This week we’re republishing one of the most popular AdExchanger Talks episodes of 2022, with Brian O’Kelley, an originator of RTB and now the CEO and co-founder of Scope3, a new startup that aims to help ad tech companies monitor and reduce their carbon emissions. Happy holidays and happy listening!

When online grocery subscription service Misfits Market was founded in 2018, it took a page right out of the DTC advertiser’s playbook, says Holly Eagleson, VP of marketing. But since the release of Apple’s ATT, Misfits has been embracing new channels.

Advertisers often talk about supporting Black- and minority-owned media companies. It’s Mark Prince’s job to help them turn those pledges into action. As SVP and head of economic empowerment at Dentsu Media, he pushes brands to consistently diversify their media mix – and move away from one-off investments.

Mary Engle is EVP of policy at BBB National Programs, a nonprofit organization that’s helping keep self-regulation of the ad industry alive. She’s also spent more than three decades with the FTC. In this episode, Engle gets into the weeds on “commercial surveillance,” the nitty-gritty of ad disclosures, the FTC’s case against Kochava and more.

CTV measurement is a total mess: Agree or disagree? “It’s a mess,” says Lynette Kaylor, SVP of North America ad sales at sports-focused streaming platform FuboTV. And don’t even get her started on using audience panels to measure streaming audiences.

How should advertisers approach a wild-child platform like Twitter? David Cohen, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau – who recently spoke with Elon Musk himself on that very topic – weighs in. Also in this episode: grappling with the term “commercial surveillance,” retail media real talk and marketing in the metaverse.

Generating awareness is great, says Toby Espinosa, VP of ads at DoorDash. But a cost-per-acquisition pricing mechanism allows small businesses to invest in growth without having to worry about cash flow.

The “notice and choice” model makes sense in theory, but in practice? It’s a mess. Privacy platitudes need to stop, says Jessica Lee, a partner at Loeb & Loeb. Heck, some practitioners don’t even know how online advertising works.

Call it a Halloween special. Our apparition of a guest this week, an anonymous ad tech Twitter personality, is staying beneath the invisibility cloak. “I’m not senior enough to get away with running my mouth,” says the @HumanPropensity account operator who goes by corndog.

Bringing data ethics into the marketing department is good for an org’s bottom line, says Jamie Barnard, Unilever’s former general counsel focused on global marketing, and now the CEO of a new privacy compliance startup called (natch) Compliant.

Rideshare marketing should be more than just slapping a screen in the back of a car and running ads, says Cherian Thomas, head of marketing and go-to-market for T-Mobile Advertising Solutions, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.

Just like a rising tide lifts all boats, a receding tide grounds all ships. When someone turns on an ad blocker out of frustration, that decision also affects publishers making an effort to serve up respectful ad experiences, says Blockthrough CEO Marty Krátký-Katz.

Marketers are banking on compelling creative and contextual signals for performance, with challenges to addressability, says Forrester Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai. Plus: How TV can reduce digital advertising costs.

After a hiatus from ad tech, Brian O’Kelley is back with Scope3, a new startup to help ad tech companies reduce their carbon emissions. The cynical POV: He’s cleaning up the mess he helped make. It’s a fair criticism, O’Kelley says: “I take accountability for my role in this.”

Retail media has reached escape velocity. “We've grown from basically $0 to a business that's now bigger than The New York Times,” says Walmart Connect VP Jeff Clark. But Walmart still needs to get it right.

Meet your new CTV acronym: HVOD (hybrid video on demand). Why do we need it? The rise of AVOD doesn’t mean SVOD is going anywhere, says Sarah Lewis, global director of CTV at video platform ShowHeroes and a proponent of HVOD.

Roku is bullish on shoppable video. The idea of television commerce isn’t new, of course. QVC, HSN and infomercials, anyone? But the technology exists today to breathe new life into the opportunity, says Peter Hamilton, Roku’s head of television commerce, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.

With five state privacy laws set to go into effect next year, consumer privacy and issues related to data collection are top of mind for everyone – but especially people like this week’s guest, Fiona Campbell-Webster, chief privacy officer at MediaMath.

Confusing, murky and complex – the programmatic supply chain is a mess. So why do advertisers accept the status quo? Often, it’s because they have a serious case of FOFO: the fear of finding out, says Ruben Schreurs, Ebiquity’s chief product officer.

Nabiha Syed is CEO of The Markup, a non-profit newsroom that runs in-depth investigations into how companies large and small (but mostly large), use technology to reshape society – and it's having an impact. The new lawsuit facing Meta and several hospitals over data sharing used to target ads on Facebook? Yep, that’s thanks to The Markup.

Yes, the headwinds are blowing for digital advertising. There’s signal loss, regulatory scrutiny, platform privacy changes and a looming recession, to name a few. But McKinsey Partner Emily Del Greco sees opportunity on the horizon for commerce media and new forms of measurement.

Roy Armale, VMLY&R’s global chief innovation officer, believes in tackling technology with human behavior in mind – and being careful not to let the convenience of technology alter our perception of what it means to be human.

General Mills is going deep on its first-party data strategy. Heather Conneran, director of brand experience platforms, shares the CGP marketer’s lessons learned from its time in the digital transformation trenches.

Gayle Troberman, iHeartMedia’s CMO, talks up iHeart’s programmatic advertising ambitions and the power of audio to engage – in some cases even more deeply than video. Also in this episode: Lessons learned from 16 years as Microsoft’s chief creative officer.

Ad tech entrepreneur Chris Cunningham’s early-stage investment firm, C2 Ventures, has a new fund: just over $20 million for pre-Series A companies, plus $2.55 million for pre-seed startups. But there’s one thing he won’t be investing in, and that’s ad tech. Listen in to learn why.