Fernando Romero

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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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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LiveRamp Expands Meta Insights Available to Retail Media Networks 👉Learn more : https://lnkd.in/ef7Mvw2f 🤔Retail media networks can now unlock new attribution insights from their Meta campaign investments through the LiveRamp Clean Room. By connecting Meta campaign results with their own first-party sales data, RMNs and their partners can see how off-property sites, including Meta, drive sales, orders, and ROAS across campaigns, brands, and products. Let’s accelerate data collaboration and retail media 🔥

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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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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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By using AI to interpret real-time content signals, advertisers can now align messaging with where users are in the buying journey. The result? Fewer wasted impressions, stronger engagement and better ROI 📈 Seedtag’s latest blog unpacks how intent based marketing bridges privacy & performance by predicting readiness through real-time content analysis - no tracking required. https://lnkd.in/e8fzMCiC #AdTech #ContextualAdvertising #AIIntentionModels #AttentionToIntention

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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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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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Teads is elevating the role of Connected TV with the launch of CTV Performance, introducing a new way to optimize and measure real business outcomes. This innovation allows advertisers to connect premium streaming exposure to measurable results, bringing brand awareness and performance closer together than ever before. https://lnkd.in/eJqdjEZS

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“Ramsey McGrory, newly appointed President of Prisma at Mediaocean, joins Ari Paparo to discuss how the company is evolving its platform across linear and digital media. They unpack the implications of Mediaocean’s acquisitions, including Innovid and Protected by Mediaocean, and what it means to consolidate media planning, buying, and verification in an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.” https://lnkd.in/gb3WgMes

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Nearly 30 years at Omnicom, "Atomic Habits," and the $1 Trillion Challenge: My Conversation with Florian Adamski, the new/old CEO of Omnicom Media Group I was delighted to host Florian on #MediaSnack WINNERS. After nearly 30 years with Omnicom, Florian's perspective on leadership, scale, and the future of media is essential listening for any marketing or media professional. Going into 2026, he will now lead the largest media buying organization on the planet following their merger with IPG's media agencies. Once rivals, now revered. 👉 Three key takeaways for CMOs and agency leaders: 1️⃣ Continuous Improvement Over Perfection: Florian is a big believer in "Atomic Habits"—striving for 1% better every day rather than radical overnight change. This is the only way to operate a complex, scaled organization. 2️⃣ The Industry as "Cockroaches": He candidly accepts the notion, not as an insult, but a compliment. It reflects an ability to transform constantly and remain relevant despite being "deemed and dubbed as dead" multiple times. 3️⃣ The Need for Unification: The industry is fighting an "epic battle" between complexity and effectiveness. Florian's hope for the next year? That the industry "lock arms" and find unified standards for ID solutions and measurement, justifying the combined $1 trillion client investment. 👇 Watch the full conversation to learn how Florian is able to make time for focus in a fluid 24/7 role. https://lnkd.in/dvKYEFjg #Omnicom #OMD #FlorianAdamski #MediaLeadership #AgencyCEO #IDComms 🐦

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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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Our latest blog provides a comprehensive breakdown of the evolving advertising landscape, emphasizing the advantages of Connected TV (CTV) over other TV strategies. By integrating CTV with intent data, brands and marketers regain control over their desired audiences, allowing for tailored messaging and targeted spending. This approach also enhances the cross-channel and cross-device opportunities for attribution. There is little doubt that CTV will become more and more prevalent in the marketing mix for the vast majority of brands in 2026. Check it out below: https://lnkd.in/eiZbktjz Kevin Frisbie Lillian Morgan Delilah A. Sabrena Collins Chris Gruening

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✅🖥️ Variety (6/25): “Amazon Prime Video delivered a series of pitches to content partners and prospective partners on the benefits of making their services available for sale via Prime Video’s Subscriptions portal. Amazon walked through data points designed to underline that Amazon’s gigantic funnel brings demonstrable results to programmers big (HBO Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+) and niche (Crunchyroll). The Prime Video executives emphasized the amount of energy and investment that Amazon is pouring into R&D and experimentation with advertising technology, data tools and analytics to help Prime Video channel partners make the most of their subscription revenue and ad sales. Prime Video does not offer a cable-style bundle of channels but rather it offers users to chance to select streamers and channels on a la carte basis, but with a central billing system handled by Amazon. Amazon has been a re-seller of content from other providers for nearly 20 years, since the platform first embraced transactional video on demand in 2006. Today, with the streaming revolution driving every major media company to embrace direct-to-consumer content platforms, hitching a ride with Amazon by being part of its channel marketplace offers a big boost. Hollywood’s biggest brand names have been humbled in recent years by realizing that they need partners to drive digital traffic.” ⬇️ #streaming #svod #programsmtic #avod #ctv #upfronts #fast https://lnkd.in/erKEZCVs

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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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Horizon and Havas have formed a media joint venture in order to chase larger clients. Together, they hope to exploit market disruption. https://lnkd.in/egzx3QK8

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Happy to help our partners at Amazon with this measurement initiative. Proof that real purchase data, not modeled proxies, is what closes the gap between streaming exposure and verified sales outcomes.

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MARCH 4, 2026 📰 The Trade Desk announced OpenTTD, their platform-pure-play. But the bigger news had already come from London six hours earlier. Find out what it was and why it matters for every company building or using ad tech ---> https://lnkd.in/ezVnvKBT

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