Advertising for Good
Dec 18, 2024 / 12:30 - 1:00 PM EST
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In this episode, IAB Pulse Host Pam Zucker and Smartly CEO Laura Desmond will discuss how “Advertising for Good” impacts society, drives business growth, and enhances the consumer value exchange. From fostering trust and inclusivity in digital spaces to leveraging AI-driven creativity and video innovation, they’ll unpack insights and strategies to lead the industry into a new era of meaningful, impactful, and personalized marketing.
Laura Desmond is the CEO at Smartly, an AI-powered advertising technology company, transforming ad experiences for brands and their consumers.
Prior to Smartly, Desmond was Chief Revenue Officer of Publicis Groupe and Chief Executive Officer of Starcom Mediavest Group, the #1 media and marketing services agency brand globally for five straight years under her leadership. Desmond has worked with some of the biggest and most successful marketers worldwide, including Samsung, Spotify, Coca-Cola, Visa, Bank of America, and P&G.
During her career in Advertising, Desmond has been awarded many honors including: AAF Hall of Achievement, Ad Age “Women to Watch”, WSJ Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women and Chairwoman of the Advertising Council. Today, Laura serves on the boards of Adobe, DoubleVerify, as well as Smartly.
Additionally, Desmond is a champion of the advancement of women’s sports serving as an early investor in Chicago women’s sports franchises, including the Chicago Sky and the Chicago Red Stars.
Pam is a 30+ year veteran of the media and marketing industry who is a proven media strategist across digital, programmatic, and traditional platforms. Known for innovative approaches to media and marketing challenges that turn the complex media eco system into understandable ideas for both the C-Suite and day-to-day tacticians. Pam sees the world as a white board – empty, boundless space to create, transform and innovate for growth; to re-imagine how media and marketing can work to grow brands and build companies. Pam believes winning at the intersection of data, content, marketplace, and technology means refusing to let the status quo be good enough and being humble enough to know true transformation takes collaboration, iteration, willpower, and trust.
Pam spent her first 25 years on the agency side at Publicis Media leading clients such as Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Activision, Yahoo and others. In addition to client leadership Pam built new practices for the agency including Advanced TV and Experience Design. To broaden her experience, Pam also spent 3 years leading Media for Starcom Mediavest Group in Russia when that market first opened to media in the mid-1990s. This taught Pam that anything is possible to create in the marketplace with some ingenuity, marketplace knowledge, and a relentless push creates win – win – win experiences for consumers, marketers and publishers. Following her work on the agency side, Pam spent five years consulting for the media and technology companies (NBCU, Fox, Viacom, Double Verify) helping them design custom programs and market their digital assets for growth. For the past fifteen months, Pam has been at Amobee, an Ad Tech firm, leading their marketing and sales strategy efforts to bring new identity, performance and new targeting techniques to the DSP and cross channel planning marketplace.
Pam lives in Hastings on Hudson, NY with her two sons.