Episode 114: Kate O’Loughlin on why Kids Ads are SuperAwesome

Summary

Marketecture Podcast Summary
Episode 114: Kate O’Loughlin on Why Kids Ads are SuperAwesome
Release Date: March 14, 2025
Host: Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi
Guest: Kate O’Loughlin, CEO of Super Awesome

---

1. Introduction to Super Awesome and Kate O’Loughlin [01:11 - 04:37]

Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi welcome Kate O’Loughlin, CEO of Super Awesome, a pioneering company in youth marketing and ad tech. Kate explains the origin of her company's unique name, tracing it back to a merger between "Box of Awesome" and "Swapit," culminating in "Super Awesome."

Notable Quote:
“Building something for a quarter of the world's population that none of the rest of AdTech and MarTech attend to is a good idea.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [03:57]

---

2. The Mission of Super Awesome [04:37 - 05:53]

Super Awesome is dedicated to enabling a safer digital ecosystem for youth. Their mission revolves around making children and teens seen, heard, understood, and included, thereby preventing them from venturing into unsavory parts of the internet.

Key Points:

• Safety and Inclusion: By ensuring youth are valued, Super Awesome helps keep them safe online.
• Collaboration with Brands: They work with advertisers to engage youth responsibly, ensuring compliance with regulations while fueling creative and safe advertising initiatives.

---

3. Kate’s Journey to CEO and Spin-Out from Epic [05:53 - 09:33]

Kate shares her transition from a decade-long career in ad tech, including roles at MediaMath and TapAD, to leading Super Awesome. She highlights the company's acquisition by Epic Games in 2020, which was aimed at making the Metaverse inclusive for all players, particularly younger audiences.

Notable Quote:
“Epic is our minority owner and investor, the company is owned by the management team and the employees and we're off rocking to the races a year and into independence.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [09:14]

Key Points:

• Epic’s Role: Provided tools for parent consent in gaming, enhancing child safety.
• Spin-Out: Super Awesome transitioned to independence with Epic as a minority investor, allowing them to prioritize youth-focused media initiatives.

---

4. Current Landscape of Kids and Youth Media [09:33 - 14:25]

Kate discusses the regulatory "stick" and the market "carrot" influencing youth advertising.

Regulatory Stick:

• COPPA 2.0: Proposed extension of data privacy laws to protect individuals up to age 16 (currently 13 in the US).
• Global Regulations: Similar protections are being considered in New York, California, Europe, and the UK, aiming to safeguard youth online.

Market Carrot:

• Brand Loyalty: Companies like Lego thrive by marketing to kids, ensuring a pipeline of lifetime fans.
• Economic Value: Marketing to kids today drives sales now and secures future brand loyalty.

Notable Quote:
“The continued understanding and education of how important audiences are for sales today and connecting them with who they'll be as Lifetime fans tomorrow is improving.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [12:41]

---

5. Marketing Strategies for Kids vs. Teens [13:06 - 17:54]

Differences in Engagement:

• Kids vs. Teens: Marketing strategies must account for the distinct preferences and behaviors of younger children versus teenagers.
• Granular Audience Understanding: Moving beyond age-based stereotypes to cater to nuanced interests and developmental stages.

Creator Economy and Platforms:

• Roblox as a New Social Hub: With 40 million games, Roblox represents the new frontier for social media and creator-driven content.
• Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Kids engage in digital side hustles, creating and monetizing user-generated content (UGC).

Notable Quote:
“Kids are spending their time today and it's who they want to be and what they're engaging in.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [15:53]

---

6. Age Verification and Data Privacy [17:54 - 20:17]

Challenges in Age Verification:

• Complexity of Implementing COPPA: Balancing data privacy with effective advertising strategies remains a contentious issue.
• Platform Responsibilities: Publishers must accurately identify and flag content for youth to ensure compliance, but current systems often fall short.

Super Awesome’s Role:

• Tech Solutions: Provides tools to maintain compliance and protect consumer data throughout the ad buying process.

Notable Quote:
“There's a real tension point there. And again, maybe it's TTD or maybe it's a different company that just blows this category wide open and brings the best of both together.”
— Eric Franchi [48:25]

---

7. Impact of AI on Youth Media [20:17 - 23:58]

Gen Alpha as AI Natives:

• High Adoption Rates: A significant portion of Gen Alpha regularly uses AI tools like ChatGPT.
• Future Workforce: These digital natives will expect and leverage AI-driven tools in their professional environments.

Generational Shifts:

• Changing Skill Sets: Traditional skills like Excel may become obsolete as AI integration deepens.
• Creative Processes: AI will transform how content is created and optimized, aligning with Gen Alpha’s native familiarity with technology.

Notable Quote:
“Gen Alpha is the AI native, right? We talk about digital natives and millennials and Gen Z, but Gen Alpha, they are the AI natives.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [20:35]

---

8. The Future of the Open Web and Content Fragmentation [23:58 - 25:49]

Content Explosion:

• Fragmented Fandoms: The vast increase in available content leads to highly specialized and dispersed audience segments.
• Challenges for Publishers: Navigating this fragmentation requires innovative strategies to engage and retain loyal audiences.

Strategic Implications:

• Investment in Diverse Content: Publishers need to diversify their content offerings to cater to a wider array of interests.
• Building IP: Developing unique intellectual properties becomes crucial in standing out within a saturated digital landscape.

Notable Quote:
“Now that dissipation of fandoms has really started to explode. And that's connected to the amount of content that's available and the fragmentation of content.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [24:27]

---

9. Ownership and Future of TikTok [25:49 - 26:25]

Potential Acquisition Challenges:

• Complex Ownership Dynamics: Multiple parties, including influencers and tech companies, are vying for control over TikTok.
• Strategic Uncertainty: The outcome remains uncertain, with possibilities ranging from complete acquisition to platform shutdown if ownership disputes fail to resolve.

Market Implications:

• Influence on Youth Advertising: TikTok's fate directly impacts how brands engage with Gen Z and younger audiences through short-form video content.

Notable Quote:
“And I think they're not even really engaged in the sale. They don't have a banker. There's no, like, set on valuation. They're, they're not like, gearing up for sale themselves.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [26:25]

---

10. Generational Shifts and Their Impact on Skills and Creativity [23:16 - 23:58]

Changing Skill Landscapes:

• From Excel to AI Tools: Future analysts and media professionals will likely favor AI-driven tools over traditional platforms like Excel.
• Creativity and Technology Integration: Gen Alpha’s seamless integration with AI will redefine creative processes and outcomes.

Educational Implications:

• School Curriculums: Emphasis on modern digital tools prepares Gen Alpha for future roles in ad tech and marketing.
• Workplace Expectations: Companies must adapt to the evolving skill sets and technological proficiencies of the new generation.

Notable Quote:
“Their handwriting is terrible too, but their typing skills are amazing, you know, and that's because of how much time they're spending at school and at play, you know, online.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [23:16]

---

Conclusion

In this episode, Kate O’Loughlin provides an insightful look into the evolving landscape of youth advertising and the critical role Super Awesome plays in fostering a safer, more inclusive digital environment for children and teenagers. From navigating complex regulatory frameworks to leveraging the power of AI and understanding generational shifts, Super Awesome is at the forefront of transforming how brands engage with younger audiences responsibly and effectively.

Final Notable Quote:
“If you're a maker of those things, you need tools to be compliant and to attend to safety and the things that you have to do a bit differently for youth audiences.”
— Kate O’Loughlin [05:53]

---

For more insights and detailed discussions on the latest in advertising and marketing, subscribe to the Marketecture Podcast and stay updated with their weekly content.

Transcript

[Ari Paparo]

This episode is brought to you by Zeta Global.

[Eric Franchi]

Do you know what it takes to transform marketing into a data driven profit center? Are you able to align the C.

[Ari Paparo]

Suite around your AI vision and strategy? Zeta Global has the Playbook to help you get started. Download Driving growth in the AI era today at ZetaCMO AI book again, that's Zeta CMO.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify.

[Ari Paparo]

The global commerce platform that supercharges your.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per.

[Ari Paparo]

Month trial period at shopify.com tech.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

All lowercase. That's shopify.com tech.

[Eric Franchi]

Welcome to the Market Extra Podcast. I'm Ari Paparo. I'm here today with Eric Franchi and our guest is Cato Laughlin, who is the CEO of Super awesome. And that's actually the name of the company. We're not just calling it super awesome, it's called Super Awesome. She's a ad tech exec and she's moved into the executive role at the company that focuses on youth marketing to being able to advertise and promote to kids and teens in a clean, legal manner. Is this an area that you've spent much time, Eric?

[Ari Paparo]

I haven't, no. I've kind of tracked super awesome over the years and it's been an interesting story which Kate will get into. And it's fascinating because so much of what, what we talk about when we talk about marketing to kids is avoiding marketing to them, regulatory violations when you do market to them and, you know, keeping them safe from bad content and, and more. So hearing about like an actual business that's focused on building this category is something I'm excited about.

[Eric Franchi]

So Kate will be present and joining us at Mark Dexter Live. She's not, she doesn't have a speaking gig, but she'll be there. So make sure to say hi and tell her you loved her on the pod when it comes out on Friday. Markitecture Live is next Monday and it is sold out. So please don't text me asking for tickets. I've gotten a lot of those. And you're going to hear from Eric and I on stage. Next week's pod will be our live interview of Brian O'Kelly. He has new products coming out he wants to talk about, which we're really excited about. And then, Eric, you're also on stage with Brett Wilson. Are you excited about that?

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah, I can't wait. There are going to be six cutting edge AI startups. We're going to do a little showcase and you'll see what's coming down the pipe. And Brett is just awesome.

[Eric Franchi]

So, you know, just note it's a showcase, not a contest. We're not doing any startup contests. We're just going to let them highlight what they do and everyone will learn and hopefully it'll be interesting. All right, with that, let's dive in with Kate. All right. Kate O'Loughlin, thank you so much for being here.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Thanks for having me.

[Eric Franchi]

You have the greatest company name in the world. I think I'm a real connoisseur of brand names and the weird things people do to come up with weird brand names. But your company name is Super Awesome.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yes. You know, we, it's, it's good to project awesomeness. You know, it kind of gets you out of bed every day. But the. I know you're into company name entomology at the moment, so I will tell you that it came from the combination of a company called Box of Awesome, which was like a sampler, you know, remember like Birchbox is kind of Birchbox for kids. And then Box of Awesome merged with a company called swapit. And then the lore is something, something Vegas, and out comes Super Awesome.

[Eric Franchi]

All right. When you're at like cocktail parties and you explain what you do for a living, do people think you're joking about the company name?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yes. And actually after I left Tap AD and was on the first kind of Christmas party circuit, people asked if it was a cry for help. And I assured them, I assured them that building something for a quarter of the world's population that none of the rest of AdTech and MarTech attend to is a good idea.

[Eric Franchi]

The awesome part of the population. So super awesome has had a, I guess an awesome story. It's been around the block. I actually researching this pod, I found some errors on Wikipedia that I personally updated. So I've improved your social clout. But tell the rest of us, what's the story on Super Awesome?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yes. So superawesome is all about enabling the youth digital ecosystem. And our big hairy goal is to build a safer Internet for the next generation. And we want to do that by making kids and teens seen, heard, understood, and included. Because when we think when those things happen and they're valued and they're included, then they're not going to be pushed into the deeper, darker parts of the Internet and they will be valued for the consumers that they are today and that they will be in the future. And. Well, how do we get them to be more included? Well, if you're a maker of the thing, so a casual game or a game that you're building on Roblox or content that you're making on YouTube or streaming channel, if you're a maker of those things, you need tools to be compliant and to attend to safety and the things that you have to do a bit differently for youth audiences. And you need money, you need to be adherent to the stick that is regulation. But you also need the carrot to fuel making good choices and doing the extra work. Well, where does the money come from? It comes from advertisers. And so we work really hard with the brands to help them engage with youth because they know that they're ones that drive sales today and tomorrow so they'll bring more money into the digital ecosystem so that ultimately people make things more inclusively for kids and teens and then they're safer.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, it's challenging monetizing that kind of inventory, both for the legal reasons, but also the lack of data and stuff like that. We'll talk about that in one second. I just want to kind of talk about you for a second, which is how did you become the CEO? Because you have a background in ad tech for the most part and most people who listen to this pod have backgrounds in ad tech and want to be CEOs one day and probably never will be. So tell them how, how you made the jump.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, so I came to super awesome after a decade in ad tech myself between being very early at Media Mass, started there in 2008 and then tap ad right when we were inventing cross screen identity all the way back in 2011. And I saw how all the sausage was being made, frankly. And I was part of, you know, really understanding consumers down to the identity level. So when I had the opportunity, you know, post acquisition by tap out to try something new, I came to super awesome to, you know, serve some penance maybe and undo some of that and, you know, take my understanding of Programmatic into an audience that nobody else was attempt was paying attention to. And so I started to help the co founders, Dylan and Lee expand into the U.S. so I was first general manager of the U.S. and became global COO. And then when Dylan, the co founding CEO, you know, lots of years at the business founders got a found and we'd already been acquired by Epic, went to go do new things. He had done a lot to support me to be ready to take over as CEO. So especially coming off of International Women's Day this weekend and talking about how important sponsors are, especially for women in the industry. Dylan was a great sponsor for me and getting me ready to take the role.

[Eric Franchi]

And then you spun it out. So it was acquired by Epic, which I guess owned owner of Fortnite, among other things. And then what happened? How did it spin out?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, so the reason that Epic acquired us in 2020 was to help make the Metaverse inclusive for all players. And so we came in especially we had a product that was a non media product that helped with the hard problem of getting parents consent when kids need to reveal something private about them to play the game. Right. Like kids voices and video and their precise location. That's all protected data. You have to have a parent, a verified parent, say yes to kids sharing that. So we had this really great product, a graph, kind of like tailpad graph of consented parents that made it much easier to get parents and kids through that pipeline. And so we integrated that into the Fortnite and Epic ecosystem as well as provided it free to the many other game developers. And that really helped jump Epic up to being where they wanted to be for Metaverse players. And I won't take all the credit, maybe a little bit of now Lego and Disney each putting in a couple billion dollars of investment into Epic. They wouldn't have done that had that platform been not ready for kids. But at the end of the day, the media, the advertising business wasn't core to Epic's business model. So as we got to, you know, three years in and earnouts and you know, change and Dylan going and me stepping into leadership, we had a conversation with Epic about them being an investor instead of an owner to let us go do the things that we thought were priority for kids media. And that's how we came up with this arrangement. So Epic is our minority owner and investor, the company is owned by the management team and the employees and we're off rocking to the races a year and into independence.

[Eric Franchi]

That's so cool. And did you keep the tools that Epic had originally bought? Are they part of the new super awesome or are they still part of Epic? The age verification stuff, the parent verification.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Stuff, we left behind, Epic wasn't making any money anyway. So that's okay. It's a free product and we brought out all of the media related products.

[Eric Franchi]

Okay, so let's step back and you mentioned the carrot and stick earlier, but can you just give us a sense about what is the current state of, I guess, kids and youth media in the digital world.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

So I'm going to come at it maybe from two different perspectives. So what's going on from a policy and reg perspective with the stick, and then we'll talk about the carrot.

[Eric Franchi]

Yep.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

So the stick remains with lots of momentum. Just last week, you know, one of the only bipartisan topics that exist these days, Ed Markey and Bill Cassidy reintroduced COPPA 2.0 at the Federal level, which would extend the existing, long existing data privacy laws for kids up to people who are 16.

[Eric Franchi]

It's currently 13, right?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

In the US currently 13 going to 16. And then it adds a bunch of data minimization type stuff. You know, who knows if that thing is going to be passed as it exists today. But it really does speak to the momentum for more people to be protected, not less. And that age going up to 16, and in many jurisdictions, 18 is really here. You know, here in New York State, we have bills that protect kids up to 18 from an appropriate perspective. And from a data perspective, California and Europe, you know, up to 18 with the age appropriate design code. In the UK, that is all coming with a lot of momentum. And you see that coming from policy wonks and parents too, like they need help asking for tech and platforms to help them with.

[Eric Franchi]

I think everyone knows what COPPA is, but separately, there's a lot of conversations around, like not allowing kids on social media until they're 16. How do those two things interact?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

So I think they do get convoluted. So data privacy is what kind of information is all about? What kind of information can you collect and use about kids? But then there's safety, right? Which is what is someone seeing and feeling and hearing and experiencing and the content that they're in. And so obviously collecting more data to put kids into deeper, unhelpful and unhealthy loops, that is the thing that connects them together. But they really are quite different topics. And so sometimes that gets mucked up a lot in the legislation or when people talk about it, but really it is two different things.

[Eric Franchi]

Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so I interrupted your flow. You were talking about the stick. Are we done with the stick or is there more sticks?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, done with the stick. And now carrot. Right. There's so much going on with the importance of this audience. I mean, talk about Lego. I don't know if you're both Lego fans or they were when you were kids, but their business today is really thriving, of course, on the core products. But, you know, if you see like the botanicals line and like the $300 sets that are flying off the shelves with kid dolls. You know those sales don't happen had they not had the legacy of those people being fans of Lego when they were kids themselves. And so really I think the continued understanding and education of how important audiences are for sales today and connecting them with what who they'll be as Lifetime fans tomorrow is improving.

[Eric Franchi]

Did you say kiddults?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, kiddults.

[Eric Franchi]

Is that a thing? Am I a kidult?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, if you've been to.

[Eric Franchi]

Definitely are.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

I think you are. I definitely think.

[Eric Franchi]

Do kidults wear athleisure around the house? Is that like, are we just good to combine words whenever we feel like it?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yes, I think so.

[Eric Franchi]

This is actually an interesting little subtopic which is how much is the marketing to kids in anticipation of building brands for when they're adults?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Hard to put a number on it because I think that's some of the problem is that how much money goes into consumer versus shopper, it's hard to measure and to get right, right. It's like you have to first get the kid or teen to really want the thing or love the IP and then you need to get mom to buy. And so the money that gets spent kind of across the two gets conflated sometimes.

[Eric Franchi]

Sure, sure. And is the market for advertising and marketing significantly different on like kids versus teens? Are those different like budgets, different types of activities?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yes and no. I mean I think it all needs to come back to doing a better job of really understanding the audience and understanding that it's a graduated thing thing and try to separate out their interests. And that's a, that's one of the things that I'm excited about next for this space is getting beyond like all things pink equal girl and all things blue equal boy. And all 6 year olds act like 12 year olds. That's just not true. The type of audience based buying that we're used to in general marketing just hasn't existed for kids and teens. And I think that's often a relic of TV and people kind of not really understanding what you can do with data and understanding the audiences and that's a real thing. That's I think an improvement coming and that we're investing in.

[Eric Franchi]

The most remarkable difference between generations is their media consumption. Kids today may play with Legos the same way I do as an adult, but they definitely do not watch the same shows. And I noticed on the super awesome website there's a lot of talk about the creator economy. So like maybe it would help our audience if you put yourself in the head of one of your buyers, like your brand manager or marketing manager for one of these brands that skews young, maybe maybe toys or maybe just a youth brand. You know, what are you thinking in terms of media mix and execution?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

It is definitely led by creator and creator content because that's where kids are spending their time today and it's who they want to be and what they're engaging in. And creator economy. I think a lot of people and media buyers kind of feel more confident when it comes to YouTube and YouTube influencers. But really now, many of the gaming platforms are all about creator economy. Like if you think about Roblox, it's a. It is the new YouTube and it's actually the new social media. That's there's 40 million games now on Roblox. Anybody can make a game on Roblox. It's only going to get easier with AI and no code and sort of the tools that are available. And so it's all about understanding how kids kind of cross and teens cross that line of being entertained using creator type content and gaming type content to connect with their friends and then them being involved in the process. So super important.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah. Robot people underestimate Roblox. My tween daughter, when she was younger, she used Roblox so much we had to replace a couple of keys on our keyboard. She just like wore them out. The L and the K key from running around the Roblox universe.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah. It's remarkable to see, you know, the entrepreneurship that happens on that platform. We just did some research that it's now getting to be that kids digital side hustles and creating and selling UGC is making them as much money as they've made historically. And mowing lawns and babysitting. It's a wildly entrepreneurial generation.

[Eric Franchi]

Got to mow the virtual lawn.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Eric Franchi]

So like what, how do you do that? So let's say someone comes to you and says they want to be in Roblox. I assume this is part of your business. How do, how do you actually execute that?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

A bunch of different ways. Sometimes it makes sense to help a brand build their own experience. Most of the time that doesn't make sense. If you remember back remember when everybody wanted to have their own app in the App store in like 2011, you were like Clorox, you do not need your own app. In the main, that's how the Roblox economy is today is it works better to integrate your brand into existing gameplay, do it authentically. So you might do a brand integration or you might even do video ads or billboards that Roblox has, you know, increasingly investing there for their over 13 audience. But that can't be done in isolation. And you should kind of. You get more bang for your buck if you connect that back into the paid media that you're running out on casual gaming, like your Subway Surfers type of stuff and connected TV, you know, in YouTube and then with influencer content creator content in those platforms too. Because kids are so fragmented, they're using their screens at the same time doing different things. I'm not sure if you see that in your own households. But like my kid, you know, he's on the couch, he's playing his switch, he's got the tablet going with YouTube and then on the TV behind him, he's got, you know, Captain Underpants running on Netflix. Like it's all a fluid experience. And you have to even more so than adults.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, that's a bit much. So you brought up a question I have about casual games and about age verification, which I guess is not in the notes, so it's sort of a little unfair question to ask you, but recently I guess Mark Zuckerberg was in Congress and he said he was all for age verification. He just thought the App Store should do it. And that seems to be falling on deaf ears. Any thoughts on that?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

It's a hot potato.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, it's a hot potato.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

It's a hot potato because who wants to be the ultimate arbiter of sensitive data like that? And if you get it wrong, hold the consequences. So I think it would be great if the App Store, who already has the ages of who's downloading and logging in, would share that. But I'm not optimistic that they will take that up and do that.

[Eric Franchi]

It seems seems like a straightforward solution. I don't understand the resistance.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, but you know, yeah, the incentives for makers of apps to identify their users as audience is like one of the fundamental things that still needs to be fixed. Right. Like if you're a mobile publisher and put up the COPPA flag like you should in the OpenRTV spec to send your inventory upstream, Trade Desk will drop it immediately. It doesn't know bidding. You know, applovin just stopped supporting COPPA inventory. And so now if you're a game developer, you're gonna make money to keep your business going, you have no incentive to be honest about who your audience actually is. And that's a fundamental thing that needs to change.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, we did that at Beeswax. We saw the COPPA flag, we just dropped it. So is there any programmatic advertising, legal programmatic advertising to COPPA consumers?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

I guess you would say there is, but it's on the publisher, like I said, to identify their content. And then it's everybody up the chain's responsibility to respect the flag. And that's, you know, like super awesome tech. We help that in the flow. Not just on should you buy the inventory, on the bid decision, but also when you send the ad back out, making sure that the ad itself isn't stuffed with trackers and pixels that are then going to leak consumer data too. That's not in the OpenRTP spec. It's something that you have to think about and do yourself as a brand or all of the buy side tools.

[Eric Franchi]

Does super awesome have a bidder?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

We do, but we want to work with the whole ecosystem so that everybody along the chain is protected, not just us.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, sure, that'd be ideal, but sometimes you have to do it yourself. So before the show, you sent some interesting thoughts by email about AI, the effect here on youth. What are you kind of thinking in terms of how AI affects the media market and how it relates to youth?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Gen Alpha is the AI native, right? We talk about digital natives and millennials and Gen Z, but Gen Alpha, they are the AI natives. A quarter of kids 13 to 18 use ChatGPT every day or at least every week, as compared to, you know, 30 to 40 year olds who only 12% of people report that they use it that frequently. And so when you think about that generation being creators and making content or even working in our companies, they are going to be fast to help us, you know, and expect to have the tools available to them that are AI fueled.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, it's like generational for people my age. There was this whole controversy about using Wikipedia and the whole generation was taught that Wikipedia was inaccurate and terrible. And then a couple of years later it became the default because the people who grew up with it were fine with it. And I think there's something similar here where probably a lot of people in their 20s and 30s and millennials think of AI as this backup, this sort of dirty secret, this trick for getting their jobs done. And the next generation is going to use it natively.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Absolutely. There's. There's so much, I think that's going to transition in our companies with Gen Alpha as being our employees. I mentioned to you that, you know, by the time media analysts are coming up in 2030 and 2035, I doubt that any of the analysis will be done in Excel as an example, because Google gave Chromebooks to 60% of American kids, you know, since the teams. And so they all know how to use sheets and they all, you know, they don't know how to use Excel. And so Excel's going to die with generation, perhaps. You know, that's the sort of stuff like the investor you have to invest in the new generation to use.

[Eric Franchi]

I'm going to not agree with that one. When someone moves from Google Sheet and they use Excel the first time, it's like if somebody's been having like instant coffee their whole life and then you give them an espresso, like Excel will blow, their eyes will dilate and they'll just like, you know, change their lives the first time they use Excel.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

I don't know. I mean, or they just have an agent do it all for them and we won't be talking about spreadsheet processing at all.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, I would, I would like a Senti and Excel.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah, yeah. This has been fascinating. Anecdotally, I've heard that kids, Gen Alpha, they have poor spelling, you know, versus even just, you know, Gen Z and then previous generations. And it kind of doesn't matter. Right. Because in this world that we're talking about, you know, there's so many AI tools that so much of what previous generations needed to be adept to, it's just not going to be a skill set that's necessary. Do you have a view on, you know, kind of theories like that, Kate?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's absolutely true. Their handwriting is terrible too, but their typing skills are amazing, you know, and that's, that's because of how much time they're spending at school and at play, you know, online. And I think that like the, the values are, the things that go into especially creation and creativity are going to be coming from, come with different values as the generations change.

[Eric Franchi]

It's always hard to underestimate the amount that things change with generations. I spoke in an NYU class yesterday, mostly early, early 20s, late teens. And we asked them things like, do you use Photoshop? And most of them know they're using Canva instead. And you have these transitions that go on where everything changes.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah.

[Ari Paparo]

And almost to kind of take another step further and make this relevant to this audience that listens to the pod. What do you think about the future of what we consider the open web? Just like publishers, media, media companies, when we think about this generation that values creators that are spending so Much more of their time on games. Do you think there's a generational shift that will affect, you know, the lifeblood of ad tech? As we think about it, one of.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

The interesting things is, like, the concentration of content on, like a smaller set of topics is really going to change with this generation. So what I mean by that is, you know, it used to be that if you were a kid, the content that you were exposed to was all about, was Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. And so you went to school and you talked to your friends about what you saw on those three channels where if you're a teenager, you know, you talking about what you heard in top 40 radio and, you know, what was featured on MTV. And so what you were exposed to was quite limited. And therefore fandoms and like, things that people were really into were quite concentrated. But now that dissipation of fandoms has really started to explode. And that's connected to the amount of content that's available and the fragmentation of content. And so when I think about like publishers of the future and trying to find and like catch those trends and have people come loyally to your thing because they're really into it, that variety is going to be really, really explosive and really that much harder to break through on. I mean, you know, like just that, you know, the point of 40, 40 million games on Roblox, like how do you break through as a, as a maker to get enough people to follow your thing? That, that's, that's a big change is, is like how you'll invest in content and how you develop IP and how you build a company around a small set of things.

[Eric Franchi]

Last question. A quick one. What happens to TikTok?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Well, I think it was Sunday or so that there were four companies in the mix and it was up to him to decide. I don't think that means that any of us what's going to happen. But, you know, the variety of parties that are rumored to be in the mix is so fascinating. You know, you've got everybody from Mr. Beast to, you know, the, the Dodgers guy who is much more of like a, you know, we want to, you know, decentralized social media and social identity to.

[Eric Franchi]

Then isn't the founder of Reddit, Alex, or, or. I don't know how to pronounce.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, yeah, he's, he's in with the Dodgers guy on Project Liberty. And then, you know, you've got, you know, perplexity, AI, which I don't know very well. They're said to be in the mix. But it could even just be that, you know, if Trump's saying that the US should get a 50% stake and whoever buys it, who is going to be the steward of that? I don't know. There's somebody who's familiar with running tech companies close to the running that 50%. Maybe we will see something there that's not the best. Yeah, yeah, but like, I think that TikTok's not afraid to play chicken. And from what I've read, they're not even really engaged in the sale. They don't have a banker. There's no, like, set on valuation. They're, they're not like, gearing up for sale themselves. And so would they just turn the whole thing off rather than selling it if Trump doesn't kind of push it back? I think that's a possibility.

[Eric Franchi]

Fascinating. Okay, let's call it there. We will be back in a minute for the refresh and the news of the week.

[Ari Paparo]

This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait.

[Eric Franchi]

For it to magically start working again.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

You fix the problem.

[Ari Paparo]

So why wait to hire the people.

[Eric Franchi]

Your company desperately needs?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Use Indeed sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast.

[Eric Franchi]

And even better, you only pay for results.

[Ari Paparo]

There's no need to wait.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Speed up your hiring with a $75.

[Eric Franchi]

Sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Terms and conditions apply.

[Ari Paparo]

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the refresh. So this week we have the DOJ coming back and opining on the future of Chrome, bad vibes at ttd, customers that talk to Adweek, a bunch of back and forth on creative companies, LG and Alfonso Update, and a bunch more. Okay, let's get through as much as possible here. So, number one, the DOJ still wants to have Google spin out Chrome, but it will allow for AI investments. This is something we mentioned last week. So basically they're no longer calling for the mandatory divestiture of Google's AI investments, which I think is an important thing, and, and will instead be satisfied with prior notification for future investments. So basically, you know, the government wants to make sure that, you know, they're aware of investments that Google makes on AI. The Chrome thing is kind of interesting, I think. So A browser, at least today, is super important. And Eric Sufert, who we talk about very frequently on this pod, he had a post this week that, like, I can't get out of my head personally. Basically, you know, he says, okay, there is a forced divestiture of Chrome, Meta or Amazon. To your point, Ari, they buy it and basically they print money for as long as browsers are relevant. I think that's a very interesting idea. Who knows if actually something like that would let pass. But they have, you know, completely sort of closed the loop in that scenario. What do you think?

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, I mean, browsers are a linchpin of power on digital and Google has used that power fairly benevolently like the. There hasn't been that much that has benefited Google from Chrome except for generally keeping other people from controlling it. I think it's very unlikely that it would be spun out in such a way that a different tech giant would grab it. It does beg the question about why Amazon doesn't have its own browser already. Being able to log in and effectively having a built in version of Honey where it can get deals from anyone and offer competitive deals seems like kind of a really, I don't want to say no brainer, but it's a pretty powerful idea. And the other aspect of this, which I think I wrote about in a newsletter a couple of weeks ago, a couple months ago, was that Chrome as a standalone is not a very good business. It doesn't have a lot of revenue streams. It has Chromebooks, which is a pretty small revenue stream. It will not be allowed to have default Google in the search bar. It'll have to auction that off in some way that's much less beneficial. And I think doing some of the aggressive advertising things like selling data or showing ads would have a lot of risk to the consumer experience. So overall, it's kind of a bit of a puzzle what happens to Chrome. I would advocate maybe it turns into a joint venture nonprofit like Bell Labs and it builds Chromium and then people can build their versions of Chrome on top of that. Maybe. But would Google be prohibited from having a browser or would they just be forced to spin out Chrome? These are all kind of interesting questions that will be worked out.

[Ari Paparo]

You know what's funny is up until recently I think people would have like totally poo pooed the idea of Amazon releasing a browser, but just with all of the AI capabilities and I think people generally kind of being interested in testing new things. I think it's actually, you know, it's a small chance, but there's a chance that a browser from Amazon with some very cool capabilities could actually get some traction.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, I think there's also a lot of missed opportunities in the browser world because of its ownership. There's all these conflicts of interest that Google has that wouldn't exist if, let's say Chrome was a giant private company and could do anything it want. One way it could go is it could do what Brave is doing and just aggressively block ads and make the Internet faster. Another thing it could do would be to have a commerce play like we mentioned earlier, have honey built in. A third thing it could do, which it hasn't done, is really syndicate its single sign on capability and payments so that you can have the dream of not having cookie banners on every site and not having to log in on every site and just seamlessly surfing any website and maybe making payments from a single wallet. All these things that Chrome does not do currently but could in the right circumstances.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

I just think that it's interesting that they didn't take Android off the table. So that will be another wrinkle. Here is where my Android fall is a device and a gateway to so adds to the intrigue for sure.

[Eric Franchi]

It definitely feels like DOJ under Trump is not taking his foot off the gas at all. And there was that report from Bloomberg about eight, nine days ago that they were lobbying and I take that report as being a sign that they weren't getting anywhere in the court. You lobby the President so that you can avoid what the Attorney General wants to do and I think that is pretty indicative that things are not going Google's way in dc.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, that's what they're saying. Gail Slater, the new antitrust appointee under doj, she's happily supported bipartisanly and she doesn't seem to want to take any pressure off. And same thing with the new head of the ftc, Andrew Ferguson. He has also said some things about his skepticism of the power of big tech. So I don't think that's going to be a reversal really in approach to antitrust under this administration.

[Ari Paparo]

Great. Let's, let's move on. So this isn't news. This is an article that came out, but I think it was very worthwhile for us to chat about a little bit. So in ad week this week, Trishla Oswal and Paul Hibert, or Hebert, sorry Paul, if I butchered that one up. They talked to a bunch of TTD customers. And to use your summary, Ari, the vibe is off. So this was a really interesting piece. They, you know, basically talked about how all of the upgrades, quote unquote to Kokai, are, you know, being blamed for a lot of the, the issues that customers have with the platform. I'll pull a couple of quotes here. We could talk about it. So customers described an update that greatly reduced the use and function of the trade Desk buying platform. The trade desk is a buying platform. Another quote, the new interface, which is modeled after the periodic table of elements, is not intuitive and forces media buyers to learn an entirely new workflow that feels disconnected from industry norms. And I think this is interesting because ttd, they're renowned for a lot of things positively, but one of which is the interface, the ease of use, the intuitive nature. And people seem to be, you know, customers seem to be locked in because it's such an easy to use dsp. And it seems like the changes have reversed that. What do you think?

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, some background here. So I think Kokai is the new ui, which is based on the periodic table. The old one is called Solomar. They have fantastic naming over there. And the feeling is that the company wants people to move to Kokai. And Kokai feels as though it's more pmax, like where it's sort of set and forget it. And customers don't really love that. I also, as a product manager, I will say that if your UI is based on a metaphor, you've already lost. In B2B, it's fine. Maybe in B2C that works. But UX is all about standardization. People want to know that the Settings tab is where the settings tab always was and the reporting tabs where the reporting tab always was. They don't want to look for nickel iodine and try to figure out what that means. I thought this reporting was great. I had spoken to the reporter last week about this story and she told me that everyone, every customer she talked to was complaining it wasn't bad apples. It was overwhelming negative feeling among customers, which is scary if you're the trade desk coming off a pretty bad earnings report.

[Ari Paparo]

It's interesting from a B2B perspective, that's really challenging. B2C oftentimes, I remember when Zuckerberg used to announce a change in Facebook back in the day. And like the news feed and this feature, that feature, people will go crazy. And then the next day, you know, you would never hear about it because they adapted to the new behavior. This is a different circumstance with B2B.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, I think the vibe, like I said, move from this being a stock problem to being a real problem, you know, because who knows why they missed their quarter. Like, sure. And it wasn't even that big a mission. But if there's something fundamentally wrong with the product and the customers, that's a really big concern for anyone who holds that stock or works there, et cetera. And I'd love to hear from some of them. They've been pretty quiet.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah. I mean you could always dial it back.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Right.

[Ari Paparo]

You can just reverse course and give the people what they want. That's always an option.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah. I don't know the details. Like it sounds easy, but you never know with products like who knows what the. What's in the secret sauce there.

[Ari Paparo]

This is true. This is true. Kate, what you got?

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to throw. Throw stones. I was the first product manager on Terminal 1 at Media Math and it was hard to get the. Get the flow right. So, you know, I have a lot of empathy for the PMs at TDD right now.

[Ari Paparo]

Absolutely.

[Eric Franchi]

How old is Gokai? Did it come out in early 24.

[Ari Paparo]

I think that's right.

[Eric Franchi]

Right. Yeah. I'm not a user so it's hard for me to speculate. I've never liked logged into it.

[Ari Paparo]

Shout out to the PMs. Okay, let's move on. This is a fun one. All right, so marketexture has a newsletter. You all should subscribe. It's awesome. Ari goes deep on a topic every single week. And this topic, or this week rather the topic was creative and you challenged the category as saying, well, you know, Pure play Creative tech has yet to build a large business that is a pure play. And you made good points about how it's usually becomes a large business when it's connected to media. And you know, I think you made some great points there. Plenty of chatter on the Internet about it yesterday. So there's this company called Icon we talked about a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, mind you, that is backed by Founders Fund and you know, is just a pure play Creative tech using Gen AI. The CEO made a post and we'll link to it in the newsletter yesterday. So sounds like number one, Founders Fund doubled down in the business and put more money in. They didn't specify how much and in some of the stuff that he was talking was like wild. I'll pull some of the quotes from his post on On X. We've gone from 0 to 5 million in ARR in 30 days, are extremely profitable and will beat every company ever on the 1 million to 100 million ARR record, which is less than 12 months. And after this, ultimately we will be a $10 trillion company which is doable with inflation.

[Eric Franchi]

He also said we only hire the 0.1% best engineers and we make them work seven days a week. Six days is not enough. So this sounds like a great.

[Ari Paparo]

Do you have feelings? Do you have feelings about this?

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, I mean I think that this company has found a very valuable niche. If you look at their website, it's all vertical video. We all know it's kind of hard to create vertical video ads and people aren't used to doing it. So he found an under appreciated sector and I think it's probably a great product. If you want to advertise on TikTok or reels and don't know how, that is not a $10 trillion company. He also talks a lot about media optimization which I assume he doesn't really know very much about but it is instructive and I wrote this in my newsletter that the only real company in Creative that has got scale is Smartly and Smartly is very deeply in media optimization. They do not just do creatives. They started as a kind of Facebook creative creator. But if you go to their website you'll see they're emphasizing optimization and outcomes almost as much as creative. So good luck to icon. I didn't love the post but if the CEO wants to come on this pod and defend himself, he is welcome.

[Ari Paparo]

That would be fun. Let's, let's, let's make that happen. I, you know I, I agree with you. We've, we've invested in some creative companies and you know the one or two that have broken out do more than just ad creation. Right. They're you know like building more infrastructure for the entire workflow. And then as I, I mentioned, you know like if you put creative connected to media and you build some sort of network like offering, you can build a good business like that's what we did at Undertone Cargo has taken this to a much greater scale. It's a fantastic business. So I think there's a difference between not thinking Creative is valuable as a standalone pure play versus how you make it work with a business.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah.

[Eric Franchi]

And if he gets to 100 million in ARR in a year like he says, he'll also break the record of being the largest creative tech company maybe in history.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

I would just like to hear how it from him how he's going to involve like influencers who are used to making vertical video and really compelling stuff and how that is included in the creative process because massively important too. And I'll harp on it. You thought against the upcoming generation.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah. And for TikTok it's a really good point. Right. Because if this is pure, you know, gen AI based creative production, it runs contrary to creators.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Right.

[Ari Paparo]

Who you know by default are building it themselves because they're the object.

[Eric Franchi]

I Think it's also interesting. You go to his website on Icon and he has this competitive chart. And his competitors in his chart are OpenAI and Claude, and those are not his competitors at all. Right. No one is using OpenAI to create creatives at scale. Like his real competitors who I hope he knows about are Smartly, Celtra and a bunch of other companies who do exactly what he does, but just didn't get the AI in the press release note yet. Right. So it's possible that they don't really know what they're doing, or it's also possible that they're just extremely good at playing the PR game.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah. I would imagine this is strong marketing. If they are at 5 million ARR, they're in market, they're talking to all types of customers, and they're surely kind of understanding the competitive landscape because, you know, they're. They're asking people to switch. Yeah. Super interesting. All right, LG Ads, Alfonso update. What we got, Ari.

[Eric Franchi]

All right, so we've. We haven't talked about this one in like six months or so. Let's do a quick recap. There was a company called Alfonso. It was a competitor or Samba tv. They do ACR and figure out what's on your tv. They got acquired by LG Ads, like two years ago. Nice exit. But the exit had complicated governance where they were keeping a board of directors. And the investors from Afonso got certain seats. And there was this whole plan that maybe LG Ads at some point would go public. And depending on who you believe, the story is that the LG corporate kicked the board members out from the independent investors in Alfonso and basically took control over LG ads. And the Alfonso shareholders are left in the cold. Fast forward to the Delaware Chancery Court. And the Alfonso investors sued and won and now just got affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court. So the Alfonso investors are back in charge of LG ads and they have the right and are pursuing it to do an ipo. So unless there's some sort of settlement, LG Ads will be dragged kicking and screaming onto the public markets sometime later this year. And it is a messy situation over there.

[Ari Paparo]

It's a big business. It's probably north of $1 billion at this point.

[Eric Franchi]

I'd love to read the S1. That'd be fun.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah. Yeah. Especially the S1 of something that's this contentious. That'd be quite interesting.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure LG Corporate back in Seoul or wherever it's based must be really unhappy with this whole situation. With their. With their fast growing, highly profitable group in turmoil and some outside agitator investors asking for their piece of flesh. Yeah, fun in the corporate boardroom is all I can say.

[Ari Paparo]

Hey, on the MA front, it has been a quieter week relative to a couple of weeks. We had two or three deals hit, but there was one acquisition we should give a shout out to. So Chartbeat acquired Fat Tail. Are you familiar with Fat Tail?

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah. So Fat Tail is like a mini operative. I know they wouldn't want to hear that. They're like operation workflow for publishers. They help the order flow come in from the salesforce and the forecasting and then the execution. They're built on top of an ad server. They're not an ad server. They've been around forever. 15 years plus it was reported they had 45 employees. I think the thing that all this M and A has in common is the amount of years that the companies have been in business. Between Loadavy and Fat Tail, those are generational companies being handed down to the children. You know, hey kids, this ad tech platform, you're going to run it one day.

[Ari Paparo]

And that day has come.

[Eric Franchi]

I think my son would never talk to me again if I handed him over this podcast.

[Ari Paparo]

2025 is the year of generational shifts. Also think it's interesting that it's chartbeat. Chartbeat is technology analytics for media companies, publishers. They've I think made a couple of acquisitions along the way. And this is another acquisition.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, they picked up Tubular Labs recently, which was an interesting one. Yeah, yeah. What's that was more creator analytics and measuring brand dimensions in influencer content and charting sentiment and stuff, which is hard to do at scale and pretty interesting that they picked that one up.

[Eric Franchi]

Chartbeat was actually Beeswax's first office. They gave us a free conference room in exchange for being able to pick our brains about advertising whenever they had an advertising related question. So we have some photos of. It was above the Strand in New York. For those of you who know the city.

[Ari Paparo]

Super cool. Shout out to chartbeat. Building a next generation publisher centric company. Hey, let's talk about one more thing before we call it a day. So connecting a couple dots, there was a. There was a good piece last week in the Wall Street Journal about AI buying platforms like Advantage plus, pmax et al. I'll pull a quote out, which I thought was kind of wild. AI buying agents are going to be directing upwards of 80% of digital media buy by 2030, said Ben Hoviness, chief media officer at Ad Buying Firm omd, part of ad giant Omnicom. That sounds like, I mean, outlandish, right? 80% of ad buying. But then if you think about Google Meta, Amazon, right, the percentage they are of the digital ad market and then their very explicit push to make as much of this automated stuff part of the ad business as possible. You can probably like, bottoms up the math here, but 80% of the ad market is gigantic.

[Eric Franchi]

I'll tease out two questions here. The first question is, is there a role for custom algorithms, custom attribution in this world? Because we know from our friends at Chalice, but also just the history of a lot of these platforms that sophisticated customers and their agencies really have their own point of view about what ROAS is and how to calculate it. And there's no way they accept the black box when they want to have that control. And so that's the first challenge is can you have an AI plus control over your outcome measurement and your outcome capabilities? And then the second related question is, can these AI platforms work in a transparent environment? Because currently the leading platforms are all tied to walled gardens and lack of transparency. You don't know what margin you're taking at pmax, et cetera, can like the trade desks, cocai, crack the nut and give you a fully automated capability that also has a fair transparent margin. And to, to date that has not been proven.

[Ari Paparo]

Yeah, those are two good questions. So I mean, for me, number one, I absolutely believe that there's, you know, going to be a real future and a real role for the automated, you know, custom algo companies. We're an investor in, in a couple of them and I think there's total opportunity there. And then, yeah, the transparency thing runs counter to what these platforms are, right? In terms of pricing, in terms of publishers, in terms of understanding analytics. So there's a real tension point there. And again, maybe it's TTD or maybe it's a different company that just blows this category wide open and brings the best of both together.

[Eric Franchi]

Maybe it's whoever buys the Chrome browser.

[Ari Paparo]

Maybe, maybe you pointed out that there was a related point here. So Google relents and gave PMAX buyers not transparency but 10,000 negative keyword capabilities.

[Eric Franchi]

I know, which is pretty exciting. Go tell your loved ones. Scream it from the rooftops. We have 10,000 negative keywords now. Previously it was only 100. And what this means is that if you're using PMAX, you can really stamp out a lot of things you don't want, whereas previously is pretty limited. I think more the story Here is that Google might actually be listening to its customers a little bit. You know, there might be a change something in. Something in the free cafeteria. They put a little extra. Extra caffeine and things or. I'm not sure what's going on, but I think it's good news for PMAX buyers that they're getting a little more control.

[Ari Paparo]

Agreed. And we should call it there. Hey, it's five days out from Architecture Live. I can't wait to see both of you in person.

[Eric Franchi]

Yeah, I know. And I to the 47 people have asked me for tickets after we sold out, man. Like, you know, get on your assistance, put it in your calendar. You know, got to buy tickets a little bit earlier. That's all I can tell you.

[Ari Paparo]

There was an early bird discount. There's no discount.

[Eric Franchi]

There was an early bird. Someone said to me, I won't say who. I'm not going to name. And shame Sam Cox for texting me this, but he texted me, hey, man, when was this conference announced? Like, I forgot about it. And I was like, dude, we announced it at Thanksgiving. It was Thanksgiving.

[Ari Paparo]

Amazing. All right, well, I can't wait for next week. In the meantime, Kate, this was awesome. Thank you so much.

[Kate O'Loughlin]

Yeah, thanks. Can't wait to toast you with some green beer.

[Eric Franchi]

Thanks, Kate.

[Ari Paparo]

Bye. Bye, everybody. Thank you for subscribing to marketecture. New interviews are added every week at marketecture TV and your favorite podcasting app.

[Eric Franchi]

Thank you for listening to the marketecture podcast. New episodes come out every Friday and an insightful vendor interview is published each Monday. You can subscribe to our library of hundreds of executive interviews at marketecture tv. You can also sign up for free for our weekly newsletter with my original strategic insights on the week's news at News Market tv. And if you're feeling social, we operate a vibrant Slack community that you can apply to [e-mail].