How does a top CMO build a media plan that delivers business growth? This opening interview is an in-depth sit down with a leading brand marketer to get their how-to on what media they are actually using, and how they prove it delivers commercial success.

• How they built their 2026 media strategy to drive specific business goals (e.g., market share, new customer acquisition).
• A candid look at their media mix, how they balance brand-building and performance media to deliver both long-term and short-term growth.
• The key business metrics (not just media metrics) they use to prove the value of their media choices to the board. 

This high-level session transforms the stage into an interactive War Room.  We present our panel, a brand, an agency, and a media owner with a live Budget Crisis scenario: the CFO has demanded a 15% cut effective immediately. But they aren't the only decision-makers. You are.

Using live polling, the entire room will vote on what to cut and what to protect. The moderator will challenge audience members to justify their choices, before asking our panel to debate the results. 

Can the industry reach a consensus on how to survive the storm?

• The Defense: How to make the bulletproof C-suite case for protecting brand investment when the board, and the room, is demanding short-term savings.
• The Trade-Off: Navigating the Panic Pivot if the audience votes to shift 20% to performance media, what is the specific long-term cost to brand health?
• The Supply Chain: If we chase cheap efficiency on social platforms, are we inadvertently defunding the quality environments (TV, News) that give us legitimacy?
• The Service Squeeze: A frank look at the human cost and how slashing fees and media spend impact the agency talent and service levels required to actually drive growth?
• The Counter-Attack: Does a pullback in competitor spending create a rare window of media deflation, allowing us to buy premium inventory and market share at a discount?

A global event is one of the biggest media investments a brand can make. This panel deconstructs the how-to of turning that spend into tangible business success. We'll explore the media strategies and measurement models needed to justify the investment and deliver results.

• The long-term: How to build a synonymous brand association through decades of media strategy.
• The activation: How to activate a global sponsorship across all media channels, from broadcast and digital to on-the-ground.
• Finding Your Angle: How to tailor a massive global property (like the World Cup) to your specific brand DNA to ensure you drive relevant engagement, not just generic awareness.
• Justifying the investment: The media metrics and ROI models used to prove the value of a massive cultural sponsorship.

Retail media is more than just ads on a digital shelf; it is the industry's new gold standard for first-party data. This session explores how brands and agencies can leverage retailer data not just for sales, but to power their entire media strategy from audience targeting on the open web to closed-loop measurement.

• The Data Asset: How to access and use retailer first-party data to sharpen your media targeting across all channels (not just on-site).
• Closed-Loop Measurement: Using retail data to prove the exact link between a media impression and a physical or digital sale.
• The "Off-Site" Opportunity: How to use retail data to buy programmatic media and CTV more effectively.

The new map isn't just about creators; it's about how they partner with established media. This session explores how traditional media owners and new map creator-brands are moving from competition to collaboration, building integrated ad products and media strategies that brands can't build alone.

• A how-to on partnership: how are broadcasters and creators co-producing new media formats?
• The agency's new role: how to act as the strategic broker between these two worlds.
• The new media buy: what do these integrated, multi-platform ad products look like?

This exclusive session invites brands to nominate their next generation of leadership for a career-defining workshop. Led by legendary inductees of the Campaign Hall of Fame, this isn't just a lecture; it is a masterclass in executive leadership. We explore the critical transition from being a brilliant media specialist to becoming a rounded, commercial Chief Marketing Officer.

• The Generalist Gap: How to transition from managing media execution to mastering the wider C-Suite remit of brand, creative, and commercial strategy.
• Boardroom Translation: How to stop speaking media and start speaking business to earn the trust of the CEO.
• Wisdom from the Hall of Fame: Candid, off-the-record advice from Campaign Hall of Famers on navigating internal politics, building influence, and the reality of the top job.

The search era is ending. This practical AI session explores the immediate impact on media planning and investment as we move to an "answer culture."

• Understanding the new ecosystem: how LLMs are changing audience discovery models.
• The New AI SEO: how it will impact your organic and paid media strategy.
• Where should your search budget go now? Optimising your media mix for an "answer" world.

After years of discussion, the HFSS regulations are a reality. This is a "looking back" case study, moving from theory to practice. We explore the real-world impacts on media plans, which creative "workarounds" actually paid off, and the transferable lessons for navigating future legislation.

• The real-world impact: the tangible effects of HFSS legislation on media plans and creative.
• The "workaround" report card: which alternative strategies actually paid off, and which didn't?
• Navigating the next wave: transferable lessons for preparing for future regulatory changes.

In a tough economic climate, D&I is often the first budget to be cut. This is a costly mistake. This candid session reframes inclusion as a critical business strategy, not a "nice-to-have." We will explore the quantifiable data linking diversity of thought to profitability and innovation, and provide a playbook for protecting this vital work.

• Confronting the pullback: understanding why D&I initiatives are being scaled back and what is at stake.
• The commercial imperative: the quantifiable, bottom-line link between diverse teams and better creative/business outcomes.
• Beyond tokenism: practical actions to maintain representation and embed inclusion in your core business strategy.

In a globalised world, local is a new differentiator. This session explores how new technologies are revitalising local and regional media. We'll share a client case study on how to build national impact through authentic local relevance.

• The local renaissance: how new technologies are revitalising local marketing for national brands.
• Community and authenticity: the unique role local media plays in building consumer trust.
• The "global" case study: examples of national brands succeeding through local relevance.

In a fragmented landscape, attribution is the hardest part of the media planner's job. This technical session moves beyond last-click to explore the modern models for cross-media measurement.

• Beyond the Silo: How to join up data from walled gardens, open web, and offline media to get a single view of effectiveness.
• The Attribution Debate: MMM vs. MTA which model actually drives better investment decisions?
• Proving the Connection: How to attribute a specific media touchpoint to a tangible business result to prove ROI.

For years, media and creative diverged, but the most effective modern work puts media strategy upstream. In this fast-paced showcase, leading teams take the stage to prove it. They have limited time to deconstruct their "Campaign of the Year," revealing how the media strategy didn't just support the creative… it created it.

But who did it best? The power is in your hands. Using live polling, the audience will vote for the winner, crowning the campaign that best demonstrates the perfect marriage of data, channel, and idea.

• The Media-First Brief: Each team must reveal the "invisible" work: how audience data and channel insights informed the creative process before a single asset was made.
• The Strategist as Architect: A look at how the media planner acted as the essential bridge between the data and the Big Idea.
• The Vote: We critique the results (not just the views), and you cast your vote to decide which campaign offers the ultimate blueprint for integrated growth.

We claim to value brand safety and human safety, yet our automated supply chains continue to move billions away from regulated news publishers and into unregulated social feeds. This powerful talk challenges the ethical consequences of our channel choices. It asks: by chasing cheap efficiency, are we inadvertently bankrupting the truth?

• The Investment Gap: A hard look at the data comparing ad spend in trusted news environments versus user-generated feeds.
• The "News Desert" Risk: The specific commercial and societal consequences for the media ecosystem if brands stop funding professional journalism.
• A Responsible Framework: How to build a Responsible Media Plan that balances the scale of platforms with the ethical necessity of supporting publishers.

In a volatile political era, the role of the Political Editor has never been more critical or complex. We bring together the UK’s leading political journalists to discuss how the media landscape has fundamentally shifted. From the rise of TikTok politics to the battle for trust in an AI age, this session explores the vital importance of a robust, funded press and what it means for the wider media ecosystem.

• The Changing Media Map: How political reporting has evolved from the 10 o'clock news to a multi-platform battleground of social feeds, podcasts, and live streams.
• The Trust Premium: Why high-quality journalism remains the most effective and essential context for brand media investment in a world of misinformation.
• The Algorithm vs. The Editor: How political journalism is fighting for visibility in an algorithm-driven world, and why human curation is the ultimate premium media product.