Markets in the midst of technological change tend to have two camps. One is the legacy incumbents that have strengths in their brands and the other in upstarts that are nimbler. In digital media, it turned out brand won.

At Possible, The Rebooting held TRB Conversations, a series of podcast discussions with media leaders on what they’re betting on. The connective tissue that emerged is that publishers are leaning more heavily on the value of their brands as they reorient their businesses to focus less on scale and more on depth.

This episode features conversations with Shachar Oren, CMO/CRO of EX.CO; Brendan Spain, vp of advertising for the Americas, The Financial Times; Rachael Savage, svp of ad revenue operations, Hearst Magazines; and Avi Zimack, chief growth officer, Bustle Digital Group.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome
00:57 EX.CO
01:20 CTV Meets Digital Lessons
02:45 Closing the CTV Budget Gap
06:49 All Screens Advertising Future
09:10 Measurement and Agentic Shift
11:32 FT Brand Safety Reality
14:29 FT Video and Paywall Growth
16:39 Global Brand Advantage
22:20 Hearst Brands Need Playbooks
25:34 Scale vs Niche Monetization
28:16 Hearst AI and Data Backbone
33:06 BDG Pivot to Activations
37:50 Influencers and Brand Seals
43:57 Events Plus Data Flywheel