Nicholas Ward

Excited to share that Aperiam has invested in Bedrock Platform. Obvious statement of the century: programmatic advertising has a complexity problem. The infrastructure that was built to give media buyers control has, over time, done the opposite. Burying teams under layers of operational overhead, legacy tooling, and opaque supply chains. Bedrock is built on a simple but powerful thesis: what if you stripped away the bloat and rebuilt the stack around what actually matters... precision, transparency, and speed to execution. Their platform combines AI-driven campaign automation with curated, premium inventory across video, CTV, DOOH, and audio, and aims to be flexible and get smarter over time. Plus, the team (Shane, Austin, Ryan, James) has deep roots in the infrastructure layer of ad tech and understands the plumbing better than almost anyone. We believe the next generation of programmatic will be leaner, faster and AI-first. Bedrock is building that.

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Agency Perspective: We are seeing retailers going all in on their own retail media networks, and they’re not subtle about it. Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, Target’s Roundel, Kroger Precision Marketing have become serious media businesses, fueled by first-party data, loyalty programs, closed-loop attribution, and increasingly sophisticated AI and programmatic tech. For retailers, this isn't just experimentation within their 4 walls, its a massive margin game. Brands need to know this... For brands, this is where mistakes get made as of late. Although retail media is incredibly powerful inside the four walls for: -Capturing demand -Winning the moment of purchase -Proving ROI in a way CMOs and CFOs both like It does not create brands, it extracts value from them. If your strategy is overly weighted to RMNs, you’re betting that consumers already know you, trust you, and prefer you. Most brands don’t earn that luxury. What’s happening now for brands is dangerous: Brands are optimizing for conversion while starving the very things that create demand. The strongest brands are doing both of these things, and doing so deliberately: -Using retail media to harvest intent, and -Investing outside the retailer to build it: brand platforms, storytelling, cultural relevance, PR, creators, and experiences that exist long before a shopper hits the shelf or the search bar. Retail media decides where the sale happens. Brand building decides whether the sale happens at all. The next wave of winners won’t be the brands with the biggest RMN budgets. They’ll be the ones that understand the difference between performance efficiency and brand power....and fund both accordingly. Written by a human, not AI. LFG ⚡

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Kroger Just Unlocked the TV and Audio Ad Market for small and medium sized brands. Generally, CPG giants with dedicated in-house programmatic teams have been able to take advantage of first-party data supported Connected TV (CTV) and streaming audio.  However, without significant resources, smaller and mid-sized brand were stuck on the outside looking in. Until Now. Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) just unlocked the door for challenger brands of all sizes. They recognized the critical gap : Brands want to leverage streaming media but lack the expertise and / or resources for complex programmatic buying. Kroger’s solution?                                                          They’ll do the heavy lifting for you. KPM’s in-house experts will activate and manage your campaigns across premium platforms like Roku, Paramount+, Pandora, and iHeartRadio. The Secret Weapon: Selling Outcomes, Not Impressions. KPM isn't just selling ad slots; they're providing the data-powered precision that's impossible to replicate independently. -Precision Targeting: Using Kroger’s first-party loyalty card data for unrivaled accuracy. -Guaranteed Measurement: Every campaign provides closed-loop measurement, including ROAS, sales lift, and the direct impact on dollar and unit sales. -The Proof: A campaign using this data achieved a 5.5% increase in sales by targeting lapsed Neutrogena buyers on Roku. This is a strategic play that democratizes access to high-value media channels. If you've viewed CTV and streaming audio as out of reach, the door is now open. ➡️ See the full strategic analysis on how KPM is weaponizing its data for the masses and creating a lifeline for challenger brands (Link below and in the first comment!)

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Big News: Nowspeed + Longview Launch the GEO Authority Builder to Help Brands Win in AI Search The way we “search” is being completely rewritten. At Nowspeed, we’ve been watching closely as generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews shift how people discover and trust information. The traditional SEO playbook isn’t enough anymore. If your brand isn’t cited by these platforms, you’re invisible — even if your site ranks #1 on Google. That’s why I’m thrilled to announce the launch of the GEO Authority Builder, a powerful new solution we’ve created in partnership with Longview Strategies to help brands earn visibility and credibility in AI-driven search. What is GEO — Generative Engine Optimization? GEO is a new discipline focused on helping brands appear in generative search results, where AI summarizes and cites information directly. Unlike SEO, which focuses on ranking web pages, GEO helps your brand become a trusted source that AI platforms want to reference. And that’s where the GEO Authority Builder comes in. The GEO Authority Builder includes three core services: 1. GEO Visibility Audit – We assess how your brand shows up in AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. Are you being cited? Are competitors taking your space? 2. Source Influence Mapping – We identify which publishers, authors, and types of content AI platforms are citing — giving you a clear roadmap for increasing your visibility. 3. Credibility-Building Campaigns – Longview uses its earned media relationships and editorial strategy, combined with Nowspeed’s digital expertise, to build the authority signals generative engines rely on. Why now? As I said in the press release: “The game has changed. Brands that fail to adapt to AI search will disappear from the buyer journey.” We built the GEO Authority Builder to give companies a proactive path forward — one that aligns content, PR, and digital marketing for a new kind of visibility. What makes this different? This is more than an audit or a one-time SEO tweak. It’s a full visibility strategy built for AI-first discovery. You’ll get measurable insights into your current presence, and a real plan to improve it — including the articles, mentions, and sources that matter most. Ready to see where you stand? We’re offering a free GEO Visibility Audit to help you benchmark your AI presence and take your first step toward becoming an authority in generative search. 🔗 Request your audit and let’s build your authority — before your competitors do. Evan Zall #GEO #GenerativeSearch #AISEO #DigitalMarketing #ThoughtLeadership #Nowspeed #LongviewStrategies #AuthorityBuilder #MarketingInnovation #AIvisibility https://lnkd.in/eK7FSVgS

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Retail media is moving beyond the shelf. DSP, CTV, and social commerce are becoming standalone growth engines powered by commerce data according to Skai & Stratably's 2026 State of Retail Media Report. But as industry leaders told us, this requires dedicated strategy, expertise, and investment. Explore what this means for you: https://okt.to/SN9Jnd

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