Possible Day 2: Breaking down agentic’s impact on marketing, including multicultural
Digiday is at Possible giving you the latest industry news out of the event in Miami. More from the series →
The 7,500 attendees of year four of Possible have wrapped their meetings, and the booths are being dismantled as you read this. But on day two of Possible Digiday had the chance to catch up with a handful of executives in attendance to get their thoughts on marketing spend consistency in the face of economic turbulence, the continued value of multicultural marketing and the difference between AI’s effect on consumers versus marketers.
Three execs – The Home Depot’s Molly Battin, Sundial Media Group’s Kirk McDonald and Omnicom Media’s Joanna O’Connell – shared their thoughts with Digiday’s Jim Cooper and Michael Bürgi at the Digiday studio at Possible.
Battin talked about the test-and-learn approach her company is taking with AI, notably agentic shopping to “take the friction out of shopping” for customers.
McDonald, who leads a company that controls both Essence, a venerable title that serves Black women, and the more recent Refinery 29, which serves a broader female audience, said AI is being used to sift through up to 100 years of data that the company owns in order to create solutions that minimize the impact of a zero-click future. As far as diversity issues, McDonald believes that “trusted connections are going to matter,” and that as many brands that pulled back from supporting diverse media, there are the same number of brands stepping up authentically.
Omnicom Media’s O’Connell, who leads all research and insights that the holding company’s media arm generates, said she’s looking at both consumer-side and brand-side impacts of economic instability and AI. She also aims to understand those impacts today as well as a few years ahead. She broke down a clear-eyed explanation of the giant leap that agentic AI will take beyond just understanding LLMs from a consumer perception POV.
A media partner to Possible, Digiday will post several other interviews with Possible attendees in the coming days.
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