Spark Foundry’s Post

Our Chief Investment Officer Lisa Giacosa and EVP of Commerce April Carlisle weighed in with Ad Age on what they don't want to see trending in the second half of 2024 #SparkofLeadership Lisa Giacosa, chief investment officer, Spark Foundry: I’d like to see fewer walled gardens that claim ROI in their ecosystem without connecting the dots to all activity that has occurred to drive business outcomes. And no more discussion on cookie deprecation when we know how to solve it (ID-level data can unlock what is needed). April Carlisle, executive VP, commerce, Spark Foundry I’d like to see no more new retail media networks starting up. Clients are overwhelmed with the number and bifurcation of the retail media networks with separate walled gardens and measurement standards that don’t meet industry standards. Retail media has been a significant source of revenue for retailers, but overall marketer budgets are relatively flat in that space, so retail media networks are working fast to expand into upper funnel brand budgets and focus on non–endemic advertisers to continue their growth.

With #CannesLions2024 at a close, our friends at Mattel made sure to put exclamation point at the end of the event. - At the festival’s CMO Accelerator program, Mattel’s Ynon Kreiz and Jason Horowitz stressed the importance of collaboration as a key tenet of best-in-class creative. - While on the festival’s Changemakers panel, Mattel’s Lisa McKnight talked about the importance of learning from the past to be, and do, better. - Finally, the week ended on a high note with Ynon Kreiz honored as Entertainment Person of the Year.

As #CannesLions2024 continues, Spark's Lisa Giacosa continues to take the lead in conversations on measurement and currency, including at the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) summit: "As we move to a multicurrency world, it is an important inflection point to push ourselves as an industry to not settle for the status quo but drive new metrics that guarantee business outcomes” #SparkOfLeadership

With the third day of #CannesLions2024 wrapped, the festival continues to deliver meaningful experiences. Spark Foundry CEO, Sarah Kramer, talking about First-Party Data Revolutionizing Retail Media: “There’s been so much exciting change in the integration of data ... We approach everything in terms of audience integration from the very beginning and it's critical for any marketer to be building your first party data strategy using transactional, people-based data. They don’t have to rely on probabilistic approaches.” From Publicis Groupe’s Carla Serrano on continuing to support those Working with Cancer Initiative : “There’s a point in everyone’s journey where first it is ‘I'm not going to survive this,’ but then it's ‘How am I going to survive?’ ... The people that run [Working With Cancer] are survivors themselves and their outreach is incredibly personal and authentic to those that need it most."

It’s Tuesday at #CannesLions2024 and another incredible day of thought leadership at the festival.  The Brand Innovators panel of the industry’s top voices including Marriott’s Nicolette M. Harper, M.B.A., Mattel’s Jason Horowitz, Influential’s Kimmy Fleishman, and Spark’s own Kerry Hemmerich and erin vogel talked about the need for bravery while cultivating connections in influencer marketing. Mondelez’s Jonathan Halvorson, MBA joined the Cannes Festival's The Business Case for Progressive Advertising panel: “We have to incorporate DEI metrics directly into our creative and production excellence KPIs … The actions and research shared today demonstrates that this transformation is not just about what we're doing, it's what's right and essential to our business.”  Brad Feinberg of Gold Lion-winning Molson Coors, was on Adweek House’s Unlocking Customer Loyalty for First Class Growth panel on the importance of data: “Every company needs a structure to support 1P data collection and we even have it built into everyone’s goals.” And finally, Spark’s own renaissance woman, Lisa Giacosa, started the day on Beet.TV’s From Measuring for Metrics to Measuring for Success panel and ended on Givsly’s Karaoke for Causes to raise money for Unicef. As she noted on her first panel: “Let’s move away from test and learn and to launch and learn. We can start with enough robust data to succeed, fail and optimize.” #SparkOfLeadership