2024 in review: The Media Leader’s most popular podcasts
2024 in Review
Over the past year, The Media Leader had the pleasure of interviewing some the most consequential names in media on our podcast.
Guests included Spotify UK sales chief Ed Couchman, Pinterest EMEA chief Milka Privodanova, Havas Media UK CEO Paddy Affleck, TikTok head of client measurement Steve Lockwood and Nabs CEO Sue Todd.
The Media Leader also ran a regular weekly podcast featuring its reporters, editors and columnists providing analysis on the news of the week, as well as interviews and sessions from our live events.
Whether you listened to one episode or is a regular, thank you for tuning in. Remember to subscribe to be notified of our next episodes in the new year.
Here are the top five podcasts you listened to the most in 2024.
5. Mail Metro Media’s Dom Williams goes all in on audio and video
Publishers spent much of 2024 innovating to reach new audiences. As site traffic and revenues have been impacted by changes made by search and social media companies, as well as consumers continuing to move away from print, many outlets have begun more aggressively testing and expanding into video and audio offerings.
One such publisher is the Daily Mail, which invested heavily into its AV production capacity and sales team in 2023 and 2024.
Mail Metro Media chief revenue officer Dominic Williams sat down with Jack Benjamin in March to discuss the publisher’s multimedia strategy in what was a key year for politics and sport.
4. Brainlabs’ Sue Unerman discusses why she left EssenceMediacom
Sue Unerman, global chief strategy officer at Brainlabs, joined the podcast in August to discuss why she left WPP’s EssenceMediacom after 34 years and how she is “reinventing” herself at a very different agency.
Unerman is well-known across the industry and beyond as a progressive thinker and media strategist, thanks to the books she has authored about workplace culture and inclusion.
She spoke to outgoing editor-in-chief Omar Oakes about AI, media strategy and her latest book.
3. MediaSense’s Ryan Kangisser on rethinking the media agency model
Just one in 10 major multinational brands believe the current agency model fits their future needs, with one in four big brand marketers believing the current agency model is “unfit for future purpose”.
Those were the tough findings from an October 2023 report from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and consultancy MediaSense, which called for “a new breed of agile, specialist, tech-focused agencies” to add value to “a more centralised media model”.
Ryan Kangisser, MediaSense’s chief strategy officer and co-author of the report, joined Oakes in January to unpack the report’s findings and how agencies reacted to its release.
Since the interview, WFA and MediaSense released another report, this time revealing that an overwhelming majority of advertisers (75%) are looking to make changes to their agency compensation model in the next three years as they look to better align remuneration with business performance.
2. Epsilon’s Elliott Clayton reflects on Publicis’ acquisition
In 2019, Publicis Groupe acquired Epsilon, a data-driven marketing business, for $4.4bn.
Five years after the purchase, Elliott Clayton, Epsilon’s managing director, international sales, spoke to Oakes about how the business has fared as part of Publicis and what the future of Epsilon looks like.
Clayton also shared strong views on what marketers should do after Google decided not to get rid of third-party advertising cookies on its platforms.
1. Nick Manning’s epic conversation on the future of media
The Media Leader columnist Nick Manning joined Oakes for a wide-ranging conversation about the May US Association of National Advertisers report into principal-based media and why it’s important.
Over the course of an hour and a half, the pair delved into why they worry advertising is no longer well-integrated with content, the industry’s talent drain, why it may be “inevitable” that major ad agency groups are broken up and what Manning is planning through his Who Cares? movement with Brian Jacobs.
After news of a massive merger between Interpublic and Omnicom, the conversation is sure to be even more relevant today than when it was recorded in May.