and how to stop women bearing the brunt of the industry's 'm...

TV has slipped out of marketers' top-ranked media channels this year, from third most-preferred to 12th. That is just one of the key takeaways from this year's Media Reactions report from Kantar, launched this week. Jane Ostler, the report's co-author and Kantar’s executive vice president of global thought leadership, sat down with host Jack Benjamin to unpack the report's findings. "I think we're...

Jack Benjamin and Ella Sagar are missing the holidaying Omar Oakes but are nevertheless back on the podcast this week to analyse some of the industry’s biggest stories. The rise of fake out-of-home: The pair discuss the rise and implications fake out-of-home ads , in particular talking through Gymbox's recent fake bus top out-of-home campaign and press release . They ponder if mocked-up billboards...

Brands are still coming to terms with how to market to gamers, a number of brand strategists have highlighted on The Media Leader in recent weeks. And this is despite several years of work by ad professionals trying to crack the gaming market. With an audience of over 3 billion worldwide, gaming has developed over the past few decades into one of the most-loved and most-lucrative forms of entertai...