Français
Deutsch
Español
Italiano
Português
日本語
한국어
Русский
Shell to buy Danish firm Nature Energy for nearly $2 billion
Oct 21, 2023Torres: When you join Milestone, you’re not only building a great career, you’re helping clean up energy
Dec 12, 2023I survived the rig explosion that caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This is what I saw.
Jan 06, 2024Kemira starts up first production line for bio
Jul 26, 2023HS FOOTBALL: Midland TLCA forfeits first 4 district games
Dec 01, 2023Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi: How influencers are changing advertising - The Verge
Oct 18, 2024By Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast.
On today’s Decoder, I’m talking to Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi — and you’ll notice this episode is a little different. We recorded this conversation live onstage in New York City at an event graciously hosted by Adweek.
I’ve actually been dying to talk to Amy for some time. Digitas is one of the most important agencies in the entire advertising business, with huge clients and massive influence over big platforms like Instagram and YouTube. After all, they’re the ones buying the ads that keep all of those companies afloat.
Amy is really sharp on what value a company like Digitas brings to its clients and the role her company plays in the online ecosystem. But it seems very clear that all of that is changing rapidly as more and more ad dollars go directly to creators and influencers on those platforms instead of ad agencies and the platforms themselves.
As you’d expect, Amy has a lot of thoughts about this. Digitas is part of a huge holding company called Publicis Groupe, which just spent $500 million to acquire an influencer marketing agency called Influential. Amy was on the committee that made that deal, and you’ll hear her explain how and why huge advertising companies are starting to automate and operationalize influencer and creator content.
Listen to Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel about big ideas — and other problems. Subscribe here!
The idea is to use AI to examine all of the content on the platform, find the right influencers reaching the right audiences, and use software to contract with them on sponsored content at scale. That’s a big idea that’s sweeping the advertising industry, and I wanted to know how Amy saw it all playing out in the months and years to come.
We also spent some time talking about a smaller question that no one seems to know the answer to: What is the difference between a creator and an influencer? Let me know if you know the answer.
Some further reading you’ll hear us talk about:
A podcast from The Verge about big ideas and other problems.
/ Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox weekly.