Academy Sports and Outdoors Chief Customer Officer Chad Fox breaks down how the 88-year-old retailer built a high-performing retail media network in just three months, unlocking 52 million first-party customer profiles and proving that nearly three-quarters of ad-driven conversions still close at the brick-and-mortar checkout counter.

Whalar co-CEO Jo Cronk breaks down Accenture Song’s landmark acquisition, explaining why creator marketing can never be bought like standard programmatic ad inventory and how forward-thinking brands must restructure their media-mix modeling to prove authentic ROI.

StackAdapt VP Giuseppe La Rocca, breaks down how agile independent agencies are outpacing legacy giants, why the DSP market is shifting from feature overload to natural-language AI workflows, and how full-funnel customer acquisition is quietly rewriting the programmatic playbook.

Monks’ Tom Burchill breaks down how Quicken slashed cost per site visit by 80% using LinkedIn data on Amazon DSP—proving streaming TV is now a legit direct-response channel.

Discover how Epson teamed up with Amazon Ads and Emerge to shatter category preconceptions and launch its premium LightStudio projector, reaching 25 million viewers and driving over 80% new-to-brand sales through full-funnel streaming TV, Amazon Marketing Cloud, and AI bidding.

Former YouTube executive Tara Walpert Levy joins Mike Shields at the New York Stock Exchange to break down why creators are an enterprise capability rather than an ad channel, how giants like Unilever are shifting major ad budgets, and what it really takes to prove creator ROI against bottom-line business profit.

Nestlé’s Daniele Tundo and CreativeX CEO Anastasia Leng reveal how global brands are transforming creator marketing from fragmented PR experiments into a unified, high-ROI advertising discipline that scales paid media performance without sacrificing creator authenticity.

Discord Global VP of Advertising Adam Bauer joins Next in Media to reveal how the platform is expanding beyond endemic gaming with self-service ad tools, opt-in rewarded Quests, and native community activations built for three billion active gamers worldwide.

Spy Ninjas President Shelly Soriano details how the 47-million-subscriber YouTube franchise built a multi-revenue media empire through serialized storytelling, live entertainment venues, and proprietary talent incubation.

IQVIA Digital’s Justin Rosen joins Mike Shields to unpack why data fidelity and outcome-based measurement are redefining addressable TV, how AI accelerates workflows without fixing flawed data, and why linking upper-funnel targeting to real-world outcomes drives performance.