The Media Leader Podcast

Is being underestimated a competitive advantage? A new book for the marketing industry argues that underdog brands and agencies have a lot of tricks up their sleeve – if they know how to use them.
Richard Temple is the CEO of independent media agency JAA Media. David Meikle is a business consultant and author who has worked in leadership roles at Grey Advertising and Ogilvy. His earlier books include How to Buy a Gorilla and Tuning Up.
The duo are releasing a new book this November called The Underdog Advantage, which argues in favour of all the little guys out there and provides tips on how to punch up.
The topic is especially timely as The Media Leader gets set to host the Challenger Stage at this year’s Future of Media London event this week. The stage aims to host discussion and impart advice for independent agencies and their often smaller, challenger brand clientele.
Host Jack Benjamin caught up with Temple and Meikle in October to discuss the book and the challenges and advantages of being a challenger in our industry.
Highlights:
4:10: How JAA embraced being an underdog agency
11:55: Why marketers should be less risk averse to get more for less
17:11: Overcoming the performance marketing "addiction" to Meta and Google
24:24: Strategies and tactics for brands to take advantage of their Underdog Advantage
36:58: Everything is media
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This month, Stagwell announced it would transform its agency brand Assembly into Stagwell Media, a new global agency that will combine Assembly’s “performance heritage and ecosystem expertise” with an integrated model powered by Stagwell’s agentic operating system, The Machine.
The move comes amid a wider trend among agency groups that has seen them consolidate agency brands and use AI to automate more and more of the media planning and buying process.
Slavi Samardzija is the global chair of media and commerce at Stagwell. Before joining Stagwell last year, Samardzija also spent more than a decade as global CEO of Omnicom’s Annalect, where he spearheaded the creation of its AI-driven marketing platform, Omni.
He joined host Jack Benjamin to discuss the creation of Stagwell Media, how The Machine is being used by its media practitioners, and the degree to which agency groups are building comparable AI-driven products.
Highlights
3:52: The launch and positioning of Stagwell Media
16:56: Are agencies' AI platforms distinct from one another?
23:08: Could automation lead to a regression to the mean?
30:00: Opacity, margins, and principal media
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Arcade, the management firm behind The Sidemen, is repositioning itself as a creator-first entertainment company, with ambitions to turn Europe's biggest online personalities into media brands.
Following a significant rebrand last month, an expanded roster of creators and its first upfront in London, Arcade is looking to build commercial opportunities around what CEO Matt Elek calls "primetime" creators - "the top 1% of the 1%".
The Sidemen, the British YouTube collective whose main channel has 23m subscribers, remain central to the business's story as it looks to continue building commercial opportunities beyond traditional talent management.
Elek, formerly EMEA CEO of Vice, was appointed CEO in July. He joins host Charli West on The Media Leader Podcast to discuss Arcade's next chapter, what brands stand to gain from investing in major creators, and what the company's evolution says about the creator economy's move towards the mainstream.
Elek argues companies like Arcade are helping bring “the rigour of traditional media” to the growing creator economy – even amid questions around the veracity of measurement and strength of viewership compared to TV, which he views as in “terminal” decline.
Highlights:
2:02: Arcade's new positioning and widening creator roster
6:15: Why young people — and brands — are turning to YouTube and its "primetime" creators
12:43: Bringing "the rigour of traditional media" to the creator economy
15:08: Measurement consistencies and inconsistencies
19:00: Different opportunities for advertisers
23:56: Approach to brand safety
29:08: Why the future of the creator economy is a "hits business"
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‘We are platform agnostic’: The company betting on creators as media businesses
Don’t boost the BBC. Regulate the algorithm
Will YouTube’s new definition of a ‘view’ undermine its effort to tap into TV budgets?

Former IPA president and WPP Media veteran Josh Krichefski is one year into his work at independent media agency PMG.
Speaking on The Media Leader Podcast soon after he joined, Krichefski set out three goals for his first year: improving brand awareness of the agency, winning more enterprise clients, and growing EMEA revenue for a business that is largely US-based.
How has he done? Krichefski catches up with host Jack Benjamin to review his own performance and discuss the state of the global agency market.
Key to PMG's differentiation, Krichefski says, is the number of engineers it employs on staff, as well as its wholly transparent relationship with advertisers.
Krichefski is slated to speak at this year’s Future of Media London conference in November. He spoke to The Media Leader at PMG’s London offices.
Highlights:
1:26: Krichefski's first year: Imposter syndrome, getting close to client work, and hitting KPIs
10:34: What differentiates PMG from other challenger agencies
18:53: Are holding groups undermining trust by 'black box' bundling and proprietary media?
24:10: PMG's EMEA growth strategy
27:53: Maintaining a People First agenda
Related articles:
Josh Krichefski on why PMG is going big at this year’s Cannes Lions
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This week, The Media Leader is running a week in focus centred on talent and leadership.
For years, industry leaders have warned media and marketing is facing a talent crisis. Mental health struggles and burn out was common especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, and rounds of consolidation and layoffs have taken a toll on everyone from senior leaders to junior hires.
Rachel Forde and Marco Bertozzi are co-founders of TheZoo.London, a talent solutions agency that operates a consultant collective and executive search function for individuals with strong experience in the industry seeking to offer their services in an independent or fractional capacity.
Both Forde and Bertozzi are veterans of the media industry themselves, with Forde previously working as CEO of Spark Foundry and later UM, and Bertozzi a former EMEA president at Whalar, former EMEA sales VP at Spotify, and former global CEO of performance marketing at Starcom.
The pair returned to The Media Leader Podcast to speak with host Jack Benjamin about how agency consolidation and AI has impacted talent this year and offer advice to leaders navigating job loss and uncertainty.
While they argued it's not "all doom and gloom" in the media industry right now, they acknowledged pickings are slim for junior talent while senior talent "are not being treated well by companies, by headhunters, by processes on LinkedIn."
Highlights:
5:21: Why Forde and Bertozzi founded TheZoo.London and how they manage self-employment
8:37: Agency restrctures, 'deep cuts', and AI efficiencies
14:03: Advice for senior leaders versus junior staff
21:26: How changing agency remuneration models will impact talent
28:24: Is the industry socialising enough? Advice for networking and meeting face-to-face 'with no agenda'
36:41: Takeaways from interviews with senior industry leaders
Related articles:
Strategic thinking is biggest skills gap in marketing, WFA-Mediasense report finds
The media industry needs to open doors, not just talk about inspiring talent
Why is marketing and media’s talent problem following us into the AI era?
Why talent needs mentors, not machines