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.
Trending in
Most Read
More in Media
Mega creators find that their personalities alone aren’t scalable as standalone businesses
May 7, 2026
Successful creators like Alex Cooper or MrBeast are creating media companies, to varying degrees of success and struggle.
Media Briefing: Publishers cautiously count AI licensing as notable revenue amid programmatic strain, in Q1 earnings
May 7, 2026
Amid declining referral traffic and programmatic ads, publishers are beginning to see meaningful revenue from AI licensing deals.
Retailers are rushing to build AI apps. It’s unclear if shoppers will use them
May 5, 2026
There are almost 900 apps on ChatGPT and 353 Claude connectors, according to AppDiscoverability.com, which tracks AI app data.