Andy Plesser

From his early days at Conde Nast, to the adtech world of PubMatic, to his present senior post at AT&T, he’s “always been alone.”  The feeling has been most acute at industry events, which somehow appear “unfamiliar,”explains Kirk McDonald, Chief Business Officer of AT&T’s Xandr unit.* Fully qualified, he often saw himself as an “imposter” […]

SAN JUAN, PR –  Online learning can be a useful solution for children whose schools are closed.  But not for  those living in poverty, where there is often little Internet connectivity. For the Boys and Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico, which serves primarily the island’s poor, some 80 percent of club members don’t have suitable […]

Digital publishers and platforms have become adept at controlling fraud, but not so good about more subtle problems around content adjacency. There remains a lack of transparency around where a marketer’s content will run and the impact of associating with sensational advertising. Says Scott Hagedorn, CEO of Omnicom Media Group in this BeetCast podcast moderated […]

It is becoming common for investment in OTT and addressable TV to be 50 percent of total video spend for many major brands, says Doug Ray, CEO of Dentsu Media, in this episode of the BeetCast podcast. The episode is guest hosted by Joanna O’Connell, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. The dramatic transformation […]

MIAMI  — The events business has been crushed by the pandemic, and physical events won’t come back until next fall. As events producers and publishers shift to virtual events, the results have been mixed, observes Brian Morrissey, long time editor-in-chief of Digiday, who stepped down from his position in October. He suggests that events scheduled […]

While the media industry’s enthusiasm for addressable TV is building, it will remain a relatively small part of the TV advertising pie, says Dave Morgan, CEO and Founder of Simulmedia in this podcast. This episode of the BeetCast is hosted by Ashley Swartz, CEO and founder of Furious Corp and a longtime Beet.TV contributor. Linear […]

Bringing the community together to exchange ideas, build relationships and make compelling videos has been the mission of Beet.TV since its start in 2006.  It is exemplified in our 100-person executive retreats which we call the Beet Retreat. Two years ago this month in San Juan, we had an incredibly accomplished group for a three […]

In a new data-led marketing world, driven by technology, marketers are being left behind.  The obsolescence of marketing has begun, declares Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer and President, Healthcare Business, Mastercard, in this excerpt from an upcoming podcast on Beet.TV It is imperative that marketers understand AI, Augmented Reality and other emerging technologies […]

LONDON – He wasn’t happy with the circumstances of his departure from WPP in 2018, the giant advertising holding company he founded. With S4 Capital, he is proving a point: he can create an agile, digital-only marketing enterprise, says Sir Martin Sorrell in this interview with me for our new podcast called the BeetCast. Today, […]

Marc’s father was Mexican, adopted by a man named Pritchard, giving Marc a caucasian identity. This provided him with opportunities not impacted by discrimination. His father was an activist among migrant Mexican farm workers in Colorado.  Marc said the profound effects of seeing how migrant farmer workers lived has had a lifelong impact on him,  […]

FARMINGDALE, NY /  SAN JUAN, PR – September 29, 2017 – A shipment of nearly a thousand pounds of essential medicines including antibiotics, vaccines, asthma and diabetes drugs has landed in San Juan. The items are bound for medical facilities here and on the nearby islands of Vieques and Culebra. The delivery was shipped Friday […]

CHICAGO – Capping off a month of virtual events called Fall 2020, which had been previously known as NYC TV Week, the focus of next week’s sessions will be on measurement and streaming, two of the most dynamic sectors of the television industry. For a preview of the event, we spoke with next week’s sessions […]

Having built essential industry investment/deal guides called “LUMAscapes,” visual presentations of interrelated businesses in the media, marketing and  adtech industries, investment bank LUMA Partners has introduced the Black LUMAscape, a diagram and directory that charts scores of Black-owned and founded businesses. We spoke with LUMA founder and CEO Terry Kawaja about the new effort and […]

OAKLAND –  Russian operatives are still trying to sow disinformation and discord into the 2020 presidential election, but they are not achieving the reach they enjoyed in 2016, notes Elizabeth Dwoskin, Silicon Valley reporter for the Washington Post. She cites more effective controls and staffing at Facebook and Twitter. This week, Facebook banned a so-called […]

CHICAGO – With so much of business and society halted globally for well over six months by the pandemic, the post COVID-19 world will look different with new businesses forming around new customers and new technologies. It won’t be the “new normal” but the “new strange.” It will also be a time when companies must […]

Getting a meeting with venture investors for Black entrepreneurs is nearly impossible. The venture community is “exclusionary, leaving us at a disadvantage,” says Donnovan Andrews, a media entrepreneur in this interview with Beet.TV While some businesses need outside funding, he urges Black founders to first build a sustainable business model. Andrews is the founder and […]

Of all the work we’ve done over the past 14, years, the nearly 8,000 videos we’ve produced, nothing has been as consequential as our Black Lives Matter series, titled Our Voices Our Hopes.. I am grateful to Kirk McDonald and my other dear friends, along with so many new acquaintances, for having spoken so candidly […]

Being under represented in the advertising business can lead women of color to think “they don’t belong.”  This kind of thinking can make them be their “worst enemy,” says veteran advertising executive Stephanie Geno, in this in interview with Beet.TV “Networking is hard for everyone,” especially for black woman who feel out place.  Even though […]

Being one of a relatively small number of Black senior executives in the AdTech industry has been “exhausting,” says  Kerel Cooper, SVP Global Marketing at LiveIntent. The relentless effort to fit in, to “code switch,” into a person who fits the workplace norms results in losing “bits of yourself,” he adds in this interview with […]

When people say that they don’t notice color in the workplace, it’s simply not true. But that’s fine.  Being identified as a Black man in a leadership position in a major media organization and mentoring others, is a good thing, says Brian Norris, SVP of Advertising Sales at NBCUniversal. Norris, who heads the direct-to-consumer sales […]