Floor 9

Welcome back to another episode of Floor 9. For this episode, host Tom Trudeau chatted with Adam Simon and Richard Yao from the Lab’s strategy team about our latest insights on travel. Together, they discussed some of the biggest trends in the travel and hospitality sector in 2025, including the financialization of the travel industry, the increasing use of AI chatbots in trip planning, and the appeal of intentional under-planning and flexible travel. All these topics ladder up to a discussion about the future of a “connected trip” experience that is being shaped by shifting consumer expectations and AI adoption. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, we’re diving deep into the fast-changing world of retail media networks with Parbinder “Parbs” Dariwhal, VP and GM of CVS Media Exchange (CMX). With 72% of purchases now beginning within retail ecosystems and average U.S. consumers seeing 47 retail media ads daily, it’s clear we’re in a new media era—one driven by data, co-creation, and in-store innovation. Parbs joins hosts Ryan and Adam to break down how CMX is redefining retail media through partnerships with platforms like Reddit, leveraging interest-based conversations to drive brand advocacy. We also explore the collapsing purchase funnel, the rise of in-store formats like audio and end-cap screens, and the importance of transparency and first-party data in an age of “creepy” personalization. Listen now to learn why the future of retail media is collaborative, measurable, and surprisingly immersive. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, four members of the Lab team — Adam, Tom, Chelsea, and Elisa — assemble to discuss in-depth about everything brand marketers need to know about the latest news coming out of Apple’s WWDC developer event this week. Specifically, the team discussed Apple’s practical approach to AI, which focuses on incremental “quality-of-life” improvements, and what it means in the context of a heated AI race among the big tech companies. They also discussed the new “Liquid Glass” design that Apple announced for all upcoming operating systems, and what its spatial computing-oriented design says about Apple’s vision for the future of digital interactions. Furthermore, the team explored specific updates to Apple Wallet, CarPlay, Apple Music, and other corners of the Apple ecosystem that will have direct or indirect impact on brand experiences in relevant categories. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the latest Floor 9 episode, four members of the Lab team — Tom, Ryan, Richard, and Elisa — assemble to discuss in-depth about everything brand marketers that need to know about the AI-centric announcements coming out of Google’s annual developer event. From Google’s ambition of using AI Mode to transform its search products, to the “agentic web” that the AI stakeholders are aiming towards, the team places the various key announcements within the larger industry context and discuss their implications for consumers and brands alike. Listen now to learn more about how you brand should respond to the latest developments in consumer-facing AI. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, host Tom Trudeau is joined by Lab members Chelsea Freitas and Ryan Miller for a dive deep into the evolving role of creators in the media ecosystem. From parasocial dynamics to AI's impact on content creation, the trio explores how influencer strategies are maturing—shifting from short-term content sprints to long-term brand partnerships. With insights on niche creators, multi-platform storytelling, and creators as storefronts, plus examples ranging from Nike’s tiered creator playbook to MrBeast’s media franchise, the team discusses what it takes for creators and brands to build trust, convert audiences, and stay nimble in a fragmented digital landscape. This episode is a must-listen for anyone tracking the future of influencer marketing and creator-led brand collaboration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9! This week, host Ryan Miller is joined by Chelsea Freitas, the Lab’s strategy maven, and Tom Trudeau, our partnerships maverick, to chat about a shared passion topic — sports! Specifically, how the shifting sports audiences and viewer behaviors have impacted sports as a media business, the movement of women’s sports and the brand opportunities it brings, and the rise of next-gen alternative sports such as pickleball and drone racing. Together, they take a deep dive into the evolving landscape of sports media, and how brands can best reach sports fans. Some key segments of this episode, with corresponding timestamps, include: For more insights into this topic, you can also read the companion post on our Medium blog here. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9. As usual, we kicked off the year with an Outlook report to forecast some emerging trends in media and consumer behavior that we think will be crucial to brand strategy in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, your host Ryan is joined by Adam Simon, the Lab’s managing director and the author of the Outlook, and Chelsea Freitas, SVP of the Lab’s Strategy team, to take a deep dive into the key trends outlined in this report. Titled “Ports in a Storm,” this year’s Outlook is centered around the idea that consumers are increasingly seeking out “havens” in the face of an increasingly chaotic and stressful world. Together, the team discusses the rise of post-text, hyper-personalized media diets, the reshuffling of social media audiences, the impulse-driven consumer behaviors, the deployment phase of AI, and the opportunities and challenges they bring for brands For deeper insights into the discussion, you can also read the full 2025 Outlook report on our Medium blog: https://bit.ly/IPGLabOutlook2025 If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9. As always, we are kicking off the new year with a CES episode featuring the entire Lab team. Together, we recapped the highs and lows of CES 2025, shared our personal favorites, and voiced some skepticism towards some potential "vaporwares." From smart home and smart cars to cutting-edge food and health tech, we saw a lot of interesting, innovative products across categories from the show floor this year that could, down the road, shape consumer expectations and enhance brand experiences. If you're curious about the latest and hottest in consumer tech gadgets, this episode is a must-listen! For more insights into this year's CES, please visit our Medium blog for our in-depth trend recap and analysis. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Closing out this remarkable year of innovations, the entire Lab team came together for our annual recap of the biggest trends that defined the tech and media landscape in 2024, and look ahead to see what 2025 may bring. Together, the team discussed: Join us for this year-end roundup as we celebrate our team, our guests, and you—our listeners—and head into 2025 with fresh insights and excitement. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Tis the season again, and the Lab is here to discuss the latest shopping trends that we think brands should keep an eye out for this year. From a renewed emphasis on experiential in-store shopping to interesting loyalty plays, not to mention the new entrants like Amazon Haul and metaverse shopping, there’s no shortage of interesting things for Adam and Chelsea to talk about. Listen now to learn more about the latest trends in retail and shopper behaviors. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9! This month, we welcome long-time host and director of partnerships, Ryan, back from his paternity leave to chat with Adam, the managing director of the Lab, to round up all the recent news around mixed reality headsets. From the Orion AR glasses prototype that Mark Zuckerberg showcased earlier this month, or Meta’s Ai-infused Ray-Ban smart glasses, to the developer-oriented Snap Spectacles, as well as the headset that kicked off this wave of spatial computing hardware, Apple’s Vision Pro, we covered them all! In addition, Adam and Ryan also analyzed the current competitive landscape among the tech companies trying to crack the MR hardware market and prognosticated how things might shake out over the next five to ten years. Listen now to hear our take on this potentially revolutionary emerging category. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to another episode of Floor 9. This week, Tom Trudeau from our partnerships team chats with our managing director Adam Simon about everything that marketers should know coming out of the Apple event on Monday. Together, they discussed various new Apple products, the upcoming Apple Intelligence features, as well as these AI-driven features will change consumer expectations and reshape brand interactions. Topics covered include: If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special bonus episode of the month, the Lab’s strategy team assembles to discuss the highlights from the results of our latest Futurecaster survey! Futurecaster is the Lab’s proprietary innovation tool that identifies how your audience is engaging with the tactical areas of innovation across emerging technologies and media channels. In partnership with Dynata, we survey 2,500 smartphone owners aged 16-74, asking them about their awareness, past and planned usage, and perception of emerging technologies and media channels. That survey data is fused with our Acxiom data stack, allowing us to identify which tactical areas of innovation your audiences engage with. With each new edition of the survey, we gain interesting new insights into how consumers are adopting and interacting with new technologies. This year, the results showed noteworthy developments across a wide range of innovation territories, including generative AI, augmented reality and mixed reality, retail and lifecycle loyalty, smart city and mobility solutions, the experience economy, and the creator economy. For example, awareness of generative AI tools continues to grow, with 55% of respondents saying they have heard of them, up from 36% who said so last year. Listen now to learn more about Futurecaster and the key insights we learned from this year’s survey! If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, the Lab’s managing director Adam Simon welcomes two senior UM executives, Dan Chapman, Global Chief Strategy Officer, and Andy Littlewood, Global Chief Product Officer, to Floor 9 for an insightful discussion on the impact of the over-reliance on AI within the media landscape, how agencies can work with clients to avoid becoming “bland brands” and lead the Renaissance of Media. Specifically, they took a deep dive into the following topics: If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month on Floor 9, the Lab team assembles for a panel discussion on the future of the entertainment industry. Faced with rising streaming fatigue, high-churn “nomadic subscribers,” and the looming threat of AI-generated “slop content,” Hollywood needs to be smart about navigating the post-streaming-wars industry landscape, and that begins with re-aligning their business model with the market reality. In this episode, host Ryan Miller is joined by Chelsea Freitas, Tom Trudeau, and Richard Yao to break down the various issues facing the entertainment industry today and point to the best practices going forward. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As usual, Apple’s latest WWDC event brought forth many software updates, but the star of the show was Apple’s major AI update — Apple Intelligence, which will enable LLM-powered new features across Apple’s entire ecosystem. In this episode, Adam and Ryan took a deep dive into Apple Intelligence, the ChatGPT integration, its impact on the AI competitive landscape, and more. Listen now to hear our analysis on the WWDC announcements, including: f you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May marks the beginning of the tech conference season, and this year, we had three key players in the AI race — OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft — all hosting their respective developer conferences within a two-week period in May. If you missed the announcements, fret not! The Lab team is here to help you keep up with the fast-evolving AI developments and competitive landscape. In this episode, Chelsea Freitas from our strategy team, along with Ryan Miller and Tom Trudeau from our partnerships team, took the Floor 9 mic and discussed all the highlights from the recent developer conferences, including: If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kids these days! In this episode of Floor 9, the Lab’s strategy team (Adam Simon and Cheslea Freitas) and partnerships team (Ryan Miller and Tom Trudeau) join forces to analyze the youngest generation on the scene and their Millennial parents. Together, the team tackles topics that include: If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, it’s about the Vision Pro! Ryan, Adam, and Chelsea regroup on Floor 9 for an in-depth discussion of Apple’s groundbreaking “spatial computing” headset. From our team’s first impressions of trying it on, to unpacking its use cases and market implications, the Lab team is eager to share our hot takes on Vision Pro. Key topics include: If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9! This week, your hosts Ryan and Adam are joined by Chelsea Freitas from our Strategy team to take a deep dive into the trends and themes from our latest annual Outlook report, which includes: Make sure to check out the full version of Outlook 2024 report on Medium here: https://bit.ly/LabOutlook24 If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.