Sarah Hofstadter (2:40)

That is an unfair question. I believe that the answer is infinity times infinity. It's not only how many places do you have, but how many ways do you have to execute said buys on said platforms.

Rachel Tippograph (2:56)

That's true.

Warner Bros. Discovery Advertiser (2:57)

Yeah.

Sarah Hofstadter (2:58)

In my new latest startup, one of the things we do at 37 arc is like, look at all of the different ways that clients go to market, like how marketers go to market. And I just did a project where there was a smallish company that used 72 different platforms just to manage their marketing.

Rachel Tippograph (3:23)

I believe it.

Sarah Hofstadter (3:24)

It's cray cray.

Rachel Tippograph (3:25)

Well, to give you some data on my side, first of all, that we know that there's so many places you can place your dollars, as you said, infinite. But the reality is there's 150 media platforms that do over 100 million in revenue today. So really there's like 150 platforms that matter, and then there's a long tail of nonsense.

Sarah Hofstadter (3:47)

150 is a lot to keep track of.

Rachel Tippograph (3:49)

Mm. And then at Micmac, you know, obviously we, we are tracking over $3 billion of global ad spend. We see that a brand on average spends their dollars on 20 platforms. So you take that 150, you now narrow it down to 20. And in tough economic times, obviously that pie can get smaller and smaller. Yet there's all these new entrants that continue to come to market.

Sarah Hofstadter (4:16)

The prevailing theory of following the money, does that make sense for all these new entrants? Is there enough to go around?

Rachel Tippograph (4:24)

So the answer is, I think in some respects, no. But then you see these outliers. So let's take Netflix. Their advertising business has been around for three years. In their 2025 earnings, they ended the year, they reported at $1.5 billion in global ad spend. They plan to double it this year according to their earnings. So if they do that, it's a $3 billion ad business that was created in four years. I mean, I would do that all day long if there's more opportunities like that.

Sarah Hofstadter (4:55)

Well, you also need the combination of brand recognition of Netflix and not to mention the fact that Netflix knows more about me than probably my kids do.

Rachel Tippograph (5:03)

Yeah. And you know Nicole, who leads the North America ad business, she's going to get into so many details on the show, but I really hone in on, on something that I think she articulates, which is for an advertising platform to win today, they need scale data, they need tech that allows them to act on it instantly, and then a strong differentiated content value proposition for the end user. Otherwise, like, what are you doing here? Why are people coming here to gain their Attention. And when you think about Netflix, they really do have the opportunity to do it globally because they're already doing it in their subscription business. And there's really not that many other companies that you can name that can do it on a global scale. So there's a reason why the short list keeps getting shorter and shorter, because it's really hard to pull this off.

Sarah Hofstadter (5:57)

Let's hear more from Nicole. I mean, she's seen it from so many different angles. The ad tech side, the agency side. She's seen it from every angle. And now the Netflix one. I think we can find few brands more recognized than Netflix. And today we are happy to have Nicole Pangas, VP of UCAN Advertising at Netflix, joining us, a longtime friend. Thank you so much for joining us. We're excited to get your perspective.

Nicole Pangas (6:27)

Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.

Sarah Hofstadter (6:30)

It's great to reconnect.

Nicole Pangas (6:31)

Yes. It's been a while. Sarah, I missed you.

Sarah Hofstadter (6:33)

Ah, well, if it takes a podcast to bring us back together again, then that's what it'll have to be. Our paths have crossed so many times over the past. I don't know, let's just call it many years because we don't need to date ourselves. But you've had these C suite roles going all the way back 247 Media, Zaxis Group and Ampersand. And now you're leading North America for the Netflix ad business, which is over a billion in revenue already.

Nicole Pangas (7:00)

I could ask what made you want

Sarah Hofstadter (7:02)

to join Netflix, but there's a lot of obvious stuff. Tell me about what made you join in this particular capacity.

Nicole Pangas (7:12)

Just the opportunity. You know, when Netflix first announced that they were going into advertising, I was just very intrigued as just a Netflix member at the time. And while obviously, you know, there was no ads footprint, when they announced they were going into advertising, I thought the opportunity for the company based on all of the sort of raw assets that's out there were really pretty incredible. And so when I got the email from my now boss Amy, to have dinner with her in New York the following week, it was obviously a very welcome email. And it's really about building something new. I think of myself as a builder. A lot of my career has been spent building new things within advertising. And so coming in at sort of nearly the ground up at a very well established entertainment company with some really tremendous assets and some tremendous talent within the organization was something that I was really excited to join. So I'm proud of all the progress that we've made so far and there's still so much to tackle that we're going to be doing over the next several years.

Sarah Hofstadter (8:11)

Culturally, when joining a company like Netflix, that was new to this.

Nicole Pangas (8:16)

Yeah.

Sarah Hofstadter (8:17)

Did that come into your consideration as much as the opportunity was there? You were walking to a company that for many years had sworn this off.

Nicole Pangas (8:25)

It didn't. It didn't for me. At the time that I joined, my first day in the office was the two year anniversary of the business. And so sort of early indications were, you know, already that there was a lot of good things happening and a lot more to come. So that did not hit my radar at all. But honestly, even if it had, I think I would have done it anyway. I don't think that would have stopped me. There's risk in any opportunity you take. And like I said, for me, the opportunity to build new things is really the draw. And I think Netflix had and still has a really incredible opportunity to build something different for the advertising business than has existed before.

Rachel Tippograph (9:01)

Speaking of the advertising business, you know this better than anyone. There's a lot of players in the space. Yeah, Netflix definitely has an opportunity, but it's a crowded space. So what do you see as the unique entry points for Netflix? And then I'm also just curious, like, who is Netflix taking share from?

Nicole Pangas (9:20)

So I think the opportunity based on sort of the history of the company way before advertising, it's sort of the combination. What made Netflix successful is a few things. One is, is this combination of art and science, really incredible TV shows and movies combined with the best technology. Right. The joke is like, Netflix knows what you want to watch next before you want to watch next. Like that recommendation engine, really incredibly powerful. That dichotomy or that combination is powered by, you know, modern advertising with optimizations, you know, based on the data, really great data insights that sit based on the viewership that we have, and then all these incredible movies and shows and events that are increasingly on platform that really drive attention and engagement. So because we have all three of those things at a global scale and our member engagement is so high, like it is a very different, in my opinion, very different looking entity than many or any in the world. It is different. Netflix has always been different and it's different in advertising, just like it was different in television and then CTV and sort of everything. So I think people do get caught up in competition, et cetera, but Netflix has always done stuff a little bit different. And I think what we're showing within the advertising business is we're doing, we're sort of Taking what our superpowers are, which are the things that are unique to us and leveraging them in this industry to do things a different way for advertisers and the competition's doing.

Sarah Hofstadter (10:48)

You know, it makes all the sense in the world.

LinkedIn Advertiser (10:51)

Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard but not the pipeline? That's bullspin. And marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

LinkedIn Advertiser Colleague (11:00)

My boss asked for results. So I open my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions.

LinkedIn Advertiser (11:08)

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Warner Bros. Discovery Advertiser (11:21)

You know, there are moments in entertainment where you're not just watching, you're feeling it. Moments that get everyone talking, that build real passion, that shape culture. And that's what Warner Bros. Discovery does better than anyone else. Bringing together the most iconic stories in the world and the audiences who love them. Think about it. The franchises we all grew up with, the live events that own the moment, the streaming hits that dominate the conversation. These aren't just impressions. These are shared cultural experiences. And when brands show up in those moments, that's where the magic happens. Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising combines incredible ip, modern ad tech and a partner first mentality to turn cultural attention into real connection and measurable conversion. Because when audiences lean in, your brand deserves to be right there with them. Visit adsales.wbd.com to learn more. That's adsales.wbd.com this podcast is about brave commerce.

Sarah Hofstadter (12:19)

No question that you have been brave about so many steps in your career that you have taken. Let's talk about the Connect connectivity to commerce. How are you guys thinking about Netflix being a place for the full funnel ad dollar investments?

Nicole Pangas (12:33)

So I love this question. It's one that's very near and dear to my heart, which you didn't know before you asked it, but it is, it's something that we talk about a lot and I personally talk about it a lot. So if you think about the power of television, traditionally the power of television, and I'm talking about linear television, before CTV came into play, the power was in reaching a broad audience with your message as an advertiser. There's power in that. There's power in reaching audiences at scale, I think within CTV specifically, and it wasn't so much the case earlier on, but CTV now brings scale the way linear brought scale right for A while CTV existed, but it existed at smaller scale. So while you could see more, more on a regular basis, more real time, the performance or the outcomes, let's say not performance as far as lower funnel, but whatever outcomes you're looking for as an advertiser, it took time to see that within linear, it takes a lot less time in the digital world. CTV brought the promise from the time that it started at a much smaller scale to bring more dimensions to measurement faster to advertisers, which is powerful. Now I think the opportunity in CTV in a platform or a company like Netflix is that we can bring global scale that existed in linear and bring that dimension of CTV in the measurement into the same place. And so whether you want brand awareness consideration or sort of like foot traffic, we just launched a conversion API that is lower funnel. Measurement like that is the lowest funnel that you can sort of get. And so I think these worlds are coming together and brands really have a way to do all the things in one place with a company like Netflix. So, you know, to do it in a privacy compliant way, to be able to reach a lot of people at once and to be able to sort of pull them through the funnel appropriately using different data and different audiences and different messaging. I think that to me, when you think of full funnel and the promise of what linear and digital we've talked about for a decade, the promise of what it could be, it's actually happening now and it's happening at scale. So to me it's like a very, it's always a very exciting time, I think, to be in advertising, but I think it's really exciting because I think the promise of what a lot of us have been talking about for a very long, long time is actually here now.

Rachel Tippograph (14:59)

And do you think advertisers perceive Netflix in the way that you just articulated? Like, do they see it as a place for a full funnel or is that work that you and your team are doing to, to help them understand that?

Nicole Pangas (15:12)

I think some do because, you know, work that we've done with certain advertisers have really proved out great return on ad spend, more foot traffic than other players, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it's starting to play out. It's definitely not where we started because again, when we started we had no ADS members, right? And that was just like three and change years ago. So we, you know, we were obviously a later entrance, so we're still building. We're, you know, we just moved over to our ad server was our happy one. Year anniversary to the Netflix ad suite in the US on April 1, which was not that long ago. So I do think we have work there, Rachel, you know, if I'm honest, but I think we're moving there very, very fast. And just like we've built a really big business in a short amount of time. It doesn't worry me that we're not looked that way because I think, you know, it's our responsibility to bring all of this to our advertisers as we see these. The conversion API we just launched last month. And so, you know, there's a lot that we're bringing and we're constantly bringing things to market. So it's just constantly going back and making sure that our partners know what we have when we have it. And it's not as, you know, one size fits all, like different advertisers, different segments need different offerings. You know, some rely on foot traffic, some are mmm models, some are conversion API, some are a lot of DSP work. And so all of these things are sort of ingredients to the larger recipe of like the Netflix ads business. So all a journey.

Sarah Hofstadter (16:39)

It's interesting obviously, when you're dealing with different verticals and the different things that they're looking for. But you just picked on something that we haven't really discussed very much on Brave Commerce, which is how do you make sure that in a business that is fast changing as much as it is that you're able to figure out how to update the right people with the right message. It's like it's very meta, if you will, in that you are a marketer and you are trying to figure out how to market to your buyers.

Nicole Pangas (17:03)

Yeah.

Sarah Hofstadter (17:04)

About all the new things that you're bringing. Because you are not an old school ad platform, you are the newest of the new in so many ways. How do you think about that in your particular job? What it takes to roll out something new and make sure that you're actually getting it in front of the right potential buyers, whether that's agency side or brand side or partner side, so that they're all up to speed on the latest and greatest. I mean, other than obviously promoting it on Brave Commerce.

Nicole Pangas (17:34)

But beyond that, obviously it's a great question. I think there's no company that does this perfectly. When you talk about partnerships, we are selling solutions to our partners, to our advertising partners with agency or client directly. Right. And so in some cases, obviously clients have their own data clean rooms now, so we work with them directly. In some cases they go through their agency Just really understanding what different clients within different segments need and making sure that, like if we don't have it yet, Right. Like Conversion API is a great example that I mentioned, just came out last week. There was a number of clients that in conversations that we've had over the past two years, we knew that they needed from us. Right? So just being really thoughtful sounds silly, but like, I'm a pretty simple girl. Like, who are those clients that we've spoken to over the last few years and making sure that we go back out to them and make sure that we make them aware that we have the conversion API, by the way, before it comes out. Right? Because we know it's coming out before it actually comes out. So starting to engage with them early. So it's like anything. Like you have to know what your partners are looking for from you and as you begin to solve your problems. Because there's no magic wand in this industry, as we all know, right. Like I always joke, like when people like, oh, when is your tech going to be done? I'm like, never been building tech for 25 years now and it's never going to stop. And in fact it's just moving faster and faster. So when you build tech, you're always inherently a little behind where you need to be because you need to have the problem before you can build the solution for it. So we're just going to keep at it. Thankfully, we have great relationships with our partners and I think we have a really sort of two way door on what they need and what we're building. And I think because we were a later entrant, it gave us the ability to really focus on the most important things. Because as we also know, there's a million solutions out there which are the ones that are really going to move the needle. Because I know in past lives I've built a thousand different things and really, you know, five of them mattered. And so I think being a late entrant has helped us get really focused on what really matters to clients. And that inherently has given us the opportunity to build faster, the more strategic things that matter for clients. And that I think has been a great opportunity for us and for our partners. Obviously.

Rachel Tippograph (19:58)

I mean, history goes to show that often the companies that stand the test of time were not in the first position.

Nicole Pangas (20:03)

So it's true.

Rachel Tippograph (20:04)

On the topic of working with your advertisers and them being a great voice to shape the roadmap, who's killing it right now in Netflix ads, like if I'm a cmo, who should I be paying attention to? It's like a great case study of how they're maximizing the opportunity. At Netflix.

Nicole Pangas (20:23)

We have a lot of great examples. I'll give just for the sake of time, I'll give maybe a couple. One is Airbnb. So we partnered with them for season two of Nobody Wants this and it really drove like full funnel, when we talk about full funnel before brand lift outcomes for them. So like industry benchmark beat it by four times, for example. And so we have an opportunity to work with brands to get close to our ip, you know, in this case and also drive like really great outcomes for those brands. So that's one that I thought was a great. And they're obviously very happy. Another one which is a little bit of a tech geeky one, but something that's near and dear to my heart. We've had some really great success partnering with tinuity on data clean room solutions that we've been building out. And to me, I think in the world that we're moving into, no surprise is data. Data flow and data collaboration is what's going to drive so much media dollars because technology can move faster than humans. So to me, the work that we're doing on the data integrations, brand directly, agency directly, to me is going to drive so much around. Everybody's talking about AI. What does that mean? It means that we will actually have the opportunity to share data in a privacy compliant way that will actually move dollars faster than humans can email each other or somebody can look at a report and do something. And so to me, a lot of the most important work, the most strategic work besides like brands, you know, wanting to be close to our titles, which is the fandom. Part of the magic of what we do is the data. Part of what we do is going to mirror that on the data side to really drive really tremendous outcomes, you know, and take that fandom and make it into something powerful for brands from a conversion perspective.

Rachel Tippograph (22:20)

I love that you gave the tenuity example. You know, a lot of people on the show are agency tech partners who listen in too. What do you think that they understand about how to work with platforms like Netflix that maybe others don't?

Nicole Pangas (22:34)

I don't know if it's. Others don't, but just maybe I'm a little biased because I, you know, is at an agency for a long time myself is when you work at an agency, you see everything. You have a perspective, you have a very broad perspective of what's going on in the industry. It's one of the things that I miss most about not being on that side, you kind of saw what was coming out. You were able to meet with every piece of the industry and kind of piece it in your mind together on how they all fit together. And you sort of lose that when you, you lose that a little bit. At least when you move to the sell side. At least that's my been my experience. Because of that perspective, folks at agencies really understand how to one, put pieces together, all the pieces. Right. Because as much as I'd like to say Netflix is the only place where buyers will buy, I know that not to be true. Right. So how do you connect the dots for brands? And two, scale matters. And scale matters a lot in a technology driven world and a data driven world. And so all of these technical integrations that the agencies have, to me, like when I walked in the door here a year and a half ago, it's like mission number one, data clean rooms, agency tech integrations. Because I know that the data collaboration that happens between those infrastructures is where a lot of decisions are made. And so to me it has been critical. It's becoming more critical in the world of AI and a gentech that we're moving into.

Rachel Tippograph (23:59)

Another hot take that has not been said on the show. I love it.

Nicole Pangas (24:02)

Oh, really? Oh, wow. Really?

Rachel Tippograph (24:03)

Yeah.

Nicole Pangas (24:03)

I'm surprised actually.

Rachel Tippograph (24:04)

It's a fresh perspective. Okay, we have to ask you our famous last question, which is what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

Nicole Pangas (24:12)

Can I give two sub parts of the answer to the question? One's personal, one's professional.

Rachel Tippograph (24:17)

Absolutely.

Sarah Hofstadter (24:18)

Okay, go for it.

Nicole Pangas (24:20)

So my personal one is a few years ago I climbed Mount Mulanji, which is the tallest mountain in Malawi, in Africa. And it's not really the, the height that should be impressive. What I didn't know when I started climbing the mountain is that you had to like jump between boulders with like nothing underneath you to get over certain parts. And if I was a smarter person, I probably would have like turned around and walked back down the mountain. But I didn't. I got to the top. So it was brave. It might have been dumb too, if I'm honest, because without safety equipment and no ability to get rescued in Malawi, that probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. But check the box, won't do it again. And then I think the second thing on the professional side is that when I was at wp, I was there for a very long time. I was there for, you know, over 10 years and got along with everybody, did well, all the things. I was a global COO a couple of times and they offered me a global CEO role at wpp and I declined the role and resigned from the company with no job lined up. And I just sort of made a personal decision to step away and kind of figure out what I wanted my next chapter to be without it being sort of like brought to me, right, Because I was doing well on paper with the roles that I was getting. But it felt like it was sort of like, hey, do this and then do this and then do this. And I said, I'm just gonna step away. Took some time off and then a number of months later is when I ended up at Ampersand for, you know, which was a five and a half year stretch. So I think that was in retrospect pretty brave to do because I guess there was, there was some risk in that. Although I felt very resolute in my decision at the time.

Sarah Hofstadter (26:06)

I think that's tremendously brave and not just in retrospect, like just hearing it for the first time. But leaving a job without having another role in mind a is a testament to your confidence in yourself, which is extremely important in the jobs that we have and in the careers that we have. But yeah, it's no man's land. But people then jump and they're not thinking about what they're running from or what they're running to, or they're usually thinking of one but not the other. And being brave enough to say, I need that time to actually think about what I want to run to I think is not just brave, but I wish more people could do it. Not everybody can. And I don't mean that financially. I mean, not everybody is as multi talented as you to be able to, you know, say, you know, what if this thing doesn't work out? I've got like 8,000 different backup options.

Nicole Pangas (26:58)

So I don't know that I really thought about it as strategically as like, you know, in retrospect. I would like to pretend I did. It was just, you know, you just have like a gut. I believe in trusting your gut. It was just my gut. I was like, my gut is I shouldn't take this job, even though, you know, it's a good, good, you know, I was 39 years old. It's like a, you know, being a global CEO is like pretty good. 39, like kind of something that in theory, I worked for my whole career, right, to get a job offer like that. But something in my gut was like, not the right thing. And yeah, your gut has served you well. I guess so.

Sarah Hofstadter (27:33)

Yeah.

Nicole Pangas (27:33)

Yeah. I believe in following your your body, right? If your body tells you something, you should listen.

Rachel Tippograph (27:38)

Well, we are excited to follow your journey at Netflix and beyond. Really appreciate all your insights into CTV and what's happening at Netflix right now. And if folks want to follow you, I'm sure they will find you on LinkedIn.

Nicole Pangas (27:51)

Great. Thank you so much for the opportunity to chat with you guys. Nice to see you both.

Rachel Tippograph (27:57)

If you like what you heard and you want to go deeper on the demand side, go check out an episode we recently recorded with Toby, who leads the advertising business for DoorDash. Or go check out an episode we did a few months ago with the president of nbcu, Alison Levin. And if you like what you heard, tell a friend. Write a review. Thanks for listening.

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hi, I'm Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast launching on the Ad Week Podcast Network. My dad gave me this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As a result, I've met some of the most fascinating and inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth, we're coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.