Commentary

Radio voice

Edition #534 A voice radio, the disconnect between CMOs better equipped to scale AI and those that aren’t and margin expansion.  You’ve heard the saying, they have a voice for radio. But podcasters are recently finding out, they need to turn on the video. In the search for more ad dollars, the extended reach of video, podcasts which have been audio only are now pressing the video record button. There’s some rationality to this, you’ve already got the content, why not… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
May 14, 2026
Commentary

CTV

Edition #533 What makes CTV exciting, Criteo has 1,000+ advertisers in its ChatGPT pilot & WealthSimple’s The Trade Show. I didn’t get CTV initially, we did some work, helping measure early CTV campaigns. I mean, as a consumer, I got it. But I didn’t get the hype around the advertising side. And that only really clicked for me in the last 6 months. And maybe I’m slow on the uptake.  But CTV enables advertisers to do the early digital… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
May 7, 2026
Commentary

FQ

Edition #532 How did the FQ suddenly become everywhere? The real cost of Dull Advertising and Substack sells books. I wanted to give a shout to the Female Quotient (FQ). If you’ve been to any major industry event recently, they seem to be there. In fact they seem to be everywhere, I first kind of noticed at Advertising Week last year, and then at Davos, then CES and Possible. But they’re also at the F1 too? I don’t… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 30, 2026
Commentary

Home Screen

Edition #531 How long do you spend what to watch? Paid benefactors and Miami.  Do you ever spend half an hour discussing with your spouse on what to watch next? It turns out Nielsen has estimated that exact average at about 10 and a half minutes. It seems my wife and I are an outlier! But Nexxen this week announced inventory TV Home Screen, in this exact window, that 10 minutes of discovery whilst you’re figuring out what’s next. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 23, 2026
Commentary

Data storytelling

Edition #530 On data storytelling, owning your own data narrative, loads of M&A & the live blog.  This week we saw Viant take a step towards owning their data narrative by acquiring TVision. This brings the data in tightly to their ecosystem. And a friend of the newsletter highlighted, helps their differentiation in the CTV DSP market. Data storytelling is all about finding the narrative and real value from that a company is giving (or receiving). A go to (and… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 16, 2026
Commentary

Branded citations

Edition #529 KFC’s new campaign, Time Inc gets creative with branded content & AI, and JP Dimon to start a media company?  Time Inc are dong something smart with their branded content. They shared with DigiDay, they will look at how a brand is perceived in the LLMs and contrast that to the brands current messaging in market. And then branded content to help change the LLMs perception. Leveraging their own visibility to get fresh, new authoritative content into… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 2, 2026
Commentary

Snafu

Edition #528 Measurement changes, OpenAI nabs Meta ad veteran and branded entertainment is really in vogue.  So you’re working with the MRC to keep your measurement in compliance. And they suggest, it would be stronger, if this part of your data source, was sourced independently. You’ve selected that data source, because you think it helps present the best model, for clients, as they navigate the ever changing landscape. But, you need to keep complaint. So you go and change. That’s… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 26, 2026
Commentary

LLM Skills

Edition #527 On skill files in media, new monetization paths and vertical shorts are back? Lenny did something neat with his newsletter, he opened up all his posts and transcripts so that paid subscribers could access, and build on top of the newsletter. Perfect for his community (which are product builders). “Today I’m releasing my entire newsletter archive (350+ posts) and all podcast transcripts (300+ episodes) as AI-friendly Markdown files. Plus an MCP server and GitHub repo.” And then,… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 19, 2026
Commentary

Joes book

Edition #526 Why you should check out Joes book, Meta acquires the social network for AI agents, new ad formats & more.  I was lucky enough to get an early preview of Joe Lazers book, on why storytelling is the super skill in the age of AI. And it’s kind of the book I wanted for this moment. Rewind 18 months and Joe and I were talking about Ai and its impact on creativity, and I said, what if… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 12, 2026
Commentary

ClawCon

Edition #525 The rise of personal AI agents, what it might mean for the web, News Corp & Meta strike a deal and Meta attribution changes. I went to Clawcon earlier this week in the village, it’s the event around OpenClaw. OpenClaw is the open source personal AI agent, OpenAI acqui-hired the founder a few weeks back. The event was fun, with people sharing what they were building with OpenClaw. Examples were, people adding ‘ai agent’ employees to their team,… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 6, 2026