Only eight seats remain

for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, May 6-8 in Palm Springs.

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Short Takes: Jeff Hirsch Joins Underdog Media

Digital advertising veteran Jeff Hirsch, former CEO of AudienceScience, has joined Underdog Media as CEO. Underdog Media wants to take the type of automation tools mostly used for direct response advertising and repurpose them for branding.

“I think the main point I want to make is that we have to remember that we are in the advertising business,” said Hirsch. “We get carried away thinking only about the technology side of what we do.”
Hirsch feels that the industry needs to get back to basics; rather than amplifying complexity, digital agencies and ad technology providers need to produce more results-oriented options for advertisers, with a healthy emphasis on direct response. Hirsch has more than 16 years of experience in ad tech, having founded Fastclick and working at ValueClick before joining AudienceScience.

More in Media

Vibes over metrics: Why more creators are holding IRL events to own their audience

IRL events are becoming increasingly important pillars of a content creator’s growth strategy; here’s why.

How The Financial Times is betting on personality-led vodcasts as its next subscription lever

By pairing star journalists with a subject‑specific standalone YouTube channel, The Financial Times hopes to deepen parasocial relationships off‑platform and cultivate future subscribers.

From page views to propensity: How the Daily Mail is retooling for a zero-click world

The pressure of zero-click underpins a wider product overhaul: games upgraded from sideshow to front door, new hubs like Crime Desk designed to keep niche communities coming back, an AI-powered dynamic paywall tuned to user behavior; a bigger bet on personalization and the app as a primary destination.