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The Big Story: Is IAB DTC?

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The Big Story is a breezy podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts.

The IAB’s Annual Leadership summit wrapped this week and increasingly, the show has moved to focus on DTC companies like ThirdLove, the startup underwear brand that keynoted this year’s conference.

That’s quite a shift from the past two years, which saw P&G’s Marc Pritchard and Unilever’s Keith Weed take the big stage. And it’s an even bigger shift from the IAB’s inception, when it was a publisher focused trade org.

Our editor Sarah Sluis made the long trek there and back. On this week’s episode of “The Big Story,” she describes what happened at the show, why the IAB might be making the wholesale shift to DTC and how DTC principles are effecting even the biggest companies.

Also, we talk about a potential economic downturn, and what that might mean for the advertising industry. It’s a little bit of a thought experiment, since it’s not clear if a recession is in the cards – it seems like someone keeps unnecessarily shuffling the deck – but if one does hit, the environment today looks a lot different than it did in 2008.

And finally, we talk podcast consolidation. With EW Scripps, iHeartMedia, Pandora and Spotify all making big plays to enter the podcasting industry, does that change the game for programmatic advertising?

Honestly, not so much. Following up on Alison Weissbrot’s incisive reporting on the topic, the team looks at what exactly is inhibiting more advanced advertising in podcasting. Hint: It starts with UX and ends with A-P-P-L-E.

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