Thirty-five years of impact built on one unwavering principle. One so powerful it made the entire industry take notice. Esi Eggleston Bracey, AAF 75th Hall of Fame inductee, on why doing you is always your greatest superpower and the career that proved it. The Accidental Executive Who Changed Everything: Esi Eggleston Bracey didn’t plan for a career in marketing, but she knew she wanted to help people and solve problems. Turns out that is the whole job. Thirty-five years later, the industry is still feeling her impact 👑 She Invented Febreze in Her Twenties: Fresh out of university, Esi walked into a brainstorming session at her job with a personal problem and walked out having sparked a multi-billion dollar brand. The lesson? The most powerful insights come from lived experience. Always 🌟 Do You. It Is Your Superpower: The moment Esi stopped trying to fit someone else's mold and started bringing her full, unfiltered self to the workplace was the moment everything changed. Her number one leadership principle is not a strategy. It is a permission slip 💡 The Art of the Gap: After 35 years, including her role as Unilever's Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Esi created space for herself on purpose. Restoring, refueling, and being thoughtful about what impact she wants to have next. The best is still to come 🏆 Impact Over Everything: Esi has never chased a title. She has always asked one question. Where can I be most helpful? That single belief has driven one of the most celebrated careers in the history of this industry ❤️

Yahoo Scout is here, and it rode up to SXSW with a wow-worthy entrance. Josh Line on the AI-powered answer engine that is changing how you use and discover on the internet and why Austin was the perfect place to introduce it to the world. Yahoo Scout Has Entered the Chat: Yahoo just launched its AI-powered answer engine, but it is not your average search bar. Scout gives quick, visually rich answers powered by the open web and sends you straight to the source. Big move 🤠 Your Internet Just Got Personal: Scout's newest feature, MyScout, allows you to pull in your inbox, your stocks, and the latest on all your interests in one custom dashboard built around your Yahoo experience. Think of it as your personal homepage📱 Taking Over Texas' Oldest Bar: Yahoo did not just show up to SXSW. They took over and renamed the oldest working bar in Texas, the Scoot Inn, and created Yahoo Scout Inn - a full activation built around discovery. Copper tokens, pickle drinks, merch, and a whole lot of energy 🍻 Best Tacos in Austin? Ask Scout: Yahoo covered Austin's sidewalks and streetposts with QR codes prompting questions only Scout could answer. Wild postings across the city turned the whole festival into one giant live demo, and people could not help but bite 🌮 Austin Approved: Yahoo was a lot of people's first email, and somehow, it is still one of the most exciting brands at SXSW this year. The Scout Inn had lines wrapped around the block, lots of energy, and a crowd that was genuinely impressed 👏

Where does culture meet innovation? Where does tech meet music and film? Where do advertisers meet the moment? One answer - SXSW 2026. Watch ATM on the ground in Austin, following the defining cultural moments and conversations worth having in advertising, media, and technology right now. Austin Was the Room Where It Happened: South by Southwest brought together brands, creators, ad tech, and artists under one very unique and wonderful roof. The loudest conversations in marketing and media happened here, and ATM was in the room 🎯 AI Finally Got Real: For years, the conversation was "AI is coming." This year it shifted. Leaders were talking about what is actually working and what they learned along the way. The moment has arrived 🤖 Human Connection Is the Superpower: Amid all the tech talk, people wanted to talk about people. The most valuable thing you cannot automate is real human interaction. The leaders winning right now are the ones leaning into that intentionally💡 The Next Generation Has Entered the Chat: Young people are coming into this industry fired up, curious, and ready to go. One industry leader put it best: expertise does not come from years. It comes from curiosity🔥 Culture Is the Whole Point: SXSW has never been just about marketing or technology, and 2026 proved it again. Music, film, food, sports, and innovation all collided in Austin, and the energy was everything 🎶

Gordon Bowen, AAF 75th Hall of Fame inductee, was headed to teach English literature until a professor pointed him toward advertising. The founder of mcgarrybowen on building a career rooted in love, trust, and the belief that the right idea at the right moment can change the world. The Professor Who Changed Everything: Gordon Bowen was on his way to teaching English literature at a university when a visiting professor told him he was the best student he had seen in 20 years and that he needed to go into advertising. He listened. The rest of the industry is very glad he did ✏️ The Ad That Touched a Nation: When brands went silent after September 11, Gordon went to his hotel room and wrote Lady Liberty for Verizon. It became the only spot to run that entire week, and 140,000 Verizon employees wrote in to say how proud they were. Some ideas arrive exactly when the world needs them 🗽 Inspiration Over Fear: Gordon's philosophy on creativity is as simple as it is powerful. You cannot force it out. You have to inspire it out. Love and trust will always unlock more than fear ever could ❤️ The Wisdom of Where: After decades of iconic campaigns, Gordon views experience as the ultimate superpower. You may not always know what the answer is, but you know exactly where it lives. And knowing where to look is everything 🧠 A Mantra of Service: Gordon's North Star has never changed. Do what is right and let the consequence follow. From the Olympics to the Vatican, that single belief has guided every decision and defined a career unlike any other 👑

Pull up advertising from the 1950s, and you'll see the same tactics being used today. Rob Medved at Cannella Media on why the messaging really hasn't changed even though the methods have, and why moving faster with testing and decisions beats perfection every time. From 800 Numbers to QR Codes: Rob started marketing directly to consumers in the 90s, when success meant people calling an 800 number. Media has fragmented across decades, but the core principles of direct marketing haven't changed 📺 The Strategic Partner Approach: Cannella Media repositioned as a strategic partner instead of an agency. It's all about attribution and knowing where customer responses came from, whether you're a big brand or a solopreneur 📊 Nothing Changed Since the 50s: Pull up print ads from the 1950s, and the tactics are identical. Pricing, the word "free", and copy are designed to make consumers respond. The channels evolved, but the psychology stayed the same 📰 Fragmented World Different Messages: You need shorter messages on some platforms and different personas on others. But direct marketing is still direct marketing, and those fundamental principles are the same 📱 Test Quicker, Decide Faster: Rob's advice? Test creatives quicker, get clean data faster, and make decisions quicker. Indecision leads to hesitation, which leads to failure. And have more fun doing it ⚡

Not all impressions are created equal, and Shelby Saville has 29 years of receipts to prove it. The Starcom US CEO on what it actually takes to reach a human being in a world where everyone is competing for the same few seconds of attention. Every Impression Is Not Created Equal: Making consumer attention count is what matters. Starcom brings together data, technology, analytics, and real human insights on how people actually act and think to drive impact and action 🎯 AI for the Betterment of Business: Shelby Saville talks with clients about leveraging AI in ways that truly add to business performance. It's about operational rigor and using AI to move faster with demonstrable impact 🤖 Human Insights Can't Be Lost: This conversation is critical and can't get lost in the AI world. Humans are unpredictable, so marrying what we know with how people actually think and behave is what makes marketing work 👤 29 Years of Following Curiosity: Shelby has been at Starcom's holding company for 29 years, doing everything from broadcast trafficking to digital. She followed curiosity and passion, which set her up to be CEO 📈 Your Path Is Your Own: Shelby's advice? Relax and enjoy the ride. The path that works is the one that fits your skill set and what you grow into. Follow what's interesting to you 💡

What happens when two partners keep building together? Mike Laband at Magnite and Tyler DeNicola at DIRECTV Advertising discuss the live content advantage that sets them apart and the dynamic ad insertion play that created a massive opportunity. Five Years Through M&A Together: DIRECTV and Magnite both went through M&A over the last decade, but their partnership stayed the course. The last two years accelerated as DIRECTV brought satellite users into digital, creating opportunities as new advertisers entered programmatic 🤝 DIRECTV Has What Others Don't: Unique access to live content across different markets that not many competitors can offer. Fast channel opportunities and buyer transparency make DIRECTV stand out 📡 First to Lean Into Pause Ads: DIRECTV was among the first to raise its hand for pause ads. Magnite looks for partners who jump on opportunities early, and DIRECTV is always one of the first they call ⏸️ The Dynamic Ad Insertion Win: Converting inventory to dynamic ad insertion was the biggest opportunity. The excitement from the buy side, as advertisers wanted to interact with live events, created something unique 🔄 Making Live Events Accessible: How can they enable small and medium businesses to access DIRECTV's live events? A local mom-and-pop shop is buying a prolific live event. That's the 2026 focus 🚀

Thirteen years in, and April Weeks is more excited than ever about what Basis is building. How they create raving fans of their customer in a time when service is eroding, and why AI was in their platform years before everyone else jumped in. 13 Years and Still Fired Up: April fell into advertising by accident, jumped on the digital era early, and has been at Basis for 13 years. What's keeping her excited? The product roadmap and solving the industry's biggest challenges ⚡  AI Before the Hype Train: Everyone's talking about AI now, but Basis has had artificial intelligence built into its platform for a long time. They're not jumping on hype, just continuing to build on what already works 🔥  Ad Tech Not Agency: Basis is an ad tech company with a robust managed services team willing to jump in and help. But they're technology first, creating significant efficiency from end-to-end workflow 🎯  Building Raving Fans When Service Erodes: At a time when service can be eroding across the industry, Basis builds raving fans by putting customers at the heart of everything it does. That's what sets them apart 💙  Don't Be Afraid of Failure: April's advice? You learn the most when you fail. If you're in the right organization, failure is recognized and valued. Just fail, learn from it, and move on 💪

Action beats perfection, failure is your best teacher, and there's no single path to success. Career advice from industry leaders that they wish they'd known earlier. Hard Work Still Matters: The leaders agree that showing up with grit and caring about your people makes a difference. Put in the effort every day and don't be scared to use your voice 💪 Focus on What You Can Change: Stop taking everything so seriously and pour your energy into the things you can actually impact. Let go of the rest and move forward 🎯 Failure Is Your Teacher: Across the board, executives say fear of failure holds young professionals back. The reality is failure teaches you more than success ever will 💥 Move Faster Than You Think: From testing to data to decisions, the consensus is clear: speed wins. Hesitation and indecision are what actually keep you from success, not moving quickly ⚡ There's No Single Path: The most successful careers don't follow formulas. The growth happens in the gray area where you stay curious, pivot toward what interests you, and discover what fits 🌈

Sports are inherently AI-proof. You can't recreate the fan or the experience. Chloe Pastore at Publicis Sports on redefining sports marketing's role in advertising and centering attention on levers that cannot be recreated by AI. From Italian Film to Sports Marketing: Chloe wanted to be an Italian film major, then shifted to sports media. Her journey took her through YouTube, The Onion, Gawker, and finally Publicis Sports, where she's been driving value through sports marketing for seven years 🎬 Sports are inherently AI-proof: You can't recreate the fan or the experience, which makes sports unique in an AI world. Publicis Sports is scaling it with data and consumer journey thinking that goes way beyond traditional approaches 🏆 Traditional Meets Digital and Influencer: Traditional advertising, linear, and video still matter. The question is how you bring that together with social, digital, and influencer channels. Publicis Sports is bridging these gaps and building connections that drive measurable ROI 📺 Sports as a Category of One: Publicis Sports is making sports marketing its own category of opportunity. Whether clients have major partnerships or want to engage audiences differently, they're creating packages that connect with the right people 🎯 Two Things Can Be True: Chloe's advice? Two things can be true at once. We think everything has to be this or that, but living in the gray area creates opportunities you wouldn't have found sticking to the original plan 💡

Data drives results when your creative is in the right environment. Will Doherty at The Trade Desk on giving premium content the credit it deserves and what actually drives unbelievable value for clients. From Vitamin Sales to Digital Media: Will never manage his career as a career. He gave 100% focus to whatever he was working on, saw it through, then moved on to his next big project. That's how you go from selling vitamins to digital media 💊 Premium Content Isn't Getting Enough Credit: The biggest focus at The Trade Desk is making sure premium content gets its deserved share of credit for the impact it has on consumers. Too often, the world's best content doesn't get appropriate attribution 🏆 All The Data Won't Save You: You can have all the data and scale in the world, but if you don't deliver that message in the right environment with the right content, it still won't drive effective results 📊 From Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel: Breaking out of siloed media budgets. Stop thinking X for CTV, Y for audio, Z for digital out of home. Think holistically about reaching consumers across channels with flexibility and maximum impact 🔄 Don't Take Yourself So Seriously: Will's advice? Control what you can control. Keep your focus on things where you can actually have an impact. Don't project onto things you can't control. And have fun because it goes by really fast 😎

Lauren Wetzel was the missing puzzle piece WPP needed at exactly the right time. Now she's leading their AI-powered marketing solutions transformation with a holistic approach that breaks down operational silos and empowers brands. Lauren leaves us with the career wisdom she wishes she'd known sooner. The Missing Puzzle Piece: Lauren led InfoSum, which was sold to WPP in April. Their approach was exactly what WPP needed. Now she's leading data and tech solutions at the most exciting time in marketing 🧩 The AI Question Every Boardroom Is Asking: If we were 200,000 employees today, does AI make us 150,000? Every company is trying to figure out the math. WPP's answer is holistic, not isolating AI to just one function 🤖 Stop Thinking In Silos: Too often, people think about marketing in isolation. WPP connects data, creativity, and unique signals - so everything from creative, to production, to tech speaks the same language 🎯 Media Is Everywhere and Everything: That dictates what type of creative works in each moment. Lauren takes the mindset of a CMO when thinking about what WPP is building, looking at it holistically and making teams' work more integrated 📺 Enjoy the Moment You're In: Lauren would tell her younger self to stop letting ambition forecast you into next year and five years from now. Embrace where you're at right now. It's a critical ingredient in your story 💡

Helping the rest of the market catch up is Drew Cashmore's mission at Vantage. He's building the orchestration layer that connects all of retail media's systems into one seamless platform and sharing the career advice he wishes he'd known sooner. From Walmart to the World: Drew started in the early days of Walmart e-commerce when they were figuring out how to fund the build. The answer was advertising. That became retail media 🛒 Building One of the Largest: Drew joined Walmart Connect's initial leadership team in 2017. Five years later, they'd created one of the largest retail media businesses on the planet. Now he's helping the rest of the market catch up 🚀 The Orchestration Layer: Vantage connects all the disparate systems in retail media into one centralized platform. From campaign planning to measurement, all workflows are seamlessly in one place 🔗 AI Gets Real: Retail media is moving from AI hyperbole to practical applications. The hype is calming down, and the industry is getting back to what actually matters 🤖 Maintain the Network: What advice would Drew give his younger self? Be more intentional about fostering relationships. He's met phenomenal people who've gone on to do amazing things 🤝

Some careers go exactly as planned. Amy Ginsberg didn't, and she wouldn't have it any other way. The Starcom Investment President on navigating unprecedented change, real partnerships, and why hard moments make the best executives. Young Amy Didn't Know Everything: Amy walked into her career thinking she was going to conquer the world. Spoiler: it didn't go exactly as planned. But every hard moment, every unexpected turn, made her the executive she is today, and she's extremely grateful for all of it 💡 The Best Advice She Ever Got: A boss once told Amy to always buy something before you sell it. Twenty plus years later, it's still the best career advice she's ever received. Understanding the buying side changed everything about how she approaches the business 🎯 Nobody Has It All Figured Out: Things are changing faster than we've ever seen. If anyone tells you they know exactly what they're doing, they're lying. Amy on Starcom's role in helping clients wade through the most rapid period of change the industry has ever experienced 🌊 The Partners Who Show Up: The best partners don't just take your calls; they sit at the table and ask how we solve this together. Amy on what makes a real partnership and why that approach is what moves clients forward when challenges arise 🤝 Connected Media Is Everything: Starcom is focused on connecting everything for clients and advertisers. After a year of winning big business, the mission for 2026 is clear: grow, connect, and keep doing the best possible work 📈

Peter Lazarus grew up in the world of sports media. He's now one of its leading players. Peter debriefs on the strategy behind reaching audiences with one umbrella moment, streaming transformation, and what's next with the World Cup and LA 28. A Family Built on Sports Media: Peter's dad ran ABC Sports Sales, one brother is CEO of Versant, and another is an executive producer at ESPN. Sports media is in his DNA. Following the family path led him to NBCUniversal Sports, where he's now running the biggest moments in advertising 🏈 Legendary February Is Here: 17 days where the Super Bowl, Olympics, and the NBA All-Star Weekend draw the world's attention to sports. NBCUniversal is giving advertisers a single voice and one powerful solution to reach audiences when everyone's watching 📺 8000 Hours and Counting: Peacock delivers 8000 hours of sports with messaging customized to every home. Place ads in the biggest moments, then retarget fans across NBCUniversal's entire portfolio throughout the year ⏰ The World Cup Is Coming Home: Soccer on American soil like never before. 16 cities across North America, Spanish-language telecasts, and marketers leaning in hard. The momentum is building toward something massive ⚽ LA 28 - America's Games: The largest Olympics in history. The most events, countries, athletes, and 15 million tickets sold. When the world shows up in LA, it won't just be LA's moment, it'll belong to all of us 🥇