The Media Odyssey

Evan Shapiro (00:00)
I mean, you're a charming guy, but one of the reasons I enjoy talking to you so much about this stuff is that you're very, you are a student of it. It's an academic pursuit to a certain extent for you in a way that not every marketer I talk to has the same approach.

Tony Marlow (00:16)
Firstly, flattery will get you everywhere. But I do try to be

Marion Ranchet
He knows, he knows.

Evan Shapiro (00:22)
I am good at that. Yeah.

Marion Ranchet
And it works for him as well.

Evan Shapiro
That's how I got Marion to co-host this podcast with me.

Marion Ranchet (00:43)
Welcome everyone to The Media Odyssey, this is Evan Shapiro.

Evan Shapiro (00:46)
and that is Marion Ranchet.

Marion Ranchet (00:48)
We have a guest this week on the pod and not any guest, Tony Marlow. Tony is CMO at LG AdSolution. Tony, welcome to the Media Odyssey.

Tony Marlow (00:58)
Hello Marion, hello Evan, how are you guys?

Evan Shapiro (01:01)
Good. Good, good.

Marion Ranchet (01:03)
Good. Excited to have you on the pod. Very, very excited. So just to kick things off, just to give a bit of background on what you do exactly, what LG Ads does, and then we'll get started. We have a lot of questions for you.

Tony Marlow (01:18)
Yeah, sure. Well, for any of your listeners who aren't familiar, my name is Tony Malo. As you said, I'm the Chief Marketing Officer at LG Ad Solutions. And if you're not familiar with LG Ad Solutions, we are a global leading CTV, connected television, advertising company. We also do cross-screen advertising. So we have the footprint of around 200 million LG TVs globally. On the vast majority of modern LG TVs, there's a FAST service, free ad-supported streaming television, and then there's advertising associated with that. There's also native advertising. So we place those ads in those streaming environments.

Evan Shapiro (01:54)
And you and I have had a lot of conversations at conferences and over dinners and things like that over time. I'm sure you've had similar conversations with Marion, but you have this thesis, this larger thesis around the big shift in advertising, and particularly as it applies to television advertising. What do you mean when you talk about the big shift?

Tony Marlow (02:16)
Yeah, I'm glad we're starting here because this is sort of the foundation to so many things we're observing in the industry right now. So, what we mean by the big shift, and actually there were several phases to the big shift, is this shift in viewership habits. So if you throw yourself back to the pandemic, it's 2020, people are following stay at home guidance. We know at the end of Q1, start of Q2 that year, there was a dramatic increase in media consumption, particularly television and particularly streaming television, people started to stream TV.

What was interesting though, at that point in time, it was almost entirely subscription based, meaning the original, think about the original version of Netflix, you pay your fee, you get your content and there's no advertising associated with it. So that first phase of the big shift you can think of as the shift to streaming formats of television. But again, at that time, it was really characterized by subscription, no ads.

What's happened since then, particularly the the two years following the pandemic was a slow but steady shift into acceptance of ad-supported streaming, free ad-supported streaming television FAST. Meaning that for a variety of reasons, including economic headwinds, there was the pandemic, the increasing cost of more and more apps getting loaded into the TV and the subscription associated with that, people wanted a higher level of content, but they didn't want to keep paying these fees associated with it.

So what started to happen and is continuing to happen now was acceptance of these free services such as LG channels, where in the US you've got north of 350 channels. It's a cable-ish experience and it's all free. And it essentially works as long as your TV is plugged into the wall and you have an internet connection. So that big shift is phase one, the shift into streaming and phase two into the acceptance of ad-supported streaming. And for marketers, this is a really important thing because it's really easy to forget that without those ad breaks, if you put product placement aside, there's not really an opportunity for the marketer to connect with its audience if it's fully subscription-based.

And there are some exceptions which we can talk about through the course of this discussion. That's what we mean by the big shift. It's the launchpad for so many things we'll talk about today.

Evan Shapiro (04:29)
And crucially, I think what happened was all the big media companies stampeded towards Netflix's ad-free model without understanding what it was going to do fully to their businesses. And secondarily, I think there was this complete write-off that consumers just hated ads. They never want to see ads. And neither of those things wound up being true.

A, the models don't work without the ads. And B, consumers actually don't mind ads as long as the content is good and the context is good and the environment is good, right?

Tony Marlow (05:00)
I think relevance is a big part of that too. But to your first point about acceptance, our latest piece of research called the Big Shift, it's in its third wave. Actually later this year we'll enter the fourth wave. But our latest research indicates that around 8 in 10 in the US, it's a comparable number in the UK, use ad-supported streaming. And I don't think that's really surprising. The thing that actually did surprise me was around 7 in 10 actually prefer it. And this goes to your point around the assumption that people don't want ads.

I think there's a couple of things here. First of all, it's a model that we're all familiar with. If you're of a certain age, this is how you grew up watching television. You're used to there being content. You're used to there being advertising. I mean, you can rewind it back to the 1920s where P&G kind of pioneered this notion of a radio soap opera or a serial as they were known back then. They ran the first one and this content was available that would otherwise not be available. It was free and there was product placement, there was advertising.

And so this model is something that goes way back in the industry. People are familiar with it, but you also touched on another thing and that's, that's well, this idea of relevance. And I think we can expand on it a little bit, but people like ads more if they're actually relevant to them. And when you're talking about CTV, the opportunity for a marketer to be relevant to their audience is much higher than in traditional environments, such as linear TV, where it's more of a spray and pray kind of a deal.

Evan Shapiro (06:27)
Well, and also, it's not just an old model from back in our youths. I mean, when you look at the use case of younger consumers, one of their biggest video products is YouTube, and there plenty used to ads in that environment, but it's free. And that's, I think, that's what FAST and AVOD really brings to the table is a model that many, consumers not are just comfortable with, but that it is the majority use case for them as well.

Tony Marlow (06:54)
Totally. I mean, not to go down a side path here or a rabbit hole, but it's funny how you talk about YouTube. If you put aside YouTube TV for a moment and just talk about YouTube, they've changed the way video advertising works. So those first few seconds count so much more than they used to, because in a few seconds you can skip the ad. You need to get to the hook much more quickly from a storytelling, from a narrative perspective than before. So it's funny that the medium kind of changed the art somewhat.

I don't want to say that the tail was wagging the dog, but it's fundamentally shifting from all fronts so that the consumption patterns are changing and then the way the marketers react to try and make a connection also changes along with it.

Marion Ranchet (07:38)
So speaking about the launch pads, if we look at your home screen, that's that moment on where you have a few seconds, hopefully not half an hour, to convince people to watch an ad, search, and watch content. Talk to us about that home screen. What do we see when we come in? We were chatting about this a few weeks ago when it comes to both consumers and advertisers, what's the psychology when they come in and see that screen, right? What's at play here?

Tony Marlow (08:15)
Yeah, I think you used the words launchpad and I like that. So essentially if you own a smart television, whether it's an LG or there are other options out there as well, essentially, even if your intent is to say watch linear TV or maybe do some console gaming, when you turn that device on, there is a home screen. This is almost like the early days of the internet where almost everyone would start in a portal, right? And this was the launchpad to your experience, whether it's entertainment or news, something else.

And I think television is now in that format. And so many people may not be aware, but we offer what we call premium CTV native placements, meaning when you turn your TV on, there's an ad opportunity and then also embedded into the operating system, there are a few ad opportunities. So as you're trying to do things. And what's interesting and Evan, I apologize because I know I've kind of had this conversation with you before, but I think it's,

Evan Shapiro (09:09)
Now we have an audience.

Tony Marlow (09:12)
Well, it's interesting to think of TV. It's evolved so much. I like to say, CTV is not your grandmother's TV, right? And there are so many things that feed into that. But part of this is it's no longer just a lean-back, passive medium. It's now a much more engaging experience. And the start of that experience is that home screen. I would say in terms of our experience, well, the category we call media and entertainment. So if people are unfamiliar, think kind of Hollywood or even some of the streaming apps they like to advertise whether it's a program available for stream or download our app, they very quickly learned that that home screen placement was very effective for them. They quickly learned that it's an opportunity to connect.

And there's even some sort of psychological rationale behind it. You may or may not be familiar. I'll take you back to psych 101. I don't know if you ever studied that at university. There is an effect called the, it's the primacy effect. It's actually called the primacy and recency effect. They did a series of studies.

Essentially, if you expose someone to a series of stimuli, in this instance, ads, so I'm launching my ad experience, I turn on my TV on, the first ad is the native, and then there's a subsequent bunch of other ads, whether it's linear or streaming, the first and the last in those sequence, in that sequence, are much more highly recalled than the rest. And so this is another way of saying that first impression can count for a lot more than many of the other impressions in a given session sequence.

So leaning into that notion of the primacy effect can really alter the strength of that message you're trying to do. And as I said, media and entertainment, they learned very quickly that this was a good environment to make that kind of connection.

Evan Shapiro (10:51)
And to a certain extent, whether you're gaming or watching or going to YouTube or Netflix or wherever you're going, that first screen is now the lead-in to the rest of the entertainment.

Tony Marlow (11:03)
100%. And it can be the source of it, right? So yes, it can be that lean back TV show or movie machine. We're familiar with TV doing that. It's also now offering shoppable experiences. Cloud gaming baked right into your LG TV. Cloud fitness. These are things that are much more engaging and lean forward, and you're much more of an active participant. And then even thinking about the traditional content, even the ability for it to be on demand kind of changes the nature of it. Instead of it being fully curated on someone else's schedule, you're doing the curation. You're the leader of what's going to happen in terms of your experience there. So, when we say CTV is not your grandmother's TV, we do mean that on multiple levels.

Marion Ranchet (11:47)
Can I ask, you mentioned media and entertainment providers investing to get that first impression. So I'm assuming the display app, potentially takeovers, et cetera. Are you guys starting to see on other CTV on screens, ads from, it can be for a car, your airline, whatever. What's your philosophy? Are you a hundred percent focused on pushing content provider and their content essentially to make sure people stay on the platform? Or is that that fine balance where you're okay to also have advertisers coming to play with this native display?

Tony Marlow (12:33)
Yeah, it is a balance. So I think for media and entertainment, it endemically makes sense. So hey, stream this movie that's available. It makes sense for what the user is doing. However, and so say we just call everything that's not media and entertainment general market. However, for general market, it also makes sense. However, we need to be more cautious about the user experience. So I would say no one really wants to buy a $10,000 OLED and then have there be, for example, a toilet paper ad there.

Like I think that needs to be carefully curated. I think the creative best practices are very important. And as long as it makes sense, then I think it works really well. So for example, we've had some really strong success with Uber. Uber One, Uber Eats, where it ties in. Maybe it's movie night. Go order some pizza. Order something else. Eat. Enjoy. And I think as long as we're cognizant of the user experience, we remain open to not just media and entertainment, but also the general market. Yeah. And it is effective.

Marion Ranchet (13:33)
Yeah, so then the advertising is in context with the content and fits right in, so to say. You mentioned Shopable ads. It's a topic that you guys, you talked about it a lot last year. You've actually released a lot of different reports. What are you seeing? Because I feel like last year was supposed to be the year of Shopable TV and I'm not sure it has happened. So what's your view on that?

Tony Marlow (13:57)
You know, I think 2024 in many ways was actually the year of shoppable. However, I do think that to a certain extent, shoppable remain trapped within the QR code. And don't get me wrong. I actually, think QR codes offer a really, a really good utility. The ability to

Evan Shapiro (14:15)
The great comeback at the QR code.

Tony Marlow (14:17)
Comeback is the word. Kind of, because it's not a new technology. It's been around quite a long time and it had this resurgence. And I think it was good for porting that experience from the big screen on the living room wall into the screen in the hand of the user, making that shopping transition. And remember, people are very used to transacting on the mobile. It has become the primary source of online shopping for many. So making it easy to bring that value prop into their hands.

Tony Marlow (14:45)
So what I think we'll see different this year, and it is an evolution. It's not you suddenly get here, but I think what you'll see the evolution sway toward is removing some of the friction, getting untrapped from the QR code. I think the QR code will remain, but you will start to see much more frictionless methods of purchasing directly from an ad that you see in television, whether it's native or otherwise. And even just to use an example that's not ours, just an industry example, you may have noticed particularly aligned with some of the NFL content, Amazon started offering these like click to drop into your inbox, click to drop it into your cart kind of deal and just removing that friction.

I think, you know, just to put our story out there from our perspective at LG Ad Solutions, this year we expect continued rollout of what we call WebOS Pay, the endemic kind of payment mechanism in WebOS, which is our operating system on all modern LG TVs.

Imagine integrating that into some of these ads. So whether it's media and entertainment that maybe they're promoting a title that's available for stream. What if you didn't need to leave the ad, you just buy it and then you're watching the movie. There's no in-between step. And I think you'll start to see some of that friction be removed.

Evan Shapiro (15:52)
Or Uber Eats, there's another good. Or any of the food delivery like, I'm hungry. Yeah, you can order it now. Yeah.

Tony Marlow (15:58)
We, you know, if you, if you agree to have your details, your credit card, address, like the shipping, maybe there's some configuration. Here's what I want in my cart.

Evan Shapiro (16:07)
We do this with our phones, you know, the TV is just an extension of that to a certain extent.

Tony Marlow (16:11)
Sorry, Marion, you had mentioned some of our research. We found, in the last time we did a shoppable TV research piece, that almost a third, 3 in 10, claimed to have actually purchased, whether it's via QR code or other way, in the prior three months. So no one's saying it's the majority of action, but it's starting to become a critical mass.

Evan Shapiro (16:32)
So that's kind of the power of CTV advertising. The technology allows for things that traditional television just doesn't, right? But on the other hand, when you talk to advertisers and consumers often, there is this complaint about over frequency. You see the same ad over and over and over again in a show. Is that effective marketing or is that, I'm torn? Like yes, now it's drummed into my head. I now know this ad by heart. On the other hand, is there a detrimental effect that can come from that as well?

Tony Marlow (17:07)
You know, there was almost a throwaway part. Before I get to that, I just want to pick on one thing that you just asked. I think as a medium, CTV is fascinating for many reasons, but not least of which is it used to be that you had to choose as a marketer, you had to choose, am I a brand marketer? Am I a performance marketer? And usually, you, your category, your company, the medium in which you're operating, they would dictate whether you're running a performance campaign, i.e. click to buy, download, some instant action, shop.

Or was it brand. And be aware we just launched a new line of shampoo. And I think what's really fascinating about CTV, it's what I like to call performance storytelling. I think it's a full funnel medium. You can build your brand and be highly measurable. It's so another way of saying that is it's the sight, sound, and motion that we've always loved about TV that has been so effective for branding, but it's also the address ability that we've loved around digital channels, enabling the measurement and targeting.

So I think, that sets the platform to your question. Actually, there is somewhat of a, we'll get a little bit Psych 101 here. There is somewhat of a psychological principle here, but there's this notion of an instant gratification bias where people prefer an immediate reward. There was actually this really fascinating study. They called it, I think they called it the Marshmallow Experiment.

Essentially this is, this is fascinating. You'll see that I just love kind of trying to tie this psychological kind of background into what we do, but they would essentially get a small child, put them into a laboratory environment and say, okay, here's a marshmallow. You can eat it now, or if you can wait 15 minutes, I'll give you two. And they found, they found a six degree. It's actually, if you've ever watched these videos, it's really cute. Watching some of these kids just trying to not eat it and wait, hold out for the two.

But they found that essentially it was split by thirds. One third just ate it straight away. One third tried to hold out and couldn't and ate it. And only one third actually delayed their gratification. So just saying most people did not. And it was this human urge to just get it right now, be able to convert, do this thing right now. And I think that's what's really fascinating about bringing shoppable experiences is people really want that thing immediately.

Now, now I suppose I better get to the actual meat of your question.

Evan Shapiro (19:29)
Yeah, don't avoid the question.

By the way, I'm the kid who somehow justified cutting the marshmallow in half and then now I have two so I don't have to wait.

Tony Marlow (19:38)
That's hilarious. That is hilarious. So, I think when it comes to frequenting, is a balance. Like frequency, and there is this, I've got a lot of concepts here. There is this concept called the mere exposure effect, meaning just being exposed to something on a repeated basis tends to make you like it more. And also, there's sort of an extension of this effect.

There's also like a factual element to it. Like if you see it a lot, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not, whether you know it's not true or not, you believe it more the more you see it. And so like this notion of the mere exposure effect would suggest frequenting is important. However, I think at the same time, most marketers and also most consumers will know you can quickly hit a point where it can become quite frustrating if you're seeing too many of the same message in a short period of time. It's frequency over time is I think the consideration there.

But like, and I had this really weird example a few years ago. There was, and I'm no critic, but some friends offered up ticket to a Broadway show. It was this, do you remember Michael Moore? It was a one man Michael Moore Broadway show.

Evan Shapiro
Oh I remember it, yeah.

Tony Marlow
This show was not my favorite. It was not for me, but there was, there's this moment we were in that, and actually like two of the people I was with fell asleep, just FYI. But there was this moment where maybe for the New Yorkers that are listening to this, they'll understand this more.

Tony Marlow (21:04)
And actually, let me set it up. If you're in New York, you'll be familiar with this law firm that was called Cellino and Barnes. They had these cheesy local-style ads. There's a jingle. And my

Evan Shapiro
R.I.P Cellino, yeah.

Tony Marlow
... Exactly. think they actually dissolved. They had a fight. They dissolved their family.

Evan Shapiro (21:13)
They had a fight, they got divorced, but then Cellino actually passed in a helicopter crash.

That is incorrect. It was actually Barnes who died, not Cellino.

Tony Marlow (21:28)
I didn't know that. But at the time, I think this was around 2017 or so, which was before all of these woes, Michael Moore yells to the audience, the first half of the jingle and the entire audience yells the second half back. And it's this thing where they had been essentially pushing the same commercial or at least same versions of, different versions of the same commercial, over many years.

Evan Shapiro (21:53)
Cellino and Barnes. Yep, absolutely.

Tony Marlow (21:54)
And it was ingrained. You were familiar. They were injury attorneys. And you would just know it. And so I think that's one case for. No one's saying it's quality creative. It's just saying the simple effect of frequenting over the right time frame works very effectively.

Evan Shapiro (22:10)
You have to think about that though. I mean, I think that's kind of one of the reasons, I mean, you're a charming guy, but one of the reasons I enjoy talking to you so much about this stuff is that you're very, you are a student of it. It's an academic pursuit to a certain extent for you in a way that not every marketer I talk to has the same approach.

And so, for that reason, let's ask you, when you look into your crystal ball, because you study this stuff, you commission a lot of reports at LG ads. I think you're writing a book about the industry. When you look into your crystal ball, what do you see? What do you think is, where do we head? Don't go 10 years out. Where do you think we're going to be in 36 months? Three upfront cycles from now. Where do you think we're going to be? Is shoppable and retail going to be a major presence on CTV?

Are we gonna be better at the data than we are now? What are you seeing in the next three years?

Tony Marlow (23:08)
Firstly, flattery will get you everywhere. But I do try to be

Marion Ranchet
He knows, he knows.

Evan Shapiro (00:22)
I am good at that. Yeah.

Marion Ranchet
And it works for him as well. Very much so.

Evan Shapiro
That's how I got Marion to co-host this podcast with me.

Tony Marlow
It, it is, and I, I do think that I am somewhat of a marketing nerd. And so I do dive into it. I, in some senses, my answer is going to be disappointing. I can tell you that because it's the obvious one, but let me try and add some color that maybe not everyone is. I think AI, artificial intelligence, is the thing that's transforming everything. And at the same time, I think it's happening at a speed that, that on a default level, the human brain is not designed to be prepared for.

I think typically, we think things grow in a linear fashion, just a straight line from here to there. But we're dealing with something that is growing at an exponential fashion. Even if you just take some like consumer-facing examples, like a ChatGPT, what it can do now through itself and Sora and things like that, you can ask for a video. It would generate a video, and it will look legitimate.

Evan Shapiro (24:10)
Yeah, it's markedly better than it was six months ago. I mean, it's different product than it was six months ago.

Tony Marlow (24:16)
Exactly, and then the six months prior and the six months prior. And then, so those leaps are enormous. I think firstly, I think we intuitively know that this is going to be seismically impactful for probably many, many, many areas in life. And even knowing that, I don't think we're prepared for the speed and veracity with which it's coming. But if we bring it back to marketing and advertising, I think there's a couple of obvious areas. I think that it's going, and it's already being used in this way, but I think you're going to see vast increases in the usage of AI for creative creation, making the ad units themselves.

We kind of already do this with some of our clients. It has many benefits, not least of which is you can spawn out a whole bunch of different ad creatives. You can quickly test them, use the ones that work better and don't use the ones that don't work. So it's really unlocking the ability to test and learn at a scale that was never possible with human creation. I think coupled with this is segment generation.

So if you're a marketer, you want your message to reach that intended audience and try and minimize wastage for people who are never going to convert. So, for me, I like to run just casually, but if you put women's running shoes in front of me as a man, I am simply never buying that shoe. Relevance is critical. You need to be relevant to the audience that's watching it. And so I think AI generated audiences that for whatever reason, possibly beyond the human brain to conceive what it is that makes this group alike, it will start to create groups that are just higher propensity to convert for a given category, for a given product, for a given message.

And that last point I think is important because this is, so I think each of those things is somewhat happening now. There's creative AI, there's segment AI, but I think where there's still yet some unlock, it's matching those two.

It is dynamically altering your creative using AI

Evan Shapiro (26:07)
Based on the audience who's watching.

Tony Marlow
Exactly to match to that dynamically AI generated segment.

Evan Shapiro
To me, I mean, the creative elements of it around AI, there was that famous Coca-Cola ad that spun out last year that, you know, it worked. Everybody talked about it. I don't know whether people liked it or not, but people talked about it. And so I think the creative element is, there is a certain cap to it, I believe, like how creative AI is going to get versus an actual director with actual performers, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think you're right. The marriage of altering creative to meet the moment and the consumer who's watching. That's where I think the explosion can really come from.

Tony Marlow (26:48)
Right on.

Marion Ranchet (26:49)
At a moment in time where you need to grab people's attention within seconds.

Evan Shapiro (26:54)
Right, exactly. That's exactly right. Those first three seconds are really important.

Tony Marlow (26:59)
I would say, I don't know if you've ever read the book Scary Smart by Mo Gawit. I would actually recommend the audio book. This guy has the most soothing voice on earth. He reads it himself. He was the former CEO of Google X, is like their moonshot. And he really unpacks this notion of AI. It's incredible. But I think one thing that I took away from that, because I believed what you were just saying, that basically machines, they're great at numbers, not necessarily great for creative.

I think that's going to rapidly change. I think we will very quickly hit a point where we actually do trust AI to do creative pursuits. I do think and hope that it will always be a hybrid of both human and AI, but I think AI will outperform on creative function versus what people think it will do. Could be wrong. This is a prediction. We don't know. We know what it can currently do and I'm continuously impressed by its capability. And then there's always examples where it falls a little short.

But I think as it learns and as it starts to adjust, it may actually become even superior to what humans can do in this area. Maybe.

Evan Shapiro (28:03)
Yeah, my theory on this is, you know, AI's limitation in creative comes from the fact that it doesn't lay awake at night worried about its relationship with its mother. So, you know, the flaw in the human nature is what makes art art. You know, until AI decides to cut off its left ear because its girlfriend won't talk to it, you know, I don't think we're going to get Van Gogh from Gen AI. But let's revisit this every six months and we can see who's, you know, where that pursuit is.

Tony Marlow (28:35)
I think it's true. Could I add one more thing before we do sign out? I do think there's another thing. So say that the processing power is important here. Because, say you created an AI that was equivalent intelligence to a given human. What it will always have an advantage on is the processing. It almost seems like magic. It can instantly spawn out its response, even if that response is exactly the same. And I think that's going to be the element, like the speed, the always on nature of it.

So, over a given period of time, whether it's 24 hours, like you were saying, you would expect a normal person sleeping, say eight hours, it continues to go. But that 24 hours, it may achieve what might've taken that person a year or more. And I think that processing speed, first of all, it's not slowing down, but it is a distinctive advantage for the machine. So I think that's a nice little-

Evan Shapiro (29:24)
There's no question. It's just a question of what tasks it can take on. So you look at Amazon who reprogrammed the language of their entire platform and using an AI coding assistant. And they calculate that it saved 4,500 human years. There's no way that humans would have been able to take that on, right? The question is, is art? It is a question of art and what art is and whether or not an actual machine can create that or whether it takes the flawed nature of our fucked up brains to produce it.

And that's the conundrum that I don't think we can solve. But, we've yet to see the AI get to Van Gogh level, Quentin Tarantino level stuff. But you're right, there's no telling where it can go with the speed at which it's improving itself on a daily basis.

Anyway, this is fascinating. We could talk about this forever, but we are out of time. Thank you so much. This was really thrilling. You're our second guest ever. And our first one was like breaking news with Matt Risley from Channel 4. So, you know, we are honored to have you here. It was really great to see you. And I'm sure we'll be sharing drinks at some conference soon.

Tony Marlow (30:34)
Well, I hope to see you both soon. Thank you so much for having us on and take care.

Evan Shapiro (30:53)
Well, that was a great interview with Toni Marlowe from LG ads. It was so great, we forgot to do a sign off. So here we are doing a sign off for that episode in different clothing, which you wouldn't know if you're only listening, but you will definitely know if you're watching on YouTube, which you should check out. It's a good YouTube channel. So thanks to Toni Marlowe. Thank you, Marion, for such a great episode. That was a really fascinating conversation.

Marion Ranchet (31:17)
That was awesome. Yeah, I mean, this guy, that's what I love about marketers. They're not just talking out of thin air. There's a science, there's the psychology behind it. And yeah, I really learn a lot. I could have stayed on.

Evan Shapiro (31:28)
And we got book recommendations. It was was a full semester episode. So thanks Tony.

Marion Ranchet (31:33)
Yeah, he was reading more than we do. I was like, man, this guy.

Evan Shapiro (31:36)
Well, speaking of reading, let's read your newsletter, Streaming Made Easy.

Marion Ranchet
Yeah, on Substack.

Evan Shapiro
And you can read my newsletter, which is called Media War and Peace. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll talk to you next time on The Media Odyssey podcast.