The Ad Podcast

Hosted by Dylan Conroy

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Episodes

476

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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About the show

a podcast where host Dylan Conroy interviews the c suite of media companies, agencies, brands and thought leaders on his quest to build the worlds greatest sales culture

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60 recent

September 4, 202656 min

Douglas "Doug" Zarkin - Marketing Leader & Author of Moving Your Brand Out Of The Friend Zone

Douglas "Doug" Zarkin is an award-winning brand architect, executive marketing leader, speaker, and author. He was most recently the Chief Marketing Officer at Take 5 Oil Change (under Driven Brands), overseeing brand strategy, customer experience, and retail growth across hundreds of franchise locations. Prior to his role at Take 5, Zarkin spent over a decade as the Chief Marketing Officer at Pearle Vision (EssilorLuxottica), where he spearheaded an iconic brand turnaround, earned multiple Clio Awards, and transformed the healthcare franchise into a customer-centric retail power. He spent seven years at Grey Advertising and has worked with with global brands like Avon, Victoria's Secret, and Warner Bros. Zarkin is also the author of Moving Your Brand out of the Friend Zone, a practical guide for marketers on driving emotional connection and commercial growth.

September 3, 20261 hr 2 min

Chip Malt - Co-Founder & CEO - Made In Cookware

Chip Malt (Bradford "Chip" Malt) is an e-commerce entrepreneur, growth strategist, and the Co-Founder & CEO of Made In Cookware. Before founding Made In, Malt built his career in software engineering, data analytics, and performance marketing, leading digital strategy and customer acquisition efforts at companies like WeSpire and Culinary Concepts. In 2017, he teamed up with childhood friend Jake Kalick—whose family had over 100 years of experience in restaurant supply—to launch Made In Cookware. Combining Kalick's culinary supply network with Malt's data-driven growth background, they built Made In into one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer (DTC) kitchenware brands. Made In partners directly with historic family-owned factories in the US and Europe to manufacture professional-grade stainless clad, carbon steel, and copper cookware, supplying both home cooks and Michelin-starred restaurants globally.

September 3, 202656 min

Shlomi Ron - Co-Founder & CMO - Decision Advantage AI

Shlomi Ron is an author, keynote speaker, and visual storytelling executive who operates at the intersection of brand narrative, cognitive AI, and strategic decision-making. He is the Co-Founder & CMO at Decision Advantage AI as well as the CEO & Founder of the Visual Storytelling Institute (VSI). At Decision Advantage AI, Ron leads brand strategy and go-to-market messaging for advanced AI and decision-science platforms, translating complex cognitive computing and defense-tech capabilities into high-stakes market positioning. Through the Visual Storytelling Institute, he advises executive teams and brands on humanizing complex messaging through visual narratives. Ron is the author of Total Acuity: How to Ignite Your Brand with Visual Storytelling, host of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast, and a professor of digital marketing and Brand Storytelling at the University of Miami Business School

September 3, 202646 min

Raymond 'Reigns' Tembo - Digital Marketing Executive - Simply Black Media

Raymond 'Reigns' Tembo, Digital Marketing Specalist, Simply Black Media—one of the premier independent media, data, and communications networks operating across sub-Saharan Africa. Raymond is a pan-African media leader who has spent over 15 years building integrated, data-driven advertising infrastructure across emerging markets. From navigating fragmented local media ecosystems to executing high-impact programmatic campaigns for major telecoms, financial institutions, and global consumer brands, Raymond sits at the absolute forefront of African ad tech and media buying. Today, we’re diving into the reality of scaling pan-African ad campaigns, building programmatic infrastructure in mobile-first markets, and what global brands constantly get wrong when entering the continent.

August 31, 20261 hr 3 min

Bill Harper - CEO and Chief Creative Officer - BrandBossHQ

Bill Harper, CEO and Chief Creative Officer at BrandBossHQ—a strategic branding and storytelling agency that has generated over $2.5 billion in net new revenue for more than 300 brands. Bill is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and built four successful agencies, winning over 100 industry awards for his work with category heavyweights like Denny’s, Carfax, Ryobi, Bosch, Michelin, and Delsey Luggage. Known for helping 'challenger brands' transition from stagnant plateaus to category dominance through what he calls Strategic Storytelling, Bill also hosts the popular podcast Branducation™. Today, we’re diving into why most brands fail at positioning, the myth of product differentiation, and how to stop selling specs so you can start selling transformation.

August 28, 202646 min

Jason Mitchell - Co-Founder & CEO - Movement Strategy

Jason Mitchell is a social media strategy pioneer, agency executive, and the Co-Founder & CEO of Movement Strategy. Starting the agency from a college dorm room, he has scaled Movement Strategy into a premier 150+ person social-first marketing agency with major hubs in New York, Denver, and Los Angeles. Under his leadership, Movement Strategy crafts breakout social campaigns and community-first strategies for global brands, including Netflix, Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nike, and Klarna. Recognized as an industry thought leader, Mitchell frequently writes for publications like Adweek, Ad Age, and Inc. on topics ranging from generative AI in creative workflows to cultural marketing and social-centric business models.

August 28, 202643 min

Jason Rhoads - CEO & Owner - Rhoads Creative

Jason Rhoads is a digital marketing executive, AI innovator, and the CEO & Owner of Rhoads Creative, a full-service digital agency focused on high-performance strategy for homebuilders, remodelers, and construction brands. Taking over the business originally founded by his parents nearly 35 years ago, Rhoads leveraged his academic background in statistics and financial analytics to transition the firm into a data-first, digital-only agency. He is the creator of the Digital Marketing Ladder® (a step-by-step ROI optimization framework for builders) and advocates for Everywhere Search Optimization (ESO) to help consumer brands maintain visibility across search engines, social platforms, and AI systems. He also serves on the OpenAI Small Business Advisory Committee and has been recognized as an NAHB Silver Award winner for Sales & Marketing Professional of the Year.

August 27, 202650 min

Edwin Choi - Founder & CEO - Jetfuel Agency

Edwin Choi is an e-commerce growth strategist, entrepreneur, and the Founder & CEO of Jetfuel Agency (jetfuel.agency). Founded in 2017 after years of working in-house as a DTC operator, Choi built Jetfuel to eliminate the inefficiency, wasted ad spend, and surface-level tactics common in traditional agency models. Under his leadership, Jetfuel Agency operates as a performance and growth engine for fast-growing direct-to-consumer (DTC), CPG, and omnichannel brands—including high-profile accounts like Perfect Bar and Drunk Elephant. His framework combines paid media (paid search, paid social), conversion rate optimization (CRO), and retention marketing (email/SMS) into a single, cohesive revenue system focused on sustainable, long-term ROI. Background: Over 15 years of digital marketing and operator experience across paid acquisition, lifecycle marketing, and brand strategy.

August 26, 202615 min

Zero-Party Data, Tech Stack Audits & Ending Data Bloat | Emily Proctor, Managing Director at OMD

As corporate data storage costs soar and cookie deprecation reshapes digital media, enterprise brands must shift from hoarding volume-based data to activating decision-led zero-party data. Dylan Conroy sits down with Emily Proctor, Managing Director of Technology & Data Solutions at OMD, to break down how top global agencies audit clients' technology stacks and eliminate ad-targeting waste. Curing Enterprise Data Bloat : Shifting from "what can we collect?" to "what SHOULD we collect?" to eliminate unnecessary storage overhead. First-Party vs. Zero-Party Data : Differentiating observable behavioral tracking from volunteered customer preferences. Preference Centers as Products : Turning regulatory consent management tools into high-value engagement engines with immediate customer incentives. Decision-Led Data Architecture : Reversing traditional strategies so that data gathering strictly follows predefined marketing decisions. Avoiding Single-Signal Targeting Waste : Real-world examples of why relying on single data points or demographic proxies burns media budgets. Emily Proctor is the Managing Director of Technology & Data Solutions at OMD (Omnicom Media Group), where she leads tech stack audits, vendor vetting, and data activation roadmaps for enterprise clients. Connect & Resources : Connect with Guest Emily Proctor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyhproctor/ Visit OMD: https://www.omd.com Follow Host Dylan Conroy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanconroy/ Scaled Performance Automation by Strike Social: https://strikesocial.com/guaranteed-paid-social-media-ads-outcomes/

August 24, 202646 min

Cindy Goodrich - Chief Marketing Officer - Empathy

Cindy Goodrich is an executive marketing leader, brand strategist, and the Chief Marketing Officer at Empathy—a technology platform dedicated to supporting families through the emotional and logistical burdens of loss, grief, and legacy planning. She holds a B.S. in Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Goodrich brings over two decades of experience scaling global tech icons and high-growth scaleups, having previously served as CMO at BetterUp, VP of Marketing (Brand & Buzz) at HubSpot, and Head of Business Brand Communications at Google. She specializes in humanizing complex, emotionally charged, and highly sensitive industries at scale.