Digiday Media Buying Summit

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The editorial team will set the stage for the day.

Omnicom is now the largest of the holding companies, having absorbed IPG. Its North American Media CEO explains how the media unit is moving forward armed with Acxiom, as well dealing with fee pressures, AI acceleration, consolidation and evolving client expectations.

In this session, we’ll unpack the shift to zero-click search environments and the emergence of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Discover what’s actually affecting sales and search performance, what to do about it, and how it might affect paid media.

Most CPG brands use retail data to look backward. Welch’s is using it to predict, model, and grow forward. This session focuses on how Welch’s partnered with Cognitiv to move beyond end-of-campaign measurement and instead, activate purchase data in-flight to uncover new audiences, increase household awareness, and drive incremental reach

Jared Belsky, CEO of Acadia, examines whether we’ve seen the retail media wave crest, and what might hold back further investment growth in this area – and how agentic and AI developments might alter strategies.

As holding companies rush to build proprietary AI “black boxes,” Crossmedia’s independence allows for a different path. This session explores how to use AI for media orchestration without surrendering the transparency that independent agencies are built upon.

Take a break, grab a coffee and connect with fellow attendees before the next session begins.

Agency and brand VIPs are invited to join us for a welcome drink and networking ahead of the 10-Minute Meetings.

The 10-Minute Meetings are designed to help connect participants with innovative technology platforms and build valuable business relationships.

Join us for a cocktail to wrap up Day 1. Open to All.

Fuel up with breakfast as we get the day started.

Digiday’s EIC, Jim Cooper will kick off the days sessions.

While progress is being made, there are still many unknowns of course, but that also creates opportunities for agencies and brands to lean into their collaborative partnerships to address those unknowns with trust and candor. As we come at this from an angle of the broader impact of reshaping media strategies for the AI era, zero click search can be one example that we call out where this is happening.

Some tried and true tactics of traditional media have long been hidden behind the glare of shiny new objects, especially in performance and lower-funnel marketing. But maybe elements like direct mail when paired with newer tools can have a better-than-expected effect? Scott Shamberg, CEO of Mile Marker explains it all.

Phil Case, President of Max Connect Digital and Daniel Scarpino, CMO of Austin Post Clothing, talk us through the brand’s embrace of an AI-driven media strategy as it works to expand a foothold in the competitive menswear space.

As Horizon Media builds out its Blu platform as a consultative engine, Apollo Partners has built operational systems to optimize performance internally and for clients. The agencies’ AI owners explain their approaches, how they hire differently and what they’ve been able to do that wasn’t possible just a few years ago.

Take a break, grab a coffee and connect with fellow attendees before the next session begins.

Recharge with a delicious lunch and network with peers before the next session.

Open to select VIP participants.

Grab a drink before the 10-Minute meetings begin. Open to VIP participants.

Grab a cocktail and meet other event attendees. Open to all.

Fuel up with breakfast as we get the day started.

Jim Cooper, EIC, Digiday will kick off the day.

For too long, marketers have played a losing game, buying costly attention to disguise bad creative. But the modern media model has done a 180: flipping from paid-owned-earned (P.O.E) to owned-earned-paid (O.E.P.). It’s more than a flowchart or a reconfigured acronym; it’s an arbitrage strategy that’s proven to work.

By leveraging your owned social channels as a high-speed, zero-cost content lab, you can identify and prove what truly resonates with your audience. This Organic validation acts as a powerful filter, allowing you to bypass guesswork and deploy paid media exclusively on content that is already generating momentum and has been vetted by consumers. In this session, Jason Loomis, SVP and Head of Media at Chukmedia, and Liza Darnell, VP Marketing, Utz Brands, will provide a strategic playbook for moving from costly assumptions to proven, scalable relevance, ensuring every media dollar spent multiplies your impact.

The bridge between a brand and its audience is shifting from active searching to receiving intent-based AI recommendations. Indie agency Collective Measures studies the technical and strategic blueprint required to earn agentic preference in 2026, with theh help of client Room & Board as a case study.

Albert Thompson, managing director of digital innovation at Walton Isaacson, explores how planners can evolve as AI agents begin to automate the core mechanics of the supply chain.

In an era of rising CPCs and fluctuating ad algorithms, the wall between Paid and Organic search is a luxury agencies can no longer afford. This session, led by Digitas’ head of organic search, Elena MacGurn, will discuss how to leverage SEO data to inform bidding strategies and how to use PPC insights to fast-track content authority.