When Content Becomes Infinite: Alex Collmer on Creative Intelligence in the AI Advertising Era
Generative AI has made it radically easier—and cheaper—to create advertising. But if every brand can suddenly produce infinite variations using the same models, what creates competitive advantage?
In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Alex Collmer, Founder & Executive Chairman of Vidmob, to explore why the next battleground in advertising may not be content generation. It may be the intelligence that determines what to create, why it works, and what brands learn from every ad they put into market.
Alex traces Vidmob’s evolution from a marketplace connecting marketers with video creators into what it now calls a creative data company. The turning point came when Vidmob connected its production systems directly to advertising platforms and suddenly gained access to performance data. That exposed a major disconnect: marketers spent years optimizing audiences, bids, identity, attribution, geography, and media—but creative remains one of advertising’s most important and least-instrumented variables.
Alex explains what creative data means: a structured understanding of the thousands of decisions contained within an ad—from messaging and narrative arc to logo placement, pacing, framing, imagery, and brand cues—and how those decisions correlate with business and campaign outcomes.
The conversation turns to generative AI. Alex argues foundation models themselves are rapidly becoming commodities. If every competitor has access to the same technology, simply having better AI won’t create a durable advantage. The differentiator is proprietary intelligence brands bring into those systems: what they know about their creative, customers, performance, and how their brand communicates effectively.
That raises an even bigger strategic question: Should brands allow platforms to own that intelligence—or build and control it themselves?
Alex discusses Vidmob360 and the shift from static dashboards to APIs, MCP services, assistants, and agents that make creative intelligence actionable inside existing marketing workflows. Instead of receiving a PowerPoint weeks after a campaign launches, marketers can interrogate live creative performance, identify fatigue, understand why assets are succeeding or failing, generate better briefs, and connect insights directly to production and media decisioning.
Rio, Brett, and Alex also tackle the danger of creative sameness. Generative AI can produce thousands of variations, but volume isn't originality. Continuous optimization can easily become a feedback loop in which every brand learns from yesterday's winners and gradually begins looking and sounding the same.
They also explore what all of this means for designers and creative professionals. Alex sees AI less as a replacement for great creatives than another powerful tool—and argues the best technically literate creators may enter an entirely new playing field. Real-time performance feedback can also finally give creative teams something they've historically lacked: a direct learning loop between what they make and how audiences respond.
Plus: why Alex once raced humans against horses, why click-through rate is the creative metric he'd eliminate tomorrow, and the human capability he believes becomes even more valuable as AI improves: storytelling.
Topics include:
Creative intelligence
Creative data
Generative AI
Vidmob360
MCP and AI agents
Creative optimization
Brand sovereignty
Walled gardens
Creative measurement
Content abundance
Advertising automation
Creative fatigue
Human creativity
The changing role of designers
#SignalAndNoise #AlexCollmer #Vidmob #CreativeIntelligence #CreativeData #GenerativeAI #Advertising #AdTech #Marketing #MarketingTechnology #CreativeTechnology #AIAdvertising #AgenticAI #AIAgents #MCP #BrandStrategy #DigitalAdvertising #CreativeOptimization #MarketingAI #Media #PerformanceMarketing #CreativeStrategy #FutureOfAdvertising #ContentCreation #BrandMarketing
Read the full transcript below.
Brett (00:01.968)
Hey everybody, welcome back to Signal and Noise. This is Brett House on a sunny Friday afternoon with Rio Longancher, my co-host, and our awesome guest, Alex Collmer, who we're getting to know off off camera. and we're thrilled to have you doing the green room takes, right? He is the the founder and executive chairman of VidMob. Great name, by the way. and apparently a recent horse racer. I heard that you bought a racehorse.
Rio Longacre (00:08.589)
You there?
Rio Longacre (00:17.25)
Yeah, join the green room takes, right? We yeah, we Yeah, love it.
Brett (00:31.982)
Right? Is that true?
Alex Collmer (00:32.16)
No, I I didn't no no no. I didn't I didn't buy a racehorse. I ran in a race against horses.
Rio Longacre (00:33.186)
Are you racing on the horse or is just are you just an owner of horse?
Brett (00:41.492)
my god. You ran and so
Rio Longacre (00:45.516)
Okay, so it's kinda like that that book that book Born to Run where like they they d they they say people could win like people can win long distance races against horses, right?
Alex Collmer (00:48.6)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (00:53.454)
Exactly. So all right, so this is a definitely a wonderful tangent. But so I'm a very big fan of Radio Lab, one of my favorite podcasts, and they have a great episode from years ago on a race that's been run every year in Arizona for like 40 years called Man Against Horse. And it's basically like in the desert, over a mountain, fifty miles, people against horses with, you know, cowboys and cowgirls on them. And
Brett (01:01.262)
Yeah.
Brett (01:09.967)
Uh-huh.
Brett (01:20.91)
Okay.
Alex Collmer (01:21.578)
And fifty miles is basically a long enough distance that it's actually like a fair fight.
Brett (01:26.254)
Yeah. I mean these animals were were evolved to run, but but not run the distances that Yeah, that
Rio Longacre (01:30.508)
Right, but they have to take breaks. They they can run quicker than us in sprints, but they have to stop, right? They can't continue on like humans.
Alex Collmer (01:34.69)
That's exact yeah. They they're they're very fast, obviously. you wouldn't I I wouldn wouldn't want to sprint against one, but they just struggle to shed heat. and so they ha they have to take breaks. That's right, that's right. So or the or they sweat differently. So I heard this episode and I just couldn't shake it and I've got a friend who'd had been doing you know hundred mile runs and this and and and so yeah, I got into it and you know, now years later I I do a few of these long runs every year and like I love it.
Brett (01:38.532)
Forty miles an hour.
Brett (01:44.91)
Yep. They actually don't sweat, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (02:03.809)
Did you beat the horse?
Alex Collmer (02:05.813)
There were 16 horses in our race, and we beat 13 of them. So there were three that were that beat us.
Brett (02:13.294)
Wow. Yeah. And y and you think the horses are intelligently aware of the fact that you're racing. yeah, that there's like a sentience, right?
Alex Collmer (02:18.522)
definitely. Like I mean there were there were there was one horse I remember that w it like we we we would pass it and then it would pass us and it it was very competitive. yeah.
Brett (02:26.896)
So you're an endurance athlete, among other things, right? So we we we Rio and I talk about this and some people are like, No, you know, Rio's a a a marathon runner, I'm a cyclist. So I don't know why we put ourselves through these things. I mean we'll get into the topics in a second, but you know, where you just i I always say excellence begets excellence if you get if you can push in one area of life. Yeah. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (02:27.021)
That's wild.
Rio Longacre (02:45.613)
Yeah, well, competitive people like to compete in different things. I think that's it, right? It's good to push yourself.
Brett (02:50.348)
And and I c I always come back from these rides and I tell my wife, I'm like, I don't know why I do this 'cause you I mean you look I'll burn like twenty five hundred calories in a ride, which is like almost equivalent to a marathon, right? And I'm like, what am I doing?
Alex Collmer (02:50.423)
Yeah, it's it's
Alex Collmer (02:57.388)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Collmer (03:00.769)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean for me it's I think it's effectively like my form of meditation, you know, and and and I find that that alone time, you know, and then when you're training for these things, you like you might go out for like a four, five hour run. Like, yeah, yeah, like that alone time is is is really useful. And and and I ha I actually have more creative and more interesting thoughts about work during that than I w do, frankly, in most of my work days.
Brett (03:07.31)
Yeah.
Brett (03:18.18)
Yeah.
Brett (03:26.434)
Yeah, it's the it's it's kind of the unstructured mental process, right? We could just talk about this stuff, which I think is I think is important.
Rio Longacre (03:30.477)
Well well yeah, but I I go run I ri I run every morning. I run four miles usually during the week and then I'll do longer runs during the weekend. I always solve something. Like if I'm thinking about an issue, that let's say there's an article I'm working on, I'll have the structure in my head by the time I get back. If there's something at work and it's really stressing me out, I'll be less stressed and I'll have some kind of solution by the time I'm done with the run every time.
Alex Collmer (03:30.913)
Hmm.
Brett (03:48.645)
Yeah. Yep. So so back on topic, but I'm I I had to mention that, but that was a super interesting aside. So for those that don't know vi VidMob, it's a creative intelligence platform and Alex is the self proclaimed inventor of the term creative intelligence. So from what we've heard. You heard your single noise.
Alex Collmer (03:50.561)
Yeah. I love it.
Rio Longacre (03:57.037)
That's cool.
Alex Collmer (04:05.913)
Well so yeah, certainly happy to to you know get the you know tweets and ads about whether but and and I wouldn't necessarily say me, but but VidMob I you know like we we started putting yeah, we started using computer vision to be able to analyze, you know, sort of creative decision and and then bringing that together with performance information in twenty seventeen.
Rio Longacre (04:06.305)
You heard it here, folks. You heard it here.
Brett (04:27.3)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (04:27.713)
which was really kind of like the very beginning of when computer vision could handle video. like I think we actually broke the Amazon recognition API like when we first started using it. And and I got a phone call from the the guy who was the head of Amazon recognition at the time. He's like, What are you doing? And you know, like a a week later a week later we were out in Seattle meeting with the Amazon team and and it ended up developing a really great partnership with them. And but yeah, no, I it there was to this like there were no
Brett (04:33.582)
Yeah.
Brett (04:37.989)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (04:43.405)
What do you take?
Brett (04:43.994)
Yeah. And
Alex Collmer (04:53.631)
terms and so initially we called it creative analytics then we started calling it creative intelligence and then we actually flipped for a while and called it intelligent creative because it was sort of like what's the noun and what's the modifier. and and now for the last few years we've been calling it creative data because I because I I just think like as we head into kind of an AI world we have this very strong view that the the AI that everyone's actually really excited about today is actually kind of a commodity. And it's the data that you put into these things that's actually going
Brett (05:04.9)
Yeah, yeah.
Brett (05:20.367)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (05:23.545)
Help business A beat business B.
Brett (05:25.998)
Yeah, yeah. And you guys haven't
Rio Longacre (05:26.711)
So it's data on creative so it's like the the meta data on creative, it sounds like almost is what you're saying.
Alex Collmer (05:30.859)
Yeah, it's a it's a structured understanding of how every creative decision, you know, the tens of thousands of decisions per ten second Instagram ad, how those decisions correlate to all of the behaviors that a marketer cares about.
Brett (05:45.23)
Yeah. And that could be like logo placement, framing, pacing, messaging.
Alex Collmer (05:50.282)
Ever everything. Nar narrative arc, benefit messaging, you know, prominence of yeah, like you know, I mean liter you know, it's so many things. yeah, like what I would say is we are trying to get to total understanding of creativity. and obviously I know that's a crazy statement, but yeah. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (05:51.863)
Performance.
Brett (06:05.837)
Yeah, but Yeah. No, but then you gotta have that big vision. And you guys but you guys didn't really start that way. And I know you made that pivot
to be sort of a a creative intelligence analytics, if you want to say for b lack of a better word, company. But you guys started as an editor marketplace, right? The connected marketers and editors and creators, which is more of a kind of a connection play versus we're providing insights and sort of next action recommendations for for creative optimization. Right? How did that what what brought you to that sort of moment in time in terms of like, hey, we've got something here that we can really leverage for the benefit of brands?
Alex Collmer (06:15.106)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Collmer (06:21.121)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (06:33.122)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (06:41.217)
Yeah, I mean it's it's kind of the traditional entrepreneur story. and and and I am, you know, probably, you know, for better or for worse, like I'm just like a you know, addicted entrepreneur. yes. Yeah, yeah, and even actually I I dropped out after my sophomore year, ran r
Brett (06:53.175)
You're a serial entrepreneur from the point you graduated college, right?
Brett (07:00.004)
from Cornell? Yeah.
Alex Collmer (07:00.927)
Yeah, yeah, and ran a business on school. Well, it dropped out like the the reality is I wasn't doing well in school and my parents were unimpressed and we decided that I should pay my own way through school. so so yeah. Yeah, no, so so you know, I I left and I had to come up with the money to pay my tuition and ended up running like a bar and built a you know a sort of
Rio Longacre (07:09.069)
Okay.
Brett (07:11.401)
really? Really? They're like, We're un we're unimpressed. You you gotta pay your loan, right, buddy?
Rio Longacre (07:14.985)
Well if I can make pay my own way I better make some money, right?
Alex Collmer (07:26.869)
catering business providing booze to all the fraternities and sororities and w I think when I was nineteen I had a couple hundred people working for me and so I so I that I did that for a year and then went back and finished my engineering degree at Cornell. And but so I've been an entrepreneur since I was you know effectively a kid.
Brett (07:34.254)
Wow.
Brett (07:42.477)
Wow. And you and then you led a company called Autumn Games, right? Which is a a video game publisher.
Alex Collmer (07:45.738)
I I did, yes. I started exactly I s it was it was a game publisher. So built that with a couple of other entrepreneurs as well and you know, we we effectively were it's funny, like i early days we called it we were thinking of it as like the miramax of gaming. Now you definitely don't say that anymore 'cause all all the all the Wein Scene stuff. But but the the the idea was effectively building a new model.
Rio Longacre (07:47.371)
So game studio or
Okay.
Brett (08:02.99)
Yeah.
Brett (08:06.905)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (08:11.627)
that would put artists first in in the games world, and sort of taking the like nameless, faceless talent out of the EAs and Activisions and then helping them set up, you know, what in the film world we see as like Brockheimber and Pixar and you know, you know, et cetera, et cetera. and and you know, we made some some great games and definitely like that was a a an interesting ch Yeah, that's probably the one that you know, certainly the best game. It won
Brett (08:25.187)
Yeah.
Brett (08:32.994)
Skullgirls, I read.
Alex Collmer (08:38.355)
many awards, I think now north of fifty million downloads and you know, like people in that fighting game community, a a bunch of them would say it's the sort of top American fighting game ever, you know, and and that that team was just incredibly talented and to be honest, I had very little to do with anything that made it successful. but but yeah I mean VidMob was sort of next and you're you're exactly right. I in the beginning the thesis was the world was changing
I I I wanted to you know, I wanted to do something kind of positive for the world. I felt like, you know, I had more to offer the universe than like entertaining fourteen year olds. Yeah. And and I liked this idea of creating jobs, like quality creative jobs. And and and it sort of felt like as and th and again there's like huge irony here, but I I felt like in the face of, you know, globalization and
Brett (09:17.679)
Or entertaining frat brothers. Sorority sisters.
Alex Collmer (09:35.49)
you know, automation and all these various like forces, yeah, you know, sort of i scalable jobs was gonna be important and we felt like creativity was gonna be very protected. now obviously that's like ground zero for AI impact. but it it was a time when the web was starting to transition from text and images to video.
And and I just knew from my own experience how much harder it was to create for video than it was to create an image. So I felt like there was gonna be just like enormous creative friction everywhere. And it was also right when like Snap, you know, launched vertical ads. So you know, all of a sudden there was now full screen vertical as a format that literally no one had created for. and
Brett (10:20.429)
Yep. You couldn't you couldn't just take your video advertising or your television stuff and and just retrofit it for a vertical
Rio Longacre (10:25.642)
And reformat it, yeah. Well some people were trying to do that, it but it was not easy, yeah.
Alex Collmer (10:27.819)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And then and and then, you know, you had iPhones that could capture like four K, you know, you know, video and GoPros at the time. And so it was a lot of capture capability, but no one actually knew how to take this raw material and turn it into useful stuff. so that was the thing. It's like, hey, let's let's basically there are lots of people out there that are really talented editors, post post production basically. Let's connect them with businesses who have raw media. This is the vid mob. and and we'll help them take what they have, you know, B roll
Brett (10:42.275)
Yeah.
Brett (10:49.933)
Yeah.
Brett (10:54.37)
Yeah, yeah.
Alex Collmer (10:59.803)
TVC, you know, whatever, and turn it into things that are gonna work on Instagram or Snap or whatever. and and that business actually scaled pretty quickly, because it was we were right, there was a lot of demand for that. and as it
Brett (11:09.997)
Yeah.
Brett (11:13.379)
Yeah. You're right on like the tsunami of like social explosion,
Rio Longacre (11:17.556)
And this was a demand from creatives themselves, I'm imagining, right? From designers?
Alex Collmer (11:20.841)
Absolutely. Yeah, and that was the thing. It's like we were very cr pro creator and and still are to this day. Like like you know, like it you know, it was very much about, hey, this isn't gonna be like sort by price and you know, choose the cheapest creator. It was it was designed to create quality, you know, paying jobs for talented people. and and and we and there was so much f
Brett (11:25.529)
Yeah.
Brett (11:41.06)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (11:45.346)
waste in the system that we could do that and still be like orders of magnitude cheaper and faster than than how the the the rest of the world worked. but so so as as we you know as that grew from you know you know
Brett (11:53.069)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Collmer (11:58.966)
tens of millions of dollars, like we we had to build software to kind of manage the projects and the workflow. And that ended with us connecting into the ads APIs to distribute the the you know, let's say we made you know 500 assets you know through the marketplace for L'Oreal, rather than like downloading each one and then like you know, we transferring them all over to the media agency, we just started connecting into the ads APIs. So you could sort of connect it server to server.
And when we did that, all of a sudden we started getting performance data back. And so we could see how every ad performed. And and we were just kind of like, this is actually really interesting. Like, cause the industry was sort of was and is misstructured. It's like all the creative teams basically had no view of how everything anything that they made ever performed. So I know it's crazy.
Brett (12:31.362)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (12:45.736)
By the way, I don't think that's changed very much, even to this day.
Brett (12:46.082)
Yeah. Yeah, no it's yeah, yeah. Well and and I think you've said that i you know like it created is the largest under instrumented instrument under instrumented variable in advertising, right? We've been we've been optimizing for audiences and bids and identity data and attribution and time of day. And creative is like this opaque sort of static file, right, that nobody does anything with.
Rio Longacre (13:02.708)
And time of day and like and all this other stuff, right? And geography, right, yeah.
Alex Collmer (13:10.679)
Well let me just yeah, I mean let me just say c like a couple things. So like every marketer I've ever talked to, like I've never had a single person push back on this. Everyone says creative is somewhere like fifty to seventy percent responsible for results. But then like the entire ad tech universe is focused on media optimization. If you look at all the measurement tools that businesses use to make decisions, like their MMM and whatever, z
Brett (13:23.469)
Yeah.
Brett (13:38.166)
In their MTA, it's all about media budget allocation and yeah. Yeah.
Alex Collmer (13:39.826)
zero factor for creative quality. And and then like every bit on the internet has, to exactly your point, factors in the time of day and the weather and the this and that that are probably completely meaningless, but has zero factor for creative quality and expected performance. And so like to me this is just one of those things that like a couple years from now the industry's gonna look back and be like, wow, that was stupid.
Rio Longacre (14:02.71)
Well well, Alex, I think you made this is a really this is a really good point though you made. So you think back around twenty ten, right? I remember I published a blog post about that. And I I have a media background and I've you know, I'm not a creative, right? And then and then I remember back then I wrote this blog post about how CMOs and marketing is becoming more media and performance driven. It was based on analytics and measurement and
Brett (14:03.436)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a
Rio Longacre (14:22.964)
audiences and data and all these things, right? And I remember like all of these like marketing people, like it would cost us huge fraud. I never been called so many names, right? It was like, it's not, you don't know anything about marketing. It's about creative and messaging. And I think since then the you know the media and data and measurement folks have have kind of won the day, right? I mean it's I it's swung so far in that direction that I think the devaluing of creative has you know really run its course. But I do agree there's a new trend. And I think this is an interesting time because at I mean d to turn to the thesis of this episode, right? So
Alex Collmer (14:39.351)
Mm-hmm.
Rio Longacre (14:52.416)
We were thinking about okay, AI is making the cost of producing content c it's driving it down to close to zero, right? But on the other hand, it's becoming more important because I think people are realizing that creative and messaging that does drive a huge part of actually how marketing performs, how campaigns perform when they're actually out in the market. So we thought this is a really good time to have this discussion. So like I guess my my question would be s for someone with an engineering background, I know you've you've already
teased out a little bit, but what are y what drew you to to this? What made you think that was it just that the they they needed help? Did you think that it was it was devalued to the point where there was gonna be this resurgence of of the value of creative? What made you think as an engineer this was a like would be a great business to get into?
Alex Collmer (15:35.298)
Well, I mean, I think I've always kind of been in like a weird tweener. And
Brett (15:53.228)
And and and you race horses.
Alex Collmer (15:55.23)
And and and all my like you know, and and the businesses I've always built have kind of always been in that, you know, sort of like intersection of like sort of design and art and and and sort of math. Yeah. And so I think like that maybe helped
Brett (16:03.627)
Yeah. It's right right and left brain capabilities, right?
Alex Collmer (16:10.197)
me sort of see the the opportunity here. But then at some level it was just like, I don't know, it just it's kinda obvious. It like in like you had this thing that was obviously important, the creative. And I I think you said it really well. It's like as an industry we just all got so over rotated on targeting. And and and for good reason. It was really important and really effective. Like and and like the bedrock of it Yeah. Well I mean that's the thing is like
Brett (16:17.719)
Yeah.
Brett (16:33.239)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (16:33.792)
And you could do it finally at almost at a one to one level, right? Or at least an audience level, right?
Alex Collmer (16:39.379)
That led to and built up a trillion dollar digital advertising industry because it works so well. Like, like because Facebook and Google were so good at targeting, we kind of did get to this point where the creative didn't matter. But you know, now, yeah, and I think this is again, this is not a knock on targeting. Like that that that's you know incredibly important.
But we sort think of it as like two successive S curves. It's like, you know, that led to a great d deal of, you know, performance improvement, but it's sort of reaching maturity in that S curve. And, you know, Google's out there now talking about how Creative is the the last frontier. Meta has this tagline says, you know, Creative is the new targeting. I I I think it's just the second S-curve. You know, like if if that first one was a trillion dollar opportunity, I think this next one now.
Brett (17:13.035)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (17:31.157)
I mean, i if we believe that creative is fifty to seventy percent of results, then this next one is bigger.
Brett (17:37.324)
Well well I well I hope that Creative doesn't reflect targeting in the open web. I agree with you that when you're in a closed ecosystem like Meta where you're authenticated, they know y they have your mobile number. Yeah, they know everything about who you are, your social network, all your propensities. But you go into the open web and you know, the open web thinks that I'm and I've seen this data having worked in the vendor ecosystem for a long time.
Rio Longacre (17:46.395)
they know everything about you, yeah.
Brett (17:59.544)
They think I'm a single female that lives in Manhattan. And I'll and I'm a married Gen Xer with two kids living in New York and you know, but I've seen this data and I'm like i is it i you know, so the promise of one to one is is possible in certain environments, but certainly not possible, I don't I would argue, in the open web. Less possible.
Alex Collmer (18:02.189)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (18:03.935)
Right up.
Alex Collmer (18:15.98)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (18:20.053)
Well, and also less possible. I think the p the backlash against surveillance, capitalism, targeting, these privacy laws, data breaches, I think the public has is kind of I mean, maybe unjustly, but has turned against a lot of those things. I I think a lot of them don't understand, like they don't even understand what targeting is. They just think, people have my data. But I think that that's a good point, Brett. It it was never as perfect as anyone claimed, and it's getting harder with signal loss, privacy laws, and all these other things. Alex, thoughts?
Alex Collmer (18:22.059)
Yeah, yeah.
Alex Collmer (18:46.253)
And I think it's I think it's also perhaps unnecessary. Like I don't think we need to get to a one-to-one future because it sort of presupposes that we're all in that unique. And and the reality is we're not. You know, like you know, like they're so you know, like one version of a piece of creative is definitely not enough, but you don't need a you know 700 million.
Brett (18:53.141)
I yeah.
Brett (18:59.726)
Yeah, let's let's not be so arrogant about how unique each one of us is individuals.
Brett (19:10.583)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (19:10.713)
and and and so I think like that is the the exercise is figuring out like what is the right level of personalization that gets you to that maximum because beyond that you're just basically burning energy and cost and and and whatever, even if it's close to free w in a gen AI world, it's just unnecessary, right? And and and and and
Brett (19:27.669)
Yeah, and and we've se we've also seen discrepancies between what happens online in terms of how brands think about creative variation and how much they need and their struggles to really adapt to s you know, mechanisms that that create creative that's aligned to all of their cohorts, right? So that's one one issue. But then we talked to to like the the one of the general managers of play ventures on the gaming side, and she was claiming that a lot of the gaming now a different industry, but a lot of the gaming advertisers will run like yeah, thousands, two to three thousand.
Alex Collmer (19:35.884)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (19:49.408)
Uh-huh.
Rio Longacre (19:54.475)
Yeah, it's mobile apps, yeah, it's different. Yeah.
Brett (19:57.596)
thousand creative variations for direct response purposes for game downloads a month and we're like wow
Alex Collmer (20:03.585)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (20:03.787)
Well but now they can do it with AI, right? They couldn't have done it before, but now they can.
Alex Collmer (20:07.029)
Yeah, and I think and they they've been sort of leaders in a lot of ways on yeah, like but but I also think often like game I I yeah, like I I I personally thought of like a lot of game marketers as basically like what I called like shit throwers. They're just they're just like, Hey, hey, let's just make a bunch of shit and we'll throw it at the algorithm
Brett (20:21.357)
Yeah, that's a that's a good point.
Rio Longacre (20:26.675)
Still works, yeah.
Alex Collmer (20:27.743)
And the algorithm will find the right audience. And and and I definitely think this has that like, you know, kind of Nassim Taleb, you know, quit you know, if you give a million monkeys a typewriter, one of them will write the Iliad. You know, like well, you know, a couple of things are wrong with that is like or or that right. It's like the problem is like 999,000 people have to read the gibberish that the other monkeys wrote. And and and and and this has been a struggle for the games world where I think like
Brett (20:37.76)
Yeah, yeah.
Brett (20:48.769)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (20:54.105)
you know, like that industry has not grown in in a few decades. And and I and I were and and actually when you look at most of those ads, they all kind of look if you look at a bunch of like side scrollers or a bunch of like, you know, arena games, they all look the same. And
Brett (20:56.299)
Yeah.
Brett (21:04.022)
Yeah.
Brett (21:07.979)
Yeah, it'll it's almost like what you see in like slot machines in Vegas. It's all this like, you know, direct response, bye and out, you know, and yeah. Yeah.
Alex Collmer (21:11.221)
Yeah. Yeah, and and and we're replaying that right now in the influencer world. I just don't think people realize it. You know, like like y y I I I just I feel like I've seen this sh show before and and and
Rio Longacre (21:13.663)
Things spinning around, yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah.
Brett (21:25.065)
Yeah. It's like the direct response marketing show. It's the down funnel like yeah, try thou
Alex Collmer (21:29.197)
Yeah, and and so like that games industry, like you know, it drove you know the the goal was throw the shit at the algorithm and drive app installs. It did nothing for brand and it drove so it drove the app installs, but I I think as an industry there was basically not much left after spending a few hundred billion dollars. So right now I think we're re replaying it's like you look at an influencer ad from L'Oreal versus Elf versus Estee Lauder versus whatever, like
They all look the same. It's the same thing. And and and you know, like I I think it's just a replay of what happened back there. And yeah, I think we're just
Brett (22:02.711)
They're not attracting advertiser dollars and that's that's what one thing we've talked to a bunch of these folks is that that I'm like you're talking you're looking for brand dollars, right? To your point, and I think you made a really good point about that it's hitting yeah, a couple of billion dollars, but it's not growing from there, right? Because there's only so many games and so much attention from consumers you can get with game advertising. But it's like, Well then you need to go and look for advertising dollars elsewhere and you're going to brand dollars, the C P G players, all of these big brands that that have all the money and and they don't have a solution for those guys because that
Alex Collmer (22:16.182)
Yeah.
Brett (22:32.725)
gaming advertising doesn't translate to you know dove soap right
Alex Collmer (22:37.001)
Ex exactly. Yeah, so so I mean so so like so getting so b so basically like we I think we were is entrepreneurship like oftentimes means just being in the right place at the right time. And you know, we we we had a growing business, we had you know, we were able to raise capital
Rio Longacre (22:38.53)
Alex Collmer (22:54.381)
And and so and it was right at the time when computer vision and you know advanced like you know processing and analytics were were and data science were enabling these things to happen for the first time. So I I'm sure there are other, you know, y yeah, many other people had kinda had the same insight. We just happened to be kind of in the right place at the right time and were able to capitalize on it.
Brett (23:14.242)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (23:14.507)
It's interesting to comment you made us said about the sameness. I actually think L L Ms, if anything, are proving that out. You think really they're incredible prediction machines, right? And we think that we're getting something completely unique and tell it us, but in reality is they're just predicting based on large data sets what word will come next. And like within you know, you know, with the transformer model they're looking at it a little more holistically, but that's really all they're doing, right? So I I think that is interesting.
Brett (23:34.837)
Yeah, is yeah it Rio is your point is is it it's a production breakthrough and a and a variation breakthrough, but maybe not a creativity breakthrough.
Alex Collmer (23:43.106)
Huh yeah, absolutely. I mean and and this I think gets to like if I think about it, it's sort of like this is chapter three of VidMob. you know, if if if chapter one was the marketplace that that you mentioned and chapter two was sort of like the the SaaS, you know, like kind of creative analytics, like creative intelligence environment, w
Brett (23:55.425)
Yeah.
Brett (24:01.985)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (24:02.529)
We very purposefully transitioned the the business to creative data and and and to the point where we literally like our our brand is like VidMob, the creative data company. You know, is like yeah, this was like our five hour energy, like put it right on the tin kind of you know, thing.
Brett (24:11.649)
Yeah.
Brett (24:15.348)
And are you plu are you plugging into kind of that that is a key component to effectiveness in in AI, in the AI world?
Alex Collmer (24:20.243)
Abs y yeah, because that that's like the the the the the sort of core you know sort of takeaway here. Like our view is like what is the job of a marketer, right? Like like your your job is not to make stuff. y y your job is to beat your competitor and win share. And and so if let's just say everyone's gonna use Claude, like p pick a pick a tool, like it doesn't matter. Then it doesn't matter.
Brett (24:40.641)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (24:49.853)
How if Claude is two times better next month, or ten times better, or a thousand times better, if everyone's using it, it cannot logically be an advantage. And and and it's the same with the Gen AI tools. And and so like this this was kind of our thing is that that actually that thing that everyone's so excited about, like that's the commodity. And it it is the understanding of what what to make.
Brett (24:58.752)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (25:12.607)
You know, w an and and how to express that to drive an outcome more effectively than my competitor who's using the same tool as me. That that's the advantage.
Brett (25:21.12)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (25:21.619)
So Alex, would that same logic apply to the Walled Gardens? Because you look okay, Metaska has you know really doubled down on AI and content generation. I know Yahoo's doing a lot of that within their let's say within their DSP, you cannot make videos, you make it's maybe for small bit sized businesses, not an enterprises, but you know, may you know maybe that'll expand into that. So when looking at what VidMob does, the data you're collecting and and like how they would use it, how would that how would you compare it to what the walled gardens cause the walled gardens are probably saying we just use else, we know everything to Brett's point, people are correct, they're authenticated, we know who they are.
Brett (25:32.108)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (25:50.143)
We can we know what Creative works, just use our platform to to build creative, trust us. Like how would you compare VidMob against that in that argument?
Alex Collmer (25:57.9)
Yeah, I I think it it it sort of fits in there really well, right? I mean like it maybe the analogy is like, you know, if you're on Amazon, like if you're the first like sock s you know, s retailer on Amazon, it's a great place to be.
But eventually there's like a trillion sock, you know, you know, retailers and and and and then you know it's it's all like you know, overseas socks that win in and it becomes a terrible category to be in. And so if we think about like th this, like all right, so now let's just say like, you know, these these brands that have existed for a hundred years, and and if you're you know, some pick a large, you know, you know
brand house, like that is your asset. Like you're probably more a marketing company than you are anything else. If if you turn that exercise over fully to the walled garden and you say, you know what, you do it. You you you do it all. What's left for your business? Then you're just a shoe company and you have no and and it
Brett (26:42.538)
Yeah, yeah, think think Nike, perfect example. That is your IP, yeah.
Over.
Brett (26:54.412)
Yeah yeah.
Brett (26:58.634)
Yeah, this is Yeah, this is the most important important point in argument in the space.
Rio Longacre (27:01.01)
Right. You also might get you might get a quarter zip with a zipper in the top and bottom too, right?
Alex Collmer (27:06.477)
And and so like, yeah, it'll probably boost your you know performance in the near term, but don't be surprised ten years from now if you're out of business. like like
Brett (27:16.128)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and and we talk I talk about that as sort of own your intelligence versus renting your intelligence. And we actually had just had we just talked to an industry principal, Eddie Drake, who came from Bank of America that's at Snowflake, and he was talking about how critical it is to protect your IP, which is your brand identity and everything aligned w and that sort of data and I AI sovereignty. If you're in and you have to look at the contracts that you have with your vendors because you might be training their models on patterns, maybe not the same data, because that might be anonymized or synonymized, but at
Alex Collmer (27:21.697)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (27:31.722)
Your doubt of sovereignty, yeah.
Alex Collmer (27:38.722)
Yeah.
Brett (27:46.062)
At least the patterns that are distinct to your company, the learnings that you've got. And if they're using that to create other services for other vendors or or your competitors.
Alex Collmer (27:53.006)
Yeah yeah, and so we partner deeply with all the companies with Meta with Google with you know i and and and I think the path is is not to like you know basically say, Hey, we're not gonna use those tools. That that that's not but but but I think the path is yeah, how do you take t take those and make them more glass box than black box? Ha how how do you bring your data and not just your, you know
Brett (28:03.318)
Yeah, yeah.
Brett (28:11.631)
I heard that heard that recently, yeah.
Alex Collmer (28:17.343)
audience and you know information but also your creative data into those systems to help them be more effective because ult it just gets back to how are you gonna have an advantage versus the and if and if you're literally just using the same exact tool as the other people in your category, you are not going to win. It's not possible.
Brett (28:34.026)
Yeah. Well and so and so you need to be training whether it's your vendor relationship or your or your sort of native within a with an ecosystem like a Google or an AWS or an Azure, you've got to be training your models and your agents in a in a kind of a sovereign environment that's completely walled off from from from the rest, right? 'Cause that's the IP that you're capturing that's gonna be uniquely you know, it's gonna create patterns that help you create better creative and better XYZ, right?
Alex Collmer (28:50.497)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (29:00.629)
That that that's And so and so I think that g is effectively what VidMob's promise is to our customers. Is our our job in the world is to help them build and own and operationalize this very powerful new data asset, creative data.
Brett (29:06.881)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (29:15.421)
And and and then you know through that, they can, you know, they're gonna have like they will own and understand how to communicate effec most effectively with their customers. They will have the intelligence layer to skip from Gen AI tool to gen AI tool as one becomes better every week forever. And that they won't get stuck on something. Like imagine if you Yeah, like imagine if you like aligned fully on mid-journey, you know, two years ago.
Brett (29:31.978)
Yeah yeah. They capture it and it starts to compound and build within their yeah.
Alex Collmer (29:44.066)
Like you're you're screwed. Like it it's not the best you know, and and so like and and it it's not like innovation is gonna stop. Like I think the the the whatever the you know front edge of of performance i is gonna be is gonna continue to evolve. So like how do you bring intelligence into whatever the best tool is of the day?
Brett (30:00.681)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (30:01.683)
And and and the same obviously with, you know, agents and and you know everything else. So like, you know, for us that that's it. It's like, you know, we're gonna we w our our job is to help brands own this asset and then through that be the best users of AI in their category or versus their peers.
Rio Longacre (30:18.574)
So Alex, you've described creative data as a new strategic data class or or asset, right? Like what have you seen in terms of like how this is being used? Are are our marketers using it? Are designers using it? Or is this being fed into like large language models to pump out new creative? Like, how is this operationally being used by a marketing organization? Wonder love if you could walk us through that a little bit.
Alex Collmer (30:40.639)
Yeah. Yeah, and and it's evolved a lot recently. So so I I'll go back maybe a couple of years. So, you know, originally it was it was more about like you know, understanding, you know, kinda like insights about y your your creative. and you know, like I remember one of the first ones we we were working with a a pharma company and we and you know, we we we found that
Brett (30:55.859)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (31:04.843)
they tended to have a lot of words on their screens, but when they kept it under like ten words at a time, it led to like pretty massive improvement in in in performance. Like you know, like sort of like things like that that then flow upstream to briefs, but they were often delivered in the form of like PowerPoint, you know, like you know, PowerPoints of insights and and things like that. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And and and then we kind of went into an era where
Brett (31:22.601)
Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of it's like the dashboard problem, right? It's just static.
Rio Longacre (31:23.486)
No one read, yeah.
Alex Collmer (31:30.853)
as we started to be able to kind of codify the creative guidelines that that helped drive performance for a brand that led to kind of like scoring systems. So like all right, well, hey like you know you have kind of like the Google ABCDs and the Metabrillion basics, but we would bring people to like you know my, you know, not the ABCDs, but the ABC Mies. you know like a you know custom for a brand.
Brett (31:48.618)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (31:51.816)
And and those scores became predictive and again that sort of flowed up. And so and so we saw application of creative intelligence in briefing, we saw it in production, like tactical, you know, let's put the logo here, not there, you know, things like that. And then we would see it in sort of you know media optimization. Like, you know, like at the end of the day, let me s show me a rundown of all my creative assets in market and let's turn off the bottom 20% because they're not working, or yes, something like that.
Brett (32:20.736)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (32:21.465)
Now we we in I think May announced what we call like VidMob three sixty. And essentially what it was is saying, all right, we we historically have delivered everything in this this VidMob platform and we're now like liberating that data and turning it all like inside out and and exposing it through you know an MCP, APIs. Yeah.
Brett (32:41.119)
Which is a much more modular well we we maybe you've I've heard the word composable used on your side, although composable is now becoming a dirty word apparently. but a modular headless way yeah, yeah, to apply that data to wherever the brand's data environment or production environment lives resides.
Rio Longacre (32:51.046)
Well we just overused. I don't know if it's dirty. Yeah.
Alex Collmer (32:51.437)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (33:00.159)
Th th that's right, yeah, yeah, exactly. So so, you know, like that that and and it's really wonderful. Like you can go in t like to you know, Claude is one w we use a lot. Yeah, but same with like chat GPT anything like that. And just can use the VidMob connector, connect your sort of like structured data like you know, to to their and all of a sudden you can go from Yeah. Well it it it well yeah, and it's and and also like data science layer and I it's just it's it's incredible. So like
Brett (33:14.688)
Yeah.
Brett (33:19.539)
And Claude's the Claude's a communication mechanism to communicate with your data lake house or whatever it might be.
Alex Collmer (33:29.517)
Like pre without that connector, you're gonna say, Hey, tell me about my ads and it's gonna be like, they're cool? You know like you know it has no answer. but then as soon as you connect it, you'll be like
Brett (33:36.701)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Alex Collmer (33:41.558)
List every asset that's decayed by more than twenty percent in the last four days. It's like prr, you know. Tell me why. You know, like what what sh what if I swap these out, what at what's the economic outcome gonna be? Brrrr you know, like tell me what's you know, look at everything over last six weeks and create a new brief based on like what's performing against
Brett (33:45.907)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah.
Brett (33:59.135)
Talk about dynamic insights and next best action and that's all is that all enabled through MCP connectors down yeah.
Alex Collmer (34:04.23)
Yeah, that is. It is. Yeah. And so that's like just like a total revolution. And and and then you can also very easily from there, you know, be like, Hey, you know, build this dashboard in this way and email it to, you know, these eighteen people every Monday and it's it's just a kind of wild but
Brett (34:08.873)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (34:18.442)
Well that's always the problem with running these A B tests and comparing creative performance and understanding creative fatigue. It's just hard, right? 'Cause you constantly have to log in, you have to compare things. One person prepares it, they put it in a PowerPoint, review it a few weeks later, it's already stale by then. And what do you do with it? You have to make a decision. Yeah, I mean it's it's like in especially in a regulated industry like a pharma. I that you that just everything takes forever. I used to have clients that would take three months to just get new creative assets up, right? So th a lot of them would just just say it's just not w truth is not worth the squeeze at a certain point, right? So
Brett (34:18.827)
Well
Alex Collmer (34:21.228)
Yeah.
Brett (34:24.373)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (34:26.091)
Yeah.
Brett (34:42.9)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (34:47.435)
Well it yeah, no and that's and so that's like now the final piece of the revolution is that is that like it's moving it now to actions. So you just you
Rio Longacre (34:47.838)
That's really cool.
Brett (34:48.308)
Yeah.
Brett (34:54.399)
Yeah. So you're seeing you're seeing a convergence in that and let's let's just for the market, so people understand sort of the market, you're seeing a convergence between what you would say the insights and data, which is the creative intelligence and analytics layer. And then you've got what has traditionally been, you know, and there's players like like Creative X and Segwise Segways, Segwise have alre always played in that area. And then you have the the creative management play, which is now we're gonna actually go and produce new creative and do variations, which is companies I think like smartly.io and
Alex Collmer (35:22.135)
Yep. Yep.
Brett (35:22.631)
Seltry and guys like that. Are you saying it seems like there's not a lot of players that are doing that are kind of bridging the gap between those two worlds.
Alex Collmer (35:29.301)
Th and that's exact and so like we're working on bringing that intelligence to bridge the gap, right? And and so like the idea of having connected actions so that briefs are automatically better, so that you know Gen AI tooling is just like it knows for this outcome, for this audience, for this format, for this you know, whatever are the things that you should do and it's being given machine readable recommendations on what you know to do. Same on the media side. Like if we know ahead of time the zero to a hundred predictive s you know, score of an asset for this placement, this format.
that this audience, this would like that can automatically influence, you know, bidding or, you know, so it we're kind of moving from the sort of information and insights, like data you look at era, to you know, like connected actions era.
Brett (36:10.76)
Yeah.
Yeah, and d and is the brief piece of this, I mean, can that be bypassed? I mean, 'cause I still think of a brief as almost like a dashboard. It's like a static play that's going into either a team's arms or maybe a platform's arms that's then is there is there an instant translation of these insights into creative production w from an automated perspective? Yeah.
Alex Collmer (36:32.553)
Mm. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I think briefs are still useful just 'cause people like sort of looking at things and understanding and and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (36:40.861)
People s everyone still uses them. Yeah, they they might be written by AI now, but everyone uses them still.
Brett (36:42.601)
Yeah.
Yeah, li i it gives a level of governance to what the heck the production system's actually producing, right?
Alex Collmer (36:45.388)
But
Alex Collmer (36:49.845)
Yeah, and and and that's one of the things that is our our recommendation system, when you connect it into a Gen A tool, it's going to tell it what to make, but then it's also gonna have a human readable, you know, kind of like traceability layer where you can see like, all right, well, why did it make these decisions? Why did it prioritize this change over that change? And and and and you have kind of like the the understanding of, you know, why it was created the way it was.
Rio Longacre (37:12.851)
Alex, are people using this mostly for Vidvab and the the the the data the creative the creative data mostly for pay media use cases or is this used for like owned and C R campaigns as well? Like like what are you seeing in terms of how it's actually being deployed across the whole customer journey?
Alex Collmer (37:27.295)
Yeah, so our roots are paid media. we have we did launch a an influencer creator product earlier this year. So you so our customers now can take kind of you know, any or all of their, you know, kind of organic assets and have them analyzed and you can use that to do like in you know, brief enhancements or new brief generation and a whole bunch of like, you know, boosting recommendations or not. we we haven't really gotten into
Brett (37:49.832)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (37:54.87)
you know, like owned sites, you know, s you know, email, you know, th th thing things like that. So so it's it's s it's still kind of like what I would think of as like
Brett (38:02.814)
D do you really want to get into that space?
Alex Collmer (38:04.685)
Yeah, I think I probab probably not. I mean, like we're I I think for us it's it's more like lateral expansion. So, you know, we were walled gardens and then all the DSP coverage and now retail media and then C T V. Like I think, you know, there's a lot of wood to chop across that that space. and then you go kind of paid and organic in there as well and that that kind of covers a lot of ground.
Brett (38:11.085)
Mm.
Brett (38:24.884)
Can you tell us a little bit about the par the cartel? is it cartel or cartel cartel partnership? I think it was in April that you guys announced that, right? And they're a they're a more creative management than creative intelligence, right? As we
Rio Longacre (38:25.192)
Yeah w
Alex Collmer (38:28.076)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (38:31.389)
Yes, recently, yeah.
Alex Collmer (38:35.103)
Yeah, no, I mean it's a it's a perfect partnership. And and so, you know, it's Kevin Riley and Ben Cushing and, you know, Luke and this you know, great group of of entrepreneurs, you know, tons I mean, you know, Kevin, you know, ran, you know, a whole bunch of studios and has been behind a a lot of the cultural iconic shows that we all remember well. but yeah, like they they kind of correctly I think saw that like Gen AI is gonna be most impactful when it's actually like
customized as workflow, you know, to build kind of like bespoke new like kind of production apparatuses for you know big companies. And so the the the that's what that's what cartel is is is is building kind of like a a scalable high like studio quality, you know, kind of Gen AI production, you know, apparatus. what we bring into that is intelligence. You know, so like you know if if if i yeah so if they have the ability to make
Brett (39:10.269)
Yeah.
Brett (39:22.11)
Yeah, so you API right into their system to have a decision
Alex Collmer (39:27.685)
you know, incredibly high quality stuff, then we can help you know pro for provide information about, you know, what to make to drive, you know, specific outcomes. and and so, you know, that that we were really excited about them. and and you know, as part of Vitmob three sixty, w we'll be connecting in and providing that same intelligence into, you know, l lots of lots of, you know, you know, entities to do that.
Rio Longacre (39:51.838)
Yes, I remember reading I think it was in your website or in some of the material that you have a dozen connectors that are covering I think it was over ninety percent of potential media buys in North America, correct?
Alex Collmer (40:02.133)
Yeah, so t total coverage across all the you know, all the walled gardens, DSPs, it's you know, D V three sixty, Amazon DSP, Trade Desk, Yahoo D S P you know, retail media, we cover a lot of it through the Amazon and and then C T V, you know, growing growing coverage there as well.
Rio Longacre (40:19.657)
Okay, cool. And then like any any plans for like different like as C T V expands? I mean is that an area of investment? Like what are you looking at terms of like like where where media buy is going, or any thoughts?
Brett (40:28.744)
Yeah, the there's a lot of hand raising around C T V in the industry right now, which which we've talked about, but I'd love to hear your perspective. Yeah.
Alex Collmer (40:28.909)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (40:32.339)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (40:35.903)
Yeah, I mean I think like at some level we're kind of customer and and partner driven. So, you know, we partner with a lot of the agencies. I think we're e you know integrated into many, if not all, the Hold Co. kind of like internal tech, you know, tech stacks. So the you know, kind of you know, Omni's and you know, i all those. and i you know, I think like r we C T V is definitely on our radar. and
Yeah you know, it just kind of is like everything's a roadmap negotiation. Yeah.
Brett (41:08.862)
Yeah, if y if you could solve the problem of frequency capping in C T V, we'd be really, really happy. That's it is the worst I mean it's it's just it's how do you replace if if most of the television ecosystems C T V Yeah. It's it's unsold and it's a worse experience, a worse customer experience, arguably, than what linear TV ever was in the last fifty years. And so I'm like, how does that happen? How do you how do you actually it's sort of a de evolution versus an evolution.
Rio Longacre (41:18.759)
Well w well a lot of the inventory goes unsold. I this part of the problem, right? They're not able to sell it all, right?
Alex Collmer (41:34.635)
Yeah, the frequen the frequency capping probably isn't in our universe, but we might be able to help you analyze what ad's gonna work best when someone sees it thirty-eight thousand times.
Brett (41:42.566)
Yeah, exactly. You're like Y Yeah, it's like you're
Rio Longacre (41:43.271)
Yeah. But af after after after which impression of the ad do they or ad exposure do they f do they switch channels, right, or turn it off, right?
Brett (41:49.456)
Yeah, yeah, it's like you're goddamn right I've got some unaided brand awareness at this point because I've seen the ad thirty eight thousand times. So so you've you've made this really I think you've made a point and and it's certainly something that I I think is is critical and Rio and I talk about this all the time is is kind of a a a core underlying thesis of of signal and noise that marketing is effectively like the epicenter of AI, right? There's so much work being done. You've just described your entire journey from sort of marketplace to connect creators or editors.
Alex Collmer (41:50.038)
Yeah.
Ha ha ha.
Brett (42:19.62)
to to this AI native company that's operating in a headless way that's integrating into complex data ecosystems and content management ecosystems and stuff like that. do you do you do you agree with that assessment? And do you think you know what what are the blockers when it comes to sort of brand adoption? Because if you look at some of the metrics, they're not particularly positive, right? And whether you believe the McKinsey reports, the state of IR AI reports, are or not a
you know, one percent of C of C levels believe that their companies are mature. Eighty one percent you know, there's these these eighty-one percent I think of of of of brands are seeing no
Rio Longacre (42:59.175)
I don't know, Brett. Some some of those some of those studies by like McKinsey and stuff are or BS, right? Yeah.
Brett (43:01.77)
Well I know, but just let me say it, but eighty one percent of brands arguably are not seeing any ROI impact at all from AI investments. And and and then you see things like when the Metatrue Classic issue, you know, where there were a gran you it was the it was the AI granny issue where they were targeting like young males you know, with flannel shirts and and yet they swapped a into a granny on a on a rocking chair.
Alex Collmer (43:19.692)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (43:23.185)
those meta did that. You know a granny and a and a in a rock on rocking show with the with the with the the quarter zip that had two zippers. Yeah it was it was bad. Yeah.
Alex Collmer (43:29.621)
Yeah.
Brett (43:29.904)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and you know, Coca-Cola, their creepy holidays are coming ads and McDonald's Netherlands had a had a holiday spot that was really bleak. Yeah. What w yeah, and but it's still sort of there still seems to be what I'm seeing on the client side, there's this hesitancy. And so so what would your recommendations be in terms of how brands get started? you know, what of that what of that stuff is just noise and really not signal and and they shouldn't be putting their heads in the sand?
Rio Longacre (43:36.553)
That was the it's gotten better though. Th those a lot of those are a couple of years old, Brent. Those some of those are were terrible, yeah.
Alex Collmer (43:58.223)
I think it's just like, you know, starting by kind of mapping out your entire workflow and and and thinking about like where are there decision points and action points that that you know can be effectively improved with the technology of today. and and there there I mean like there definitely are, you know
Brett (44:13.128)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (44:16.685)
Like brief enhancing is is an area that like the w that that can be done really well today and if you can connect in your creative data it can be done even better. you know, Gen AI for you know static ads, and like DCO, like like that that now like
Brett (44:23.995)
Yeah. Start simple.
Alex Collmer (44:32.459)
Real works works quite well. You bring in creative data there, it's gonna be, you know, materially better. videos coming, you know, you can you can get there today with a little bit of work, but it's gonna be easier and easier. you know, same on the media side. I mean like like there's a reason Advantage Plus and P Max are as big as they are. It's like they work, they drive results. so can they can Yeah.
Brett (44:34.524)
Yeah.
Brett (44:49.788)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (44:53.618)
They're also p pushing them on everyone too, like whether they want it or not. They just flip on. I think that's an issue.
Alex Collmer (44:59.093)
And but it you know, these things are all gonna continue to get I mean, just better so so rapidly, right? Like I think we're still in this, you know, kind of doubling cycle every, you know, three or four months. so I I I definitely think this like this is this is not Web3 and and you know, sort of you know, like JPEG monkeys. Like th this this is this is real and and and we're definitely seeing people. Yeah, exa exactly. Exactly.
Brett (45:22.301)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (45:22.834)
And NFTs, remember remember that? People buying like board yacht club bullsh bullshit. Yeah, no, but no, I look I agree. And this is real. This is I tell people this is the worst AI you're ever going to have. Think about how much better it is than even six months ago. Yeah, it's only getting better. But but question though about how this is impacting actual designers. Because we you have we we've interviewed a bunch of creative and design leaders in the show. And some of them are thriving in this new environment. They're loving it. They're like, I think it's like they're doing like like
Brett (45:33.033)
It's only up from here, right?
Alex Collmer (45:34.412)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (45:40.695)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (45:49.779)
with some guy Drew, he was saying he's a hundred X, right? Because he can now like do some engineering. He can like do like they take meeting notes. He's using AI agents for everything, right? But I but I I bet more junior people are like or people are starting it, they're wondering is there a career in this? Like and I I would almost argue this is making creative, I think to your thesis like more important. I'm agreeing with you, but like how would the how is this like impacting the design profession? Do you have any thoughts on that based on what you're seeing?
Alex Collmer (46:10.113)
Yes.
Alex Collmer (46:16.351)
I yeah, I I think you're exactly right. Like there there are people that are really leaning in and you know, like I'm on the Meta Global Creative Council and a couple meetings ago we were in Paris and they had a number of their sort of top creators coming in and you can do incredibly creative things.
with these these tools, right? And and now it and it's still it's a human artist who's using them. but I I think it's probably the same way as it was when, you know, like Photoshop or, you know, you know, Illustrator of these things came out. Like there's probably a group of people that just didn't lean in and they felt like they were better off like yeah. so yeah, I I just I think it was just it's just another tool for creativity. it now it is also helping people like me become marginally creative.
Brett (46:49.809)
The classical designers. Yeah the
Alex Collmer (47:04.661)
And and so yeah, like I think there there's that too, which is like there th there are things that I do now where I would have had to pair with a designer to help and now I can sort of do that, you know, kind of on my own. but I think like the high end, you know, creatives, especially like more like technically literate ones, are are kind of ascending into like a whole nother playing field. and that's really exciting.
Brett (47:22.098)
Another Yeah, that is that is exact.
Rio Longacre (47:23.464)
Well Bash, that now they can definitively say here's which creatives are performing, they can actually tie to metrics, they can they can understand more quickly and like and so I th I think it's a huge unlock for them. But I understand why some creatives are feeling threatened.
Brett (47:31.305)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (47:32.839)
Well well I mean Yeah, I mean and this gets to what where you what you and I were talking about earlier. Like i just that process, right? Like if you if you be if you can be a creative, make something, have an i idea and a hypothesis, and then two days later see the performance data, like that makes you better at your job. And Yeah.
Brett (47:50.334)
Yeah. And they're all b and they're all begging for that. They've been they're saying you know, I create all this stuff. I know it's good from a fundamentals perspective, but I need feedback. I need a feedback loop and and they rarely B to B or B to C they rarely get that in any sort of way.
Alex Collmer (48:04.347)
That that's right. So that's one of the first things that we do with customers is we say, Hey, like we are gonna like you know liberate that information for all your creative teams so that they have a a real-time view into performance and they're going to get better by virtue of having that information. and you know, it is still most industry does not have that. but it's there, it's available. Like we could turn it on tomorrow for anyone.
Brett (48:26.235)
Yeah. So I th I think that, you know, back to the thesis. I think this is a good argument that we are in a in a different era, that creative is becoming a critical play, and to deconstruct that topic is super interesting. And we know you've got a hard stop. Twelve thirty ish. do you have time for a couple of quick hits? And then we'll and then we'll wrap.
Alex Collmer (48:39.841)
Yeah.
Rio Longacre (48:40.54)
Yeah.
Alex Collmer (48:43.637)
yeah, let's let let's do a couple of minutes and then I I'll I'll just
Brett (48:46.971)
Okay. So the most overrated promise of generative advertising as it applies to creative
Rio Longacre (48:47.708)
Yeah, we'll go quick.
Alex Collmer (48:59.846)
personal be a little late. all right, say it again.
Brett (49:03.698)
the most overrated promise of sort of gen AI advertising or AI powered advertising.
Alex Collmer (49:10.697)
that it's gonna do your job for you. Like you still have to do your job. You still it's easy like if you wanted to separate, you're still gonna have to be creative.
Rio Longacre (49:18.3)
What's one creative metric you would nuke tomorrow if you could?
Alex Collmer (49:24.057)
click through rate.
Brett (49:27.025)
There there we go. A human skill well the the gaming people won't tell you that, but you know the the mobile game people. the hu a human skill that becomes more valuable as AI improves.
Rio Longacre (49:27.772)
Good one.
Alex Collmer (49:39.816)
Storytelling.
Brett (49:41.511)
Yeah. Yeah, I think I think we could we could end there with from a creative conversation. That's awesome. Hey, Alex, this was great. Thanks for taking the time. we could go on forever. super interesting. Great to get to know ya. and for everybody that made this far, visit our website www.signalnoise.ai, subscribe to our newsletter, and check us out on Spotify, Apple, TikTok, and any channel that you listen to podcasts. And thanks a lot, Alex. It was a pleasure.
Rio Longacre (49:45.127)
Yeah, love it.
This is fun. Yeah.
Rio Longacre (50:07.154)
Thank you, Alex.
Alex Collmer (50:07.859)
I loved it. Yeah, it's great. Thanks for having on.
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