Copyright Adweek
For decades, brands have relied on demographics and past behavior, yet these signals explain just 7% of buying decisions, according to Ian Baer, a 30-year agency veteran who’s solved business problems across the finance, automotive, healthcare, tech, and entertainment industries. With his company Sooth, which specializes in predictive and behavioral intelligence for marketers, Baer has flipped that logic on its head. In May, Sooth launched its proprietary Emotional Logic Interface (Eli), a predictive AI system that decodes the emotional and behavioral drivers behind human decisions. Eli supercharges marketing by turning emotional data, gathered from 300 million people across 20 countries, into precise predictive guidance, helping brands know what to say, where to show up, and what will actually work—moves that can cut wasted spend by up to 80%. Baer’s mission is clear: eliminate “signal waste” and restore confidence in marketing. In an era of endless data and overblown hype, his human-centered approach to prediction is helping marketers finally see what’s next. While AI can often feel cold or complicated, Kiser Barnes is making it relatable. As partner and CCO at branding agency Red Antler, he’s helped companies turn advanced tech into experiences people want to engage with. His approach—pairing technical credibility with emotional insight—has made Red Antler a go-to for AI-driven companies seeking connection. At humanoid robotics firm Figure, Barnes replaced sterile engineering talk with a vision of progress grounded in optimism. For AI infrastructure startup Ori, he reframed computing power as creative potential. And he posed AI shopping platform Daydream as a companion that helps guide personal taste. Beyond client work, Barnes has become a prominent voice for what he calls “creative symbiosis,” where AI amplifies—not replaces—human creativity. From serving on AIGA’s board to the Cannes Lions Design Jury, he’s working to show how technology can be part of a future with empathy and integrity at its heart. With Supergood, Mike Barrett is building the blueprint for AI-native agencies. While others chased hype, Barrett turned artificial intelligence into a working system that makes advertising faster, smarter, and more human. The patent-pending Supercharger platform fuses AI, data such as consumer profiles and academic research, and human creativity across every step of the workflow, doubling speed to market and delivering measurable results for Fortune 500 brands. But Barrett’s biggest move was not just developing but opening up Supercharger to other agencies through licensing, even making its Strategy Engine free for marketers, democratizing tools once locked behind closed systems. Under his leadership, Supergood has built private, secure AI environments trusted by major enterprises and launched the first AI-powered financial services campaign “Power of Us” for U.S. Bank, making cutting-edge AI practical and trustworthy. Being a modern marketer means making fandom, culture, and technology into your company’s growth engine. Under Chris Brandt’s leadership, Chipotle has harnessed social-first creativity and digital innovation to drive brand love and turn it into real results. In the past year, Brandt launched the restaurant industry’s first national college rewards program, tapping into Gen Z’s loyalty and energy with Chipotle U Rewards. He turned an online meme into record-breaking sales with the “Tatted Like a Chipotle Bag” BOGO stunt, turning social conversation into real foot traffic. He also introduced Build-Your-Own Chipotle, a digital-exclusive family meal that rapidly scaled nationwide, and brought augmented reality to the table with a Snapchat lens that rewarded fans for scanning avocados. Through creativity grounded in insight and powered by technology, Brandt has made Chipotle the model for how brands can turn attention into meaningful results. As consumers shift from Google to generative tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity—over 60% now begin their product research with genAI—James Cadwallader saw what few did: the death of traditional SEO. As online platforms speak to each other in new ways, Cadwallader has redefined how brands stay visible with Profound, an AI search optimization platform that pioneered helping marketers see how these new platforms describe their brands and generate content to improve those answers in real time. In two years, Profound has raised $58.5 million from Sequoia, Nvidia, and Khosla Ventures, and already serves over 500 enterprise brands including Ramp, Docusign, and Plaid, improving visibility by up to sevenfold. Through cutting-edge research and tools like the AI Visibility Leaderboard, Cadwallader is helping brands keep up with the pace of change with the marketing tools to understand, measure, and master the next era of search. The constant hype cycle around AI can make true innovation difficult to tell apart from the noise. Skai’s Celeste stands out as a genuine breakthrough in commerce media. Built under the direction of CPO Guy Cohen, Celeste is a genAI marketing agent designed to act like a strategic teammate for marketers. While the rest of the industry is focused on creative production or chatbot interface uses for AI, Celeste is designed to be a collaborator, verticalized and onboarded into an agency’s system like a new hire that can convert human time spent cleaning and analyzing data into strategic planning, creative thinking, and client collaboration. Trained on performance data from over 200 retailers and publishers, Celeste delivers insights and optimization recommendations that drive real results, helping over 100 brands and agencies achieve up to 50% efficiency gains and up to 20% performance lifts. Cohen’s model—focused on domain-specific intelligence, user trust, and tangible ROI—makes good on the productivity promise of AI. It’s been a year of transformative growth at T-Mobile Advertising Solutions (T-Ads) led by JP Colaco, that brought together digital, physical, and in-store touch points. His acquisitions of Vistar Media and Blis expanded T-Ads’ reach to over 1.1 million DOOH screens and introduced privacy-forward, omnichannel targeting, bridging the gap between connected devices and real-world engagement. At IAB NewFronts, JP unveiled T-Ads’ turnkey retail media platform, empowering retailers to build in-store ad networks powered by T-Mobile’s tech. He also launched near store activations with DOOH messages, which helped drive a 52% Android sales lift during a Google campaign. With enhanced programmatic tools, new attribution models, and landmark deals with IPG, T-Ads is now delivering 61% more conversions at 29% lower CPAs. Through Colaco’s leadership, T-Mobile has evolved from a telecom giant into a full-fledged media innovator shaping the future of omnichannel advertising. B2B marketing is finally getting a much-needed makeover. At GumGum, CMO Kerel Cooper has given the contextual intelligence firm a bold, emotional, and culturally fluent voice with his mantra of “think like B2C as a B2B company.” Among his standout moments were driving a 235% jump in panel attendance at Possible, followed by a DJ Khaled-hosted VIP dinner that turned cultural buzz into business momentum. Cooper’s work drove real impact: Marketing-sourced revenue nearly tripled to $29.3 million this year. Internally, he overhauled GumGum’s marketing engine, introducing OKRs, expanding product marketing, and building repeatable playbooks that fuse creativity with accountability. Beyond the numbers, Cooper’s influence extends across the industry as an adjunct professor at Kean University, his Minority Report podcast that elevates diverse voices, and supporting events founded and led by Black creators and business owners to open new pathways into marketing. Few leaders have reshaped modern media like Sean Corcoran. At Forrester, he pioneered the “paid, owned, earned” framework that has shaped media planning. At Mediahub, he embraced the challenger agency model to drive record growth. Now, as the president of MissionOne Media at BarkleyOKRP, he’s led the agency to nearly $250 million in new business billings while rejecting principal media buying. The 200-person full-funnel agency runs on creativity, data, and AI, while reasserting control and infusing curiosity back into the media business. He’s integrated CRM and performance media under one roof, and launched tools like M1 Refinery that uses AI to decode why creative works. From helping Red Lobster reinvent its loyalty program to launching a nostalgic AI streaming radio campaign for Slice, Corcoran’s work demonstrates how creativity and media can amplify each other. Putting community at the heart of everything Elite Media does, Christopher Crawford isn’t interested in agency business as usual. The founder and CEO has built a Black-owned independent agency that champions creativity with a purpose, partnering with brands like American Family Insurance that are looking for a a long-term creative partner while serving the communities where they do business. Raised by an educator, in 2024 Crawford launched The Schoolys, a Harlem-based initiative to honor and empower educators. The first phase of the program delivered $150,000 in self-care and professional development grants to school staff, doubling retention and transforming morale. This year it’s expanding to fund media labs, ongoing grant writing support, and enrichment programs. Elite Media’s grounded, equity-focused approach has earned recognition from the Effies, Addys, and beyond. Crawford’s message to the industry is clear: Purpose isn’t a buzzword but a way of doing business. Making a legacy brand feel new again takes deep knowledge of its history and the new retail world it must adapt to. In two years as True Religion’s CMO and digital growth lead, Kristen D’Arcy has elevated the 23-year-old denim label into a $450 million cultural powerhouse, seamlessly blending music, fashion, and authenticity. Under her leadership, True Religion’s “Own Your True” platform became a cultural moment from its launch with Brazilian singer Anitta during Super Bowl week, then amplified by Megan Thee Stallion, YG, and Sexyy Red at Coachella and Rolling Loud. Her strategies drove 3.5 billion impressions and a 100% surge in new online customers, with ecommerce nearing 50% of total sales. D’Arcy’s marketing budget is now 10% of revenue, up from 3% when she started. With organic endorsements from Kylie Jenner, Alix Earle, and Timothée Chalamet, she’s proving that when brand and culture align authentically, influence becomes effortless. For the retailer on top of the Fortune 500, staying there takes relentless innovation. As EVP and chief growth officer of Walmart U.S., Seth Dallaire is turning the world’s biggest store into the world’s most connected commerce ecosystem. Under his leadership, Walmart has seen triple ecommerce growth, a surge in new profit streams like Walmart+ and retail media, and a bold rebrand powered by the “Walmart. Who Knew?” campaign that reframed the retailer as modern and unexpected. Dallaire also architected Walmart’s acquisition of Vizio, fusing retail, media, and entertainment to create new ways for brands to connect with consumers. Through Walmart Connect and its advanced data engine, Scintilla, he’s pushed retail media into a full-funnel future, driving 31% YoY growth and reshaping how advertisers measure impact. To supercharge fandoms and their dedicated audiences, Paramount Streaming’s Domenic DiMeglio is merging data and creativity to reshape the streaming landscape. Overseeing Paramount+ and Pluto TV, he’s turned insight into impact, driving a 29% global surge in viewing hours in Q2 2025 and 15% revenue growth across platforms. His signature “Find Your Mountain” campaign transformed Paramount+ into a cultural playground. From AI-powered fan experiences like Paramount+ Fan Frontier—where audiences could claim digital plots on the Paramount Mountain—to unexpected mashups featuring SpongeBob SquarePants, Star Trek, Mean Girls, and Gladiator, DiMeglio’s work connected storytelling across generations and fandoms, earning 81 million views and industrywide buzz. At the same time, Pluto TV remains the global FAST leader, expanding its footprint and audience share. DiMeglio’s mix of innovative ideas, data-driven precision, and emotional storytelling is setting a new gold standard for streaming marketing. As founder and CEO of MNTN, Mark Douglas has turned television into the next great performance marketing channel. An engineer-turned-visionary, Douglas personally helped build MNTN’s Performance TV platform, making linear advertising as simple, targeted, and measurable as digital. Today, 97% of MNTN’s clients are first-time TV advertisers—proof of how he’s opened a once-exclusive medium to brands of all sizes. He’s also the architect behind MNTN Matched, an AI-powered tool that uses data and machine learning to connect brands with their best-fit streaming audiences. All of these efforts paid off this year, when Douglas led MNTN through a landmark IPO, valuing the company at $1.2 billion. From the witty ROÁS All Day campaign at Cannes Lions to recognition as ADWEEK’s 2023 Tech Innovator of the Year, MNTN under Douglas is making adtech accessible through his mantra: Make every screen work as hard as search. Over the past year, Jamison Duffield has pushed Virtue Worldwide into new territory with the Pigeon culture accelerator. Powered by AI, network analytics, and big data, Pigeon guides campaigns by mapping cultural dynamics, identifying meaningful entry points, and forecasting shifts. The tool leverages Duffield’s philosophy of “contribution over disruption,” which guides brands through actively participating in culture to drive engagement and deliver growth without relying on interruptive tactics. This approach has driven standout results such as Poppi’s Super Bowl campaign propelling the prebiotic soda to the top of YouGov’s brand perception rankings, while Gallo Wines is connecting with younger audiences by entering overlooked cultural conversations. Pigeon also informs Vice’s global media ecosystem, surfacing emerging trends and insights that strengthen both editorial and client work. At the center of Brandon Edwards’ leadership strategy is the belief that marketing can be a force for change within the healthcare field, whether it’s patient acquisition, workforce recruitment, or brand strategy. The co-founder and CEO of Unlock Health has applied this philosophy across groundbreaking initiatives such as crafting 20 condition-specific health risk assessments that lowered acquisition costs by nearly half for clients like Franciscan Health; Nebraska Medicine’s “Together. Extraordinary.” campaign that boosted applications by 36% and cut voluntary turnover by 15%; and University of Iowa Health Care’s brand unification that increased impressions by 284% and conversions by 46%. Earlier this year, Edwards also published a book, Authentic Healthcare Marketing, pairing research and practical tools to show that authenticity drives trust, loyalty, and conversions. By turning authenticity into a measurable strategy, he’s created a blueprint for connecting meaningfully with audiences. What began as an experiment in gaming marketing has become the leading metaverse company for reaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. Joe Ferencz founded Gamefam in 2019 as the first professional game development studio on Roblox, and has since partnered with brands including the NFL, Paramount, and Intuit to create immersive experiential campaigns like playable movie trailers and a digital World Cup trophy reveal for FIFA. When fans don’t just watch ads but play them, they become co-authors in a brand’s story, fostering the kind of brand loyalty that’s powered over 45 billion lifetime visits to Gamefam activations. And beyond the work, Ferencz’s multimillion-dollar Creator Fund invests in diverse young developers, supporting the careers of talent who grew up on these platforms. Few executives are shaping the future of advertising like Rita Ferro. The global advertising president at The Walt Disney Company has turned the triple threat of Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ into the most advanced ad platform in entertainment, reaching 157 million ad-supported monthly users worldwide and setting a new standard for scale, innovation, and storytelling. At Disney’s Global Tech & Data Showcase, Ferro unveiled breakthroughs like the Disney Select AI Engine, Magic Words Live contextual targeting, and Disney Compass, giving brands unprecedented precision and creative flexibility. Disney Advertising also introduced Live Certification for key adtech partners, allowing brands to transact during peak engagement moments with advanced biddable capabilities. As a result, Disney’s 2025-2026 upfront delivered higher streaming and sports sales, and a sold-out Oscars show with the most diverse lineup of advertisers ever. By fusing data, technology, and creativity, Ferro is shaping how Disney can better reach audiences everywhere. When planning to open Fig 13 years ago, Mark Figliulo had a new type of data-driven creative agency in mind. Bringing 30 years of creative agency experience to the table, he knew there had to be a better way to measure its effectiveness than consumer response or media performance data. So he built StoryData, a proprietary AI tool that assesses stories as a new kind of data source, replacing backward-looking metrics with forward-looking insights. StoryData enables creatives to quantify essential variables like meaningfulness, brand identity, emotion, and differentiation to hone their narratives. The technology has propelled Fig to 30% revenue growth in 2025, with AOR duties for Tropicana and wooing Publix Supermarkets away from a 33-year agency partnership. This fall, Figliulo is spinning off StoryData into a separate company, a move he hopes will help drive the future of creative work for the whole advertising industry. Loop took the agency world by storm this year, quickly developing a reputation for radical stunts and bold campaigns for well-known brands that made people feel like they were seeing them for the first time. At the helm of the small creative studio is founder and CEO Nick Gallo, who gets his production chops from HQ Trivia, Adult Swim and The Onion, using his deep understanding of the internet and love for the craziest idea to create captivating content. Among them was crafting the World’s Hardest Captcha to promote Sam Altman’s World that gained 2.5 million impressions, a parody of The Bear starring Duo the Owl, and creating playable ads with Samsung Game Breaks. Loop has plenty of accolades to show for it. Among the 66 Webbys, Clios, and other awards it won this year, the agency’s revenue increased by 134% with 147% growth in its client roster, among them Lionsgate, Visa, and Tripadvisor. Adtech is complicated by design—look closely, and you’ll find grievances big enough to warrant a federal antitrust trial against Google. Arielle Garcia, COO of nonprofit online advertising watchdog group Check My Ads, broke down the lengthy courtroom proceedings with news articles, social posts, and even illustrations without losing the technical nuances, making the topic more relevant and accessible to anyone with an interest in the open web. Garcia has been an innovative force in the digital advertising space for over a decade. But the Google trial took her beyond highlighting the problem to fixing it from the inside, becoming an expert source for everyone from journalists to politicians, even building a coalition of 14 civil society groups invested in the outcome. She’s also since become involved in crafting regulatory policy, promoting Check My Ads’ goal of an accountable and transparent ad ecosystem in the halls of Congress. In a year when most agencies played defense, Code and Theory Network co-founder and chair Dan Gardner expanded, innovated, and set a new standard for how creativity and technology work together to drive growth. Gardner’s curiosity for what’s next fuels his momentum. He launched The Human Design Framework to help leaders navigate the rise of AI and built The Machine, an AI-powered orchestration layer that boosted productivity by 35% across Stagwell’s global network. His Engine prototyping studio shipped more than 40 AI concepts in a year, while the AI Accelerator turned hype into impact with tools like ContextLens for RealClearPolitics. The agency’s 12% revenue growth this year is also due to Gardner’s strategic acquisitions to expand the business in the MENA region, plus deals with the AI elite including OpenAI, Google, and Adobe. In an era of disruption, Gardner has engineered the modern creative company. As streaming rewrites the rules of television, Michelle Gelman made sure the industry could keep up. Among the biggest changes she brought to the measurement game as Nielsen’s head of global content product was Big Data + Panel measurement, the industry’s first accredited hybrid solution powered by data from 45 million homes. The result is a single, trusted view of where and how audiences are watching, used by every major publisher from Disney to NBCU to transact during the 2025–2026 Upfronts. Gelman also launched Nielsen’s first-party live streaming measurement, an accredited solution that gives networks and advertisers an unprecedented look into live sports and events on platforms like Amazon and Netflix, and expanded out-of-home viewership to 100% of the U.S. Measurement is no longer a metric of the past—it’s a glimpse of a moment as it happens. While other digital media companies are contracting, Bryan Goldberg is expanding the capabilities of Bustle Digital Group. As CEO, he’s turned BDG from a digital publisher into a full-fledged cultural network where editorial storytelling, live experiences, and creator access all work in sync for advertisers. The standout example of Goldberg’s strategy is Nylon Membership, which connects brands directly to creators and tastemakers. Within its first week, thousands of influencers applied, eager to join a community that offers both cultural cachet and commercial opportunity. Experiential marketing now accounts for 20% of BDG’s total revenue, fueled by signature events like Nylon House at Coachella and Desert Disco at Stagecoach, which together brought in nearly $5 million in sponsorships. Under Goldberg’s leadership, BDG is back to building trends rather than chasing them, offering advertisers a rare blend of access, influence, and authenticity in the moments that shape culture. B2B adtech firms have a sameness problem. That’s where Nadia Gonzalez’s ENC² comes in to remake them into differentiated global businesses. Gonzalez has built a career helping to turn technical innovation into market momentum. She’s guided companies like Olyzon, AdLib, Venatus Media, and Welect in crafting compelling narratives that accelerate growth and attract investors. Her expertise spans strategy, storytelling, and positioning, skills honed while scaling startups like Orchard Platform, Sociomantic Labs, and Admeld, all of which were successfully acquired by major players including American Express and Google. Beyond client work, she advises investors such as Jim Payne of Breakpoint Capital and supports emerging ventures through First Party Capital. When tariffs threatened to spike the cost of baby essentials by up to 145% early this year, Babylist founder Natalie Gordon didn’t just speak out—she mobilized an entire industry. Her “End the Baby Tax” campaign united nearly 30 competitor brands including Uppababy, Frida, and Ergobaby, transforming policy outrage into a national movement. With a full-page Washington Post ad, a Nasdaq billboard takeover, and more than 1 billion media impressions, Gordon turned a pricing crisis into a platform for advocacy. At the same time, she matched words with action. Tools like price alerts and the new Open to Secondhand registry feature—used for more than 500,000 items in six months—helped families save money while promoting sustainability. Under Gordon’s leadership, Babylist has become more than a registry. It’s a $500 million business powered by empathy, innovation, and purpose, showing how the strongest brands don’t just sell to families, they advocate for the next generation. Over the last two decades, Elav Horwitz has turned complex technology into business results for global brands like L’Oréal, GM, Nestlé, and McCann Worldgroup. At WPP, she heads up strategic partnerships and AI solutions, helping clients harness generative AI, XR, and Web3 to create campaigns and experiences that scale. Her teams have built global C-suite innovation councils, translating emerging tech into measurable impact and guiding organizations through digital transformation. Beyond client work, Horwitz mentors AI startups, empowers female founders, and champions responsible tech, serving as a founding member of women’s leadership network Chief and advisor to the Meta Creative Council. Her work has been recognized by Cannes Lions and She Runs It, and she frequently speaks at global industry events, sharing actionable insights on strategy, creativity, and technology. Mailchimp’s in-house studio Intuit Intuition (formerly Wink) has become a hub for bold, culturally resonant creative under Jeremy Jones. He emphasizes the power of bold ideas and new technologies to remind people why your brand matters, embodied in this year’s “Email Is Dead” activation at SXSW Sydney. Visitors explored email’s past, present, and speculative future with interactive installations, a personality test, and even a signature scent, showing that while the old way of doing email is indeed passé, Mailchimp has figured out its next iteration. Jones’ team of 50 experiments at the intersection of AI and human creativity, with generative AI’s sometimes strange results complementing Intuit Intuition’s established “expertly absurd” aesthetic. The AI Remix project reimagined Mailchimp’s extensive brand archive, culminating in “Pop Up Like It’s Hot,” an AI-powered music video that transformed list-building tactics into cultural commentary. What will they make us rethink next? Microsoft Advertising has become a proving ground for AI-powered marketing with Jennifer Kattula at the helm. Over the past year, her team has integrated tools like Copilot, conversational ad formats, and AI-driven campaign optimization, delivering measurable impact: 73% higher clickthrough rates, 16% stronger conversions, 33% shorter customer journeys, and 53% more purchases within 30 minutes of interaction. Kattula has fostered a culture of experimentation, embedding AI fluency into workflows, daily practices, and companywide hackathons, freeing teams to focus on ideation and creative problem-solving. Her “fewer, bolder, better” approach guides campaigns toward high-impact moments, while forums like the Innovation Council ensure solutions address real-world advertiser needs. By blending human creativity with AI, Kattula is showing marketers how to work smarter, faster, and more creatively, with results that resonate within companies as well as with their customers. In just a year at Meta Reality Labs, Gabi Knight has transformed how immersive technology connects with global audiences. Leading marketing outside the U.S. and Canada, she spearheaded the international rollout of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses across Europe, Australia, and beyond, while positioning Quest headsets and the Oakley Meta launch in key markets. Her “culture-to-culture” approach treats each market as unique, crafting campaigns that honor local nuances while keeping a universal appeal. By blending PR, influencer partnerships, demand-generation channels, and cultural activations, she’s turned launches into “surround sound” experiences that feel native to each region. Knight’s strategy bridges technology and lifestyle, showcasing Meta’s wearables as immersive hardware that can live authentically within aspirational cultural moments such as Cannes, Wimbledon, and Monaco F1. Few marketers juggle Hollywood blockbusters, personal brands, and product launches quite like Maya Lasry. As chief marketing officer of Seven Bucks Companies, she’s built a mighty marketing engine around Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s universe by leading with authenticity and heart. Lasry’s team helped turn Moana 2 into a global sensation before it hit theaters with a trailer that broke Disney channel viewership records accompanied by a campaign rooted in Johnson’s Polynesian roots. In the consumer products realm, the debut of Johnson’s men’s hygiene brand Papatui was amplified with a message of compassion and inclusivity, generating massive organic buzz on social media. And for WrestleMania 40, Lasry crafted a multi-month storytelling arc that transformed Johnson’s in-ring return into a cross-platform cultural event. By orchestrating campaigns that are personal, authentic, and transmedia in scope, Lasry has set a new standard for celebrity marketing. JPMorganChase’s marketing is pushing boundaries under the human-centered, tech-forward approach of Tracy-Ann Lim. Her Summer of Sapphire campaign infused a credit card with the cool sensibility of the fashion world, driving record-high engagement. She also spearheaded the financial giant’s first AI use case, adding 20% capacity to her team by automating workflows, planning, and reporting. Her approach isn’t about hype; it’s about unlocking practical, measurable impact while ensuring transparency and accessibility across the advertising ecosystem. Lim’s work on privacy as strategy has established an industry-leading framework for data compliance, widely recognized by partners like LiveRamp and Integral Ad Science. She’s also an outstanding supporter of a robust journalism industry, teaching other marketers how to reach people in brand-safe ways. Through innovation and advocacy, Lim has elevated standards across her organization and beyond, showing that creativity and integrity can scale together. How do you make an indie beauty brand stand out among an industry full of giants? For Milani Cosmetics, the answer has been creativity over cash. Under CMO Jeremy Lowenstein, Milani has climbed to No. 7 in the competitive eye, lip, and face category—the only independently owned brand in the top 10. Lowenstein’s challenger mindset fuels everything from witty, nostalgia-driven campaigns to bold cultural collaborations. His in-house team’s “America’s Next Top Primer” spoofed early-2000s reality TV, racking up 600 million unique views and making Milani’s Smoothing Primer the No. 2 new primer launch of 2025. Meanwhile, the “Face Set. Mind Set.” campaign brought beauty and sport together, featuring athletes like Jordan Chiles and Sabrina Ionescu and generating 5.6 billion impressions. With Milani now sold in 40 countries, Lowenstein is proving that authenticity and humor—not just budget—can win big in beauty. Retail media has long been about ad placements, but at Sam’s Club it’s becoming something far more immersive. In a little more than a year, Harvey Ma has evolved the Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP) into what he’s dubbed a retail experience network, seamlessly blending ads into the shopping journey. Through innovations like Omni Experiences, MAP campaigns now merge digital touch points with real-world activations such as tailgates, back-to-school events, even race-day takeovers. One such campaign delivered a 9.6% sales lift and brought in 40% new buyers. Ma also launched Omni-Impact, a measurement platform powered by first-party Sam’s Club membership data, giving advertisers full-funnel clarity across onsite, offsite, and in-club media. MAP campaigns now drive an average 27% sales lift—up to 50% for new items—while Scan & Go ads see 10x higher clickthrough rates, proving the power of retail media that adds value for shoppers. AI video generator Pika was founded in 2023, after Chenlin Meng and Demi Guo took the path familiar to many tech founders: abandoning their degree programs—at Stanford University’s AI Lab, no less. Two years later, their free app has racked up over 16 million users drawn to its simple interface for producing videos in various styles with a simple text prompt or still image. The app’s revolutionary Predictive Video feature, launched this fall, can generate clips without the need for complicated prompt engineering, including the script and soundtrack. The company is closing in on a $500 million valuation, having raised $135 million from investors including Github’s Nat Friedman and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Performance marketing isn’t just about clicks and conversions anymore—and Adrienne Morgan is showing the industr what’s next. At strategic marketing agency Stripe Theory, she’s fused creativity and technology to drive growth for global brands including Amazon, Google, and Nissan. Her biggest move to date is launching Kai, Stripe Theory’s proprietary AI engine that turns real-time data such as media coverage and social chatter into predictive insights and optimization recommendations. The platform has driven 12% organic growth for the agency and double-digit ROI gains for top clients. Morgan has also transformed how teams work, bringing data scientists, media strategists, and creatives together to experiment and innovate in real time. It’s a model that’s inspired agencies across the industry to rethink how they deliver value. By marrying AI intelligence with human ingenuity, Morgan is shaping what performance marketing will look like in the next era of advertising. In a beauty world obsessed with constant drops and viral trends, Aila Morin is betting on something rarer: patience. As CMO of Merit, she’s helped push the makeup brand to $100 million in revenue last year by slowing things down, launching just five products (half the industry norm) while deepening consumer connection through storytelling and design. Instead of chasing hype, Morin crafts campaigns that start before a product even exists. Working backwards, she creates a cohesive brand story during the production stage, which inspires bespoke campaigns for each product. To promote Merit’s first fragrance, Retrospect, she enlisted five female photographers to evoke individuality. Pitching the brand’s tinted sunscreen The Uniform to city dwellers rather than beachgoers generated $1 million in sales in its first week. Through knowing Merit’s audience and speaking to them in artful ways, Morin’s beauty marketing is an unconventional success story firmly rooted in marketing best practices. What if every moment of attention could turn into a moment of commerce? That’s the concept behind Shopsense AI, co-founded by Bryan Quinn, and it’s changing how publishers make money. Instead of sending audiences off-site, Shopsense layers lightweight AI directly into video, audio, and editorial content, identifying product moments and surfacing shoppable offers in real time—all within the publisher’s own environment. The impact is big: Shopsense now powers native commerce for Disney, Paramount, Univision, Tubi, CW, and BuzzFeed, connecting to more than 1,250 retailers. By keeping transactions and attribution in-platform, Quinn has given publishers new ways to monetize attention while maintaining editorial integrity and first-party data ownership. Drawing on his decade at Amazon, Quinn has built not just a product but a new playbook for the attention economy—one where inspiration and transaction happen in the same moment, without leaving the story. Crunchyroll isn’t just a streaming platform anymore—it’s a global cultural phenomenon. COO Gita Rebbapragada has been driving that transformation, leading a global rebrand in 2024 that united Crunchyroll and Funimation, launching at San Diego Comic-Con with a two-day fan event and live concert that earned Clio and Muse awards. The campaign set a new benchmark for how entertainment brands can turn identity shifts into cultural moments, making a corporate change into a celebratory moment for fans. Rebbapragada also scaled Crunchyroll’s localization and dubbing, with over a dozen languages supported, and rolling out global weekly simulcasts across over 200 countries. On the theatrical front, she’s brought anime to theaters with smash hits Mugen Train and Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. She’s also thinking beyond the usual anime fanbase with cross-cultural partners like MLB and J Balvin, and has led published research on Gen Z fandom. Her strategies have fueled a 30% subscriber increase, now surpassing 17 million. Media teams no longer have to wait days to turn data into action. Jon Reilly co-founded Akkio with the goal of anyone being able to converse naturally with massive datasets and get actionable insights in minutes. Removing those technical barriers has helped companies like Horizon Media, where audience-building speeds increased 150x, letting strategists test multiple scenarios in real time. Reilly’s platform handles complex datasets with ease, and with the help of LG Ad Solutions even cracked the code on television’s holy grail: automatic content recognition data, transforming a previously manual, time-intensive process into instant intelligence accessible to entire teams. The technology is also approachable, with a patented conversational AI interface that lets users interact with data without specialized knowledge, automatically generating code from natural language prompts. By democratizing access to strategic insights, Reilly is changing how the advertising ecosystem handles media planning, audience analysis, and campaign optimization. In a programmatic world challenged by declining third-party data, Joe Root has shifted how the advertising ecosystem collaborates on first-party signals. He transformed Permutive from a publisher-focused data management platform into a global data collaboration hub connecting publishers, brands, agencies, and retail media networks. Root’s platform blends predictive analytics, privacy-safe data clean rooms, and curation tools into one system, giving publishers control of their assets while enabling advertisers to reach audiences previously inaccessible with traditional deterministic models. Campaigns like Sky’s, powered by Permutive’s predictive approach, unlocked incremental audiences and delivered performance on par with major walled gardens, showing that premium publisher inventory can drive impressive outcomes. By making privacy-compliant, first-party data actionable at scale, Root has created a blueprint for the open internet that balances performance, security, and collaboration. His work is equipping the industry to achieve superior results while maintaining trust—practically unheard of in programmatic advertising. Known is having its biggest year yet, powered by CEO Kern Schireson’s bold blend of creativity, data science, and AI. The independent, employee-owned agency secured more than two dozen new business wins—including Disney, HP, Publix, NBCU, and the U.S. Olympic Committee—while expanding relationships with clients like Moderna, Amazon, and Meta. A driving force behind this momentum is Skeptic, Known’s patented automation and optimization platform. With 70 applications, Skeptic predicts and persistently optimizes media and creative across every channel. Daily use by teams—and now direct client access—has delivered more than $500 million in incremental ROI, with engineering rolling out up to three new capabilities per week. Schireson’s approach marries human craft with AI efficiency, enabling campaigns that are both creative and scientifically optimized. By integrating technology, transparency, and high-touch client partnerships, Known is turning complex data into actionable insight, powering more than $1 billion in annual client marketing investment. Inclusivity is a growth driver, and the proof is in Asha Shivaji’s work at SeeMe Index. As co-founder and CEO, she launched the first AI-powered system measuring representation across six identity dimensions and three brand components—ads, products, and external commitments—turning a traditionally subjective topic into actionable data. Her system, in partnership with Circana, has shown striking results: Inclusive beauty brands grow 2.7x faster than less inclusive competitors, and in OTC Health & Wellness, the gap is even wider at 4x faster growth. These insights have prompted Fortune 100 companies to rethink marketing strategies, ensuring campaigns reflect the diversity of their audiences. SeeMe Index’s annual CPG benchmarks have set new industry standards, forcing brands to confront representation gaps with measurable, AI-driven metrics. By combining technology with cultural insight, Shivaji has positioned inclusivity as a tangible competitive advantage that drives both engagement and market performance. When Stagwell set up shop on the beaches of Cannes, it wasn’t to hand out swag or pitch clients—it was to play. What started as a single PowerPoint slide from Beth Sidhu, Stagwell’s chief brand and communications officer, has grown into Sport Beach, the festival’s hottest ticket and a multimillion-dollar business. Sidhu reimagined brand networking through the universal language of sport, where Fortune 100 CMOs shoot hoops with Olympians and ideas spark on the pickleball court. Since the first Sport Beach in 2023, attendance has jumped to 6,000, athlete participation has more than doubled to 45 stars including Serena Williams and Alex Rodriguez, and partnerships have climbed to 89 brands. This year, Sidhu scaled the concept globally at Davos, SXSW, and the Super Bowl, creating a year-round event and proving that authentic connection drives business. Independence in music has never looked this powerful. Under CEO Steve Stoute, UnitedMasters has become a force for artist ownership and creative control, turning technology into leverage for musicians everywhere. With the launch of Debut+, artists can now distribute unlimited music across more than 50 platforms while keeping 100% of their master royalties. Stoute’s team also introduced Blueprint AI, a virtual A&R and marketing coach, and Real-Time Royalties, paying artists instantly when their songs are played. Those innovations helped talents like Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug and Chilean artist FloyyMenor break from the underground to chart-topping success without label backing. By marrying access with autonomy, Stoute is shifting the balance of power in music. UnitedMasters is a blueprint for a different, more inclusive, artist-led industry where creators own their work, their data, and their future. The game on the field might be the NFL’s main event, but the sport has become a hybrid media company under Ian Trombetta. He’s turned the NFL into a creator-fueled, always-on content machine where the social videos that players and influencers make travel far beyond the stadium. His strategy has tripled NFL social video views since 2019 and made the league the No. 1 U.S. sports brand on TikTok, growing 36% year-over-year. From turning Super Bowl week into a festival for over 150 creators, to hiring the league’s first fashion editor, to expanding the Creator of the Week program that’s yielded over 300 million views to date, Trombetta is humanizing the game and expanding its cultural reach. By making the NFL as relevant in fashion and entertainment as it is inside the stadium, Trombetta proves he doesn’t need home field advantage to win. The digital advertising landscape is more transparent and safer thanks to Lisa Utzschneider of Integral Ad Science. The global leader in media measurement and optimization is helping brands ensure their ads show up in the right places and actually drive results. Under her leadership, IAS has launched AI-powered products like Total Media Quality, capable of analyzing video content frame by frame across platforms such as TikTok, Meta, and YouTube. That technology now processes the equivalent of 40 years of video every day, up from just two years’ worth two years ago. Utzschneider’s focus on ethical innovation is equally groundbreaking, with IAS becoming the first company to earn the Alliance for Audited Media’s Ethical AI certification. With a leadership team that’s nearly half women and pioneering innovations that drive results, Utzschneider is showing how AI, accountability, and inclusion can work together to make digital advertising more effective and trustworthy. Reddit has long been a hub for authentic conversation, which has made it an attractive but challenging proposition for brands. COO Jen Wong is ushering advertisers into the online forum in ways that feel authentic to its communities. Initiatives like Reddit Community Intelligence turn the site’s more than 22 billion posts into structured insights for marketers. Reddit Insights and Conversation Summary Add-Ons let brands make smarter, faster decisions and customize their ads with consumer testimonials, with early tests showing a 19% higher clickthrough rate. The changes have been transformative for Reddit’s business, with active advertisers jumping 50%, Q2 2025 revenue hitting $500 million (up 78% YoY), and ad revenue soaring 84% to $465 million. Wong is also championing a more inclusive approach to business as the executive sponsor of the Trans@Reddit Employee Resource Group, ensuring that Reddit is facilitating vital conversations internally as well as on its forums. Experiences that are part art installation, part cultural moment—that’s where Mike Woods thrives. At m ss ng p eces, he pushes brands like Microsoft, Meta AI, WhatsApp, Asics, and Chili’s into entirely new territory, blending real-time tech, AI, and social-first storytelling. Woods’ Meta AI-powered Ultimate Barbershop let UFC fans try on their favorite fighters’ haircuts using “magic” mirrors, then actually get them done. Microsoft’s 50th anniversary got a fully immersive 1970s workspace, letting attendees step back into the company’s origin story. For WhatsApp, his Not Even WhatsApp pop-ups spanned London, New York, Delhi, and São Paulo, bringing digital privacy to life in public spaces. Woods also co-created Disc, a VR sport exclusive to Meta Quest, and led the Frozen Experience for Chili’s where patrons sipped margaritas at pop-up bars made of ice. With Emmy and Cannes Lions Grand Prix wins under his belt, Woods turns tech and culture into unforgettable, shareable moments that make audiences active participants, not just spectators.
