Ad Age Ad Lib

Ad Lib features unscripted conversations with some of the biggest personalities in media and marketing, speaking off the cuff with Ad Age editors and reporters. The goal here is to do away with spin and jargon, and get to know some of the more influential and innovative people in this space — and understand the humans behind the titles.

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Episodes

Wendy Clark and Ari Weiss

It’s been just under two years since DDB brought Wendy Clark — a former top marketer at Coca Cola — on board as its North American CEO. And it’s been just under one year since she brought on Ari Weiss as the Omnicom network’s first chief creative officer. Together the two discuss creativity, talent and the highs and lows of 2017 for DDB specifically and the industry at large.

Dec 08, 2017•56 min•Ep. 9

Adam Moss

The New York Magazine editor is Ad Age’s Editor of the Year — and the title he’s edited since 2004 is the Magazine of the Year. Today he sits down with Ad Age editor Brian Braiker to discuss his time at New York, how the media landscape has changed in the past 20 years, the future of magazines in general, Harvey Weinstein, Rolling Stone and more.

Dec 03, 2017•42 min•Ep. 8

Michael Rothman

The CEO and co-founder of Fatherly, a New York City-based media start-up that caters to millennial dads, is himself not a father. Rather Rothman, whose last gig was as Thrillist’s first business-side hire, is a digital media vet. On this episode of Ad Lib, he discusses building a media business on the back of curated content and newsletters — and ultimately scaling up original content, going deep on Facebook and expanding into events. He also shares the details of a certain X-rated patent he att...

Nov 22, 2017•44 min•Ep. 7

Michael Kuntz

The senior vice president of digital revenue at USA Today Network sits down with Ad Age editor Brian Braiker to discuss Gannett’s local play, working with Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP, USA Today’s push into VR, Kuntz’s time at Gawker and the general perils of print.

Nov 10, 2017•44 min•Ep. 6

Kay Hsu

As the global Instagram lead at Facebook Creative Shop, Kay is tasked with getting brands to adopt the Instagram Stories format. She discusses the challenges and opportunities brands see with the proliferation of ad formats – and the rise of ephemeral formats specifically. She also talks about her own career path from a legislative assistant in Canada, through stints in fashion, Hong Kong and agency life before landing at Facebook.

Oct 27, 2017•39 min•Ep. 5

Neil Vogel

Since 2014, Neil Vogel has led the transition of About.com into Dotdash. Under his stewardship, the IAC-owned company has gone from an all-things-to-all-people approach to a publisher of discrete, focused verticals including Verywell (health), the Spruce (home), Lifewire (tech), the Balance (personal finance), Tripsavvy (travel) and Thought Co. (life hacking). We discuss the challenges and opportunities of that transformation – but first he talks about the life-changing experience, early in his ...

Oct 20, 2017•34 min•Ep. 4

Jonah Disend

Jonah Disend is CEO and founder of Redscout, a branding a product development company with clients like Gatorade and Domino’s that he founded in his New York apartment in 2000. We talk about how his love of theater informs what he does, how the advertising industry has not especially embraced the LGBT community -- and a certain bar mitzvah that he threw his company when it turned 13, four years ago.

Oct 12, 2017•32 min•Ep. 3

Where Creativity Meets Strategy

Alain Sylvain is the founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, an innovation and brand design consultancy. We talk about his background and the lack of diversity in media and marketing, his failures and his side hustles, which include launching a headphone brand and producing documentaries.

Oct 06, 2017•29 min•Ep. 2

Pop Vox

As chairman and CEO of Vox Media, Jim Bankoff oversees eight vertices including The Verge, SB Nation and Vox.com . We discuss what’s next for Vox and his past life as a Web 1.0 executive at AOL before and during part of the fall....

Sep 22, 2017•47 min•Ep. 1

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