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After years of chasing rented reach on big platforms, marketers are swinging back toward owned channels, (email lists, newsletters, website, blogs, traditional medium, podcasts, loyalty programs, social pages) with 65% planning to reinvest in email while using AI as core infrastructure to drive personalization, speed, and efficiency. It shows that no single owned channel dominates—email, SMS, loyalty programs, apps, and physical locations all contribute—while paid channels like search, retail media, CTV, and social continue to grow as feeders into those owned relationships rather than replacements. The story highlights a major gap in podcast adoption versus perceived opportunity, rising investment in account-based marketing, and a broader shift from demographic targeting to community- and values-based brand building, with data privacy and trust as central themes. For local market media reps and agencies, there’s a playbook to sell “total local ecosystems” (email + CTV + audio + community), to make AI’s benefits concrete in local campaigns, and to position themselves as the strategists who help brands build durable, owned relationships—not just buy impressions.

The podcast industry has evolved from a niche medium to a serious revenue generator, with ad loads increasing from 7.9% to 10.9% of runtime since 2021 and per-hour advertising rates tripling to 6 cents per listener hour in 2024, creating both competitive pressure and significant expansion opportunities for local media. While podcasts compete for advertiser attention, established local media companies possess crucial advantages including existing advertiser relationships, community market knowledge, and content creation infrastructure that position them to capitalize on podcast monetization rather than lose market share. Smart local media operators are launching complementary podcast offerings that create premium advertising packages, extend audience engagement, and generate new revenue streams while leveraging their trusted local brand positioning. The key opportunity lies in integrating podcast strategies into existing business models to offer advertisers multi-platform campaigns that command higher rates than traditional single-format advertising.

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In a rapidly evolving sales landscape, the question remains: Will AI replace human relationships, or will human interaction continue to dominate? We are racing toward a critical decision about technology and human interaction, one that could create a divide between technologists and those who prefer human engagement. It has been said that GPT was released to acclimate us to artificial intelligence.

There is way too much on cold calling. On any day, you can find all kinds of self-proclaimed experts publishing posts about cold calling. Occasionally, you will find these experts arguing over the best way to make a cold call. One expert will focus on how you introduce yourself, while another will claim that they can improve your chances of a conversation and acquiring a first meeting. It is rare to see the cold call expert offer anything important outside of their chosen area of focus.

A new report shows that 55% of Americans say their online search habits have shifted significantly over the past five years—and they're increasingly discovering products through ads, editorial content, and apps rather than traditional search engines. This evolution marks a major opportunity for local media sellers: consumers trust ads across multiple platforms and make quick purchasing decisions when they discover products via native, embedded content. For local sales teams, the key takeaway is clear—you don’t have to be Google to win in the search-driven economy. You just need to help advertisers show up in the right context, across trusted platforms.

How a War Veteran Built Canada's Most Influential Youth Media Empire and Changed Pop Culture Forever
Allan Waters, a World War II veteran, transformed a failing Toronto radio station into CHUM Limited, one of Canada’s most influential media empires. He pioneered youth-focused programming and launched iconic platforms like MuchMusic, while supporting Canadian artists through initiatives like VideoFACT. Waters succeeded by deeply understanding underserved audiences and building cultural institutions that fostered trust and loyalty. His legacy teaches media professionals that long-term success comes from innovation, community connection, and purpose-driven leadership.

The Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter,” roughly translated to “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together,” reads like a motivational quote for sales teams and their leaders. But that’s not the only inspiration that can be taken from the Olympics and the many ways that athletes prepare themselves for the rigor of the Games.

In many industries — particularly “white collar” ones — the era of “bosses” is in decline. There is a rise in the need for leaders, guides, coaches, mentors, role-models, creators and builders, but less of a clamoring for bosses, managers, controllers, monitors, evaluators and paper pushers. This shift has been driven by changing demographics, the spread of technology, the rise of unbundled and distributed work, new behavior expectations and a re-definition of what “work” is — including the rise of fractionalized

Weekly Newsletter March 23, 2026

AI may be transforming advertising workflows, but it’s not ready to control the highest-risk levers—spend authority, brand meaning, and accountability—so humans will remain “in the loop” for the foreseeable future. While generative tools can produce endless creative variations, they can’t replace taste, lived experience, or the ability to read cultural context, and audiences increasingly detect and distrust “AI-feeling” work. Trust and liability are the real brakes: consumer skepticism, brand safety, bias, hallucinations, privacy, and governance requirements make “lights-out” automation unrealistic and risky. The practical path forward is human-led orchestration—use AI to accelerate ideation and optimization, but keep people responsible for budgets, judgment, disclosure, ethics, and the final decisions that define outcomes.

Information Asymmetry has been a powerful tool in buying/selling almost from when Eve convinced Adam to take a bite of an apple. Centuries ago, Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power.” We’ve always tended to wield that knowledge as a weapon, creating advantage to us. Information asymmetry occurs where one party has a disproportionate informational or material knowledge advantage over the other party.

Whether it’s criticism, embarrassment or unresolved conflict, anything threatening credibility, self-worth or identity can trigger defensiveness. High-level leaders aren’t immune to wanting to shield themselves from vulnerability. The first form of self-protection is defensiveness. Rather than protecting the leader, defensiveness has the opposite effect: exposing insecurities and making the leader seem arrogant or unapproachable. Here are four ways leaders can stop being defensive and create a more collaborative culture.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 with a vision to build an online bookstore, but his relentless focus on customer obsession, innovation, and long-term thinking transformed it into a global tech and retail empire. From the early days in a Seattle garage to launching Amazon Web Services, Alexa, and acquiring The Washington Post, Bezos consistently pushed boundaries across industries. His leadership style—rooted in experimentation, operational excellence, and bold vision—helped Amazon redefine commerce, logistics, and cloud computing. Bezos’s journey offers powerful lessons in brand building, customer experience, and strategic risk-taking for marketers, media professionals, and entrepreneurs alike.