Mike and Emily Riley Review the Week in Ad News

Summary

Next in Media: Mike and Emily Riley Review the Week in Ad News

Release Date: April 7, 2025
Hosts: Mike Shields & Emily Reilly

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In this episode of Next in Media, host Mike Shields welcomes his friend and seasoned consultant, Emily Reilly, to discuss and debate the key developments in the advertising, media, and marketing sectors from the past week. Their conversation navigates through economic uncertainties, brand safety challenges, the evolving landscape of digital platforms, strategic acquisitions, and the integration of artificial intelligence in ad tech.

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1. Tariffs and Economic Uncertainty Impacting Advertising

Mike Shields opens the discussion by addressing the pervasive impact of recent tariff implementations on the advertising industry. He expresses concern over the lack of clarity surrounding these tariffs and their subsequent effect on advertising forecasts and consumer confidence.

• Mike Shields [00:00]: "There's a reason we haven't done them in a long time and everyone's freaking out. You're seeing advertising forecasts get revised. It's not good for consumer confidence and it's not good for investors with uncertainty."

Emily Reilly identifies two primary phases of challenges arising from this situation:

1. Immediate Financial Scramble: Advertisers are urgently trying to balance their budgets amidst rising costs, leading to cautious spending behaviors.
2. Long-Term Consumer Behavior Shifts: Uncertainty about product availability and price increases may result in reduced consumer spending.

• Emily Reilly [01:38]: "Advertisers and the bigger companies that they work for know right away that they're going to be dealing with increased prices. And public companies still have to live up to whatever earnings they're supposed to be reporting."

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2. Supply Chain Issues Affecting Advertising

The conversation delves into how supply chain disruptions are complicating advertising efforts. Mike highlights the dilemma advertisers face when promoting products that might be scarce or priced higher due to these disruptions.

• Mike Shields [02:22]: "It's hard to advertise things you can't be sure you have on the shelf or whatever."

Emily expands on the unpredictability of consumer reactions, especially among demographics sensitive to economic fluctuations.

• Emily Reilly [04:02]: "If they see regular old things going up, they're going to freak out."

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3. Brand Safety and Ad Fraud Challenges

A significant portion of the episode critiques the ongoing struggles with brand safety and ad fraud within the ad tech ecosystem. Mike expresses cynicism about the effectiveness of current brand safety measures, referencing past discussions on fraud problems.

• Mike Shields [05:11]: "I wrote about this 15 years ago... the fraud problem being a problem."

Emily agrees, likening the open web to dangerous territories where brand safety tools often fall short.

• Emily Reilly [05:52]: "There are always holes in the open web that fraudsters are going to take advantage of."

They discuss the inherent challenges of programmatic advertising and the reliance on multiple verification vendors, which adds complexity without guaranteeing safety.

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4. Open Web vs. Closed Platforms: Trends and Advertiser Behavior

The duo explores the tension between advertising on the open web versus closed platforms like social media. Mike mentions a report highlighting declining search traffic as AI becomes more integrated.

• Mike Shields [08:07]: "The web's already got this thing hanging over it of like, oh my God, people are going to use it the same and it's not going to matter."

Emily counters by emphasizing the adaptability of advertisers who follow their audiences, much like the shift from traditional TV to Connected TV (CTV).

• Emily Reilly [08:27]: "Gen Z literally doesn't even know what a website is... They'll click on something on Instagram and wind up at say like a recipe site."

They note that younger demographics engage more through apps, making the distinction between open and closed platforms less relevant as advertising strategies evolve.

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5. WPP’s Acquisition of Infosum: Implications for Neutrality

Mike shifts focus to corporate maneuvers within the industry, specifically WPP's acquisition of Infosum. He questions the impact of such acquisitions on the perceived neutrality of data platforms.

• Mike Shields [10:06]: "Does it change the fact this is supposed to be a neutral platform for everybody, now it's part of them?"

Emily draws parallels with other acquisitions, such as The Trade Desk's purchase of Sincera, highlighting the difficulty in maintaining neutrality once a platform becomes part of a larger holding company.

• Emily Reilly [10:35]: "Once it's owned by one company, it just, you can't decouple those two things in mind."

They discuss the challenges of integrating data capabilities into large holding companies without compromising the impartiality essential for effective advertising.

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6. Evolution of Agencies and AI Integration in Ad Tech

The conversation transitions to the evolution of advertising agencies into tech-oriented entities. Emily questions the feasibility of agencies transforming into pure tech or data companies given their inherent reliance on human creativity and strategy.

• Emily Reilly [11:11]: "Their DNA is agency... they have strategists and creative teams."

Mike acknowledges the complexity, noting that while agencies incorporate technology, they remain fundamentally service-oriented.

• Mike Shields [11:25]: "They're still inherently a lot of people... they have strategists and creative teams."

They explore the integration of AI, emphasizing that while AI can enhance capabilities, it cannot entirely replace the nuanced expertise required in advertising.

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7. In-Game Advertising: Current Trends and Future Prospects

In addressing in-game advertising, Mike shares his experience attending the Playfront event, finding that many presentations mirrored ideas from a decade or two prior. However, Emily cites recent developments with platforms like Roblox and Pubmatic as signs of progress.

• Emily Reilly [21:03]: "Roblox also has been working with Pubmatic for a while and they're continuing to work with Pubmatic."

They discuss how gaming platforms possess rich data and engaged audiences, making them ripe for innovative advertising strategies. Emily points out that gaming companies like Roblox are leveraging advanced targeting and data integration, positioning themselves as leaders in this space.

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8. Scope Three and Broader Ambitions in Brand Safety

Mike brings up Scope Three's initiatives under Brian O'Kelly, questioning their broader ambitions beyond cleaning up digital advertising.

• Mike Shields [15:49]: "What do you make of Scope Three and what they are doing and their seemingly broader ambitions than just trying to make digital advertising cleaner?"

Emily responds by outlining Scope Three's approach to rethinking the ad tech supply chain using advanced AI, though she cautions that they still operate within the existing programmatic framework.

• Emily Reilly [16:12]: "They might use AI, so maybe it's faster or a little more accurate or precise, but it's still fundamentally plugged into the programmatic supply chain."

They deliberate on the company's reputation, with Emily noting that while Brian O'Kelly started with a sustainability-focused model, the integration of broader ad tech functionalities may blur the lines between virtuous and traditional ad tech practices.

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9. The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Ad Tech

The hosts delve deeper into the integration of AI within the advertising ecosystem. Emily distinguishes between different AI models, such as ChatGPT-based systems versus neurosemantic AI, highlighting the competitive landscape of AI advancements.

• Emily Reilly [18:45]: "He's using Agentic AI... another AI in this space right now is based on ChatGPT... companies are using neurosemantic AI."

They discuss the rapid pace of AI innovation, emphasizing that smaller, nimble companies like Scope Three may lead in pioneering advanced AI solutions, whereas larger, established companies might struggle to adapt their existing platforms swiftly.

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10. Conclusion

Wrapping up the episode, Mike and Emily reflect on the dynamic and often challenging landscape of the advertising industry. They acknowledge the continuous evolution driven by economic factors, technological advancements, and shifting consumer behaviors. Both express optimism for future developments while recognizing the hurdles that lie ahead.

• Mike Shields [22:36]: "Fun stuff. Let's we're going to try this again. Fun experiment, but great."
• Emily Reilly [22:42]: "Sounds great. Thanks, Mike."

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This episode of Next in Media offers a comprehensive analysis of the current state of the advertising industry, underscored by insightful discussions on economic impacts, technological challenges, and strategic movements within the sector. Mike Shields and Emily Reilly provide valuable perspectives for industry professionals and enthusiasts alike, navigating the complexities of a rapidly changing media landscape.

Transcript

[Mike Shields]

This week on NEXT IN media. I'm trying to experiment. I have my friend Emily Riley come on the show. We're going to kind of debate the big issues of the past week in advertising, media and marketing. Emily's a long time consultant in this space, former analyst at Forrester and really knows her stuff. We're going to give this a shot on the next couple weeks trying to see if we can get back and forth debate on the hot topics and catch people up in the big news going from there. But let us know what you think and let us know what we should be talking about next.

[Emily Reilly]

Foreign.

[Mike Shields]

Welcome to NEXT IN media. I'm Mike Shields. I'm here with my friend Emily Reilly. This week we're trying something new. We're going to try and talk about the big news of the week in the ad world. Emily, introduce yourself. You're a consultant. You know this been in this space for a long time. I knew you as a Forester analyst way back. Say hello.

[Emily Reilly]

Hey, everyone. Yeah, thanks, Mike. Nice to be here with you. And I have been here since way back actually. 1999 was my wow.

[Mike Shields]

We go back to the turn of the century. That's a long time. And things have changed and some things have not changed at all. Let's start from the big story. It's really hard to avoid. And it's no matter what you're talking about, I am not going to pretend I really understand the tariffs. I've read everything I can that they're not. There's a reason we haven't done them in a long time and everyone's freaking out. You're seeing advertising forecasts get revised. It's not good for consumer confidence and it's not good for investors with uncertainty. It's, it's the best I can, but no one knows what the hell is going to happen. But where do you think this is going to be like panic city in the ad world? Is it going to be just a lot of slow decision making? What does this look like?

[Emily Reilly]

It seems like there are probably two bad phases. So the first bad phase is what you just said, the uncertainty. Advertisers and the bigger companies that they work for know right away that they're going to be dealing with increase prices. And so you're scrambling right now to figure out how to manage and balance their books. And, you know, public companies still have to live up to whatever earnings they're supposed to be reporting. So that's the short term problem. Upfronts are showing up what now?

[Mike Shields]

And the timing is crazy.

[Emily Reilly]

Bad crazy, you know, so advertisers are like hitting the brakes before they even can talk about spending any money for the rest of the year. That's kind of phase one. And I think it definitely is the first reason why the forecasts are going to be revised down. You think about just saying, I don't know, like, I'm not.

[Mike Shields]

There's also the, I've read you. There's the I can't get my stuff to make my products problem that companies are going to have or they don't know. So that's going to be. That's. It's hard to advertise things you can't be sure you have on the shelf or whatever.

[Emily Reilly]

That's phase two. Because then you're saying, all right, I have all these consumers, they want cars or sunglasses or whatever the case may be. Am I going to have them? Are they going to be at a price point that people are willing to pay for? And are these regular people going to be so freaked out by this completely new world that we live in that they're just not going to buy anything? So that's like the longer term weirdness that's harder to predict. I mean, it's definitely going to be a more expensive product that you're looking at on the shelf, but when that happens, I think nobody really knows.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, I was talking to somebody who said it in a weird way. Covid was helpful and that they've been through this pretty recently. This like, we got to have five different contingency plans. We know we can move faster than maybe we would have in the past. So that's like actually get some brands ready. But I hope, I hope it does not lead to mass cuts or just total hesitancy and spending, because that kind of hurts everybody.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, a big price increase is bad for everybody right now. Nobody wants it. The economy is already kind of uncertain. But yeah, you're right. I mean, if you already just dealt with a whole bunch of crappy years of bad supply chains and bad prices and consumer uncertainty are like, well, more of the same.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. And I wonder if you're going to see what's unpredictable. Well, you know, consumers are just unpredictable. But are, are the Trump devotees who are like the believers going to have confidence and just say, like, well, I'm going to keep shopping and keep believing in this is going to turn out well, or is everybody going to freak out? I don't think anybody can predict that.

[Emily Reilly]

If you look at the demographics, somebody who is die hard, Trump Tends to have a lower household income. They tend to live in more rural areas. So they have fewer places to shop. They're shopping at Walmart and they're going to have, you know, more unstable job prospects for their family generally. That's just demographics. So they're very conscious of their paycheck going to daily purchases like groceries and gas. If they see those regular old things going up, they're going to freak out.

[Mike Shields]

They're going to feel it.

[Emily Reilly]

Their day to day sucks if that happens.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. So that, I mean, if, if not turn this into political, if that breaks, if any, if anything could break a fever, it would be that economic panic. But it's going to be hard to read and it's going to be kind of an insane few.

[Emily Reilly]

Oh my goodness. Yeah, I think next, this next quarter is like so up in the air.

[Mike Shields]

Great. Exciting. Getting back to like on the ground in ad tech. Talk about things that never seem to change. You know, there's like a yet, yet another analytics bombshell. You know, it's hard for me not to get cynical about these things because I'm like, I wrote about this 15 years ago, but I mean I actually did like, you know, the, the fraud problem being a problem. And this was really an indictment on.

[Emily Reilly]

The brand safety guys.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, the brand safety guys, the verification companies. I'm trying to say.

[Emily Reilly]

Oh yeah, sure, for sure.

[Mike Shields]

And that, that's, that's troubling. Yeah.

[Emily Reilly]

You know, here's, I'm cynical too. We're old. But here's the reality. You've got this situation where there are advertisers that instead of being safe and let's say you're going grocery shopping, you're going to go to Whole Foods, maybe you want to save a little money, you go to Costco. You don't go into a dark shady corner and buy food from somebody behind a dumpster.

[Mike Shields]

It's a good analogy. You never do this in any other category.

[Emily Reilly]

It's like, why are you going into the shady corners of the universe? You know, you're like, I'm one inch away from porn. It better not be on porn. But I'm okay if it's one inch away from that. Like, your standards are so ridiculous.

[Mike Shields]

CPM is a little better. There's always the constant, keep me away from this stuff, but give me a better quarter. Bring my number down.

[Emily Reilly]

Absolutely. You're pushing so hard on the limits that you're just bound to find problems. And then you look at the poor ad tech companies and how often are you going to Hear somebody say, the poor ad tech companies, right? But in the brand safety world it is kind of hilarious. Like they have five, six, seven different verification vendors that they're required to pay for and slap on top of everything that they do. And the buyers are still supposed to have total free rein and ultimate scale at this crazy level that doesn't even touch reality. You know, it's like how many Gen Z homeowners in, you know, the metro area is there? They're definitely not 67 billion. But if you look at the number of impressions people want to be able.

[Mike Shields]

To buy, you would think, yeah, it's.

[Emily Reilly]

Not founded a reality.

[Mike Shields]

I always wonder, is this an indictment on the brand safety guys? They just don't work their tools or can't keep up? Or is it like could you, is it the whole system or could you always find some problem like this if you dug hard enough? Because it's. So the fraudsters are really good.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, you know, I'm going back to an old example, but like do you remember P and G had Hawkeye? The reason that they had Hawkeye, I worked with audience science at the time, is that the data and the bidding was in one place. So you had full circle understanding of your audience and you were super open minded about the fact that they had a limited audience and so they could frequency cap and they could measure and they were done. And at the end of the day they could only do so many impressions.

[Mike Shields]

Right. Control was inherent in that, that mattered to them.

[Emily Reilly]

Closed system, you know what I mean? And same thing is needs to start happening with more advertisers so that they're not just saying, well, it's just this unknown universe out there and I rely on my brand safety people to go do that for me. And take any analogy again, you're like, if you're going into the dark shady corners at some point nobody is going to be able to protect you from the dangers there.

[Mike Shields]

You can't just say, well I, you know, I have a security guy or I have a can mace, like you're asking for trouble. And certain with your, with your behavior.

[Emily Reilly]

There are always holes in the open web that fraudsters are going to take advantage of. If it's MFA now they have AI, they can create bots and there's just that cat and mouse game that's always going to be happening and it's always happening on the fringes.

[Mike Shields]

So you let me to my next question. This is happening in the context of this, you know, lots of fear about the open web is going to be in trouble. And there was a report, Axios did a story about similar web had some data about how search traffic is down, even though there's get. It's getting replaced a little bit by AI traffic.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah.

[Mike Shields]

So the web's already got this thing hanging over it of like, oh my God, people are going to use it the same and it's not going to matter. And then you have these constant scandals. When does this become where brands are just like, forget it, it's not worth it, I'm not going to use the open one anymore. Is that too extreme or are we going to.

[Emily Reilly]

I think it's so extreme. I mean, think about an advertiser who's saying, well, where's my audience? They're just following their audience. So like we said for so long, TV is dying. TV is dying because we were in ad tech. TV didn't die until CTV took the audience somewhere new.

[Mike Shields]

There was an audience, it was shrinking, but it was still very large.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah. Now the audience is shifting and so the advertisers follow the audience. So if the audience goes to the open web, advertisers are going to go to the open web.

[Mike Shields]

Even though they could just say screw it and go to the top five social platforms, there's still a commitment or.

[Emily Reilly]

Belief you get the same thing. So I did a recent study, study with one of my clients on this. And it's funny, like, Gen Z literally doesn't even know what a website is. Like if you ask them to go to a creator website or a blog, it's like you can't even survey them because they don't even know what those words mean. But they'll click on something on Instagram and wind up at say like a recipe site or something like that and really trust the content. And trust.

[Mike Shields]

They don't live in the browser window like we do.

[Emily Reilly]

That's where they are. Yeah. Because they're going through their phone, they're on apps, you know, so it's more about just like the impressions than calling it the open web or calling it websites or anything.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, yeah, that's. You're right because we get hung up on that term. They don't go surfing like, you know, we did way back in the 90s. People end up on the web through all these different paths.

[Emily Reilly]

That's where the good content still is. You know, if you want long form, you want to do a little research.

[Mike Shields]

If you want your brand to get, generate, generate demand, you got to be in those places.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Shields]

So that's the tricky stuff. Totally shifting gears. What do you think of this WPP buying Infosum. Very interesting in that, you know, it was run by Brian Lesser. He went, he goes over, takes a big job and now he's bringing his friends with him. I don't know how it's going to work. It seems like all the big holding companies are trying to pivot to different kinds of businesses. Clearly data driven and technology driven. Does it change the fact this is supposed to be a neutral platform for everybody, now it's part of them, or does that not matter?

[Emily Reilly]

I mean, that's a good question. You know, you look at the same thing that happened with the trade desk buying Sincera. There's like, all right, you have this core data set or this core data capability that is supposed to be neutral. And once it's owned by one company, it just, you can't decouple those two things in mind. That's hard to do.

[Mike Shields]

I mean, and I guess it hasn't stopped. You know, Axiom became part of a holding company and there's other examples of that where it didn't. Everybody's doing a little bit a different way, but they all have to go this direction. I don't know what this means for the future of the clean room business or how viable it is. I don't have a good sense there.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, that's a really good question. The thing is though, it's like, like think about this. Mike. I have, I have a question for you. I know you're always the interviewer. Think back of all the years you've been interviewing agencies. How many of them have actually turned into tech companies or data companies?

[Mike Shields]

I mean, they have pieces, you know, they, they, they're not, they're still inherently a lot of people. And they have strategists and creative teams.

[Emily Reilly]

Their DNA is agency.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. By definition, you know, that's what they're, that's what they do. You don't just plug in your agent, your agency and your holding company and it does stuff like it's, it's people. Yeah, yeah. They use a lot of tech.

[Emily Reilly]

It's kitching. It's, you know, all the BS that comes with servicing huge service business.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, exactly. That. That you're right. I don't can that. Has that actually changed? I mean, there's so much talk now about how it's going to be so much smaller and you get rid of all these people.

[Emily Reilly]

How is that even possible though? I mean, because the demands go up through the roof when things get so complex. Like just think of one TV advertiser that now has to have creative that works on CTV and they want to personalize it and they want commerce in it and they're using AI. So all of a sudden instead of one video creative, like one asset, one commercial, maybe they have a hundred, maybe they don't even know how many they have because they're dynamically created in real time.

[Mike Shields]

I mean, to not have people on your side monitoring all that and experts on it is going to be really dangerous. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily Reilly]

So same with the data. I mean, I think with WPP they're trying to make sure that anybody that wants to target an audience can do that really, really effectively. And AI seems to be promising, but it always goes back to like the garbage in, garbage out. So like if a brand doesn't have good data that it's sitting on, the.

[Mike Shields]

AI trains on crap 100%. That's a big problem.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah. You know, so it's one layer of like a much more complicated thing that still needs to get solved for.

[Mike Shields]

I don't have, again, this would be hard to know. I don't have a great sense of the clean room hype from two years ago. Or maybe is every brand using a clean room on every single big CTV deal, for example? I don't know if, I don't know if that's ever become reality.

[Emily Reilly]

Where that stands, the media company side though, you know, there's, it's so interesting. Like media companies have this gold mine of content and data and they're so cagey about how they share it because they don't want to give it away or reduce its value to some extent. They might be missing that opportunity to become a second party data provider to like say a wpp.

[Mike Shields]

That's interesting.

[Emily Reilly]

You know, could they forge those really strategic partnerships in a smarter way and have advertisers get access to that data?

[Mike Shields]

They've been burned in the past about sharing too much and being dis media that there's a caution there that might not suit them right now where they could actually have, they have an asset they could do a lot more with. That's interesting. And thought about that.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, it's funny, it's like you talk about the upfronts like go full circle in our conversation. The advertisers are saying, I want control, I want to reach my perfect audience. I'm used to that on digital. Now I'm on CTV wanting to do the same thing. Media companies like you're not cherry picking my top quality inventory. Get away from Me, like, no way.

[Mike Shields]

I'm never going to let you do that.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah. The upfronts I'm sending you, I'm selling you a big bundle. I'm not going to let you do that. And so now what's going to happen is the advertisers are going to just go do an end round with their own data and then, you know, you're sitting there as a media company with a lower upfront commitment, crossing your fingers.

[Mike Shields]

Not exactly clear what, why these deals are happening even, like, you're not. You've less visibility. Speaking of upfronts, new fronts, you may be thinking this, but what, how hard is it right now to plan the TikTok new front or upfront if you're working there? It's so bizarre that this deadline is coming up again.

[Emily Reilly]

Again. Yeah.

[Mike Shields]

People are leaving, but then it's full steam ahead. I mean, it seems like Trump really wants to save it when, however, he can. Not understanding exactly how he can myself, but it's got to be a bizarre time to be making decisions in that company or outside that company.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah. I mean, this is like, what is it, Year five of them being a huge part?

[Mike Shields]

Probably. Yeah.

[Emily Reilly]

No, there, it's a small, it's like a small window that we've been in the world where TikTok is like this dominant advertising platform and already everybody's like, what will we do without them?

[Mike Shields]

Right, right. We just figured out how to use it and now it's.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, like, I'm not on TikTok. Like, I don't know.

[Mike Shields]

No. You know, it's funny, I, I, I look at it here and there, but I've resisted the addiction. I know it's, it's probably better for my job, but I can't, I don't need another thing to get.

[Emily Reilly]

Oh, yeah, it'll get into your brain. Right.

[Mike Shields]

And I don't need to. Yeah.

[Emily Reilly]

I mean, advertisers will spend if they're allowed. So then it's just like being as creative as you can to keep the doors open and allow the money to flow in.

[Mike Shields]

You talk about trying to make it. You probably have to have a contingency plan that, you know, if we can't spend our tech talk money, we got to figure out a place to go right away, elsewhere. You brought up something. Tell me, going back to the brand safety conversation, what do you make of Scope three and what they are doing and their seemingly broader ambitions than just trying to make digital advertising cleaner? If I'm reading things right, yeah.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I think clearly you have a situation where Brian understands deeply the way the ecosystem works, the supply chain works, and can see where there are gaps. And I think what he's doing is trying to, instead of fill the gap, go beyond it and say, let's just rethink this and let's use AI now and you know, let's factor in some new stuff. But it's still part of the supply chain. And so it's not like if you're a buyer and you say, oh, well, I use Scope three now instead of human or instead of double verify, everything's great. You know, you also still have to have all the other pieces of the puzzle in place. And so they might be a little more sophisticated about it, they might use better data, they're using AI, so maybe it's faster or a little more accurate or precise, but it's still fundamentally plugged into the programmatic supply chain, you know, like skipping all the other issues that are still inherent in that media buy. So, yeah, you know, there's nothing that's like the perfect answer right now. If you're, if you're going through the whole supply chain.

[Mike Shields]

Do you think. I wonder. He's, he's both revered and people. Well, think, who are you? Who is this guy to tell us how to clean up the web? He caused all these problems with app Nexus or whatever. Do you think he's their welcome in these conversations as an alternative or, or their reputation for. His reputation for innovation and big thing? What's the. Give me a sense of the climate for him?

[Emily Reilly]

The fact that Brian started with sustainability, it was timed really well when a lot of people cared about sustainability.

[Mike Shields]

Right. And that's over.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, well, it's, it's in a lull. I like, personally, I want to save the world, you know, so let's just say that it's an, it's in a holding pattern right now.

[Mike Shields]

I think it's like, it's like dei, you can't have it anymore.

[Emily Reilly]

It had its happy time. The way the Gartner hype cycle works, it's now in like the trough of disillusionment. But it'll come back. It'll come back. You know, when there are more fires and floods, people start caring. But, you know, he started with a business model that was really timely, but that was several years ago. And, you know, he needs to obviously capture attention and dollars still expanding to other things that are like, good for the ecosystem isn't a bad thing, you know, but I think everybody's wondering to what extent does this just become another ad tech company versus is it a virtuous ad tech company? You know, so brand safety is in theory virtuous, but you, you know, you're a company that wants to grow at some point.

[Mike Shields]

You know what, I could do all these other things for you that, you know, because we're really good at this. You could see that, that pitch, which might be welcome because there's a need to clean up the ecosystem or it might be like, hold on a second, you said you were just about green. I don't know that that would be very curious to see what kind of entry they can make or what kind of.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, I think people are open minded and you know, he's, he's a proven entrepreneur. He understands how ad tech works. He's upping the ante on ad tech by saying that he's using Agentic AI. A lot of the other AI in this space right now is based on ChatGPT, large language model which can do certain things but can't do everything. You know, it's funny, I actually work with a company on the sort of financial side and they're using neurosemantic AI, which they're saying is even more capable of understanding stuff. You know, so there's going to be like the AI arms race and you could imagine somebody like Brian O'Kelly and scope three where they are still small and nimble enough can do those leapfrog kind of AI things. Whereas you know, you take like a huge entrenched company, like a trade desk. Are they going to be able to just like slap AI onto the side of what they do and say that they're a new platform? Like they're not going to be able to do that.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, they're just still, they're still trying to get people apparently to use the platform they built a couple years ago. That's going to be really hard to do. And the AI innovation is going to be so rapid that it's going to be hard to change gears.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah. And there are different flavors and you know, think of this poor like media buyer trying to figure out like what flavor of AI is the better way to go to reach their perfect audience. I mean it's like, it's really.

[Mike Shields]

And am I just getting myself out of a job over time anyway, that's what they're exactly like.

[Emily Reilly]

Is this going to be fully automated and it's over for me.

[Mike Shields]

You know, I was at the playfront, so I don't think you were there. But talk about the Advantage of. And the negative part of being around for a while is I. I was there and it was well, very well done, well attended, good event. But it felt like, God, I've heard all this before and it was 10 years ago and it was 20 years ago and. And that's particular, I think, to gaming, where you've just been waiting for it to blow up forever and hearing how it needs to. So many of the companies there are presenting things that are very similar to 15, 20 years ago. Do you. I don't know if you have a pulse on this. Like, is in game advertising, like, kind of forgotten. Is it going to take off? Is it slow? Is it. What do you hear if anything?

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, for sure. So there's actually a pretty recent announcement, I don't know if it's a couple days ago with Roblox.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, that was a highlight.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah, for sure. And you know, Roblox also has been working with Pubmatic for a while and they're continuing to work with Pubmatic. These guys are pretty motivated to, I'd say, take in the best of the best. They already.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. And they're not. They're going. They want to move faster rather than. They're not tiptoeing.

[Emily Reilly]

Yeah. So the big difference is it's not like, oh, let's go to, you know, some new global market and try to introduce Programmatic to them and It'll be like 2000 and there's five or six years behind us. They don't have any data. Gaming is like the opposite. They're like, we have this psycho captive audience. We have all the data we need. We already have their credit card. I mean, it's like the opposite. So they're more like, all right, how are we going to use whatever is your coolest tech and your best targeting capabilities? And, you know, where can we borrow data that we don't have to just kind of tweak our revenue model over time? It's not the same. I mean, you know, they're almost in the driver's seat a little more, no pun intended. But, like, it helps a lot that I think they already have just these like crazy revenue streams happening.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, yeah. They are so big. And then you bring Google at the equation. They've got huge demand. That's how these markets grow. We take friction out of it when everything is custom and challenging and unique. It's just not positioned well to move fast. But. So that was a sign of hope, I think, for gaming, but it was hard not to be like, oh, God, when is this gonna happen.

[Emily Reilly]

Well, and it's also, like, to your point, 15, 20 years ago, and you could imagine driving a car through a virtual world and seeing a virtual billboard, you know, cool. That's fine.

[Mike Shields]

It's not that compelling right? At this point.

[Emily Reilly]

No. Yeah. And they've done all the sponsorship placement stuff already. All that's happened and it's happening and it can become AI and probably is already AI. Yeah. So they're just really like, all right, you know, where are those fringe opportunities that we haven't really thought about, Emily?

[Mike Shields]

Fun stuff. Let's we're going to try this again. Fun experiment, but great. Great talking about the week with you. And we'll talk again soon.

[Emily Reilly]

Sounds great. Thanks, Mike.

[Mike Shields]

Thank you.