That's What I Call Marketing

Matt Butts, Head of Marketing Science at Samsung Ads Europe, joins That’s What I Call Marketing to discuss marketing science, incrementality, connected TV measurement and why rigorous testing matters more than a positive result. This episode explains how marketers can move beyond convenient metrics, design better experiments and connect advertising activity to meaningful business outcomes. Matt also explores how changing television behaviours are reshaping media planning, audience measurement and the role of connected TV.
In this episode, we cover:
– Why marketers often measure metrics without questioning whether they matter
– The difference between basic A/B testing and genuine incrementality testing
– Why the quality of the test matters more than whether the result is positive
– How marketing scientists translate complex analysis into commercial decisions
– How Samsung Ads measures viewing across linear television, streaming and gaming
– Why reported reach can hide significant audience duplication
– How incremental reach can reduce media waste and identify missed audiences
– The role of connected TV data in advertising planning and measurement
– Why marketers need to communicate measurement differently to CMOs, CFOs and media teams
– How rigorous measurement helped one advertiser move from zero investment to a seven-figure commitment

Matt argues that marketing science should not simply validate decisions that have already been made. Its role is to challenge assumptions, identify what would have happened without the advertising and give marketers evidence they can confidently use to make better investment decisions.
A useful listen for marketers interested in marketing science, advertising effectiveness, connected TV, incrementality, media measurement, experimentation and commercial impact.
Timestamps
01:16 How Matt found his way into marketing science
02:19 How advertising measurement has changed
03:27 Are marketers measuring things without knowing why?
04:27 Why measurement assumptions must be tested continually
05:02 Do marketers know how to test properly?
06:00 The limitations of basic A/B testing
06:17 Why incrementality is the missing part of marketing testing
07:18 The importance of statisticians, data scientists and translation
08:13 Matt’s journey to Samsung Ads
08:18 What Samsung Ads does
09:00 How television viewing behaviour has changed
10:18 Balancing audience precision, relevance and scale
11:02 Relevance without intrusive personalisation
12:19 Samsung Ads’ Total View measurement capability
12:36 Audience duplication, incremental reach and missed audiences
13:40 Why platform reach figures can be misleading
14:06 What a Head of Marketing Science actually does
14:40 Building advertiser-specific measurement playbooks
15:16 Using measurement to improve future advertising investment
15:23 How to explain incrementality to senior business leaders
15:41 Why marketers need to understand marketing science
17:00 How measurement feeds into marketing mix models
17:33 A real example of fixing incomplete advertising data
19:00 How a geo test led to a seven-figure investment
19:43 Why negative test results should not frighten marketers
20:40 Combining scientific rigour with commercial thinking
21:51 What comes next for connected TV measurement
22:00 Connecting television and mobile data
23:30 Why marketing measurement must keep pace with human behaviour

That’s What I Call Marketing is the podcast for marketers who care about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Follow the show for more conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, professors, authors, thinkers and practitioners.
Find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Thanks to the Digital Voice for their partnership https://www.thedigitalvoice.co.uk/
That’s What I Call Marketing is where marketers come for real conversations about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Hosted by Conor Byrne, the show features conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, authors, thinkers and practitioners about what good marketing looks like in practice.

Listen, follow and find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Connect with Conor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorbyrneirl/
If you enjoy the show, please follow, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more marketers find the conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amir Rasekh, Managing Director of Nectar360, joins That’s What I Call Marketing to discuss customer insight, retail media, AI-powered measurement and how agentic commerce could change the way people shop.
This episode explains how retail media has evolved from loyalty data, targeted coupons and direct mail into a sophisticated, measurable channel spanning in-store, onsite and offsite media.
In this episode, we cover:
– Why customer insight remains the foundation of effective retail media
– How Nectar360 connects loyalty, insight and retail media in one customer-focused system
– Why brands hold retail media to a higher measurement standard than traditional channels
– How Nectar360 measures incrementality and multi-touch attribution across omnichannel campaigns
– How its AI-powered Pollen platform makes campaign planning, creative production and measurement faster
– What agentic commerce could mean for retailers, marketers and customer decision-making
– Why AI should support better human relationships rather than remove the people involved

Amir also shares early results from Pollen, including 2.5 times more incremental sales from omnichannel campaigns and evidence that retail media can influence the middle and upper parts of the marketing funnel, rather than acting only as a conversion channel.
The conversation also explores an important tension for marketers: technology can make retail media simpler, faster and more measurable, but clients still expect strong relationships, expertise and human judgement. A useful listen for marketers interested in customer insight, retail media, marketing measurement, AI in marketing, incrementality, omnichannel strategy and the future of commerce.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Amir Rasekh’s career in retail and Sainsbury’s
04:34 Building an insight-led culture
05:00 What Nectar360 does today
06:06 Why retail media suddenly became so prominent
07:18 The fundamentals of retail media
08:52 Why measurement expectations are increasing
10:28 Introducing Nectar360’s Pollen platform
12:15 Are marketers rigorous enough when testing campaigns?
13:33 How AI accelerated retail media technology
14:21 AI audience building, creative scoring and production
14:38 Cutting creative production from weeks to 90 seconds
14:59 Early results from omnichannel retail media
16:10 Retail media as a brand-building channel
17:05 How customer shopping behaviour is changing
18:00 What agentic commerce means for retail
20:03 Will consumers shop through ChatGPT and AI agents?
22:16 Why physical stores still matter
24:00 How Nectar360’s teams are using AI
25:16 Building AI literacy across an organisation
25:47 Why clients do not want technology to replace people
26:04 Closing thoughts
That’s What I Call Marketing is the podcast for marketers who care about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Follow the show for more conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, professors, authors, thinkers and practitioners.
Find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
This Cannes Sessions episode is produced in partnership with The Digital Voice.
Find out more at: https://www.thedigitalvoice.co.uk
That’s What I Call Marketing is where marketers come for real conversations about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Hosted by Conor Byrne, the show features conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, authors, thinkers and practitioners about what good marketing looks like in practice.

Listen, follow and find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Connect with Conor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorbyrneirl/
If you enjoy the show, please follow, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more marketers find the conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does attention actually tell us about whether advertising is working?

Pete Wallace, Managing Director EMEA at GumGum, explains why clicks remain a poor measure of advertising effectiveness and how attention can help marketers connect media exposure with real brand outcomes.

Pete shares how GumGum combines contextual signals, attention data, time, device and creative performance to predict the mindset of an audience. He brings this to life through GumGum’s work with the BBC and Havas on *Celebrity Traitors*, where targeting and creative changed as tension and excitement around the programme developed.

We also discuss why there is no universal number of seconds that guarantees attention, how creative testing can reveal when branding should appear, and why advertising needs to respect the environment in which it appears.

The conversation then moves into privacy, the value exchange between advertising and free content, the problem with ad tech companies using the same language, and why marketers need to ask more difficult questions about the technology behind their media plans.

Pete also reflects on moving from agency life into ad tech and leading teams across Europe, Japan and Australia, where different cultures require different approaches to pitching, testing and decision-making.

## In this episode, you will learn:

* Why attention can be more useful than clicks as a measure of advertising effectiveness
* How contextual advertising can predict consumer mindset without relying on personal identity
* How GumGum adapted targeting and creative during the BBC’s *Celebrity Traitors*
* Why every brand may require a different attention benchmark
* How creative attention data can improve branding and message placement
* Why advertising works best when it respects the surrounding content
* How marketers can test ad technology rather than accepting similar-sounding sales pitches
* What Pete has learned from leading teams across different international markets

## Timestamps

01:38 Pete’s journey from media agencies into ad tech
03:23 The difference between agency life and working in sales
05:33 What GumGum does and how the business has developed
06:00 Using data signals to predict consumer mindset
06:55 How GumGum worked on the BBC’s *Celebrity Traitors*
08:46 Why attention has always influenced media planning
09:25 Connecting attention to business and brand outcomes
10:21 How GumGum measures attention
11:15 Why there is no universal attention benchmark
11:23 Using attention data to improve creative execution
12:45 Matching advertising to the environment around it
13:34 Why brands are asking more questions about ad technology
14:33 Where GumGum fits within the modern media plan
14:40 Why marketers need greater digital and technical knowledge
15:12 Are marketers rigorous enough when testing media?
16:00 The problem with every ad tech company sounding the same
17:00 Why campaign learning needs to feed into future activity
17:42 Leading teams across Europe, Japan and Australia
18:23 How culture changes client expectations and ways of working
20:01 Balancing global consistency with local flexibility
21:23 What international markets can learn from one another

*The Cannes Sessions are brought to you in partnership with The Digital Voice.*
That’s What I Call Marketing is where marketers come for real conversations about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Hosted by Conor Byrne, the show features conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, authors, thinkers and practitioners about what good marketing looks like in practice.

Listen, follow and find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Connect with Conor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorbyrneirl/
If you enjoy the show, please follow, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more marketers find the conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James MacDonald, Founder of Limelight, joins That’s What I Call Marketing to discuss programmatic advertising, building a global ad tech business, AI and why simplicity still matters for marketers today.

This episode explores the journey from Fleet Street advertising sales to modern programmatic technology, through a practical conversation about risk, reinvention, customer focus, remote culture and building technology that solves real problems.

In this episode, we cover:
– What Fleet Street taught James about sales, resilience and asking for the business
– Why helping people buy is more powerful than pushing people to buy
– How James identified the gap that led to Limelight
– Why programmatic advertising still needs simplicity, support and better execution
– How Limelight thinks about AI, interoperability and the importance of human judgement
– What it takes to build and maintain a strong remote culture across a global team

A useful listen for marketers interested in ad tech, programmatic advertising, AI in marketing, founder stories, sales, customer success, remote teams and building through change.

That’s What I Call Marketing is the podcast for marketers who care about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.

Follow the show for more conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, professors, authors, thinkers and practitioners.

Find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com

This Cannes Sessions episode is brought to you in partnership with The Digital Voice.

Find out more at: https://www.thedigitalvoice.co.uk

01:38 Starting out on Fleet Street
03:19 What early sales teaches you
04:35 From eggs to advertising
06:27 Helping people buy, not pushing a sale
07:04 Mentors, mistakes and learning through failure
07:11 Starting again and founding Limelight
09:31 Finding the right business partner
10:59 Identifying the gap in programmatic
12:00 Building the Limelight platform
14:00 Taking risks as a founder
15:59 Building culture as the company grows
16:42 Running a fully remote global business
18:17 What Limelight does
20:49 How people discover Limelight
22:16 Listening to customers and building the product
23:33 AI, human judgement and interoperability
26:05 Why simplicity matters in technology
That’s What I Call Marketing is where marketers come for real conversations about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Hosted by Conor Byrne, the show features conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, authors, thinkers and practitioners about what good marketing looks like in practice.

Listen, follow and find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Connect with Conor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorbyrneirl/
If you enjoy the show, please follow, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more marketers find the conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Linehan, Founder and CEO of The Digital Voice, joins That’s What I Call Marketing to discuss Cannes Lions, the changing role of PR, AI search, trusted sources and why amplification matters for marketers today.

This episode explores how brands, agencies and marketing leaders need to think about discoverability in a world where search, AI, content and credibility are all changing at pace.

In this episode, we cover:
– Why The Digital Voice describes itself as an amplification partner, not a traditional PR agency
– How AI search and LLMs are changing the value of trusted, published content
– Why consistency, repetition and clear messaging matter more than ever
– What it takes to plan properly for Cannes Lions and create real value from the week
– How Julia has built a fully remote team with strong culture, energy and trust
– Why Cannes needs to stay accessible for students, publishers, creators and smaller businesses

A useful listen for marketers interested in PR, brand visibility, AI in marketing, thought leadership, Cannes Lions, agency leadership and the future of discoverability.

That’s What I Call Marketing is the podcast for marketers who care about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.

Follow the show for more conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, professors, authors, thinkers and practitioners.

Find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Visit the Digital voice at https://www.thedigitalvoice.co.uk/
That’s What I Call Marketing is where marketers come for real conversations about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.
Hosted by Conor Byrne, the show features conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, authors, thinkers and practitioners about what good marketing looks like in practice.

Listen, follow and find more episodes at: https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com
Connect with Conor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorbyrneirl/
If you enjoy the show, please follow, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more marketers find the conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.