Julian Mintz

As brands and agencies brace for economic volatility, proactive steps are essential for ensuring media investments remain effective. From scenario planning and prioritizing transparency to competitive intelligence, it’s vital to prepare for varying economic conditions. Historical insights show that brands maintaining advertising spending fare better and recover faster. Marketing leaders must keep tone sensitivity in mind as consumers become more deliberate about spending. Adaptation is key. #MarketingStrategy #EconomicUncertainty #Advertising #BrandGrowth #MediaInvestments #Leadership #ScenarioPlanning

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PMG names head of global media Marketing services and technology firm PMG has named Chad Stoller as global head of media. Read more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/epiF6HTR #Marketing #Advertising #Agency #Appointments

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Advanced measurement is moving from a “nice to have” to a requirement for brands that want to prove how marketing drives real business outcomes.✅ Nowhere is this more visible than in Retail Media Networks. RMNs like Instacart give brands access to closed-loop performance data tied to actual purchases. That data is powerful, but it also raises an important question for marketing leaders: How do we validate results beyond platform-reported metrics and understand true incremental impact? This is why third-party measurement is becoming a critical part of the RMN conversation. Circana has emerged as a leading independent measurement partner for retail media performance, including Instacart. By combining retailer point-of-sale data with broader market and category intelligence, Circana helps brands understand not just what sold, but what actually changed because of advertising. https://lnkd.in/gp4CghWf For food and beverage brands, this matters because RMN performance rarely exists in isolation. Retail media influences household penetration, repeat rates, brand switching, and category growth, not just attributed sales within a single platform. Third-party measurement helps separate signal from noise by providing a consistent view across retailers, channels, and time. The broader industry trend is clear. As RMN budgets grow, marketers are being asked to answer harder questions around incrementality, brand impact, and long-term growth. Platform dashboards alone are no longer enough. At Effective, we see advanced media performance reporting as a layered system. Platform data shows what happened. Third-party measurement helps explain why it happened and whether it was truly incremental. Together, they create a clearer connection between media investment and business results. This is how performance reporting evolves from tracking activity to proving impact. Jeff O'Shaughnessy Joelle Kaplan #MarketingMeasurement #RetailMedia #MediaPerformance #Incrementality #F&B #MarketingEffectiveness

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Another week and another article in the media industry trade press exposing the same old story: opaque incremental deals, principal media, and holding groups monetising volume instead of value. https://lnkd.in/eaSmgxpu And let’s be honest — none of this is new. The ANA has been crystal clear: principal media thrives because legacy agencies act as principals, not agents, restricting transparency and prioritising their own margins and bundles over client outcomes . What is hard to understand is that the industry is still pretending to be surprised. 👉 Why are auditors, and pitch consultants still rewarding volume as if it were a proxy for quality? 👉 Why do they measure mainly new business wins and scale instead of the capability to activate innovation before. Volume is the raw material of arbitrage. It’s the fuel of intermediation. It’s the mechanism that allows dark deals and principal trading to flourish. If you value volume, you implicitly value the business model that produces these behaviours. So maybe the industry’s problem isn’t just the deals — it’s the metrics that keep validating them. When will we shift from measuring “how big” to measuring “how good”? When will we start valuing the capabilities that actually matter to advertisers — strategic talent, data maturity, ethical use of technology, real performance — instead of how much media an agency can push through its pipes? Until that happens, don’t expect change, expect demise, because the incentives are still pointed in the wrong direction.

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For years, digital advertising has claimed to be “contextual,” but most solutions have relied on keywords, not a true understanding. That approach overlooks nuance, culture, and emotion, particularly in non-English-speaking markets. AI is finally changing that. By reading meaning, tone, and context, AI-powered tools allow brands to engage audiences with relevance and respect, not just data points. This is how we move from talking at people to speaking with them and why OOH and premium media can lead the way in human-centered advertising.

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Audio represents 20%+ of consumer media time but under 5% of ad spend (eMarketer). For pharma brands focused on reach, frequency, and trust, this unlocks smarter investment without sacrificing accountability. "Viant Technology’s direct integration with iHeartMedia... allows both companies to match their data graphs and create shared IDs for targeting audiences in digital audio, as well as broadcast radio, where audience ID signals are scarce." Net-net: we're making hard to measure channels measurable and heping healthcare marketers better understand who they’re reaching, how often, and how audio fits into the full patient and HCP journey. Audio has always driven impact. Now, with Viant, it drives insight too. #HealthcareMarketing #PharmaMarketing #Viant #Programmatic #AddressableAdvertising #MeasurableMedia #AudioAds https://lnkd.in/ek8J-iJE

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2026 PREDICTIONS Digitas North America's "The Social Shift" explores how community and creators will redefine the brand landscape by 2026. From the rise of intimate "dark social" spaces to the explosion of niche subcultures like BookTok and women’s sports, this report breaks down how influence is shifting from top-down ads to lateral co-creation. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e-xAeeF8

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Ep. 102 The Evolution of Advertising: Amy Lanzi on Strategy, Creators & Change Amy Worcester Lanzi, CEO of Digitas North America, joins me on the pod to break down how the industry is transforming and what it takes to lead through that change. • Creativity and data must work together to drive real results • AI and synthetic audiences are redefining how we connect with consumers • Female leaders should lead with authenticity and elevate others • Creators are becoming the new strategic partners for brands

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Jon Watts from AdExchanger “There’s this promise in the industry of completely accurate, deterministic data that matches sophisticated and vast advertising targets and attributes onto individuals and households,” Watts said. “This leads marketers to believe that when they buy against a particular target, they’re reaching that target – and, unsurprisingly, the truth is much more complicated than that.” This why Eaglecom talks more about economic media buying approach than precise targeting for nonprofits when it comes to to driving giving demand. https://lnkd.in/ewcJA37t

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Omnicom Media Group has spent almost A$200 million on severance costs this year as it prepares to close its landmark acquisition of IPG Mediabrands. https://lnkd.in/gdTHmjbS

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I got quoted in Skai 2026 State of Retail Media report this week - this one is all about measurement. According to Skai, only 15% of brands say they're highly effective at measuring retail media performance. From all my conversations... that sounds about right. But the tools are out there, and the agencies to support you are out there (hint... we do this extremely well). It's not because the tools or the knowledge don't exist. It's not because the methodology is too complex. It's not even a data access problem. The real barrier? People and ownership. 56% said they lack internal analytics or data science resources. Nearly 1 in 5 said there's no clear cross-functional ownership between sales, media, and analytics. In my opinion lack of analytics access is the excuse. Lack of ownership is the problem. I stand by that. Here's what I see constantly with brands: the retail media budget grows, the channel count grows, the retailer portals multiply and the analytics infrastructure stays exactly the same. We keep pouring spending into the machine and then wonder why we can't explain what it's doing. And the incrementality gap is brutal. 75% of brands say incrementality measurement is their #1 challenge. But only 20% are actually good at both measuring AND applying those insights to decisions. Everyone knows it's the north star. Almost no one has operationalized it. The aspirations vs. reality data were the most telling part of the whole report. Brands hope incrementality will unlock profit margin improvements (68% said so). Only 24% have actually achieved that. That gap isn't a measurement problem. It's an organizational design problem. If you're a Head of #eCommerce staring down a budget conversation right now, here's the honest takeaway: You don't need another dashboard. You need to invest in this and give authority to someone who owns #incrementality end to end, standardize definitions your media, finance, and analytics teams all agree on, and a decision cadence that actually changes what you do next. As always, I'm here to help. DM me with any questions.

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SMBs are now a meaningful category of streaming advertisers. One of the many factors accelerating overall CTV spends year over year.

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Some key takeaways from Walmart Connect’s kickoff to the ANAs Masters of Marketing last week. Our massive out of home footprint (in-store screens, fuel stations and self check out) coupled with Vizio’s dominance in CTV reach and integrated marketing capabilities allow for a full funnel solution powered by accountable measurement and first party data. Three points jump out for me…  1. Retail media can now power holistic media strategies. 2.Uneven Adoption/application means early movers can seize a stronger share of voice more efficiently and 3. Maturing measurement solutions- including with CTV- are helping brands harness retail media’s full- funnel potential. #ana #walmartconnect #letssparksales

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Super excited to announce this expanded partnership between Instacart and The Trade Desk!  Instacart is the first U.S. retail media network to integrate its grocery selection with The Trade Desk platform for streamlined self-service use cases, enabling approved advertisers and agencies to build first-party custom audiences based on specific product criteria for programmatic campaigns. CPG brands can also access real-time sales measurement signals from Instacart directly in The Trade Desk platform. Here we go! https://lnkd.in/eygGcAJr

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Retail media has recently seen a flurry of mergers, acquisitions, and consolidation deals aimed at helping marketers collect and combine lucrative shopping data. Four recent examples—Spins’ acquisition of MikMak, Omnicom's merger of TPN into Flywheel, Podean’s purchase of Ad Advance, and Infillion’s acquisition of Catalina—show that as advertisers demand more, the business of retail media is getting harder. “If a lot of these smaller companies are growing like a hockey stick early on and all of a sudden it hits a wall, then that’s a very tenuous position,” said Andrew Lipsman, independent retail media analyst. Read more 👇

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The future of TV measurement is here! As the industry gears up for the Upfronts, Nielsen's transition from its legacy panel data to the new Big Data + Panel product is set to be a game-changer. This shift is poised to redefine how we understand audience insights and drive media decisions. For those wanting a deeper dive into what this means, AdAge has an excellent breakdown. Check it out! #TVMeasurement #BigData #MediaInsights #Upfronts2025

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Until recently, channels like Roku, Paramount, Pandora, or iHeartMedia were reserved for enterprise-scale advertisers with advanced programmatic infrastructures. For emerging and mid-sized CPGs, these platforms were too complex, too fragmented, or too expensive to navigate. Some recent announcements from Kroger Precision Marketing have changed that. Service-Led Activation Model: KPM provides a managed-service approach - handling all the technical complexity of programmatic buying on behalf of the brand. This removes the barrier of entry for brands lacking in-house programmatic expertise. Data-Powered Precision: Campaigns are entirely fueled by Kroger’s massive first-party data set (over 60 million households), ensuring that ads on CTV or audio platforms are precisely targeted to verified, high-value shoppers. Closed-Loop Accountability: KPM is not just selling reach; it’s selling a measurable outcome. The managed service is tied directly to Kroger’s sales data, allowing brands to prove that an ad seen on a streaming platform led directly to a product purchase in a physical or digital store. #RetailMedia #CommerceMedia #CPGMarketing #AdTech #KrogerPrecisionMarketing #ConnectedTV

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New: Digitas North America's Digitas Pictures has announced a long-term partnership with Vox Media's Vox Creative and Free Association to produce branded content designed to integrate brands into entertainment more deeply than traditional advertising. Details: https://lnkd.in/eAGgvjcp

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