Media Committee Thought Leadership

Frontier Airlines and Good Good Golf reveal how challenger brands are winning without traditional media budgets. Their strategies — rooted in cultural insight, owned media, and community — could reshape how marketers think about brand building.

During a February 12, 2026 meeting of the ANA’s Media Committee, attendees explored two complementary approaches to modern media transformation. The sessions provided a blueprint for challenger mindset marketing grounded in experimentation, first party data, and cultural relevance.

Alex Heath, co-host of Vox Media’s ACCESS podcast and author of the Sources Substack shared insights on how AI is disrupting media and advertising.

During a session at a November 11 meeting of the ANA’s Commerce Marketing and Media Committee, audience members learned how Heinz partners with local food influencers to assist independent restaurants and reinforce its association with quality.

Bob Skwarek from Astellas Pharma shared insights on the company's two-year journey to optimize its global LinkedIn presence, consolidating multiple regional pages into a single, cohesive global platform.

Carl Bialik from YouGov presented findings from a late August 2024 survey on the impact of media innovations during the U.S. presidential election cycle, offering insights into voter perceptions and the effectiveness of various campaign strategies.

Evan Kory from Audible and Tom Denford from ID Comms discussed the evolution of media auditing in the programmatic era, highlighting the need for a new approach to drive digital transformation and leverage media as a growth catalyst.

Danone North America is continuously exploring the best ways to effectively reach consumers. Danone's director of media connections shared how the Oikos brand is utilizing purchase-based targeting on CTV to test how the retailer's audience targeting performs with streaming partners.

Nadina Guglielmetti, chief customer officer at Vitamin Shoppe, discussed driving distinct priorities within a limited marketing and media budget. The Vitamin Shoppe has multiple consumer paths to purchase: both a brick-and-mortar footprint as well as a strong DTC e-commerce platform.

Bloomberg Media shared how it earned buy-in from the C-suite to implement media mix modeling and evolve its measurement framework.

Insider Intelligence’s Paul Verna gave an overview of which CTV platforms are currently getting the most attention from advertisers, streaming viewer demographics, and some actions marketers can take to get ready for the future of television viewership.

The Harris Poll provided a deep dive analysis on data that indicates shifting consumer and employee expectations, including views of society’s economic systems, evolving lifestyles, and potential flywheels upon which business leaders can seize and use to create the world their employees and customers desire.

Most marketers are aware of the inequity that plagues the influencer industry, and its roots go deeper than just pay. Fortunately, there are concrete actions marketers can take to create more fair and equitable practices in the end-to-end process of influencer marketing.

Laura Martin of Needham & Company projected future winners and losers in the world of advertising.

Haleon described how it refocused its media strategy on effectiveness.

Bloomberg Media shared how it drove consideration for its subscription business through a multi-channel performance branding campaign.

PepsiCo shared how it leverages personalization, testing, and targeted content to make powerful connections with consumers.

Erin Goldson, brand manager at Unilever, discussed the multichannel execution that earned the brand’s “Not Done Yet” campaign 1.2 billion earned impressions, sparking a conversation challenging everyone to move more.

Jane Crisan, president and COO, and Joy McCammon, SVP of talent management, discussed how the agency is keeping their culture alive through "pop-up" offices, a reimagined Portland-based headquarters, and collaborative technology and tools.

Jason Velliquette, EVP of digital at R3, outlined some key information for brand marketers looking to partner with an external or in-house agency on a Web 3.0 activation, providing guidance on how to approach working with NFTs, esports, and the metaverse.