The Complete Feed

Kurt Donnell left M&A law for digital media and became the first CEO of Freestar, helping scale it into a global publisher monetization business. Now the open web faces a harder test: declining search traffic, AI answer engines, fragmented AdTech, and advertiser dollars moving to simpler closed platforms. Can radical transparency restore trust, what publishers should demand from AI companies, and whether Freestar’s new pubOS creates real leverage—or merely manages declines.

Advertising legend Rishad Tobaccowala joins Brett House and Rio Longacre for a wide-ranging conversation on AI, reinvention, agencies, and the future of work. Drawing on four decades at Publicis, Rishad explores why AI transformation is really organizational transformation, how careers are becoming more fluid, and what human skills will matter most in an age of abundant intelligence.

Bryan Leach left a Supreme Court clerkship and a successful legal career to build Ibotta from Denver. The company grew from a cash-back app into a promotions network reaching more than 200 million consumers—and completed Colorado’s largest technology IPO. Brett and Rio ask how Ibotta really makes money, whether redemptions prove incremental sales, what LiveLift and the Uber partnership change, and whether Colorado remains a place where ambitious founders can build at national

Alex Collmer built Vidmob on a provocative idea: advertising creative should be measurable without becoming mechanical. Now, as generative AI makes content nearly infinite, Vidmob is moving its creative intelligence into assistants, agents, APIs, and media workflows through Vidmob360. Brett and Rio ask what creative data can truly prove, whether optimization produces sameness, why Alex handed over the CEO role, and what humans must still control when machines begin making and

Jeffrey Cohen had a front-row seat as Amazon Ads became a global advertising giant. Now, as Chief Business Development Officer at Skai, he is working on the harder next chapter: making fragmented commerce media measurable, interoperable, and ready for AI agents. Brett and Rio ask what Amazon got right, why attributed sales are not the same as incremental sales, what Skai’s Celeste AI and agent-native platform can actually do, and who controls the budget when machines start ma

Every AI breakthrough starts with something less glamorous than the latest model: clean, trustworthy data. In this episode of Signal & Noise, Hyatt's Jer Tippets joins Brett House and Rio Longacre to explain why data quality, governance, identity, and privacy are the real foundation of AI. From customer identity and CDPs to personalization and digital measurement, this conversation explores what brands need to get right before AI can truly deliver.

For years, digital advertising has optimized for cheaper impressions, stronger identity signals, and higher ROAS—but what if it's been overlooking the quality of the media itself? In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House are joined by Erez Levin, Founder of Emmett Advisory, to explore why media quality may be the industry's missing performance signal. They discuss attention, CTV, attribution, AI, and why marketers must rethink what truly drives advertis

The future of digital advertising may have just taken a major step forward. Following Boostr and Vox Media’s landmark agentic media buy using AdCP, Patrick O’Leary joins Signal & Noise to explain how AI agents negotiated a real media transaction, what humans still controlled, and why this could reshape buying, selling, and the economics of digital advertising. If you want to understand where agentic trading is headed, this conversation is essential.

What happens when being yourself becomes your biggest competitive advantage? In his first solo Signal & Noise episode, Krish Raja sits down with Justin Kramm, Founder & Creative Director of Shit Show Creative, for a conversation that blends humor with genuine insight. They explore authenticity, creativity, AI, LinkedIn, Cannes Lions, and why embracing your unique voice can open doors, build community, and create opportunities no polished corporate persona ever could.

Day 4 closes out Signal & Noise’s first Cannes Lions with conversations that capture where marketing is headed next. From AI agents and ad fraud to transparency, identity, enterprise transformation, and publisher innovation, Rio Longacre, Brett House, and Krish Raja speak with leaders from Dstillery, CHEQ, Stagwell Marketing Cloud, Chili Piper, Credera, and more to wrap up an unforgettable week at Cannes Lions 2026.