Kim Larson

Fail to prepare? Prepare to fail. Planning a media strategy for 2025 that focuses only on Addressable Audiences is half the battle. In the coming months more and more supply will be non-addressable, and, similarly, the majority of identity solutions available today won’t solve for that. In the 2nd of our Blog series Kurt Anderson spotlights how advertisers are investing in identityless audiences and testing. #nextgen #identityless #cookieless #yahoo

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Some of your favorite brands started when you were young. Some experts predict Gen Alpha to be over 2B consumers. Here is how to align them to your brand for a lifetime. https://lnkd.in/dDd4sMv8 #genalpha #brandloyalty #kidoz

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I thought this was a great example of how advertising goals can align with culture and impact. Transformative approaches to leadership need to be in alignment with other strategies, and with leadership and data being so tightly intertwined, it makes sense that forward-thinking businesses are thinking about advertising in the context of their long-term organizational goals. #Culture #Advertising #Leadership

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🎙 New Podcast - CreatorIQ 🎙 Had the honor of sitting down with Conor from CreatorIQ on the #EarnedPod to talk all things Creators, Threads, and Meta OG days. #podcastguest #podcast #meta #creators #threads #marketing #creatoreconomy

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The clean room future is no longer on the horizon – it’s here. And for leading companies in every industry, clean rooms are transforming marketing strategies. 80% of advertisers spending over $1B on media are already using them. But here's the thing – most brands are only scratching the surface. While many are using clean rooms for audience insights, only a third are leveraging advanced measurement like attribution and ROAS. And broader collaboration across partners and complementary brands offers even greater potential. Modern clean rooms are now fully interoperable, breaking down silos between brands, retailers, and media partners. In talking with companies across industries, I constantly hear their desire to get started, but also recognize that this represents unexplored territory for many. To help companies navigate the complexity, LiveRamp has put together a playbook of some of the most common tactics, and I've attached a link here. Happy reading!

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Shared some additional detail on research we put out demonstrating the effectiveness of Seedtag Contextual Audiences and how our AI Liz deploys DCO and DPO to drive stronger results than standard targeting and creative. Seedtag #contextual #privacy #digitalmedia #advertising #creative

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There are implications both on the business front, but also on the personal front for many individuals as these big acquisitions take place. This article cites the expected $750MM in savings expected through this merger. As with any announcement of this magnitude it leaves many wondering what it means for them. The article also states "The surprising bid for further consolidation in the digital advertising industry is a sign that large companies view the incoming Trump administration as a green light for significant acquisitions—a sentiment Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has expressed outright." The CPG industry alone went from less than 30 acquisition transactions in 2006 to over 1,000 in the last couple of years. This means a lot of AMAZING talent is being displaced. I have never seen such a group of talented people and amazing humans that are currently looking for roles. What this onslaught of news means to the individual- network like crazy. Not on a mission, but as an important and embedded part of your day-to-day routine. Be externally focused always. Be helpful to those that are looking - these days it can be anyone at any given time. Make time, keep learning and be flexible. Given how many I have talked to that have been displaced or worried about being displaced ... I thought building a community to talk about the fast-moving and ever-changing job market might be helpful. A community to stay informed, expand your network, exchange tips and tricks, help each other, be proactive and maybe even laugh a little along the way. I started the Job Market Jungle group feel free to join and share with anyone you think might be interested! Just click on the link below. https://lnkd.in/gcfXhkwy https://lnkd.in/gAGYj5sT

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Really interesting read on the evolution of music charts. It's become a lot more complex to get an accurate view of the most popular songs around the world. I see that as a mixed bag - harder for artists and labels to track their total listening activity, better for consumers because there is less groupthink among broadcasters for songs to feature. Eric "Stens" Stensvaag, director of the curation at Feed.fm, points out the limitations of traditional charts. "As music streaming and the services that power it have proliferated, one of the major drawbacks of these charts is that there is a substantial amount of missing listening data. Thus artists and labels are getting an incomplete view of total listening activity if they only rely on charts from Billboard/Spotify. For example, Feed.fm powers nearly a billion music streams per year in consumer apps, largely in the fitness, wellness, and health categories. But those streams are not currently included in Billboard or Spotify charts.”

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AI is only as good as what goes into it. Diverse experiences and viewpoints are vital to making it useful.

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How can advertisers stay ahead of the curve while keeping their ad campaigns brand safe? Integral Ad Science SVP of Product Craig Ziegler sat down with Beet.TV to discuss why AI is key in the fight for brand safety, especially on emerging platforms. Want to learn more? Watch below! #BrandSafety #AI

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From AI-driven campaigns to the rise of the creator economy, 2025 is shaping up to be a pivotal year in marketing. IAB's own David Cohen highlights a few big shifts: 🔷Commerce Media Booms – Competition will drive innovation as more players enter the space. 🔷Creator Economy Rises – A top 5 job sector emerges as niche creators thrive. 🔷Privacy Evolves – Better prompts could see half of consumers opting into personalization. 🔷AI Changes the Game – The first fully AI-driven marketing campaign will deliver surprising results. Peter Drucker said it best: “The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.” Exciting times ahead! #IAB #MarketingTrends #CreatorEconomy #CommerceMedia

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Check out Tal's interview on Page Six at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to learn how we're leveraging technology to create personalized, high-impact ad solutions that adapt to evolving consumer behaviors. #canneslions #advertising #AI

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Theory: OpenAI is building an annotated search engine with inline quotes from licensed publications in answers. They’ve now made deals with Le Monde, Prisa, Axel Springer, Dotdash Meredith, Financial Times, Associated Press, Reddit, Stack Overflow, and, as of today, News Corp. Why? It’s not necessary for training. Clearly they can build solid models without having official access to these companies’ content. One reason for the deals is probably a hedge against a copyright verdict that goes against them. I think there’s a good case for AI training being fair use, but having partnerships with key publishers reduces the number of publishers that might argue against that, and provides a backup plan in case of an unfavorable verdict. But I think there’s more to it than that. Imagine going to ChatGPT, doing research, having it search for and summarize content, and then having it include direct quotes from that content to support its statements. This could address a major issue with generative search right now, which is that you don’t always trust the answers, so have to double check them. But if the exact text used to generate an answer is included for you to review, you can reduce the need for that step. Plus, with better access to content, perhaps there will be less hallucination in the first place. I wouldn’t say for sure this is what’s cooking, but it feels like it could be. I also wonder if OpenAI will build something with so much added value that they charge extra for it beyond the cost of ChatGPT.

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Addressable TV Hits Prime Time: From Niche to Must-Buy -51% of advertisers see addressable TV as a “must-buy,” up from 35% last year. -Challenges like signal loss, ad fraud, and rise of ad-supported streaming fuel adoption. -Addressable is now essential for multi-screen advertising, says Larry Allen of Comcast -High costs and CPM misconceptions still deter some traditional TV advertisers. Source: AdExchanger by Victoria McNally Research by Advertiser Perceptions & Go Addressable ✉️Sign up for The Refresh newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g-gjn7GU Source: https://lnkd.in/g-jNfh4C

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I was honored to present at the #GlobalTok conference last week, where I introduced Lemon8 and shared our vision for the future of communities with some of the largest global advertisers. 🍺 I truly enjoyed the conference theme: "Moonshots Served Daily." The deep dives into creativity, community, and platforms were inspiring, demonstrating how greatness can be achieved through everyday execution.🌛 I was particularly impressed by the showcases highlighting how the world’s top brands tap into culture and subcultures to win the hearts of their audiences. Sports and music, in particular, serve as excellent mediums for achieving this. Brands are increasingly leveraging Lemon8 for community building. Each day, I’m amazed by the high levels of engagement and the collective intelligence on the platform. It’s real people, high relevance, and every opinion gets a response. Brands can find countless organic, honest reviews on the app that showcase the love our community has for their products. User-generated conversations are valuable assets; they don’t appear overnight but accumulate gradually. For platforms, communities and products, this is the new "moonshots served daily."

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“When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right” There’s a fantastic Ted Talk by Tricia Wang about the ‘Quantification Bias’: the unconscious bias in which we value the things we can measure far more than the things we can’t. As marketers, we obsess over the stuff we can measure (let’s call it ‘data’), and we use this data to make big decisions. The challenge with using data in isolation is two-fold: 1. It all comes from the same place — the past. It’s skewed to what used to happen. 2. It doesn’t tell us the whole story. Emergent human dynamics don’t show up in data until it’s too late. By relying on data alone, we increase our blindspots while maintaining the illusion that we know everything. We are biased towards the illusion of certainty that data brings and neglect the crucial observations found in seemingly immeasurable anecdotes (or ‘anecdata’). We spend thousands creating and maintaining marketing stacks to track everything we can. We create dashboards and reports, and we place bets on the conclusions we draw from them. Yet, in comparison, we spend so little time and money actually speaking to the people whose attention we’re trying to grab. Or building any kind of system to capture this ‘anecdata’. Here’s the thing: The quantification bias is rife, and it leads to worse decisions. Think Nokia. Think Blockbuster. Imagine if, instead of saying, “The data says this, therefore X…”, we asked, “Let’s imagine a world where Y was true, what would we need to find out to see if that’s possible?” You don’t need lots of data; you just need the right data. And so much of the right data is the immeasurable ‘anecdata’.

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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness—starving, hysterical, naked… For some reason, ever since I heard about Omnicom's acquisition of IPG, that line from Howl keeps echoing in my head. After 20 years at Ogilvy & Mather New York, I’ve witnessed my share of great minds worn down by this industry, but that’s not what’s haunting me. Howl was a celebration of everything that defied societal norms. When I started in advertising, this field was a celebration of creative ideas that broke norms to solve business problems. All to say, I share the sentiment of my ex-colleague (Chris Noah, M.A.Ed.) that it’s a sad day when the industry hacks away at iconic brands like JWT and Y&R. But is it really a surprise? The warning signs have been there since the mid-1990s and early 2000s. Here are my top three: The Decline of Retainer/AOR Status - Back when agencies were compensated with a percentage of media spend, they could afford to staff teams with talented, dedicated professionals who spent their time deeply understanding and solving a client’s business challenges. Then retainers began shrinking and procurement started cutting budgets. Today, with most work being project-based, the focus has shifted from strategic thinking to quick, cost-effective execution. Resistance to Innovation and Digital - Large agencies and holding companies were slow to embrace digital and innovative solutions outside traditional media like TV, print, and out-of-home. Instead of leading the charge, they allowed clients to turn to smaller agencies or build in-house capabilities for these needs. It was a missed opportunity to own the future of the industry. The Loss of C-Suite Relationships - By the 2000s, agencies had largely lost access to the C-suite. Was it due to a lack of strategic senior level talent? The missed opportunities in digital? A growing perception that agencies prioritized their own business over their clients’ success? Now, here we are. Holding companies are doing exactly what they’d advise their clients never to do—cutting away at the value of their own brands instead of investing in them. I’ve lived through the slow decline of Kodak, and this feels eerily familiar. My understanding is that David Ogilvy was strongly opposed to selling to WPP. Perhaps this is why - 'The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.'

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The recent Omnicom Interpublic Group (IPG) news has undoubtedly sparked conversations across the advertising world. While industry analysts debate shareholder value, consolidation strategies, and market positioning, my thoughts turn to the people at the heart of these organizations. Change on this scale can be daunting. For many, it brings questions about job security, career direction, and workplace culture. It’s natural to feel a mix of uncertainty, stress, and opportunity during times like these. As an Ex-IPG employee, and to support those navigating this transition, I’m offering free consultations and a significant reduction in coaching fees for IPG employees seeking guidance. Whether you’re looking to manage stress, explore new career paths, or simply find clarity amidst the change, I’m here to help. Deals like this one ripple far beyond boardrooms and balance sheets, impacting individuals, families, and teams. My goal is to empower people to turn challenges into growth opportunities, and I’m committed to being a resource for anyone who needs it. https://lnkd.in/gR4FMt-G #Leadership #CareerCoaching #ChangeManagement #Omnicom #IPG #SupportForEmployees

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I do inherently have bias here, but this is our best industry report yet. Give it a download and let me know what you think!

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