Digiday Media Buying Summit

Registration opens and our team will be ready to greet you. Please stop by to check in and grab your badge.

Welcome. The editorial team will kick off the day’s sessions.

It’s the most widely debated topic in the media agency world. Principal media puts agencies in the position of buying and selling inventory for and to their clients. To its detractors, it has corrupted the meaning of “agency” by putting agencies on both sides of the investment equation. But the argument can be made its here to stay for those agencies with the scale to pull it off, so long as there can be sufficient transparency for the client in the process. This session will debate its merits and shortcomings.
In defense of: Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst, Forrester
In opposition of: Kamran Asghar, CEO and co-founder, Crossmedia

For challenger brands, proving that marketing drives business results can be just as important as standing out from the competition. In this session, Cake Shop Media, the media agency for Yes Way Rosé, and Cognitiv will share how they challenged conventional approaches to media planning, audience targeting, and sales measurement. By combining Cognitiv’s deep learning algorithms with deterministic sales measurement, the teams gained a deeper understanding of who the campaign reached and what those impressions ultimately drove. Hear how a willingness to experiment, adapt, and work closely with a technology partner can help brands push the boundaries of performance marketing while staying focused on measurable business outcomes.

The lines between creative, media and technology are disappearing, and AI and emerging tools are making it possible to build ideas that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Nadja Bellan-White explores what this convergence means for agency leaders — from how creative and media teams need to work together to the new kinds of talent, skills and perspectives agencies need to hire to meet the demands of clients today.

Ad targeting used to have one job: move people off social to buy somewhere else. That handoff has nearly disappeared as many of the feeds are now the checkout, and AI is being sold as the next storefront. So should the media mix and the shopping mix become one plan?

In modern media investment, too many brands are playing roulette—relying on blind platform algorithms, chasing self-reported metrics and reacting to phantom signals that lead straight to knee-jerk budget pivots. Tack on ecosystems cluttered with opacity, hidden fees and black-box attribution. Feels like the deck’s stacked against media specialists, right? Join Devin Bellamy of sports gaming disruptor Underdog and Eden Collective’s Alison Monk for a no-BS look at the radical media rigor and intellectual humility needed to outsmart outspenders.

Creators have become a powerful part of the media mix, but as the business matures, authenticity is getting harder to define — and even harder to protect. We’ll explore what makes creator partnerships actually feel credible, where brands and agencies get it wrong and how marketers can balance scale, performance and genuine audience connection.

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

Agencies & brands only. Join us for a Town Hall session where we will create a challenge board and have an open and candid discussion about the industry. Together, we’ll create a challenge board and explore the real issues you’re facing — think of it as group therapy.

Sandboxes:

4:35pm – Realtor.com –  Your $18,000 Opportunity: Winning the Brand “Reset Moment” for Modern Movers

4:45pm – Channel Factory – The Consumer Has Moved On: Modernizing Media Buying Beyond the Funnel

4:55pm – Smart Supply by AI Digital: Supply Intelligence has Arrived – balancing human expertise with AI on the supply side of programmatic

5:05pm – AdDaptive – From buying signals to provable pipeline: making ABM deliver on its promise

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

Wrap Day 1 with cocktails and network with your peers. Open to all.

Fuel up with breakfast, courtesy of Digiday, as we get the day started.

Welcome back! The editorial team is about to kick off day 2.

The walls between media, creative, data and technology are getting harder to defend. How far into the creative and design process should media agencies go? And which AI tools and platforms are actually helping agencies plan, build and buy more effectively, rather than simply adding another layer of tech?

The retail media gold rush created an increasingly crowded market. Now the question is who survives. Are advertisers finally ready to cull the long tail of lower-value networks, and what separates the retail media businesses that become essential from those that become expendable?

How can brands earn consideration while consumers are deciding what to make, buy or serve? In this fireside chat, Kroger and Raptive explore the role of trusted creator environments, recipe inspiration and localized creative in making media more relevant. Through a campaign example, they’ll discuss how reaching shoppers in moments of intent fits into Kroger’s broader media strategy—and why creating future demand matters alongside driving conversion. Marketers will leave with practical lessons for connecting content, creative and media around the customer’s next decision.

Agencies and clients across the industry are realising finally that AI gains mean little if you can’t fathom the real operating costs associated with AI systems or agentic tools. We speak to two agencies with different philosophies on the tech,

What if one of the biggest untapped opportunities in advertising isn’t on a screen? As brands compete for attention in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, everyday packaging presents a powerful new way to break through.

Join Tony Hessburg, CEO of ELEVEN and AdReach, and Pedro Gonçalves, Vice President of Marketing, U.S. and Canada at Tetra Park, as they explore how packaging can be leveraged as a dynamic new media channel connecting brands with consumers in meaningful, real-world moments. Discover how this overlooked medium is creating new opportunities for advertisers to reach audiences beyond the screen.

Agencies across the globe are investing in AI applications in pursuit of productivity gains. Few have thought hard about how to bed in their new capabilities and operationalize the tech. In this session, Gila Wilensky, evp and head of data and media, North America, at Monks, takes us through how the company has rethought staff structures and client-facing teams to fully take advantage of AI.

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

Agencies & brands only. Join us for a Town Hall session where we will create a challenge board and have an open and candid discussion about the industry.

Sandboxes:

12:00pm – Zefr – AI Slop or AI Signal? A Guide for Media Buyers

12:10pm – Elite Media Group – Beyond the Tech Stack: An Operating System Built for Modern Marketers

12:20pm – Infolinks – Family Feud

Recharge with lunch and network with peers.

Take a break from today’s content, catch up on work or spend time with fellow attendees. 

Pull up a chair for an informal conversation with Digiday’s editors. Get an insider’s perspective on the trends, challenges and stories shaping the industry.

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

Join us for cocktails to wrap Day 2. Open to all.

Fuel up with breakfast, courtesy of Digiday, as we get the day started.

Welcome back! The editorial team is about to kick off the final day of sessions.

Agentic media planning and buying tools have become an area of intense focus for many agencies and clients. Beyond the hype, however, there are decisions to be made over what agents are actually best placed to do, and how much control they require to operate properly. We speak to David Dweck, President of Go Fish about how they’re deploying agents now.

Sports has become one of the most coveted places for advertisers to put their dollars, fueled by live audiences, premium content and an increasingly fragmented media landscape. We’ll look at what’s driving the surge in sports investment, where the money is moving and what it means for agencies, brands and media owners competing for those budgets.

Outcome or performance-based client relationships have emerged as a response to pressures facing the agency business model. But while the idea can be attractive in theory, hashing out an outcome-based arrangement with a client can be much harder in practice. We speak to Morgan Scarnato, chief strategy officer of CourtAvenue Media, to get to grips with how to construct an outcomes-based relationship that works for both agency and client.

AI is giving independent agencies new ways to compete with the scale and resources of the holding companies. We’ll look at how AXM is putting AI to work both for clients — using agile mix modeling and machine learning to make smarter budget decisions — and behind the scenes, where new tools and automated workflows are helping the agency move faster and do more with less. Along the way, we’ll get practical about what’s actually useful, from LLMs to more sophisticated AI applications, and where indies can find a real advantage.

Digiday moderators will recap the event’s key takeaways.