Latest / Uphoff on Media Podcast / Twenty Years of Transformation-And We're Just Getting Started

Transcript

Twenty Years of Transformation-And We're Just Getting Started · Uphoff on Media Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Uphoff on Media.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tony Uphoff,
• 0:06
  five-time B2B CEO and someone who has spent the better part of
• 0:09
  four decades at the
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: intersection of media,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: and technology.
• 0:14
  I launched this Substack because we are living through one of
• 0:17
  the most consequential
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: shifts in the history of B2B media,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: and technology.
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  And most of the people running these businesses don't have a
• 0:26
  lot of places to turn
• 0:27
  for straight talk from someone who has actually operated from
• 0:30
  inside this industry.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this is.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not analysis from the sidelines.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Practitioner perspective earned the hard way.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The timing matters.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Agentic AI isn't a future threat.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is actively reshaping how buyers find information,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: how marketers reach them,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: and what media companies are actually worth.
• 0:49
  The window for leaders to get ahead of this is open right now,
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  but it won't stay open for long.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're a CEO,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: a publisher,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: a CMO,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: or an investor trying to make sense of what's happening,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: you're at the right place.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get to it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: 20 years of transformation and we're just getting started.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, wait, there's no end of this rollercoaster ride?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I launched the original UpOff on Media Blog back in 2006.
• 1:17
  I'd love to tell you it was born from some grand vision about
• 1:19
  the future of digital publishing.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't.
• 1:22
  I was running UBM TechWeb and I needed to convince a building
• 1:25
  full of journalists
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: and editors that blogging wasn't a passing fad,
• 1:29
  that they should embrace the format and make it a part of how
• 1:33
  they connected with
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: their audiences.
• 1:35
  The problem was none of them were going to take blogging advice
• 1:37
  from a suit.
• 1:38
  So I did what any self-respecting business side exec would do
• 1:42
  when trying to earn
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: credibility with the newsroom.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I jumped in first and dared them to follow.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing that nobody on the editorial side ever wanted to admit.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: The suits were writing just as much as the journalists were.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't following stories,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: but between emails,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: strategy breeze,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: board narratives,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: market trend memos,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: and investor presentations,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was putting out somewhere north of 20,000 words a month.
• 2:04
  That's roughly what a busy trade journalist was producing in
• 2:07
  published copy.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The difference was that my audience was a boardroom, not a readership.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Blogging just meant pointing the fire hose in a different direction.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly two decades later,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm relaunching Upoff on Media on Substack,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: and while the platforms and the stakes have changed dramatically,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: the impulse is exactly the same.
• 2:27
  Put your thinking out there,
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  make the case,
• 2:30
  and see who wants to argue about it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I launched the original blog in 2006,
• 2:35
  the digital transformation of media and marketing felt like it
• 2:38
  had a destination.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: We were migrating print publications to digital,
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  SPEAKER_00: building websites,
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  SPEAKER_00: figuring out search,
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  SPEAKER_00: experimenting with email newsletters,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: and learning to sell online advertising.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was complicated,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes painful work,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: but there was an implicit assumption that we'd get to the other side.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: We'd crack the model,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: find the right mix of content and commerce and audience,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: and arrive at something stable and scalable.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The transformation had a beginning, a middle, and presumably an end.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was charmingly naive.
• 3:10
  What we didn't fully appreciate was that digital transformation
• 3:13
  isn't a journey
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: with a destination.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a permanent condition.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: The web reshaped distribution.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Social media reshaped influence.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mobile reshaped attention.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Programmatic reshaped advertising economics.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Each wave arrived before the previous one had fully played out,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: and the safe,
• 3:30
  scalable business model we were all navigating toward kept
• 3:33
  moving further out on
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  SPEAKER_00: the horizon.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some companies adapted brilliantly, many didn't survive.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And now here we are,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: two decades in and the transformation isn't just continuing,
• 3:44
  it's accelerating in ways that make the earlier disruptions
• 3:47
  look like warmup acts.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Agentic AI isn't just another wave.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: It has the potential to fundamentally restructure how content is created,
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  SPEAKER_00: how buyers research and make decisions,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: how marketing campaigns are built and optimized,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: and how entire go-to-market organizations operate.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about better tools to do the same work.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the work itself changing.
• 4:09
  Now,
• 4:10
  that's what has me so energized about relaunching up on media
• 4:14
  right now.
• 4:15
  In 2006,
• 4:15
  I was writing about a transformation I thought we could see the
• 4:18
  end of.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: In 2026, I know better.
• 4:21
  And that's actually more exciting because the leaders and
• 4:23
  companies who understand
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: that this is a permanent state of reinvention,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: not a problem to be solved in the past,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: are the ones who will build what comes next.
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  I want to be a part of that conversation and I want this
• 4:35
  newsletter to be where it happens.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what exactly will you find here?
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  Apple Fund Media has always lived at the intersection of media
• 4:42
  marketing and
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  SPEAKER_00: technology,
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  SPEAKER_00: not because that's a convenient vent diagram,
• 4:47
  but because that's where the most consequential decisions are
• 4:50
  being made and where
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: the most interesting collisions are happening.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: That hasn't changed.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: What has changed is the velocity and the stakes.
• 4:58
  I'll be writing regularly about a handful of things that I
• 5:00
  believe will define the
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: next era of B2B marketing,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: media,
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  SPEAKER_00: and technology.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: How Agentec AI will dismantle the marketing playbook,
• 5:09
  that an entire industry has been running for the past decade
• 5:11
  and what replaces it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: How AI will change marketing organization,
• 5:16
  whether the shift from SEO to AI engine optimization is as
• 5:20
  profound as I think it
• 5:21
  is and what it means for companies that built their growth
• 5:24
  engines on search.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to ad agencies,
• 5:26
  MarTech platforms and the sprawling ecosystem of sales and
• 5:30
  marketing technology
• 5:31
  when AI can orchestrate what previously required dozens of
• 5:34
  tools and teams.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the question I keep coming back to,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Will this wave of disruption favor the incumbents who have the data and
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: distribution,
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  or will it crack open the market for new entrants who build AI
• 5:46
  native from the
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: ground up?
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  If those sounds like the questions a CIO would ask rather than
• 5:52
  a marketing
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: practitioner,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: that's intentional.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent 35 plus years running media marketing and tech companies,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: not analyzing them from the outside.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've sat in the board meetings,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: led the transformation,
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  SPEAKER_00: negotiated the acquisitions,
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  SPEAKER_00: wrestled with the margin models and made the bets,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: some brilliant,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: some humbling.
• 6:10
  That operating experience is the lens I bring to everything I
• 6:13
  write here.
• 6:14
  I'm less interested in what's theoretically possible with AI
• 6:18
  and more interested in
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: what it actually means for business models,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: P&Ls,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: organizational structures,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: and the competitive landscape.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've also learned the best insights come from pattern recognition across
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: industries,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: not from going deeper in a single silo.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: The convergence of media marketing and technology isn't a trend.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the operating reality for any growth business.
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  And most of the conventional wisdom about each of those domains
• 6:43
  is about to be
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: stress tested in ways we've never seen before.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing this for a very specific audience,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: the operators running media,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: and tech companies who need to make decisions about where to invest,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: where to allocate resources,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: and what to build next.
• 6:58
  The analysts trying to make sense of a landscape that's
• 7:00
  shifting beneath their
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: models,
• 7:02
  and the investors evaluating which companies and categories
• 7:05
  will emerge stronger
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: from AI disruption and which are running on borrowed time.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in one of those seats,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll find the perspective here useful,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: occasionally provocative,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: and grounded in the reality of actually having done the work.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: One more thing, and I mean this.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to hear from you.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a topic you think I should be tackling,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: a trend you're seeing that nobody's talking about,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: or a take of mine that you think is just dead wrong,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: drop it in the comments or reach out to me directly.
• 7:32
  The best writing I've done over the years has come from
• 7:34
  conversations,
• 7:35
  not monologues.
• 7:36
  And some of the sharpest insights I've encountered have come
• 7:39
  from operators in the
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: trenches who see things the analysts and pundits miss entirely.
• 7:44
  This newsletter will be better if it's a two-way street,
• 7:47
  and I intend to make it one.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: My plan is to publish a longer piece here on Substack each week,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: the deeper analysis,
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: the frameworks,
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: the arguments worth having.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: In between,
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be sharing shorter,
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: sharper takes on LinkedIn where the conversation tends to move faster.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Think of Substack as the main course and LinkedIn as the appetizer,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: though I make no promises about which one will be spicier.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it's free.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not putting a paywall between you and my opinions.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Frankly,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: after 35 years of having to be diplomatic in boardrooms,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: the opportunity to say what I actually think in public,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: it's payment enough.
• 8:22
  Hit subscribe and you'll get each new post delivered straight
• 8:25
  to your inbox.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: No spam,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: no sales pitch,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: just one veteran operator's honest read on more media,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: and tech are handed and what to do about it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And please take the time to subscribe to UpOff on media.