1. As Gen Z and Millennials value multi-sensory engagement, how are you integrating touch, serendipity, and discovery into in-store or experiential strategies for Quad and its clients?

As a brand marketer, there’s no doubt that this research is making me reimagine how Quad shows up in physical spaces as a B2B marketing solutions company. After all, some of the marketers we’re trying to reach are Gen Z and Millennials, too. For my peers aiming to connect with consumers, our research is a reminder that even as we all march endlessly toward innovation, the people we’re trying to reach are human, with a real psychological need to feel more connected to the environments they’re in. The good news is there’s no singular answer here, and that leaves room for play—the very best part of our job.

2. How should marketers be rethinking content creation and delivery to ensure printed materials reinforce brand authenticity and drive real-world engagement?

While physical media might be decidedly analog, it still requires the right data, and more importantly, insights, to make sure it hits the mark—we ourselves continuously revalidate over 3 million data points on households. Print shouldn’t be treated as merely an add-on but rather a well-thought-out part of an audience strategy that’s proven to work.

It’s no secret Quad has always been bullish on print, but this research wasn’t an exercise in proving ourselves right—it’s about helping marketers take advantage of what The Harris Poll is seeing as a true cultural shift from digital domination to a more nuanced omnichannel approach.

3. Should brands capitalize on pop-up formats, event-based activations, or flagship experiences that turn brand presence into cultural moments?

I would offer a slightly different take. Brands aren’t just here to sell into or hijack culture; they’re made of it. The best brands are already in the mix, blending storytelling with real-world interaction. It helps to consider not just where your audience is physically, but when they’re most emotionally open. That requires timing, intention and staying attuned to both consumer behavior and cultural behavior. One tells you what people do, the other tells you what they believe.

But let’s remember: Not every brand moment needs to be a movement. We all know that when brands try too hard to manufacture cultural significance, it comes off as performative. Real resonance happens when you meet the moment, not when you force it.

4. What strategies ensure that offline interactions (e.g., store visits, mailed catalogs) seamlessly connect with follow-up actions online, such as remarketing or personalized outreach?

Offline is no longer off-the-grid. Every piece of print, every in-store moment, is now a data-enabled touchpoint that can kickstart or complement a digital journey. Through things like variable-data printing, Flowcode integrations, and real-time tracking, we can treat print as a signal, not a silo.

For example, a personalized mailer can prompt a landing page visit, which feeds back into your audience model and informs follow-up messaging. It's more than connecting channels—it’s about creating a frictionless conversation across them. Done right, a catalog isn't the campaign's last mile; it’s the opening act.

5. What structural or cultural shifts are necessary for marketers to prioritize long-term “Return on Touch” over short-term digital KPIs?

Structurally, marketers need to ensure their entire ecosystem is working together—that action begets action between any combination of touchpoints—online or offline. At the same time, adjusting complex marketing plans isn’t for the faint of heart. While marketers are prone to outsourcing help in disjointed ways, the complexity of our jobs requires nothing-less-than-seamless integration. A myriad of niche agencies won’t cut it anymore—marketers need true consultative partners that can help maximize every dollar from ideation and strategy through execution and production.  

That said, short-term KPIs aren’t just for digital. Physical tactics can have fast returns, too. For example, pre-market testing solutions can help you determine the effectiveness of print or packaging before you spend a penny on production, This is just one way we can project expected outcomes, showing that physical marketing doesn't have to be a black box—with proper testing and measurement frameworks, we can quantify ROI across every touchpoint.

6. In an age where digital convenience is no longer enough, how are IRL experiences a competitive differentiator?

Convenience used to be the differentiator and now it's the expectation. For our industry, we see real-world experiences and physical media as the new edge because they create what digital doesn’t: true presence. Holding something, walking through a space, noticing the details—these are sensory cues that spark memory and build brand intimacy. That’s not nostalgia. That’s neuroscience. The brands who listen will be the ones who come out on top.

1. What are the most common communications mistakes districts make during reputational crises and how can they avoid them?

There are three primary things school districts can do to ensure better crisis communications outcomes. These include:

- Adopting an immediate response mindset, which entails being crisis prepared (i.e., assigning an internal crisis management team and developing a scenario-based crisis communications plan that reflects education’s ever-changing environment). It is also wise to utilize outside PR/crisis counsel for issues, which mitigates risk and de-escalates reputation-damaging circumstances.

- Ensuring legal counsel and PR/crisis counsel work seamlessly to protect your district. Legal crisis counsel does not focus on protecting your image/reputation but will, of course, protect your legal interests while PR firms are not experts on the laws that govern.

- Telling your good news proactively so when a crisis does occur, your reputation is intact. Storytelling and advocacy are indispensable in education today.

2. How do you tailor crisis communications for school districts, where stakeholders range from students and staff to media, unions, and community leaders?

This is an extremely informed question as tailoring messages for various stakeholders is critical – not only when dealing with issues, but also in proactive PR and communications. We develop a message matrix for each scenario with clear delineation for different stakeholders to ensure we are touching on things that are relevant to them. It’s a matter of identifying the pertinent communication points for each stakeholder group and emphasizing or leading with those, following up with facts and supporting messages.

3. What role does local SEO and online reputation management play in district competitiveness and how should districts get started?

Another smart question because historically districts have not utilized SEO and rarely focus on online reputation management (ORM). This is because, heretofore, public education has not experienced such intense competition. Public schools have to think more like businesses and SEO and ORM are examples of how they must plan and work differently. With school vouchers on the rise, our agency views SEO and proactive ORM as imperatives.

4. How can districts balance transparency with message control in today’s polarized and fast-moving media landscape?

We say, “Tell who needs to know what they need to know when they need to know it.” This means concise communications to key stakeholders with an emphasis on truthfulness and, when appropriate, contrition. It does not mean message overload and explaining every detail, ad nauseam.

We urge our clients never to be defensive, and to tell the entire story (i.e., their positive actions, when and where appropriate). They should always be advocating for themselves.

We’ve witnessed the best defense being a strong offense. We believe in this axiom because it is critical to regularly disseminate your good news, and make sure to consistently share it with your stakeholders so when something negative pops up, you’ve already created a solid foundation of positive storytelling.

The polarization issue is real and not going away anytime soon. Therefore, the words you use are of critical importance. Take the lead from a professional communicator, an agency or individual that understands these nuances.

5. What internal communication tools or strategies are most effective in multi-building, diverse districts?

We have found video to be the single most important communications tool for internal communications in multi-school districts. Via a monthly video shot on a high-quality smartphone (not overly produced), the superintendent can engender trust, build rapport, demonstrate transparency, bring levity, and rally the troops. Of course, if we did not live in an entertainment-based society, video would not be so important. But we do and it is.

6. In your view, what will define a “resilient” public school district over the next 5 years and how should they prepare?

Districts that: regularly refine their positioning and messaging; have a strong crisis communications plan in place; conduct consistent and proactive PR/storytelling and digital marketing (e.g., SEO); and build a strong advocacy network that encompasses not only the school community, but the greater community (policymakers, influencers, alumni, media, etc.).

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1. As demand for multi-gig broadband services grows, how are you helping customers align product innovation with infrastructure investment to ensure sustainable market expansion?

Today, broadband leaders need the operational agility to launch new products, packages and bundles in days, not months. As customers expect faster, more personalized experiences, organizations need the infrastructure flexibility to adapt to market trends in real time and bring tailored offerings to customers.

Mediacom comes to mind as a perfect example of a broadband leader that knows how to scale and innovate without leaving existing customers behind. As the demand for multi-gig broadband continues to accelerate, Mediacom is expanding one of rural America’s most robust 10G broadband platforms. While growing their customer base, they are swiftly bringing new innovations to the market, ensuring their existing customers can maximize the value of their services across cable television, internet and telephone.

CSG works with broadband leaders like Mediacom to create operational efficiencies and to secure customer loyalty with a personalized, timely experience.

2. How are you helping organizations integrate real-time customer data to drive personalization, reduce churn, and enhance customer loyalty?

Loyalty is more critical than ever for sustainable growth, as it leads to increased customer lifetime value, higher profit margins and more stable revenue streams.  In a crowded market, customers are more inclined to make decisions based on value and their experience with the brand, rather than service capabilities alone.

With that in mind, organizations need to prioritize clarity and personalization in every customer interaction.

First, they need to understand the customer. CSG helps organizations break down data silos to get a complete view of the customer across all lines of business. Second, they need to take action. With operational agility, organizations can use that data to deliver clear, contextual communications and quickly build new, personalized offerings that they know will resonate and drive loyalty.

3. What role do automation and proactive service delivery (e.g., proactive billing insights or order accuracy) play in your customer experience and operational efficiency roadmap?

Automation is crucial to deliver a proactive, timely customer experience at scale. But an automation strategy needs to be carefully scoped and designed with the customer in mind.

AI is not the answer to every problem. When approaching new AI use cases, organizations should focus on ones that positively impact their customers the most  – identifying and solving breaks in the customer experience, strengthening data security and ensuring order accuracy.

CSG Bill Explainer, for instance, is an AI-powered solution designed to solve bill confusion, a multi-million-dollar problem for subscription businesses and a driver for as much as 50% of contact center volume. Organizations use CSG Bill Explainer to proactively reach out to customers in their preferred channels to explain changes to their bill – before they need to ask. This customer-focused automation allows organizations to reduce billing-related inbound contact, increase on-time payments, reduce contact center volume and build trust with customers.

4. How do shared values and a people-first culture influence your choice of technology or service partners, and how do you evaluate the long-term impact of these relationships?

To me, being a people-first company means that we care deeply about our customers and the outcomes we deliver. We care about trust and authenticity, and we don’t overpromise.

We choose strategic partners that share those same values and help us solve real problems, not buzzy trends. Our partner ecosystem is designed to eliminate complexity, accelerate innovation and scale solutions for sustainable growth.

Those shared values are also what makes our customer relationships so enduring. Once again, our relationship with Mediacom is a prime example. With three decades of successful collaboration, our business relationship has been built on mutual trust, a shared commitment to customer-centric innovation and a focus on delivering intuitive experiences. United in our goal of creating clear, connected experiences, we’ve achieved serious value and positioned Mediacom to meet and exceed expectations today and in the future.

5. What criteria do you prioritize when extending long-term partnerships to ensure alignment with future business goals, customer needs, and technological evolution? 

Great question – because it really is about the future. When evaluating long-term partnerships, we focus not only in creating value today, but long term value. It’s never a one-and-done; it’s about helping our customers prepare for anything the future may hold.

Success to us is when our customers can move with total agility, responding to their customer needs in real time while planning for future customer expectations.

Take our expanded partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which we’ve just announced. The fact is, organizations that don’t move to the cloud and embrace AI today will fall behind. In particular, telecom and financial services companies are under enormous pressure to modernize and innovate faster. We partnered with AWS to help our customers fast-track cloud transformation and gain access to advanced GenAI and agentic AI solutions, so they can innovate with confidence in the AI-driven future.

6. What emerging technologies are you exploring to enhance broadband delivery, reduce service friction, and create new revenue opportunities in a saturated market?

I’d be remiss not to bring up AI again. Broadband leaders are facing an ultra-competitive market, where customers have sky-high expectations for value. By applying AI to create faster, easier and more personal experiences, broadband providers can stand out and win.

As broadband and other organization leaders plan for the future, they will need to view AI not only as a way to cut costs, but as a tool for sustainable value-creation. We’re helping our customers identify the right AI applications and use cases for their businesses – ones with clearly defined scopes that actually solve a problem and generate value.

For example, when it comes to agentic AI, the opportunity is enormous – but so are the risks. A true agentic AI solution is completely autonomous, with the agency to remember, decide and execute. That means that it must be applied very thoughtfully, ideally layered over a platform that already understands the customer and the business. In fact, despite the amount of market chatter, right now there are only a handful of use cases where agentic AI works reliably. We’re helping organizations find the areas where they have the data, the system integration and the governance for agentic AI to be effective and trustworthy.

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1. In what ways do you see contextual targeting evolving your digital advertising strategy, particularly for complex or niche B2B industries?

We believe contextual advertising is a big opportunity for ourselves and also the brands and agencies that we serve with our Digital Audiences. Often, contextual advertising is thought of as a strong ‘plan B’ to hedge against changes in privacy regulations or the deprecation of 3rd party cookies, or as a programmatic ‘safe haven’ to protect against brand safety issues. We think this massively under sells the contextual opportunity. Contextual advertising, especially now given AI’s sophisticated ability to understand nuanced content across all mediums (digital print, CTV, digital audio), is an opportunity to achieve more relevant ad placement and channel integrations.  More relevant placements are a foundation for better audience experiences which lead to higher engagement rates and elevated behavioral outcomes. Today’s contextual advertising takes the old adage of ‘meet your audience where they are’ to a whole new level.

2. What steps is your team taking to ensure that your ad campaigns are not only reaching the right audience, but also aligning with moments of high purchase intent?

We use our own Company SurgeⓇ Intent data to ensure that we are reaching our target audience at the right moments across the buyer journey. Our Intent data, derived from our one-of-a-kind B2B Data Cooperative, is an incredible asset because it gives us predictive insight into a huge set of “right moments”: when a prospect account is in early research phases, comparing specific solutions, and ready to make a purchase decision. We also have insights into customer behavior occurring on and (more importantly) off our digital properties. These differentiated insights allow us to customize our messaging and tactics to meet the account where they are. We also apply our Intent data to fuel strategies to mitigate our own customer churn and take advantage of opportunities with companies using alternative, “non-Bombora” data solutions. For example, right now we are running a “competitive take-out” campaign fueled by insights from our Data Cooperative.

3. What challenges have you encountered in transforming raw intent signals into actionable, revenue-driving campaigns across digital platforms?
 
When I look across the B2B ecosystem I see a multitude of high potential signals that could empower marketers to create highly relevant experiences that would benefit their target audience. The challenge is that these signal “owners” do not have the ability to turn them into addressable account-based audiences. Audiences that can be reached in an efficient and repeatable way through digital marketing channels.
 

 1.What marketing functions or workflows have benefited the most from AI so far and which areas remain largely untapped?

While the hype around AI often runs ahead of reality, digital advertising has proven to be one domain where the lift has been real and measurable. At Decision Counsel, we can certainly attest to that. Ad production—especially for programmatic platforms—has seen clear gains thanks to the rules-based structure of digital channels. Marketers can now spin up thousands of ad variations from just a few core creatives, rapidly testing at scale to find what works best. More broadly, the earliest wins with generative AI are concentrated in “maker” workflows. According to Jasper’s State of AI in Marketing 2025 survey, nearly 60% of marketers already use AI for everyday content tasks, including copywriting, ideation, SEO tweaking, campaign testing, and desk research.

Meanwhile, most marketing teams still have a long way to go: only 29% rate their AI maturity as “advanced.” More transformative applications—like enforcing brand governance, automating full campaign workflows, or delivering true one-to-one personalization—remain underdeveloped. And short-form video still has yet to see generative AI break into mainstream production. The next wave of adoption will go well beyond content generation, and will be about finding ways of embedding AI deeper into higher-level decision-making, audience needs, and the full customer journey.

2.From your vantage point, what are companies most commonly getting wrong in their approach to AI-powered marketing?

The most common misstep companies make is expecting magic. Especially in creative teams, there’s often a misplaced hope that AI tools will act like a “one-click” fix—tap a button and watch campaigns write themselves. But creativity doesn’t work that way, and neither does AI. The real work lies in understanding the creative process deeply enough to thoughtfully integrate new tools—augmenting ideation, accelerating iterations, and ultimately optimizing the entire workflow.

Jasper’s survey also found that 67% of marketers now cite “lack of education and training” as the number one barrier to adoption—up from 64% last year. Other leading blockers include “lack of awareness or understanding” (56%) and “lack of strategy” (43%), with “lack of resources” also rising. Concerns about “unknown risks” are decreasing—down to just 25%—showing that fear is fading. The real obstacle isn’t the fear of AI, but a lack of readiness to utilize it effectively. Closing these gaps in literacy, strategy, and governance is the clearest way forward.

3.Was there anything you expected to happen with AI in marketing that hasn’t materialized or that’s taken a different form than anticipated?

Generative AI is seemingly everywhere, but still far from fully integrated. While individual use cases like faster copywriting or sharper research have delivered tangible wins, most marketing teams still haven’t figured out how to connect these wins across the full value chain. Critically, few have linked AI efforts to ROI in a way that feels systematic or scalable. In other words, the novelty has worn off. What’s missing now is the operating model—the repeatable processes, playbooks, and cultural alignment—that elevates isolated success into enterprise-wide transformation. Sixty-three percent of marketing teams already use generative AI, 78% of which report improved outcomes, according to Jasper. However, only 43% of adopters have formal enterprise-level AI programs in place. Most teams only began serious experimentation in 2024, and full-on pilot failures are rare—just 3%. The tools are working. What’s lagging is the strategic framework to turn experimentation into a durable advantage.

4.What risks do brands face when personalization becomes overly automated or intrusive? How can they avoid that trap?

There’s a fine line between personalization and intrusion—and brands are stumbling across it. When AI-driven personalization becomes overly automated or impersonal, it doesn’t deepen loyalty; it triggers backlash. Simply labeling a product as “AI-powered” can dampen consumer enthusiasm, with broader concerns about AI, such as data privacy and job displacement, also coming to mind. Instead of feeling seen, customers might start feeling watched, and that’s a trust killer. Duolingo and Audible each learned about these sorts of pitfalls the hard way earlier this year. After all, personalization should be a tool for empathy, not efficiency at all costs.

Avoiding the over-personalization trap means finding a way of blending hard systems with a soft touch. That starts with privacy-by-design: only collect what you need, get clear consent, and explain the value exchange in easy-to-understand language, not legalese. Then integrate real-time sentiment tracking, straightforward opt-outs, and emergency “kill switches” that halt personalization flows when a user shows signs of discomfort. Brands that get personalization right anchor it in the C-suite. As McKinsey advises, a “leadership triad” of CEO, CMO, and CFO should jointly own the AI agenda—so goals, ethics, and accountability stay intertwined from day one.

5. What are the biggest challenges marketers face when implementing AI from data, tech stack integration, to internal alignment?

The biggest AI implementation hurdles often are less about adopting new tools and more about overcoming the drag of old ones. Most marketing tech stacks were designed for batch email campaigns and clickstream analytics, not for AI-driven workflows powered by real-time vector embeddings or agents. Data silos and technical debt are real and widespread: 86% of enterprises say they must overhaul their systems to deploy AI agents effectively. And even where the desire is there, many teams are still buried under the weight of maintaining legacy infrastructure. Even with the right tools, transformation stalls if people and systems aren’t ready. Many marketing teams aren’t yet AI-literate and still wary. AI’s biggest gains, however, come from deep workflow integration. The art is in pushing forward without getting stuck in the weeds of outdated systems. The solution lies in incremental embedding, thoughtful upskilling, and change management that balances the potential of AI with the inertia of the past.

6. Is there anything you don’t think AI will solve or shouldn't try to in the marketing space?

AI should never solve for the heart and soul of a brand. AI can and will increasingly help and aid in that process, certainly, but ultimately that’s the marketer’s job, and it requires an elevated sense of empathy, nuance, perspective, wisdom and judgment that, as far as I can see, only humans and the human experience can provide. Without true heart and soul—the kind you get from a human marketer—branding will always fall flat, and no amount of AI innovation can reproduce the trials, tribulations, fear, loathing, and joy of a person pouring themselves into a brand.

AI is a tool, not a crutch. And it can very easily be misused or overused. Discernment is key, and as AI advances, so will the importance of the ability to discern when AI is appropriate and when it is not.

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1. In what ways do you evaluate the business impact of immersive experiences and experiential design when considering partnerships or product innovation?

Honestly, it's about asking the simplest question first: Are we making something people actually want to use and remember? With Twister AIR, success wasn't just about slick AR or clever AI integration—the experience had to resonate emotionally, bring people together, and feel authentic to the almost 60-year history of the game.

We track engagement metrics, but also measure how experiences change brand perception and drive deeper connections. For Twister, winning the Toy Industry's Game of the Year and two Webby Awards was proof we'd nailed the "why" behind the tech.

Impact also means real-world business outcomes. Did we unlock new demographics for the brand? Boost affinity? Drive meaningful conversations in market? With Twister AIR, we saw families across generations re-engaging with the brand, translating directly into sustained sales growth of 23% year-over-year and significant market share gains in the interactive gaming category. Immersive isn't a marketing gimmick; it's a strategic approach to design that hits emotional and business KPIs simultaneously.

2. How does your leadership team prioritize the balance between nostalgia and innovation when reimagining established brand assets?

When we tackled Twister, we knew there was this iconic nostalgia around the property. Who hasn't gotten embarrassingly tangled up on a Twister mat? But nostalgia isn't an excuse to rehash the same experience with a fresh coat of paint. Our job was to keep the spirit – the laughter, movement, and connection endemic to the original – while seamlessly blending it with completely unexpected moments.

Our approach, fundamentally, is about deep listening: to our clients, their audiences, and to our gut instincts about human behavior. This means conducting ethnographic research, hosting co-creation sessions with multi-generational families, and spending time in living rooms watching how people naturally interact with brands. Technology is only valuable if it enhances the emotional DNA of a brand. With Twister AIR, the AR and AI elements weren't tech for tech's sake; they amplified the original joy in a way that felt respectful of its heritage. Families didn't just recognize the classic game, they rediscovered it in a way that felt contemporary yet comfortingly familiar.

3. What criteria do you use when selecting external collaborators to bring emerging technologies into your core offerings or brand experiences?

The criteria for selecting collaborators directly connects to our core mission over the past 17 years: to be the place where people come to build what's next. This foundation has earned us partnerships with some of the world's most ambitious companies as they take their first steps into AI, AR, and emerging tech.

We look for three key qualities in partners. First, they must believe, as we do, that technology should amplify human capacity, not replace it. Second, they need to be willing to experiment and iterate rather than seeking guaranteed outcomes. Third, they must prioritize authentic user experiences over flashy tech demonstrations.

Our track record speaks to this approach—from launching over 3,000 products and experiences with Google over the past decade, including their first generative AI advertising campaign, to engineering Qualcomm's first interactive showcase of on-device AI and helping it travel the globe. With Hasbro, that alignment was immediate. They weren't chasing gimmicks or novelty but were genuinely interested in using emerging tech to deepen real-world play. Hasbro pushed us to go big while never losing sight of what matters most: designing experiences that bring people closer together.

4. How does external recognition, such as industry awards, influence your brand's strategic marketing investments or R&D initiatives?

Awards like the Webby are fantastic markers—they validate the creativity, deep technical expertise, and ambition that goes into our work. But we don't chase awards; we chase impact. Twister AIR's recognition didn't suddenly steer our strategy, but it did help reinforce our confidence that immersive, AI-driven experiences aren’t just resonating but redefining engagement standards.

The market data supports this direction. Today's audiences want to step inside a story, co-create it and share it, with 46% of consumers desiring immersive experiences from brands they're loyal to, and 59% of Gen Z and 55% of millennials expressing heightened interest in such engagements. This consumer hunger has driven the immersive technology market from just $43 billion at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to an estimated $333 billion in 2025.

From a practical standpoint, external recognition becomes a powerful tool for securing client buy-in when we're proposing ambitious, unproven concepts. It tells our partners, "Trust us, we've done this before, and it's worked spectacularly." Awards also give our teams permission to lean further into uncharted territory, knowing that bold creative risks have been validated by industry peers.

5. What cultural shifts are needed to ensure your teams are equipped to embrace the next wave of creative technologies in product development or customer experience design?

For companies like ours who are hired to break the rules, it's necessary to disrupt the status quo—but these breakthroughs rarely happen in status updates or perfectly defined scopes. They emerge in collaborations that blur disciplines and when people feel safe enough to take creative risks.

The culture we're building—and rebuilding every day—is rooted in relentless curiosity. It's right there in our name. We believe in bringing ideas out of left field and staying hands-on in the lab, always experimenting, always asking better questions. Practically, this means we hold weekly "Wild Idea Fridays" where anyone can pitch concepts that might sound impossible, and we dedicate 20% of project time to unplanned experimentation.

We've created a space where anyone can throw out a "this might sound wild, but what if…?"—because those are the moments that spark real breakthroughs. I'm keen to find talent that breaks down binary thinking between pragmatism and imagination—that's where the magic happens. When you keep teams flexible, excited, and openly collaborative, adapting to whatever tech curveball comes next becomes second nature.

6. How do you envision the role of immersive technology evolving within your industry, and how is your organization preparing for that shift?

We're in a truly exciting moment where consumers' psychological desires for connection are converging with advancements in AI and AR. Now more than ever before, companies can deliver high quality, scalable immersive interactions that bridge physical and digital worlds. We're seeing retail, entertainment, and education sectors embrace immersive technology not as a novelty, but as a fundamental shift in how brands create meaningful relationships with their audiences.

The next evolution will be defined by seamless integration—where immersive experiences feel so natural that people forget they're interacting with advanced technology. We're preparing for this by investing heavily in cross-platform development capabilities and building proprietary tools that allow us to rapidly prototype experiences across AR, VR, and mixed reality environments.

Left Field Labs is honored to support a number of technology clients who are actively competing to shape the future of AI. From our work across firms like Salesforce, Meta, and Google, we've learned that AI needs experiential design to become truly accessible. People don't trust what they can't feel. The most powerful AI storytelling isn't happening in keynote slides or purely digital interfaces—it's happening in the wild, when someone experiences a real-life aha moment so seamless, so smart, it fundamentally shifts their understanding of what AI can actually do for them.

Our organization is preparing by fostering deep partnerships with emerging technology platforms, continuously upskilling our teams in new creative tools, and most importantly, maintaining our focus on human-centered design principles that will remain constant even as the technology landscape evolves rapidly around us.

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1. What role does media positioning play in your agency's broader client strategy to be recognized as a trusted authority in your industry, particularly in times of crisis? 

1: How are retailers managing the trade-off between ad visibility and user experience, especially with growing ad coverage?

(Mark Burton, Chief Product Officer):
It all comes down to relevance. Ads should only be visible when they're useful to the customer—when they’re searching, browsing, or making a decision at the digital shelf edge. If the placement aligns with what they’re looking for, then it’s a good ad and a good experience. But retailers run into trouble when they prioritize coverage over relevance. That’s when ads get ignored, engagement drops, and valuable slots are wasted that could’ve gone to organic results.

(Ali Sasso, Senior Marketing Analytics Consultant):
We’re also seeing retailers break down the walls between organic and sponsored content. Instead of treating them as two separate worlds, the focus is shifting to a unified experience. When sponsored placements are vetted properly, they enhance—not interrupt—the user journey. In that case, “ad coverage” becomes a non-issue.

2 : How are retail media networks adjusting their platforms or tools to make sponsored products more accessible to smaller advertisers?

(Mark):
Retailers are focusing on automation and ease. If you're an advertiser running campaigns across 30 different platforms, what makes you choose one RMN over another isn't just performance—it’s effort. Lower the effort, raise the reward. That’s why self-service tools, better campaign management, and seamless reporting are so critical. RMNs are also leaning into partnerships with aggregators like Skai and Pacvue to remove friction and reduce ongoing effort.

(Ali):
Exactly. The key shift is toward intuitive, scalable, and automated self-serve platforms. Smaller advertisers often don’t have deep resources or teams. The more they can do with minimal manual support, the more likely they are to scale.

3 : What kind of data points or performance indicators are most useful for advertisers looking to optimize placements?

(Ali):
Grid position click-through rates (CTRs) are incredibly valuable. Knowing where a product shows up—organically vs. sponsored—and how that position impacts CTR helps advertisers develop smarter bidding strategies. It’s not just about being visible; it’s about understanding the value of where you’re visible.

(Mark):
Right, and beyond CTR, we’re seeing advertisers optimize around category-level coverage and competitive benchmarks. Understanding how your placements stack up against peers—and how different bid levels shift performance—provides a more holistic view than just chasing a single metric. It’s about actionable visibility, not vanity numbers.

4 : Are there differences in strategy or ROI when comparing large legacy advertisers with newer, smaller brands?

(Mark):
Absolutely. Larger advertisers typically have the resources to go beyond the reporting RMNs provide. They’ll ingest data from multiple networks, build custom ROI models, and even help steer roadmap priorities through close relationships with retailers. That gives them an edge—not just in performance, but in influence.

(Ali):
Smaller brands, on the other hand, have to be scrappier. Without the same budgets, they’re often priced out of top-tier inventory. But that also means they can afford to be more focused—targeting niche RMNs or specific verticals where they can compete effectively. Success for them means doing more with less.

5 : With retail media networks becoming more sophisticated, what trends should advertisers and platforms be preparing for in the next 12–18 months?

(Mark):
More automation, hands down. From bidding to flighting to campaign setup, we’re moving toward less manual work and more intelligent systems. There’s also a growing trend toward interoperability—more open access across platforms and less fragmentation in how advertisers buy across networks.

(Ali):
That’s where demand aggregation comes in. There are so many RMNs now, and advertisers can’t manage each one manually. Tools that aggregate demand across networks will be key to simplifying the ecosystem and making scale accessible—even for smaller players.

6 : How can brands or media buyers use the report to apply the insights into their media planning?

(Ali):
The benchmark report helps brands understand how the ad grid actually behaves—what positions are most competitive, where CTRs spike, and how to calibrate bids accordingly. It also gives a sense of RMN scale, so advertisers can allocate budgets strategically instead of guessing.

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