The Media Leader Podcast

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is the oldest form of advertising there is, and it has had a whirlwind of the past three-and-a-half years. The medium was hard hit by pandemic-era lockdowns, but has recovered quickly and now, according to the World Out of Home Organization’s Global Market Index Report, it is set to surpass $40bn in global revenue for the first time this year. Route Research CEO Denis...

2023 has seen a startling spike in anti-queer rhetoric and misinformation around the world and brands have been caught up in the culture war. Earlier this year, Bud Light was victim of a right-wing boycott for a partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, and Target received a high-profile onslaught of threats against staff for offering Pride products during the month of June. Both com...

Jack Benjamin, Omar Oakes and Ella Sagar are back on the podcast this week to analyse some of the industry’s biggest stories. The Premier League  season is upon us once more, and while Jack may be clueless about British professional sport, he did cover how the league’s  forthcoming gambling ads ban has thus far had ‘almost no impact’ on Premier League shirt sponsorships . With Disney&nbs...

2023 has been touted as the year of retail media. Between Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Lidl, Boots, Target, Kroger, Uber, Deliveroo, Revolut, and Walmart, retailers have been jumping at the chance to expand their media footprints. But what should retail media’s space be on the media plan? Kiessé Lamour, Wunderman Thompson's global head of media, commerce, and Simon Akers, founder of marketing consult...

Omar Oakes and Ella Sagar prove their dedication to B2B podcasting by missing the England v Nigeria World Cup penalty shootout to record this episode with their analysis on the industry's biggest stories. OFCOM'S MEDIA NATIONS REPORT - is broadcast media suffering from 'fragmentation' or does it really have a deeper cultural problem with more consumers preferring short-form content? Spoiler for Om...

Commercial radio superseded the BBC in share of radio listening in the past year, and in tandem with the growing popularity of podcasts, audio is having a moment. Radiocentre CEO Matt Payton joins lead audio reporter Ella Sagar and host Jack Benjamin to discuss the past, present and future of the medium. The trio discuss the post-pandemic ascendancy of commercial radio, the need to innovate audio...

Google's EMEA president Matt Brittin spoke to Omar Oakes at the recent Cannes Lions advertising festival to discuss how the online advertising and media behemoth is approaching AI and how it's being discussed with advertisers, publishers and media agencies. Plus: ever wondered what it takes to become a senior exec at a massive tech company? Brittin's background and career journey may surprise you....

DEI, EDI, D&I – no matter the acronym you use, it is undeniable that conversations around equality, equity, diversity, and inclusion have been increasing across the board in recent years. But how does talk translate to action within the media industry? Shez Iqbal is a mentor at Media For All and head of publisher partnerships at Criteo. He joins the podcast alongside host Ella Sagar and guest...

Host Jack Benjamin is joined by editor Omar Oakes and reporter Ella Sagar to discuss the latest news around the media industry. Key headlines covered this week: Twitter is being rebranded as X; 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' both had exceptional opening weekend box office performance thanks in part to impressive marketing campaigns; Hollywood remains on strike with no end in sight; earnings season is...

One of the key questions we are always asking industry experts, be it in our reporting or at our conferences, is what makes for effective media? Is it all about excellent creative? Is it about perfect placement? Or is it, in the words of Succession character Kendall Roy, all simply about harvesting eyeballs? Mike Follett, managing director at Lumen Research and a regular columnist for The Media Le...

Taboola has built a multibillion-dollar business by making it easy for publishers to recommend content to other parts of the web in exchange for a fee. Now, as thoughts about generative AI dominate conversations in media, the company has just launched Taboola Generative AI which aims to "revolutionise" how publishers create personalised ads. CEO Adam Singolda spoke to Omar Oakes about the company'...

What does the future of digital publishing, and in particular, digital news publishing, look like? Raymond Snoddy, the former presenter of BBC News Channel’s NewsWatch and a longtime columnist for The Media Leader, and Richard Reeves, MD of the Association of Online Publishers, join the podcast to discuss. Digital publishing has been in a near-constant state of development and transition sinc...

“You’ve got to do a different job on pricing.” That is the core theme of the new book  Madison Avenue Makeover , according to its author Michael Farmer. Farmer, a former consultant, is also the author of  Madison Avenue Manslaughter , which the  Financial Times  called a “damning critique of the modern advertising industry”. His latest book, a sequel, addresses attempts by Huge...

Media industry professionals have been in something of a crisis. Declining mental health, uncertainty over hybrid work policies, slow-moving DE&I policies, and still-large disparities between men and women in career progression and pay. These issues are not necessarily unique to media, and there have been improvements made over time in many areas, but there is doubtless more our industry could...

Future's new CEO Jon Steinberg is keen to build things. In his career he has helped create two new media start-ups in BuzzFeed and Cheddar, but in his new role as CEO of Future, he has taken charge of numerous media properties continuing to transition from print to digital. Steinberg joins the podcast in an interview with editor Omar Oakes. The pair discuss changes Steinberg is bringing to Future,...

Why are media and creative so siloed? That was the question implicitly posed by our editor Omar Oakes in  his latest column . Referencing industry veteran  Laurence's Green 's speech at a recent Thinkbox conference, Oakes questioned Cannes' reason for appearing separately as both a celebration of creativity and as a tech and media industry conference. Oakes and Green both joined Jack Ben...

"There's so much change all the time in terms of new channels popping up, the way ID and privacy fit together and create challenges; there's just so much to constantly be on top of and ahead of." AudienceProject's UK commercial director Martin Bentley was one of several Future of Brands conference delegates reflecting on the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the media industry in the nea...

Are people even paying attention to the ads they are being served? That question has opened up a can of worms for an industry that is intensely concerned with return on investment. Two leaders of the attention economy, Lumen Research's Mike Follett and Amplified Intelligence's Karen Nelson-Field, joined reporter Jack Benjamin for a discussion on the positives, pitfalls, and recent developments wit...

Are ambitious marketers suffering from a 'Steve Jobs complex'? Is Sir John Hegarty right to say that marketers and most marketing is simply "boring"? Is there any point doing "purpose" in marketing"? These are among the key questions answered by a trio of media and advertising leaders who joined The Media Leader editor Omar Oakes to discuss the state of marketing and key themes from The Future of...

Lee Brown, head of advertising business & platform at Spotify, speaks to Omar Oakes about how the global audio giant hopes to significantly grow its advertising revenue in response to founder Daniel Ek's "20% challenge". Brown had been on a salesperson hiring spree , but then the digital media market slowed down and the company began making layoffs like most of the big tech giants in recent mo...

"Reframe the problem," says renowned marketing consultant and author Richard Shotton in his new book on behavioural psychology and its impact on advertising and media. In his new book,  The Illusion of Choice , Shotton describes the various psychological biases (16-and-a-half, to be precise) that influence what we buy. Reviewing the title  in  The Media Leader,  VCCP Media's jo...

The Media Leader's new columnist Nicola Kemp joins Omar Oakes to talk about the progress women have made in making media a more equitable career and the barriers which still remain. Kemp, who is editorial director of Creativebrief, warns if we want to stop women from being edited out of the media industry, we must be honest about addressing burnout and "fake flexibility". What advice does she have...

Have you ever thought about moving across the pond? Two media industry Brits that have recently made the jump over into the massive, frenetic media environment in America—more specifically, the Big Apple. They’re eager to share what they feel is different about the media industry Stateside as compared to the UK. Wayne Blodwell is the founder and CEO of digital advertising consultancy TPA Digital,...

We're back for Season 2 with a banger! Advertising legend Sir John Hegarty speaks to Omar Oakes in the first of a two-part interview - the second of which will be at our Future of Brands event in London (25/26 April). Visit  The Media Leader  for the most authoritative news analysis and comment on what's happening in commercial media.  LinkedIn -  The Media Leader Twitter ...

Jamie Barnard, former Unilever in-house lawyer and CEO of privacy and data governance platform Compliant, joins Omar Oakes to discuss what he learned from his time at the coal face as a large global advertiser grappled with data privacy and media ethics and how he is now trying to help brands develop ethical media policies for an advertiser-funded internet. Merry Xmas + see you in the new year for...