Floor 9

Welcome back to Floor 9! In this episode, recorded on Thursday Sep. 18, Tom and Ryan, the power duo of our partnerships team, are joined by Lab’s managing director Adam to recap and discuss the latest announcements from Apple’s iPhone 17 event and the Meta Connect event. 

Starting with Apple's new products, including the iPhone 17, new Apple Watch features, and the latest AirPods, the Lab team share their thoughts on some o...

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 ...

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...

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 t...

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 an...

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 cr...

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 pi...

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 t...

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 th...

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:

• The maturing deployment of AI and the long-term prospect of the AI hype
• The future of search and the impact that AI-driven challengers could have on Google’s dominance 
• The shifti...

‘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 reta...

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...

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 ...

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 abo...

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 d...

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...

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, ...

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 tea...

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:

• Gen Alpha’s key media behaviors
• How Gen Alpha socialize digitally  
• Gen Alpha as “AI natives”
• Millennials’ collaborative and overprot...