The Future of Personalized Algorithms

Support for deceoder comes from Uber advertising Whether it's ordering dinner, booking a ride, or shopping for groceries, we live in a world where we make decisions the moment a need arises These moments aren't just when people choose Uber They're when people choose brands Uoober advertising helps brands understand the context behind those decisions, the moment, the need, and the mindset, across mobility, delivery, and commerce Brands can show up with greater relevance when people are ready to act Uver advertising where life's movement becomes your brand's momento Learn more at Uber com slash advertising llo and welcome to Dcoder. I'm L Ia Pellll Edit andief of the Verge and Coder is my show about big ideas and other problems We've got a special decoder today. I had the chance to talk with Amy Landsey the CEO of Digitos North America in front of a live audience at the Ubervilla at the Can Lion advertising Festival in the south of France. I know, it's a hard gig, but I do it for you. Amy's been on Doder three times now, and she's one of my very favorite people to chat with. She is clear eyed about what the advertising industry really is and does for brands and what all that money slashing around the ad supported internet really accomplishes In fact, you'll hear her say directly that she thinks the traditional chief marketing offfficer role is done for Her job is driving business results using data and analytics That might sound straightforward, but it was a shocking statement it can which is where the entire advertising industry gathers every year, drinks Rose, and convinces itself of outrageous nonsense This year, the big trends everyone' talking about creators and of course AI. and Amy and Digital's parent company Publlicis weren't holding back when it came to calling out the AI nonsense for what it is Public has actually put out an ad before Can, listing all of the false promises being made about AI when it comes to advertising I st him what AI might actually be good for beyond just generating slop and slop headlines And for all, Meta and the rest of the big platforms are all at can, talking about generating more and more ads with AI something that threatens almost every other company in the industry. Of course, we also talked about the creator economy and how all of the creators Aan were openly calling themselves marketers, essentially turning themselves into small ad agencies of their own On top of that, the biggest creators in the world almost always end up launching their own products. somethinghing Amy and Digitas see as an opportunity Be those companies will need operational scale if they're going to be successful over time There's a lot in this one. Like I said, Amy is as sharp as they come, and I really enjoy talking to her about how the money really works Amy Landsey, CEO of Digital North America live at Ken. Here we go Hello everybody. I'm Aan Tell the itor Chf theerion the of Coder. Hi, Amy Landsey, CEO Digitas part of whoasis group. I'm very excited to be here with Amy Amy we have to stop meeting like this. We only talk during Doder podcasts. I know. We do. We have to do this more We both live in New York. We get together more like IRL. Yeah, We only travel long ways to talk to each other in front of live audiences, which is wonderful. Thank you for being here Thanks to Dber for having us. I have a lot to talk to you about. It seems like every year we hang out And the entire advertising industry is in a new form of chaos And that chaos doesn't really get resolved, we just kind of move on to the next form of chaos This year. It's AI. I don't think that's a surprise to him in this room. Everywhere here at can, the conversation is about AI Let's just get started. Post just put out what you would call a fake ad, a documentary ad It's called the Wong Promises And it is basically just a series of vignettes of promises people are making in pitches, including, you don't have to pay us until you win a lion which is incredible. And it says this is real at the bottom. Yes. Tell me about what you are hearing in these rooms that are leading to these crazy AI promises getting made. Thank you for bringing up our fun video. and it was really designed to stimulate conversations like this And in the business right now, it's kind of crazy. I've been in this business for a long time and we are seeing all kinds of partners offer wild things in these in the pitch bo process different than it's been before, whether it's all the things that were of course hyped in that video, but also just insane commercial deals that are just generally bad for people and the business. And they're coming in all different types, whether it's about free AI, free platform, free whatever that is creating a dynamic that is not good for all of us in this industry because we all need to work together and it is a people business and that all of those things really long term create a people problem. That's get all Toy Story five here, The conversation that you and I are constantly having is about the pressure of the tech platforms on the media ecosystem, whether that's publishers, whether that's agencies, whether that's creators at some point will come to that But the idea that the platforms have enough scale to Promise you business results and then deliver them. Whether or not that happens, but they certainly can make those promises is leading to, I think, some of these outcomes, someome of these promises about AI and what it might be able to do. Is there any reality to that or is that just a reaction to the pressure of the platform?ever conversation comes about the promise of AI. I always go back to the promise of programmatic. How many of you remember when programmatic was a thing? No more people, it was all going to matterone in this room admitted that I remembered the programmatic ofight So And that was a time when it was all just going to magically happen and it magically still needs people, still has the nuance of brands and the marketplace and all of the things that we do to define our partnerships and what are going to be game changers So I go back to that because I feel like the AI story is the new programmatic story with the promise of everything just being absolutely automated, and that absolutely did not happen. And so again, when programmatic was rising, there were all those promises at that time as well. And now we are living that. But what is different here is it's coming from either agency partners or tech and platform partners. so it creates a different kind of chaos to where you started. Provosis, Digitals, you also have huge investments here. You were early, right? You bought influential in twenty twenty four to do analysis of how the Creator ecosystem was doing You have digital AI, which is two years now, you're into it. How How do you think about those products and those platforms in an ecosystem that is full of these promises So for me and I'll talk about Digita in particular, we started to make our people better unicorns As we talked about the last time we met. So it was really to say, okay, everyone, look at what's on your desk, like what's in your day and think about what you absolutely could build an agent to do. And that way we fear up our time to do this. So that's where we started. And then what was fascinating is the magical things that were able to be built by the young talent in the industry that is solving a working problem, but eventually a business problem That still holds because every day, you know, I always say as a gen x or I'm like hackers wanted. If you have a hacking mentality and you're curious, you can actually do better things than I did when I was a hacker in that age So it enables us to Use our agents, use our data to get to better ideas, better workflows that are more of a surprise and delight to clients than what you might have brought in the first round because you can do many rounds before you actually get to the final product. and that's how you get to the unique outcome You can tell that Amy is a decoder pro ' she is led directly to the decoder questions I'm very curious if AI, at least in the enterprise, is a top down or bottom up Change agent But you just restructured digitas, right? You put in a bunch of new roles. You have a new chief intelligence offfficer, a new chief systemys offfficer, my favorite a chief transformation officer He turns into a robot What are these ves? hears this because that's going to make him laugh anyway. It's very exciting. The toy line is going to be great What are these roulles for? how are you changing the structure of Digitas? You've always inspired me with how do you structure yourself and how do you make decisions? So the first time we talked about it, I had been in this role for just a little bit of time and we had set our culture, which is where're fearless, inventive and generous. that still holds on how we make decisions. Org structure wise, we needed to figure out exactly what you just said is how do we do things in the underpinning of the agency that will enable all of our different practices to be able to scale faster leveraging intelligence. and of course, intelligence is code for AI in the story. So that's why we have our chief intelligence officer, which was a pickup from data and analytics into like liberating that into an intelligent platform that all of our agents are built on and then also all of our employees use The second is systems thinking. So we took the traditional COO role and turned that into a chief Ss offfficer role and really redefined both of those roles because all of our client conversations are really about marketing systems And so you need to have someone that can come in and understand that and meet them where they are And then we then think about the marketing flows that will marry to the system that works within some of their tech choices, et cetera, as two examples. The third chief transrformation offfficer is and this is a big conversation here is around clients wanting to transform, particularly CMOs transforming into CGO's. What is the CGO? Chief Growth Officer. Okay. Did she not know that or was that a I just you know. I'm a journalist. My job's not.fortunate. Okay. I just ask the questions. That's why we're a good friend. Yeah. I make up a lot of things. I was just coming from the Forbes CMO cououncil thing and there was a whole conversation on the rise of the CGO What that means is CGOs, CMO's formerally were really responsible for making marketing magic, campaigns, media investment. Now they're responsible for building capabilities. and they need a partner to help transform their solutions. So it's a people problem as well as a tech problem. So that's why we have that discreet chief transrformation Officer W You are a data person, you've always been a data person I'm really curious about that. The idea that the marketing function is now so directly tied to business results. And I see it on the tech platforms all the time You and I have talked about this before, Mark uckerberg will just look every single one of of you in the eyes and say I'm going to kill you. And he does it without remorse Right? His vision is that you will just pay Ma and it will make creative for you, it will find the audience for you, and they will deliver you business results. And almost all everything in the middle fromr money in money out gets automated away by Med' Intelligence Stack The idea of the Chief Gth Officer feels of a peiece with that. right that the marketing function is now a business function. It needs a data layer, it needs all these things Where do you see the creative fitting into it? Where do you see the classic form of brand building? It's a fundamental part of that capability that needs to live like the marketing capability now as a system So brand building and the fundamentals matter more than anything, what you stand for and how you show up, What you're the answer for, especially with LLMs is really important. and it has to be authentic for the brands to grow. That's still the case You just can't stop there. It needs to be attached to a system And ideally, you have some sort of data intelligence layer, so I'm learning more and more about you so that I can then redefine my marketing stories to then reshape how I'm showing up if it's not working, if it's not selling more candy, if it's not selling more cars. how do we change faster versus CMO was responsible for building these campaigns and then moving on And that is not going to be that role is a dying role. And it should be. It should be marketing drives commercial value, markarketing drives shareholder value. What you heard here for a CMO is a dying role the previous version of the CMO. Because if they're not just like the whole We are in a chaotic world and all the rise we're in an area of convergence. So if you are a CMO and you're not thinking about your data layer, you're not thinking about your full stacks so you get closer to consumer and get to better creative, better use of creators you are not going to be doing well in the future. So I think whether it's CMO two point zero or you're moving into that CGO role. Yeah. That's really the future of that type of function in an organization. I feel like the audience here Ken knows this, but for the Dakota audience in their car listening to this, the conventional wisdom was that CMO's only ever had two years on a job, maybe less. Like you were dead the moment you showed up. You got to execute one big campaign, you found in the bathroom and then you were out. Y. I hope you heard everyone in this room laugh. was that was laugh like the most knowing laugh in the world. This seems like a much longer term role. Like if your chop is the new CMO and your job is to transform the entire business from the bottom up over and over again It's a lot of instability. Do you think these are long term roles? If you do this right and you create a system a marketing system, you will you will be able to live beyond the two years path. because you're creating a growth engine. If you are only wanting to do two ten pole marketing campaigns s probably not going to go well after two years. We need to take a quick break, we'll br it back. Hi everyone. This this segment of Deouutter Sessions features Hen Haleck, the publisher of Verge and Christie Arglon, Uber's global head of advertising. And you're gonna to enjoy this conversation. Christy, just to start, when did Uber launch advertising and how is it going? It's been a really interesting journey for Uber. Most people came to know Uber as we alternative to a ride haaling service, but the other side of the platform is Uber eats And the Uber Eats side was where we first got into advertising with simple sponsored listings. so that any restaurant on our platform could actually run ads. We started to realize we have this platform that is full of people going places and getting things And there's no better way to show brand relevancy than to insert your brand into decision making in the moment that it's happening and to help facilitate and provide offers, information services at the moment people are making decisions What makes Uber advertising unique as a product One of the things that we keep seeing in our research with consumers is that there is this enormous friend to use digital as quickly as possible to make decisions so that they can get back into the physical world And we see that over and over again on the Uber platform People are looking to quickly find a ride to get to a bar where they can meet friends and watch their favorite football team together And so this pivot from the digital world Enhancing what people really want to do in the physical world is a role that Uber plays. that's incredibly powerful. We're back with Digital CEO Amy Landy, live at Cann, discussing the ways AI is changing the marketing industry I basically have two themes that I want to talk about. One is data and in scale and one is creators. So this kind of sits right in the middle of them And I just keep thinking about this phrase that I've heard Ma use the most, but the other platforms use it a lot too. And it's creative is the new targeting. And I hear that. And I don't Make ads. We make two podcasts a week. We don't do scale at that level. But I hear creativism targeting. and I think that is a demand for output like no one has ever heard before Right? We're going to find your customer for you. You just feed the machine with as much as you can And it seems obvious to me that your two choices and that world of creativis is and targeting. I think meta's andrama system is kind of the biggest example of this is either going to feed it with AI creative You're going to let them do it or you're going have your own AI creative system, or you're going to let a million creators and influencers do it for you How do you plug a growth engine into a world where that's what the platforms are all saying? The more you are closer to your consumers and all the places they're spending time from a data identity, how you're doing however you're systematically doing that is the most important thing. So you can see how they are reacting to said What did you say creativeism and targeting? I've never heard this phrase, I don't like it. Yeah. I terrible, right? It's terrible for a business. Creative is targeting. onlynly because it sounds horrible. Creative is emotional and lovely and magical. How can it be emotional and magical if it's targeting you Those are two words that don't go together So to me, the brands that I think are doing really well are deciding not to do that or to do it in a way that feels so contextually relevant because they know so much about Jen Z Yng meta that they've decided that they need to do this to be able to drive velocity for a certain type of brand that feels fit for that brand But I think we are not in a world where we need more content No Do I no want more content? We are not in a world where we need more content. Yeah. So that idea, creative targeting assumes that we have endless amounts of content and impressions. as a concept. And I think those are two worlds that still need to be decoupl but when they're put together, it needs to be in a way that you are constantly learning. How did that do? Did I gain you more attention from a certain type of growth audience I'm trying to get to? Can I push you Yes. Suort man's ideas. they do it. I just make the argument because you and I have talked about it before. the way in particular, Mark Zuckerberg talks about it is at some point They know more about the viewer of Instagram than anybody or they want to know more about the viewer of Instagram than anybody. And they will just deliver the right creative to that person at the right moment. This is the same argumentents programatic. Yeah. Only now they have acres of GPU's with which to do it U And the argument there is Yes, the army of unpaid teenagers will make the fun stuff that you watch and the advertising will just show up magically on the platform and find the right person the right time Again, I read that as you should just let Meta make the creative for you You just give them a picture of the shampoo bottle and they will put it in the right place on the right background. For me, it will be pictures of trucks jumping over things and exploding. And then shampoo will appear at the end. They' like, that's the shampoo for me. Y It would work. If any of you need an idea to target me specifically, that would work. That is like no agency is ever going to make something that niche.. But you for example, put was just spought live Ram take all that data' still in the situation. Yeah. I mean, it's out there, but it's not the deal is not done. So presumably the goal of buying Lve RAamp, which is a giant data platform is to lever up against Med and say actually we know as much about these customers as you do R? We can distill information across all the platforms And we will actually do a better job for our clients of placing the creative in the right place for right time This sort of implies that Ma will participate. Why would they do that? Because people are complicated. Yeah. And today, You know, look at how often on this beach, there are different players on the beach Everyone doesn't stay in this position forever and people are complicated. I would offer that I think if I started seeing your wonderful ad fifty times, I would say, I don't wan to see this anymore and I actually don't like that shampoo. That's what happens when it's just left to go on its own, without someone thinking about suppressing messaging, without understanding consumers better because you actually win hearts and minds when you're doing something that's not as expected. becausecause people are complicated So I think that there is a moment in time where to us, it's like we say to our clients, you need to work with all of them because all of us spend time in all these different places for different reasons. You know why you choose to spend time on Pinterest versus Ma versus Amazon versus Walmart Connect, All of them are different roles in terms of how the platforms work for you in your life So why would you put all of your dollars in one place? And so for me, those players are shifting in and out depending on what we think that growth audience is doing and how they're thinking about intersecting with that category. Are they good at participating in an ecosystem in that way This is something that strikes me every time of them are and some of them are not. Yeah And the more they start to see headwinds, they are more leaned into participating. in a way that we, know, ideally, we want to do data collaboration with these partners because it's better for our clients that we can say, we knew more about this growth audience on platform. and I'm not going to say X because that's not not saying X. O platform, why? We know more about them about Right. And this is how we're going to grow your brand And that's a good joint story for a platform and an agency partner to come in to talk about because we've been able to actually share data and look at that in a way that's beneficial for the consumer in the end I see a lot of I mean, there's only two business models, right? Bundling and unbundling In aggency worldorld, there's a lot of bundling going on right now, right? There's a lot of bundling. Obviously P public this is huge onm ecot IPG. CA is out here. They've invented creators this year. I don't know if anyone heard. And they're very proud of themselves. But you know they have's two hundred fifty million dollars fund that takes stakes indirectly in creator businesses. There's a lot of scale. There's a lot of bundling going on What do you think is driving that? It's the desired state of a system. So for me, hence why we have a Chief Sys offfficer. there are capabilities that we built. So last time we met or two times ago, I talked about building the commerce capability and the acquisition of profiteero that I led That was really to get to a unique set of data so we could build a better commerce capability so we could advise our clients on how they should be investing in some of these retail media partner spaces at the time. How do you when the digital shelf was really the business problem to solve when we made that acquisition That holds true for the acquisition of influential. How do we create creator as a channel? How do we harness the creator in a way that's also easier for clients? If you don't bring those things into a bundled offer, it's actually really hard for clients because there's Seven different versions of Profateure are calling on them. There's seven different influential partners or those types of partners that are calling on them. And then you're now looking at a distracted set of technology or decentralized. And it's again not tied into a single ideally. Data, identity' fine So the more you have them connected, the more you can actually say, did this really work? Did it really drive someone to buy more things? Yeah. that's the reason why the capabilities are now being. So think about them as capabilities versus assets in this conversation Talk more about inflential. That was a big acquisition two years ago, I'm assuming it's been integrated. Yes. That was the creator play for you. I know you were instrumental in that acquisition It feels like the creator economy has taken on a new shape this year We are just hearing more and more about the biggest creators in the world and the biggest platforms Influential was much more of a scale play, right? It had an idea that you could go and do a lot of analysis of what was happening on these platforms likeike massive scale. How is that working out? wororking out very well because we have taken their technology and connected it to our identity so that I can now see you, I can see who you follow, and then I can understand how to closer to you or have the type of either the right creator choice or the right creative decisions that can enable me to get you to feel an emotional connection to my brand Creators a channel is also super efficient. You can also have creators talk in a way that is a little more authentic to audiences that a brand maybe can't go out with that message, but it's very complicated. So before we had influential, it was very hard. every different brand partner had a different creator solution. and we we still are interoperable. We work with other ones that are out there like Creator IQ, but it is easier for us if it's connected into our system because then we can get to see if it actually worked faster What's the step after the creator interaction, right? You open one of these platforms, you scroll some videos You see some creator telling you to buy some product. is it then to go search? Is it then to go open a retail app directly. You mean for the consumer or I mean, it depends. I mean we're getting one of the hottest topics we're getting right now is TikTok shops which is an interesting another topic we can have another day. And that's because creators are saying, D't you want to buy this thing? and it's a one click opportunity to go get it For us, when some brands that are more used to selling through traditional retail channels, it's a pretty big lift to build that out. It still is But the desired state is I want to buy your kit of parts, whatever you're talking to me about in your creator video and I want to be able to buy it and do it then. That's a move we're starting to see We also just see follow me and learn more about me as a creator. It's actually a cheat for CRM. becausecause if I now know if I'm a brand and you're one of my power influencers and I want to really have an owned relationship with you, this is a way for us to get closer to you as a brand. The reason I ask a question is I've run around the past two or three years asking every web host web company. why should anyone make a website now? Be I was A new creative. I was starting the verge over again in twenty twenty six I would not make a giant fancy desktop website. I would probably be a TikToker. Yeah. My dancing is Pretty good. It ssound great, but I would probably start there Yeah. And the answer from all the web companies I've gotten is, oh, because you want to do retail and you want to escape fees on platforms You want a different fee structure. And the best answer I ever got was from the CEO of Squarespace. He said a lot of people start websites with us just for the The appearance of legitimacy. Yes. R Having the d. com or I guess the. AI now gives you an appearance of legitimacy that a customer will go and transactents versus just dropping a TikTok shop and who knows what sort of team of product you're going to get I look at that and I say, okay, you're going to go to the web. Right? That's that's a move everybody wants to do And the web is fundamentally under threat by agentic search by AI overviews. Everything everyone knows about See that changing in your funnels? Interestingly, we are seeing more and more briefs for revising websites. to do like GEO. Yes and no. It's actually pretty interesting. I mean, this is something that, you know, the market talks to you, clients come in, they look for new things. I mean, whoo would have thought if you asked me at the end of last year, you're gonna to do a lot of website work? I would have said no. But we've seen a lot of it because two reasons. One, the future of websites are knowledge sites. websites were built to contain a bunch of random information that didn't really enable you to show up well in a single response an to a prompt So part of it is that, but also it's like if you're going to be a real brand and it's literally your legitimacy point, you really need to have your own assets. You want to own that. And eventually, you don't always want to have to funnel everything in packaged goods through a retail partner You want to be able to have your own relationship. That doesn't mean everyone's going to buy from that site. But the idea that that is a site that one does its job of feeding the LLMs, but also builds your brand and gives information O websites pretty much weren't really built in a way that makes sense for modern consumers. Who are you giving information to? Is it consumers? Is it AI agents? Is it justust Google No I mean, I mean, yes, if you have to build, we build for machine and humans. Every time I go to Google IO, I sit down on with Sper try. As him every single demo of search for years now has ended in a transaction I don't know if you have noticed this. every Apple demo ends with trip planning. Every Google demo ends with trip planning that ends in buying shoes. And you realize like, okay, yeah, like the audience is partially verge readers who just love tech. Pially it's other developers. and then a huge part of it is industry analysts and their investors. and they want to see the revenue return on every single feature the Google. announces. And so they all end in transactions And over time, those transactions have taken place closer and closer to Google's core platform. This year, they announced what intelligent shopping hearts that are just going to track prices and execute a purchase for you. You're talking about rebuilding websites. There's a world in which the website is just the backackend database for a very complicated Google system that is doing all of the things that you're talking about. Is there a hedge against that or is that train just on the tracks? I think it's a little bit of a hedge against that. I would say that for many of our packaged goods friends, one of their biggest threats is Amazon that is the Google in the story, because if you are so dependent on a partner like Amazon that also can and we like our partnership with Amazon, but they also are a place where you're because of the size of their marketplace If you've built a brand that has a, you know, a storied is a known brand. someome of these marketplace brands can immediately win because of how you've invested and built the category So you need to have your own assets to be able to think about what is your next story? What is your next move so that you don't get commoditized So I think that applies to both Amazon and Google to a degree. Do you think' competitors in the space in that way I don't see I don't know. I don't do a lot of any shopping on Google. So I don't know if I would compare them to. Have you ever planned a hiking trip on Google? They're great at it. Actually no. I use this thing called Mind Trip. It's my favorite. that I learned in the New York Times, do it. You go to Mine tririp and it'll magically plan your trip. It's pretty good. It can do most things and then it breaks in certain areas. Yeah, yeah. But this idea that you're gonna to have a bunch of agents Just planning the trips for you buying all of the gear that you might want or tracking prices for you, which is another big promise that everyone has And then the grants might pay for preferred results in all of those spaces. That does seem like a A more direct competitor to Amazon than not, right? Absolutely. It does. I just think there's the planning part and the transaction part. Those are two different things. I think on planning, you're competing. Amazon's trying to get up. they're going add a transaction into that planning component really. When you think about all the things that they're doing with their own creators and even just their move on full funnel and content, that's really to make Amazon your total destination I think the agent to agent buying space is still the concept of trust is still very important here. What you're willing to do and not to do, I think is as a consumer is still TBD. Here's my wonkiest type question for you. Google is very proud hardard. Ohll's. Be these this is again, is AI top down or bottom up. I sort of understand how it's bottom up, right? We're going to empower all of our smartest people aentic things in our workplaces And then there's top down, which is Google is very proud of its universal cart standard, right where agents are going to be able to access carts across domains and compare prices and do all that stuff That's a corporate decision. That's a strategy decision And they're pretty proud that everyone's on board. And their argument to me is, well, we just needed something So this is the something. And I hear the tech industry say we just needed something and I think Well, of course, but it's the something that you control Right And everyone might need something, but no one is thinking through. At the end of this, one player will control it When your clients and partners think about, okay, we're going to adopt these standards for agentic workflows, for how commerce will be done in the future. Is there any pause to say, okay, Google's going to control the standards again? Yes and no. I don't think the clients I speak with today are not as worried about Google as a commerce partner as they are about the transformation of their more traditional partners like in Amazon or other retailers that have transformed from being a retail partner to being media partners when that transformation is occurring over there, the're media partners who want to it's changed this dynamic of what what a retailer does and what a supplier manufacturered brand does. So that dynamic has changed and that makes the negotiation between they need each other to grow So when they've transformed to media partners, this changes that equation significantly. This is a whole retail media conversation. That is still so are they a media partner or are they a retail partner? Yeah. That's much more still of the conversation I would say that has AI change the dynamic of that at all Yes, because the more AI oriented products they have, it puts more focus on more media investments. with them because of these magical products It's not necessarily solving a core shopping problem We need to take another quick break, we'll be right back Support for decoder comes from Uber advertising Whether it's ordering dinner, booking a ride, or shopping for groceries, we live in a world where we make decisions the moment a need arises. But these moments aren't just when people choose Uber They' when people choose brands Uber advertising helps marketers understand the context behind those decisions, the moment, the need, and the mindset, across mobility, delivery, and commerce. So brands can show up with greater relevance when people are ready to act Uber is the largest mobility and delivery platform in the world, with billions of insights from millions of people taking real life actions, when they ride and when they order And because people are constantly making everyday decisions with Uber, Brands have the opportunity to connect in ways that feel timely instead of disruptive Whether someone's heading to the airport, ordering late night food, or planning their weekend Uber advertising drives brand impact through actions, instantly, intuitively, and in sync with people's lives Uber advertising. where life's movement becomes your brand's momentum Learn more at Uber d. com slash advertising We're back with Digitas CEO Amy Lancy Before the break, we're talking about the advertising and marketing industries are contending with AI and fundamental changes to the web Now I wanted to dive deeper on the creator side of the equation. And specifically what Amy thinks about the growth of creator web businesses the other side of this because so far, we've talked about tech and data and scale. And I think that is the promise of AI, right? We're going to automate everything. It is going to be magic. We're going to do programmatic again All you need is data And they need your money. The other side of this and I'm just walking around I can is craters everywhere R somethingomething vastly more human, vastly more bespoke My theory and I was just wrong on this, so I'll pop to it I thought greater rates would fall drastically this year, right? Is there is more AI content is The platform is S gotott more and more punishing about what would work on their algorithms as they started doing their own content Instead, I look around and everyone here can is So proud about how cost per minute a video is skyrocketing again. Yeah. What's going on Again, I think it's all about supply and demand And so when you get to certain once creators start moving into a more famous space, then they're suddenly they're worth more. And last time we talked about this, we talked about the difference between a creator, an influener and a celebrity. And I still think that holds true. And there is more Unilever went out probably this time last year saying that they were going to spend fifty percent of their dollars in with all creators versus creative To me, what is an interesting conversation is what is creative now If you're putting it all in the hands of a creator, what does it mean to be a brand that delivers creative? And how do you make those things work together? Yeah Because we can't have another thing that is also Prices is out of the market and you get to a point where you're ceding so much control to the voice of the creator that that's probably not going to build your brand over time The creaters see themselves as marketers, So at least the very best ones here mean they're here at Camp. smallall business They're all small media businesses of their own. Some of them are very large media businesses of their own. and they are very open that what they do is marketing for brands That comes right up against agencies. It comes right up against your creatives. All the creators know they want more control R? They want the brief from the brand, they want business results. they say, leave me alone to do it. I'm just going to do it howateever I want to do it What's that dynamic like as you start working with the bigger and bigger creators? We still hold true to brand fundamentals. Strategy matters, what the consumer insight is for that brand That has to be something that's an exchange between a brand and a creator in order for the creator work to really build what's unique about that brand And so it's still the idea of freedom and of framework that that creator is briefed on. They control how they're going to do it, but there are some sort of tone and voice and things that if a creator is actually going to buy into this, they need to buy into that That still is really the exchange. That's always been the exchange, especially when you remember when UGC started in Tongle? Do remember that whole thing? It was the same thing where we was working on Johnson's baby and we were trying to figure out how to really create authentic first time expectant mom stories. And we had this great debate about how we're going to get The new creators, like mom bloggers was the language to get them to tell these to tell these stories. And so we had this like this is what the brand stands for. Here's some things, but you need to buy into this and believe in it. That exchange still exists. We just call them creators now. and then you can do it in a more scaled way through a system like influential. I guess maybe my new prediction is it will see a more Barbell shaped creater economy where the biggest creaters are making more and more money than ever and kind of the middle gets squeezed Either you got to get big, you got to be able to command rates because you're a celebrity, or you end up towards those UGC rates Right where you're just doing infomercials on TikTok and that's the business.'s left of the middle It's a really good question. I don't know the answer to that. I do think there's so much demand for this space that that middle, there's a lot of demand for the middle So you could use it as a way to eventually launch yourself into this, you know, upper echelon of craters. Someone said to me, I heard this that Creators are daytime stars from soap operas. I was like, this is pretty c. Is they in your house? Becauseuse they're just on. It's not noise, but they keep you company, they keep you busy. And then all of a sudden one of those people becomes a movie star. Which to me is a little bit of that middle of what you just articulated. where we know the know creators I think of I've watched my daughter over our years, I've watched my daughter and all of her creators that are now you know, Emma Chamberlain was a creator on YouTube that's now a star that's doing, you know, Este Laer ads or whatever she's doing. She's really a celebrity now But she started as a tiny creator making adorable shows on YouTube One of the things that you and I were briefly talking about before we came on was at some point, the creators hit scale where their businesses need to be businesses Right? And that's where you might need an agency to come in and actually operate your business. That scale is still pretty huge Right? Like It might just be Mr. Beast is that scale and needs to operate a full business. But we see I see lots of creators I think it's fascinating that the creative economy is the only one where people routinely transition from selling bits to selling atoms. right? Like It's crazy to me that the Paul Bothers are like bottled water is a good business to be in. Historically not a great business to be in. shipping water around the world Vastly more expensive.es than just making one more video. There's no business in making one more video that scales. you have to make physical products and sell them to people and that scales. Is that becoming a bigger and bigger line for you? We're going to go find the biggest creaters and make them products and scale that up We the last time we met or two times ago, I had predicted that there at some point there are going to be these creators that become enterprises, let's say, a Mr. Beast that actually needs an agency, and it has happened. We are now starting to see briefs from these scales started as a creator that have now turned into enterprise businesses, where they need an agency partner and they also need someone to help them to figure out how to invest their media so they can grow Is like real brands Mr. Beast himself cannot flip over the bars at Walmart. Like he was doing. I think it's just like people need consultants. You need someone to help you. You know, no one has ever looked me in the eye. People need consultants like that I call myself a consulter Look me in the eye. Yeah.' so. I have your acccenture just bought Waler, which is like an all time nonsense decoder phrase, but okay? Yes Yes. So for me at some point, you as an enterprise owner, or as an owner of a company, you need help to figure out how you're going to get to your next growth path And this is what's happening with some of these businesses, these crreaters that have turned into an enterprise that are wondering like what is next? Gee, it's expensive to ship water all over the world. What do I do How do I do this? What types of partners do I go to How do I figure out ways to grow my brand in un ownown ecosystems? Be that's the quickest way to grow your brand not just in your own channels. There's this term that I've been hearing called the influencer Cliff. I want to give credit TikTok came over there name is Kara Vicente. I'm only giving her credit because no one gives me credit for Google Zero. and I'm trying to to reinitiate Karma into this world. But it's her term. it's great. If you're listening this, we'll put the video on the show notes. But her thesis is that creators They can do the branded content. because the audiences are there for the real content and they will tolerate the ads and support of the work that they're there to see And that when the creator transitions to selling their own product This misaligns the audience from the crater. And when the brand integrations get too overpowering, it misaligns everybody And then the creators have to issue apologies and they fallen off the cliff I see this all over the place. I see this with tech creators, I see this with fashion creators. Once you start shilling the product directly, your relationship changes. somethingomet goes horribly wrong, may you backhack all the way. There's some class of creators that's able to do it, right that makes the transition to solate product corctly You've seen a lot of these now, you've seen the briefs. What qualities let you do? Take that next step. I think a unique product is really important versus a me to product that a creator has decided they wanted to sell. So that's important. So I think you know, you've seen some creators that if they're sports or they're an athlete and they're moving into a space that they feel like this is this is something that made them a better athlete and is a unique part of the market If someone's falling for that, then that makes sense that you would buy into that. When it feels like someone woke up and wanted to just put their brand their persona on a certain brand and it doesn't feel like it's there that it's been their talk track to you as you're sort of t then it doesn't work. Would you see any particular products that are going to change categories I think some of the you know, one of the things that I think has been really interesting that is not talked about and it's actually it's a unique example. It's more of a celebrity example is brands like Fabletics Kate Hudson's brand suuper interesting. It's right in her, you know lifestyle play and her desire to be healthy and all of that. And that is and it was really her launching Fabableletics, not her endorsing Fableletics. That's not really a good creator example. I have to think more about that one. I'm very curious because I think that's coming Yeah particularly rates to the top end of the curve go up.. The idea that you can just launch your own brand and collect those margins directly I get it. It makes rational economic sense. But I'm wondering if the audience are going to take that at scale I think it's very even if you just look at traditional brands that are trying to scale DTC like brands, it is very hard to do because it's very hard to be found And the distribution part is very expensive. So there is a reason why Walmart is incredibly successful because they've solved the route to consumer And that is very challenging and expensive to try to build that out, even if the product is incredible. You mean distribution of product. A product. Yes 'ause I was ask you You talked a lot about the web, I feel like I have to ask you because I brought up Google Zero. Is that true in your world as well? It's definitely true on the publisher side that traffic from Google is going down. Is discovery traffic to all those websites going down as well? To publisher websites, Yes. We are definitely seeing Hey. change in partnerships from our publishers that are trying to understand how they can create custom content that is not as dependent on search, but is definitely something that is a big conversation that's happening here. And I would say in this case, if you are a publisher and you really have an authentic, true voice, people will follow you. They'll come find you versus if you're trying to fight it out in search, that's going to be very difficult All right, well I'll be the bar at the Carlon later, if you want to find me. I have a lightning round for you. Okay is this is all lightly round. This has. No, this is the depth. All right. I have talked to a lot of TchCO's, AICO's the past year. Theurious debate over whether AI has a marketing problem or not. Sam Alaltman will say, we got to do better marketing. We had to buy a podcast for two hundred million dollars Great haircuts for those guys. Like I think about them every single day. If I don't mean this as an insult. Those are some of the best haircuts in the world. I'm working on it I don't know if two hundred million dollars of podcast ccords is going fix it for open ee Soon ourach I will tell you it's not a marketing problem. Sachell will say, we have to earn social permission Do you think AI has a marketing problem I think AI is misunderstood. So it's a marketing problem and the problem it's solving. meaneaning AI is and I'll say that this is one of my favorite people to follow that talks about AI. My friends here are going to know I'm going to say is Shelley Palmer. We follow Shelly Palmer. And he talks about he issued something out about AI and electricity and how electricity is really what fundamentally changed the industrial Revolution and how the companies that were fast, he referenced forward in this to really reshape how they work and we're able to get to more efficient production as well as speed to market will w I think that's the lastost conversation on AI, which is for me, if you are able to all of us have too much to do on our computer in our desktops, think about it. So if you can use AI to do those things and you don't call me because you're like, Hey, did you clean out your email box? L thingsings like that are not necessarily game changers that are advancing all of us, and they also we have a lot of busy work because of all of the work is distributed everywhere So the more we can use AI to connect those things and get those things done enables us to do more things like this So I think that once we use AI to transform the way we work and to be more efficient in how we're getting to the outcomes, it'll then make time in all of our lives to do the things that are going to be game changers So I think it's a marketing problem and a misunderstood problem Is that going to stop the kids from booing at college graduation ceremonies? I think so, because right now if my daughter' a third year, she they're worried about their jobs because all they hear, so to your point on a press problem or PR problem versus marketing problem is that AI is going to be the thing that replaces all of them. I would say, we want new young talents Because if I watch my twelve year olds He's a million. He's been doing Google Slides since he was eight So he can make it because of COVID All of them got right into Google Classroom and they all learned how to cork and use many different apps at once and produce presentations easily. So to me, anyone that's coming out of school, we want, we want bright, curious hackers. We're not not hiring them because we need them. We need people is the lifeblood of our business. Yeah Do you think AI creative is going to get good enough I do not. I think Minds and complexity of humans make wrate stories that you are attracted to. I'm not using the word creative, I'm using stories I think AI enables you to be able to get to those concepts faster or to get to higher production more efficiently. I went to an event at the Pallais team that was speaking, and it was fantastic. It was a case for Virgin Cruises, and they were talking about building these beautiful long form content stories And the creatives were talking about how they used AI to be able to get to the concepts faster, curate from static art to digital art to really make these beautiful multimodal boards to bring this to life faster. But it wasn't the core of the idea. They thought they had used their brains to come up with the idea. You know, it's interesting in Arneie's room We do a lot of first drafts now with AI. of art, not writing, because it lowers the stakes saying things are good ideas or bad ideas. And just that has empowered people to have more ideas. I see a lot of that I would challenge, I think at some point the bottom end of the creative, the UGC world That stuff gets taken over. I would So for me, every day creative, I'll give you an example, product display pages that are when you search on Walmart or Amazon and that page that it gives you all this information If it's not done with robots, you're not doing it right. because that is a that's like looking at the back of a packaging And If you really do it right, are you can make it dynamic. so it knows what you bought the last time and it can be magical. That's like everyday creative that we need in order to get to personalization. We should be using those tools to be able to do that versus someone making those in an analog world, which is where we all started on that. So for some things, but I think when I think about being creative and storytelling, it still needs humans. Yeah I've asked you AGo several times and I'm asking you in lightightning around format.. Is this just another Wild gishes. Do you? Yeah No, I think it's well, I think it's a For certain platforms, it's a recast of search, we're seeing this happening where you need to be able to be instead of being found, you need to be known for. so that's the GEO response But I also think it's a better curation of information. I think it's a harder work on marketers because you need to be figuring out how you are leveraging Reddit or all these other different places so that you are showing up in a positive way with the LLMs But I do think if we've all been talking about the concept of personalization at scale We should be delivering on that. So GEO allows us to do that. Have you had to change your SEO practice to account for that? We've had talk about a practice that you thought was not going to be you know, when you look at the capabilities you have and what you don't think is going to be a continued is going to be a high growth engine, Our SEO team has exploded into it's one of the number in addition to new websites, this is a big one And that is really a conversation around influence So it's how you're showing up and how you're also influencing LLMs when you actually get into that Is that to what you can measure I worry that LMs are inherently sort of non deterministic. Every result is different. Do you have a system measuring We. We do have an audit format to see what is your share of voice within that so you can sort of identify where you are in the moment, but it's a movable feast in comparison to share voice for search But it is something that we have an audit so we can start to see like what are the different levers we need to be pulling? And by the way, the LLMs are also fed by different things. Recently, one of the new ones is long form YouTube content. That That m sense. That. Why do you on me podcasts now? Everyone's just gets to hours of YouTube content I don't know if you can have it like a lightning round question that starts from a place of existential dread, but here we go I feel like we're all here in the Do all see Adamissarary's post about customizing the Instagram algorithm two weeks ago. This is maybe one of the most important posts in the history of media. I'm not kidding. And of course, he issued it as like an Instagram carousel, one of the least consumable forms of media that you can possibly have. It's also on threads Your brain is broken and use spreads. you can go look at it there. It's very long and it's about how offering the ability to customize the algorithm was previously impossible because no one could describe the series of matrix multiplication equations that led to your algorithm showing you piece of content, except LLMsem now. right? So it can tell you why you're seeing content in a very direct way. and then you can talk to the LM and can customize the algorithm for you. And he said, this is great and we think this will give people a sense of agency. And then he went on And he was like, soon, I will customize all of Instagram for you. And the app will be different for every single person. Some of the experiences will be interactive. some of the literally UI controls will be different, how we organize everything will be different And you can see how this is the obvious future for us. And then he went on again, and he said, this might be bad This might ruin the shared fabric of truth that we all rely on every single day which a met executive, remarkably precinent. But he didn't say he was going to do anything about it. He was just like, here's what I'm going to do to you. I look at all of Cam And I look at all of our talk about the creator economy about measuring the data. and I say Adam Miseri is going to make Instagram different for every single person That is his state of goal. He said it two weeks ago And he knows that this might distort literally our shared sense of reality. Like the meedy experiences we all have. This is the lightightning round question. It was a big buildu to lightightning aroundound question. Is that good? It's terrible. Okay. Is there anything we can do about that not engage in it How do you not engage Instagram? If I told you about my, you know, my oldest stepson who is an abolute absolutely analogue, that's why I think we are seeing more and more consumers. The more you see that, the more you're like Think about it, if you sat down in front of your TV and it was like, we've made all these decisions about you. And you're only allowed to do this based on what it feels like black mirror And if that happens to you, you would say, I'm not going to engage in this anymore. I'm going to go read a book And I think and it's also counter to the value prop of, you know, a social platform around community. It was designed to make this connected world So that's the most disconnected world peopleeople are lonely and isolated. So the more you're just in your Doom scroll, it will be terrible So like we need shared community. I think one of the thing that's really interest interesting and a bright spot about creators is creators show up and they have a community. They listen to their communities. They're not influencing. they're creating they're talking to their communities in a way. and brands that do this right are really bringing community along. So we're seeing the rise of IL peopleople want to get together and talk about things. Is it just going to be that sort of competitive pressure that keeps them honest, that keeps them from Like I look at a creator economy and like Instagram iss a load bearing part of the creator economy. Yes. Right. Like disrupting that, maybe you break the whole thing What keeps them honest? what keeps them from going down this path? they Ver clearly said they want to go down. Is it just people switching away? I think people switching away. I think the, you know when brands stopp putting media dollars there. All of those things together might you might realize like, wow, they're not buying what I'm selling and this this is not going to work for me. I mean, there'senty of plenty of platforms that are no longer. You think about it? Yeah.