Mike and Emily Riley talk media agency paralysis, Amazon vs Trade Desk, Paramount Drama and Sydney Sweeney Soap

Summary

Next in Media: Episode Summary – Mike and Emily Riley Discuss Media Agency Paralysis, Amazon vs Trade Desk, Paramount Drama, and Sydney Sweeney Soap

Release Date: June 9, 2025

Introduction

In this episode of Next in Media, host Mike Shields engages in a compelling conversation with industry consultant and adtech expert Emily Riley. Together, they delve into the current upheavals in the media, marketing, and advertising sectors, exploring themes such as agency paralysis, the rising influence of Amazon's Demand-Side Platform (DSP) versus Trade Desk, the ongoing drama surrounding Paramount, and the intriguing concept of Sydney Sweeney-branded soap in the age of AI-driven creativity.

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1. Media Agency Paralysis

Overview: Emily Riley opens the discussion by addressing the current turmoil within media agencies. She highlights how internal instability—stemming from potential mergers among giant holding companies like Omnicom and IPG, as well as restructuring at WPP—has led to a sense of powerlessness among media buying teams. This environment has stifled innovation, making agencies hesitant to adopt new technologies or experiment with unconventional strategies.

Key Points:

• Internal Uncertainty: The fear of layoffs and client churn has made media teams risk-averse.
• Hindered Innovation: Agencies are reluctant to allocate innovation budgets to test new adtech solutions.
• Impact on Startups: Adtech startups find it challenging to introduce innovative products, as agencies prefer sticking with established partners to avoid disrupting successes.

Notable Quotes:

• Emily Riley [01:37]: “Everybody just feels unempowered in the media buying teams.”
• Mike Shields [02:44]: “It's not because there's no innovation budget or they don't know how. It's really like, I don't want to mess with things right now.”

Conclusion: The paralysis within agencies has created a cautious atmosphere where maintaining the status quo outweighs pursuing potentially lucrative innovations. However, Riley notes that growth and innovation persist, albeit through established marketplaces like Roku, which allows for incremental testing without significant disruptions.

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2. Amazon vs Trade Desk: The Battle of DSPs

Overview: The conversation shifts to the competitive landscape between Amazon's DSP and The Trade Desk. Emily Riley discusses how Amazon's DSP is gaining traction by leveraging its rich shopping data and integrating seamlessly with its vast ecosystem, presenting a formidable challenge to established players like The Trade Desk.

Key Points:

• Walled Gardens: Amazon remains a walled garden but is less restrictive compared to competitors like Meta, allowing for better integration with the open web.
• Retail Orientation: Amazon's DSP is highly valued for its closed-loop retail data, making it attractive for brands looking to drive direct sales.
• Impact on Open Web: While the rise of Amazon's DSP diverts funds to another closed ecosystem, it offers some opportunities for better integration with existing digital infrastructures.

Notable Quotes:

• Emily Riley [05:33]: “Amazon is not seen as a risk at all. It’s almost like they know better than anybody what works.”
• Emily Riley [06:18]: “Amazon is a huge search engine... they have a lot of search.”

Conclusion: Amazon's growing influence in the DSP space underscores a shift towards platforms that offer comprehensive data and seamless integration. This trend poses challenges for open web advertising but also highlights the adaptability of Amazon in leveraging its retail dominance to expand its advertising footprint.

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3. Paramount Drama: Mergers, Legal Battles, and Streaming Woes

Overview: Mike Shields brings up the ongoing saga surrounding Paramount, touching upon stalled merger talks, legal battles with the Trump administration, and the challenges of enhancing their streaming services. Emily Riley provides an in-depth analysis of the internal power dynamics and strategic missteps that have left Paramount in a precarious position.

Key Points:

• Leadership Struggles: Sherry Redstone and the Redstone family's disproportionate control (10% ownership with 80% voting rights) have centralized decision-making, leading to operational inefficiencies.
• Streaming Challenges: Paramount Plus faces technical and user experience issues, struggling to compete with platforms like Netflix and Disney+.
• Content Dilemma: While Paramount boasts a rich library of content, there is a disconnect between traditional media assets (e.g., Nickelodeon, MTV) and modern streaming demands.

Notable Quotes:

• Emily Riley [10:07]: “Sherry Redstone... have become the dictators of what happens in the future.”
• Mike Shields [12:32]: “If it's just sort of an app game, then the question becomes can you mash up best practices for gaming, for social, for TV?”

Conclusion: Paramount's ongoing struggles exemplify the difficulties legacy media companies face in transitioning to the digital streaming era. Internal power imbalances and outdated technological infrastructures hinder effective strategic pivots, leaving the company in a state of limbo as it grapples with competing interests and external pressures.

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4. Sydney Sweeney Soap: AI and the Future of Creative Advertising

Overview: The episode takes an intriguing turn as Mike Shields introduces the concept of Sydney Sweeney-branded soap, prompting a discussion on the role of AI in creative advertising. Emily Riley reflects on the balance between automation and human creativity, questioning whether AI can truly replicate the nuanced and spontaneous elements that make advertising campaigns successful.

Key Points:

• AI Limitations: While AI can automate and optimize campaigns, Riley argues that it lacks the ability to generate truly innovative and culturally resonant ideas.
• Human Creativity: Effective advertising often stems from unexpected inspirations and human insights that AI algorithms cannot predict or emulate.
• Future of Creativity: AI should serve as a tool to enhance human creativity, not replace it. The integration of AI should aim to support more dynamic and engaging campaigns rather than producing homogeneous and uninspired content.

Notable Quotes:

• Emily Riley [17:18]: “AI should drive more and better and more interesting and more fun campaigns. They shouldn't just automate the crap out of everything so that it's all just lame.”
• Mike Shields [18:48]: “Is that going to be enough for brands when they're... the other cost benefits are so good? That's going to be sad.”

Conclusion: The discussion underscores the importance of preserving human ingenuity in the advertising process. While AI offers significant advantages in data analysis and campaign optimization, the essence of impactful advertising lies in creative risk-taking and innovative thinking that currently remain beyond the capabilities of AI.

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5. Additional Insights

X (Formerly Twitter) and Political Influence: Mike and Emily briefly touch upon the state of the X platform under Elon Musk's leadership, noting its continued association with polarizing figures like Trump. They speculate on the platform's future appeal to brands and whether its current direction could alienate potential advertisers.

Future of Adtech Startups: The conversation also explores the challenges adtech startups face in a market dominated by established giants and internal agency paralysis. Emily Riley emphasizes the importance of strategic partnerships and leveraging existing marketplaces to navigate the competitive landscape.

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Closing Thoughts

Mike Shields and Emily Riley conclude the episode by reiterating the dynamic and often tumultuous nature of the media and advertising industries. They express hope that despite current challenges, innovation and growth will continue to shape the future of the sector.

Final Quote:

• Mike Shields [19:43]: “All right, Emily. Great stuff. Let's talk again soon. Thanks for coming in.”
• Emily Riley [19:46]: “Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. Take care.”

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Takeaway

This episode of Next in Media offers a deep dive into the complexities and evolving dynamics of the media, marketing, and advertising landscapes. From internal agency struggles and the rise of Amazon's DSP to the intricate drama at Paramount and the future of AI in creative advertising, Mike Shields and Emily Riley provide valuable insights for industry professionals navigating these transformative times.

Transcript

[Mike Shields]

Listen up B2B marketers. You can pack performance, precision and proof into your CTV buying with LinkedIn and I spot LinkedIn. CTV advertising helps you reach high value professional audiences directly on the TV screen. And iSpot's unified cross platform ad measurement provides the proof you need to turn investments into revenue. Cut the waste, capture your audience drive measurable impact. My friends at TV Rap just put together the definitive CTV playbook for B2B marketers packed with best practices to help you start driving results. Go download the free report@tv rev.com reports. Hi everybody. Welcome to Nexty Media. I'm Mike Shields. I'm here with my regular guest, adtech superstar, industry consultant Emily. Emily Riley. Thanks for being here, superstar.

[Emily Riley]

I like it. Yes. This is my favorite intro so far.

[Mike Shields]

I'm starstruck, so I couldn't even get it out. A lot of interesting stuff to talk about as we head towards the final stretch of this first half of the year and can's coming up, this AI news constantly in our world and ad tech news. You want to talk about something with the agency world? What's going on? Because it sounds like it's the opposite of what was happening a few years ago.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, just talking to a lot of different companies that sell to agencies, it's become a bit of a tumultuous world. If you're trying to get that, hey, let's have a party where I give you free jeans or let me get your nails done, it's just not working anymore. And part of the reason is everybody's freaked out that they're about to get laid off. They're worried that they're about to get moved to a different client. Their clients have left.

[Mike Shields]

So Omnicom and IPG might merge.

[Emily Riley]

And right there's IPG there. WPP is seeing like know they're just totally restructured. They don't know who's in charge. Everybody just feels unempowered in the media buying teams.

[Mike Shields]

So are you saying it's just like I can't really make decisions right now because of that or they are these deals happening on the brand level? Like for years it was the trade desk claim to fame was we went to the agencies, built our business that way. We didn't screw them over. Is that what you're talking about? Or is it really just the general climate?

[Emily Riley]

So you can imagine if you're an ad tech startup saying, hey, I've built a better whatever, you know, curation or streaming or whatever. Pick a thing and you're going to the agency saying, hey, use your test budget to try me out. Use your innovation budget to try me out. Move something off of one of the SSPs that you work with and try me instead. A lot of times right now, instead of it being like, oh, yeah, no, that sounds cool, let me test it out. I'll, you know, I'll do a small campaign. It's like, I don't even want to rock the boat at all. I don't want to try anything new. Don't even get me started on like, you know, it's CYA basically right now.

[Mike Shields]

It's not because there's no innovation budget or they don't know how. If we're Heather, it's really like, I don't want to mess with things right now.

[Emily Riley]

I don't want to mess with success because if the brand is mad at me, I'm worried everything's going to fall down to me. I'm going to get fired, I'm going to get in trouble. So it's different, I think, than when we had the. Even just like a year or two ago, brands were tightening their spending and it was all about just the uncertainty. A lot of it is just internal agency problems now.

[Mike Shields]

Right. So it's like a Duck and Hyde kind of time.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, but the good news to some extent is there is still growth and there is still innovation, but it's happening in sort of a different way. So what you have is a lot of these startups because you think about like AI, you think about CTV and streaming. There is a lot of innovation happening right now. Seems to be market somehow or another, they're just going through new channels. So you have buyers that already have an established relationship with Roku. Roku is, has a marketplace now. They're happy to tack on new innovations that people can test through their Roku budget.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, so we'll take your innovation spending with a deal you already have versus trying to do a new thing that messes everything up.

[Emily Riley]

Right, Exactly. So then that media buyer is like, well, it was part of the Roku marketplace. So, you know, we spread our money around because we're buying CTV and streaming.

[Mike Shields]

And look, we learned something and it got better, hopefully, right?

[Emily Riley]

Rather than, hey, can we sign this new contract with this total upstart, you know? So a lot of these startups are finding if they kind of like hitch their wagon to someone who's already got the hooks in 100% and that could be an SSP. It could also be more of like a media company.

[Mike Shields]

It Just sucks if you're a startup and you, you lose your independence early on or you're, I guess, you know, subject to someone else's business instead of just your own.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah, but you can distribute that, you know, I mean it. What's really funny, what I hear almost all the time now as well. Our biggest partner is Amazon, but we're not allowed to talk about. Everybody's working through a ton of these big companies right now. Amazon is shoveling money towards ad tech startups through their own market.

[Mike Shields]

Interesting. Consciously or they're just like.

[Emily Riley]

You just have a pretty good situation going where they're able to partner and integrate with a lot of people. They're a tech first company, right.

[Mike Shields]

Really, they're very quiet. They're never, they're always, their, their position is always going to be no comments.

[Emily Riley]

They're pretty neutral and brands love them because it's closed loop because it's all retail oriented, you know, so you have some marketplaces like that. So CTV is one area of opportunity. Retail is another area of opportunity where you're getting brand dollars coming in because they feel like they have to spend there. And then they'll say, all right, well how do I increase my incremental lift on Amazon? Oh, I could try a couple of these new techniques. So they're associating with Amazon instead of associating it with risk. You know, new startup I don't know I'm going to get right that, that.

[Mike Shields]

Makes, you know, Amazon is not seen as a risk at all. Right. So it's almost like they know better than anybody what works.

[Emily Riley]

Right. And they've added, they vetted this new. Whatever they gotta be, they don't, they're not thing or.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, they don't take crazy risks. Yeah, that's, that's interesting. Speaking of Amazon, there was a good story in Ad Week the other day about, you know, you've been hearing a lot about their DSP coming on strong anyway and I guess they are according to the reporting, like a lot of dial brands are moving money from the trade desk or using funneling more stuff for more activity through them for a combination of reasons. I think it seems like it's about rates. You would know better than I did. Like, is the Amazon tech that much better? I know the data is extremely rich and trade desk will say they have all these other sources plugged in, but it is hard to beat that shopping data. But I thought that was a pretty interesting one that's sneaking up on people.

[Emily Riley]

Well, I mean we can't forget Amazon's a walled garden, full stop. It is a walled garden. The trade desk is not today. Right. So bad news for the open web is money is going towards yet another walled garden. I think good news is Amazon is a little less crazy about their walled garden situation than maybe like a meta. All I mean by that is they do tend to listen when CMOs push on them. So, you know, the more recent thing that they've done is make it a lot easier to retarget and scale using their data off their property. So for a long time though, we would not do that. Of course we wouldn't do. And now that they have DSP technology, they have a decent exchange, they're more than happy to kind of play in the open web, like set of rules, like in that game.

[Mike Shields]

So this could be good for the open web, right?

[Emily Riley]

Like meta. You're not really hearing that kind of stuff as much. You know, where they're like, yeah, we are trying to help you get reach off property.

[Mike Shields]

No, I mean, well, that's a good issue. Meta really doesn't have a tech option anyway. I mean, they've been. They're plugged into a lot of the web, but that's not really their game.

[Emily Riley]

It's not the same. So it's like while they do have their own proprietary data, they sell stuff on property that, you know, creates this sort of cyclical spending effect for brands. They do, they do seem to play a little better in the wider. In the wider market.

[Mike Shields]

Right. I wonder what happens to this dynamic if and when this Google decision goes forward and they have to spin pieces off. That would seem to be an advantage for yet another advantage for the Amazon DSP in that market. Even though they're sort of being a little bit. You could accuse them of using the same Google Playbook. They will.

[Emily Riley]

I mean, they're one of the biggest search engines, Amazon, for anything retail. Amazon is a huge search engine, you know, so that alone, like, you know, you think about if, and I think we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but if Google has to sell Chrome, they basically are selling their search audience away. So there's no Google search without Chrome.

[Mike Shields]

I mean, yes, you can, you can open a, a lot of different browsers and of course open a Google search box. But yeah, you're right, the, the easiness is gone.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah. And then there's also, you know, Chrome was an app that was automatically on every iPhone. You know, there's a couple of little things like that that aren't so little, obviously, but just you make a Couple of changes to their business and suddenly, like, the entire search market is open and Amazon is like, okay, do we swoop in and, like, have a browser? All of a sudden? Do we buy that Browser? You know, OpenAI said they would buy that browser. So, yeah, I mean, it's not just Amazon has a lot of volume and has a lot of shopping. They actually have a lot of search. They have, you know, like, they have these other things where they, they're almost.

[Mike Shields]

As habitual for people as Google is these days, which is pretty hard to disrupt, ironically.

[Emily Riley]

You think of Mark Zuckerberg saying, well, I want people to give me their credit card. And it's just open season and we're going to end. To end. Create it, Adam.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, we'll figure it out. Right.

[Emily Riley]

Amazon has that. Not only with brands, they have that with every user.

[Mike Shields]

They've had my credit card for a million years and you don't even think about it. Yeah, exactly. What about. This is a little bit of a left turn, but what about. I'm fascinated by the, the ongoing Paramount saga. It's, it's, it's wild because they've been trying to close this deal for ever. And, you know, the streaming wars were still a thing when this conversation started with Ellison and company. They are held up by the Trump administration. They're held up by this 60 Minutes thing. Now. Sherry Redstone is. Has had cancer and it's coming out. It's just. It's crazy drama. You always kind of think, eventually one of these media companies is going to say, we can't do this. We're going to merge Peacock and Paramount. Plus we're going to merge Max and Paramount. And this is all holding that up. If that ever happens. I don't. It's very hard to compete as it is without all this uncertainty. I just don't know what the ending is and how. It's got to be very difficult to operate a business right now in this crazy ad market with this all going on.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah. I mean, Paramount has so many layers of intrigue, it's unbelievable. I mean, one of the ones that's most interesting to me is Sherry Redstone. And sort of the Redstone Cabal has only 10 ownership but 80% voting rights. So they got themselves into this mess even though they don't own a huge portion, just like they do. They are like the dictators of what happens in the future. And that's been a big problem is, you know, it's not a democratic board where you have representation from both the streaming side and the broadcast side and everybody kind of is thinking about the future. They're just really saying, okay, like how do I maximize my investment? Case closed. You also have this like weird bifurcation of sort of fading cable channels, Nickelodeon, mtv, once the crown jewels of the.

[Mike Shields]

Industry that are really like.

[Emily Riley]

And like they really didn't figure out, you know, they could have been fast apps right at the beginning and done cool stuff to get on kids iPad.

[Mike Shields]

Fought with Google about YouTube for years instead of a bit partnering. And now they're just.

[Emily Riley]

The brands don't do anything because they have great content, they have a ton of content. And then you have the other side, which I think is surprisingly doing better. Like 10 years ago, if I had said to you, would you think CBS Sports and you know, CBS News would emerge triumphant in the age of streaming? You'd be like, no, but you know, it's live stuff that's hard to replicate in other ways. And so if you can find a smart on ramp for that stuff to go to the streaming world, people love live sports. Audiences are tuning in. That's where the premium ad sales are. So it's sort of once this stupid lawsuit, if this stupid lawsuit gets figured out, that's actually become like the more talked about asset under the big umbrella. But you could imagine again like talking about Amazon, talking about Netflix, do they buy cvs? Like does it get broken up for the parts?

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, I just, I know that a lot of the tech companies don't want to deal with these legacy issues.

[Emily Riley]

Right. It's like you're basically buying these totally tangled up contracts that are just. I can't even imagine how old they are. Some of them are probably 50 years old.

[Mike Shields]

But it's got to be, you know, the, the new, the would be new owners have all these plans and they, they talk. He's Ellison has talked about, I want to fix Paramount plus and make the tech work better and get an investment and they just can't get, can't get going anywhere and they're trying to sell in the upfront market. It's just crazy.

[Emily Riley]

How long do you think it would take them to make an awesome streaming app experience? You know, years.

[Mike Shields]

I don't know, it's funny.

[Emily Riley]

Three years.

[Mike Shields]

I mean, I'm like an old man and I watch all those Taylor Sheridan shows and it's like so hard to use the goddamn app. Everything is, everything is palest compared in my opinion to Netflix. Always works. It's always simple.

[Emily Riley]

I just don't think anything that matters a ton. They're like yeah, make it work now generation.

[Mike Shields]

I'll just bail. Forget it.

[Emily Riley]

Like, is Paramount plus going to start appealing to 18 year olds?

[Mike Shields]

I seriously doubt that. Even though they've got all that, all them Nickelodeon, MTV stuff. I don't think that's, that's the audience right now. I think it's Yellowstone people. But yeah, that is, it's just, it's a weird way to be just like in limbo forever and I, and I don't know, you know the, the journalist in me wants them to fight back against Trump and not take the 60 minutes thing and have some principles. But I know that the money at stake is so crazy that it's really hard to do that. But, but they might lose that whole news division and kill the morale there and maybe people walk out the door if they, if they end up capitulating the Trump in some way.

[Emily Riley]

It's true. I mean it's, it's a weird time for news right now, that's for sure.

[Mike Shields]

Does anything happen with assuming that Elon and Trump still say fighting and they could change? I don't see anything for the X business changing because of that. But is there any possibility that that could become less right wing, less toxic, more appealing to brands or is that, is that ship just completely sailed?

[Emily Riley]

Well, I'm pretty sure back in the day both Elon and Trump were Democrats so the whole thing is somewhat self driven. One key note here is Elon Musk must be psyched for how many new people are signing up to X just to watch the fight.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, the show, you can't miss it.

[Emily Riley]

He's definitely getting a ton of ad impressions and new users out of this, you know, as long as he lets.

[Mike Shields]

But he might lose his government contract so the trade off might not be so great.

[Emily Riley]

Right? Exactly. Like Trump has gotten kicked off of a couple social media networks in the past but for right now I think he'll be allowed to be obnoxious on X for a little while. We'll see. But yeah, I mean you're right, X has been, I don't know, they sort of sold their soul to the devil a couple years ago and nothing has changed all that much since then.

[Mike Shields]

So yeah, I don't know if the people, the people that left, I don't know if they're going to come back other than this fight.

[Emily Riley]

Right.

[Mike Shields]

What about, you know, you've brought up a lot and it's, it's been in the news. They're fascinating. Applovin obviously is, is they've had a fascinating story. Someone Suggested to me they are. I wrote this piece this week about all these startups that are trying to enter the, the TV industry but trying, trying to bring small brands to the, to the medium. And Eric Fi of Imperium Catbox suggested Apple Oven, which I never thought of because they have so they're so good at performance advertising and driving installs for games. All these companies, do you think that's crazy that they would ever tinker in the, the TV industry in some TV advertising space in any way or what do you, what do you make of them in this weird position they're in right now?

[Emily Riley]

Yeah, I mean you can make a connection through the phone because honestly a lot of Gen Z for example, and younger watch on their phone.

[Mike Shields]

They watch tv, their phone first.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah, yeah. They don't care about the big screen in the living room as much. So you know, if it's just sort of an app game, then the question becomes can you mash up best practices for gaming, for social, for tv? And advertisers can buy sort of some engagement package or you know, like one thing applovin really understands is that sort of repeat upleveling somebody with cash or conversions, it's a very conversion based ad sale that they tend to be making with their advertisers. It's a much more engaged type of audience than like a typical old school linear TV sale where you're sitting back and just watching a brand commercial. So you know, they might be a nice bridge to what the future of more interactive streaming looks like.

[Mike Shields]

You know, is the, are the capabilities going to be the same if, if the ad tech and data in television is just not comparable to mobile web and what they're used to? They could, they would have to, they have to translate their business. Everyone thinks it's getting there, but I don't know if that's going to happen quickly enough to be as effective.

[Emily Riley]

Yeah, it's true. I mean streaming is addressable but you, you don't have pii, you don't have their credit card. Like all these things that a gaming app has, you're, you're not dealing with.

[Mike Shields]

There's really only two big players and yeah, Android and Apple versus TV is all over the place yet. It is, it is a little bit of a complicated market. Okay, this is your idea but I think we should talk about it. We talked a lot about AI and PII and all these crazy things. Now let's talk about Cindy Sweeney.

[Emily Riley]

Let's do it Mike.

[Mike Shields]

Her. Obviously most people know this. You can buy her Bath water. As I understand it, 1 million fans have already entered this giveaway. You know, what does this tell us when we. When you hear Meta saying they're going to be able to make all your commercials for you. And it's really easy. I mean, I know that people in Japan marry their avatars and maybe there'll be a fake Sydney Sweeney someday that they can pull this kind of thing off with, but she's both influencer and movie star. What does this tell you about creative in the future? And the assurance that AI made it maybe not able to replicate everything?

[Emily Riley]

Yeah. I do wonder, is there really ever going to be a day in our lifetime where there's some AI creative algorithm out there suggesting to a brand, hey, you should take Sydney Sweeney's bathwater and put it in a soap. I think it'll work really well as an, you know, I mean, talking to the different types of AI startups out there, you have kind of two kinds. One is kind of the Mark Zuckerberg mentality of let's automate everything. We should just press one button and never think about this again. And then there's the other type, which is we live in a world of humans and the elegance of what we do is live each day like it's different and we're creative and you don't know what's going to be around the next corner. Not just based on past data, like algorithms, just based. Are based on past data.

[Mike Shields]

It's like sometimes new creativity is always about sparks and new things come out of left field.

[Emily Riley]

And that's where awesome ad campaigns come from. That's where great new product ideas come from. And, you know, AI should support that. AI should drive more and better and more interesting and more fun campaigns. They shouldn't just automate the crap out of everything so that it's all just lame. Spill. I don't know, I just like, we can't go to just this medium. Acceptable but boring. I just don't think it's the right approach, you know?

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, I wonder. I was actually talking to somebody about this. Acceptable but boring. Is that going to be enough for brands when they're. When the other cost benefits are so good? That's going to be sad. And it's not going to win your awards.

[Emily Riley]

For some, the answer is yes.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, but you know, you have to.

[Emily Riley]

Spend money to make money kind of thing. It's like you have to take those risks to make a leap to be the market leader. I think you can be a follower and make an efficient business by being average. You're not going to see those amazing growth stories come out of.

[Mike Shields]

You're not going to be a cultural breakthrough. You're not going to, you know, become quote unquote, buzzy. At least, you know, not yet. Until we are maybe at marrying Avatar people, right?

[Emily Riley]

Like once we have like a chip implanted in our brain that's connected to a database, then we'll talk but which might be.

[Mike Shields]

I mean, I don't know. We talked. We may have talked to this but the. There was that. That Axios piece about how there we're all going to get laid off and there's been no. No white collar jobs in like two years and we're just gonna have to have like subsidies if we're there then I might take a fake bath soap from a fake influencer and well, I'll.

[Emily Riley]

Just, you know, just farm your backyard. You know, nice garden. Have some tomatoes.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, I'm into that.

[Emily Riley]

Make it work.

[Mike Shields]

All right, Emily. Great stuff. Let's talk again soon. Thanks for coming in.

[Emily Riley]

Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. Take care. It.