2024 IAB Gaming and Immersive Media Leadership Summit (original) (raw)
The IAB Gaming and Immersive Media Leadership Summit convened industry leaders to advance the gaming and immersive media channels. During this one-day event, attendees identified emerging opportunities and discussed challenges with experts and thought leaders through panels and breakout sessions, defining key initiatives and shaping our future roadmap. Thank you to all sponsors and attendees whose support and participation contributed to a successful summit. As we wrap up this fantastic event, we look forward to seeing you next year!
Read the highlights below and the full recap from the summit here.
Highlights From The Summit
As gaming and immersive media continue to reshape digital advertising, traditional success metrics like impressions, views, and reach are being scrutinized for their ability to fully capture the impact of these interactive campaigns. Are they still relevant, or do we need new approaches to truly measure engagement and ROI?
Success in immersive media requires a broader approach to measurement. While public metrics and third-party research are valuable, factors like brand loyalty, generational impact, and long-term engagement provide a more comprehensive view of success.
Brands must build ecosystems that span multiple platforms and environments, creating “third places” where users connect and engage beyond traditional commerce. Similar to how airport lounges build consumer loyalty for credit card companies, the future of consumer engagement lies in building authentic, multi-dimensional experiences that resonate with gaming audiences and foster long-term loyalty.
Cortney Harding, Head of Immersive Content, Virti Andrew Martinson, Sr. Marketing Manager, H&R Block Claire Nance, Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy, Activision Blizzard Media Indy Khabra, Co-Founder, Livewire
Resources
The 2024 IAB Gaming and Immersive Media Leadership Summit: New Experiences are Unlocking New Consumer Connections for Brands
Learn More
New IAB Study Reveals Games Advertising Among Top Three Investment Growth Areas Alongside Digital Video
Learn More
IAB and MRC Release Augmented Reality Measurement Guidelines For Public Comment
Learn More
New IAB Study Reveals Five Misperceptions About Video Game Advertising
Learn More
Changing the Game: How Games Advertising Powers Performance
Learn More
Agenda
Agenda:
Speakers & Moderators
Speakers & Moderators
Zoe Soon
Vice President, Experience Center
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Experience Center
Zoe Soon
Vice President, Experience Center
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Experience Center
Zoe Soon has 10+ years of experience building products in technology-driven businesses with a heavy focus on mobile. Six years ago Zoe flew 21 hours from Sydney to NYC for a 30min coffee meeting which led to her first job in NYC. Since then she’s worked with three major New York based media companies, The New York Times, Condé Nast and Business Insider on projects ranging from location-based apps to paywalls. Zoe began her career as a user researcher and UX design consultant working with three of the top five banks in Australia. She was then hired to establish a user insights practice at Fairfax Media, a leading Australian news and media conglomerate. Here she led the user research for the flagship news apps which won Best Mobile News Product at the 2012 Australian Mobile Awards and went on to become product lead for the news sites. In this role she launched a content paywall and a unified user data system to diversify revenue and enable more targeted marketing.
Prior to joining the IAB Zoe was General Manager of apps and email at Business Insider where she was charged with defining the go-to market strategy for these platforms. In this role Zoe launched Insider Inc’s first OTT apps across Apple, Amazon Fire and Roku offering advertisers cross-platform video digital distribution and access to an audience that generates over 2 billion views each month.
Zoe has a Masters in Organizational Psychology and lives in New York. She enjoys burning pancakes, Cuban salsa dancing and talking to strangers in line.
Justin Breton
Head of Brand Marketing and Innovation
Walmart
Walmart - Head of Brand Marketing and Innovation
Justin Breton
Head of Brand Marketing and Innovation
Walmart
Walmart - Head of Brand Marketing and Innovation
Justin Breton is the Head of Brand Marketing Innovation at Walmart, overseeing all digital & emerging experiences that drive meaningful customer engagement. Since joining the company in 2020, he’s launched interactive commerce platforms, in-store AR experiences, first-to-market shoppable livestreams, & Walmart’s foray into the Metaverse with Walmart Discovered on Roblox, The Cultureverse on Spatial, & the launch of Walmart Realm. Prior to Walmart, Justin oversaw strategic partnerships & integrated campaigns at Squarespace. Prior to that he was in a similar role at Foursquare. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his husband & Pomeranian.
Cortney Harding
Head of Immersive Content
Virti
Virti - Head of Immersive Content
Cortney Harding
Head of Immersive Content
Virti
Virti - Head of Immersive Content
Cortney Harding is an Emmy-nominated XR creator and the head of immersive content at Virti. She has created award-winning XR projects for Accenture, DDI, Lowe’s, and Walmart, among others, and taught at Barnard, Caltech, NYU, and the Fast Future Executive.
Andrew Martinson
Senior Marketing Manager, Media & Strategy
H&R Block
H&R Block - Senior Marketing Manager, Media & Strategy
Andrew Martinson
Senior Marketing Manager, Media & Strategy
H&R Block
H&R Block - Senior Marketing Manager, Media & Strategy
Andrew Martinson: Sr. Marketing Manager with H&R Block for 16 years. Oversees strategy, investment and measurement for direct investments including gaming, television, audio, OOH, print and more.
Gianna Valintina
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Spatial
Spatial - Head of Strategic Partnerships
Gianna Valintina
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Spatial
Spatial - Head of Strategic Partnerships
Gianna Valintina brings over two decades of leadership in shopper marketing, experiential production, and tech, leading campaigns for giants like PepsiCo, Nike, and iHeart Media. As Global Head of Strategic Partnerships at Spatial, she pioneers transformative digital brand experiences for clients such as BMW, Walmart, and VOGUE. Recognized as a Top 50 Voice in 3D/AR/XR, Gianna champions underrepresented creative sectors in tech and remains committed to making digital engagement through Spatial Computing and AI innovation more inclusive and ethical, reshaping how audiences interact with brands in the evolving 3D media landscape.
Pam Zucker
Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer
IAB
IAB - Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer
Pam Zucker
Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer
IAB
IAB - Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer
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.
Sue Dunphy
Global Head of Xbox Advertising Sales
Yahoo
Yahoo - Global Head of Xbox Advertising Sales
Sue Dunphy
Global Head of Xbox Advertising Sales
Yahoo
Yahoo - Global Head of Xbox Advertising Sales
As the Global Head of Xbox Advertising Sales at Yahoo, Sue oversees advertising sales teams across the US, Canada and EMEA. Sue began her career 25 years ago, spending most of that time authentically bringing brands to life through interactive experiences and endemic alignments on Xbox.
Following a partnership agreement in 2015, Sue transitioned from Microsoft to AOL/Verizon and to Yahoo, where she remains committed to building connections between brands and the gaming community.
Sue resides on Long Island with her husband and 13-year old twins, who couldn’t be happier that every television in the house has an Xbox attached to it.
Victor Lu
Twitch Brand Partnership Studio Lead, Americas
Amazon
Amazon - Twitch Brand Partnership Studio Lead, Americas
Victor Lu
Twitch Brand Partnership Studio Lead, Americas
Amazon
Amazon - Twitch Brand Partnership Studio Lead, Americas
Victor Lu is the Americas Lead for Twitch’s award-winning Brand Partnership Studio, overseeing creative strategy, production, program management, interactive tech, and talent relations. He oversees capabilities for custom integrations, programming, interactive tech, and sponsorships on the service across US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.
Tom Emrich
Author of “The Next Dimension”
Author of “The Next Dimension”
Tom Emrich
Author of “The Next Dimension”
Author of “The Next Dimension”
Tom Emrich is a pioneer in augmented reality, virtual reality, and wearable technology, with over 15 years of experience in the space. He has a proven track record of leading teams and landing strategic impact for powerhouse brands and organizations. His debut book, The Next Dimension, published by Wiley, is the definitive guide to using AR to transform business strategies, showcasing real-world use cases in marketing, advertising, and sales. Tom’s thoughts on spatial computing have been sought after by media outlets such as CNN, BBC, Forbes, and The New York Times, as well as events like TEDx, CES, and SXSW.
Joost van Dreunen
Chief Executive Officer
ALDORA
ALDORA - Chief Executive Officer
Joost van Dreunen
Chief Executive Officer
ALDORA
ALDORA - Chief Executive Officer
Joost van Dreunen is a renowned expert on the business of video games and the co-founder and CEO of ALDORA, an intelligence provider for the interactive entertainment industry. He teaches gaming strategy and economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business and authored One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games. A regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Bloomberg, Joost also publishes the SuperJoost Playlist, one of the most widely read newsletters at the intersection of gaming, brands, and entertainment.
Jack Koch
Senior Vice President, Research and Insights
IAB
IAB - Senior Vice President, Research and Insights
Jack Koch
Senior Vice President, Research and Insights
IAB
IAB - Senior Vice President, Research and Insights
Jack joins the IAB with over 20 years of experience at platforms, brands, and agencies leading global research and insights initiatives that foster smarter business decisions. An enthusiastic data-driven storyteller, he’s passionate about exploring the boundaries of research to elevate industry intelligence and strives to inspire action through insights.
Prior to joining the IAB Jack led and scaled global research, insights, and measurement teams at rapidly emerging digital media platforms including Microsoft, EA, LinkedIn, and Spotify. Most recently Jack was at Reddit, where he established the Marketing Sciences organization responsible for advancing ad measurement capabilities and partnerships, producing research amplifying industry awareness and understanding of online communities, and uncovering contextual insights and identifying audience trends that tell the world about their world.
Jack and his teams have accepted awards from industry bodies such as the Advertising Research Foundation and the Insights Association, and he’s had the pleasure of sharing research findings in publications and on industry stages around the globe. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, earning degrees from the Olin School of Business and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
Cintia Gabilan
Vice President, Media Center
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Media Center
Cintia Gabilan
Vice President, Media Center
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Media Center
Before joining the IAB, Cintia Gabilan had experience working across global ad agencies (Wunderman Thompson and Dentsu), CPG (Unilever), and tech companies (Facebook and Amazon). She has global experience driving growth by overseeing marketing, communications, and sales strategy. With a Master’s in Business, she most recently built many strategic and significant marketing programs at Amazon Ads, such as their Customer Advisory Boards, Analysts Relations, Competitive Intelligence program, and more. You can find her exploring nature, playing sports, and baking with her husband and daughter in her free time.
Angelina Eng
Vice President, Measurement & Attribution
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Measurement & Attribution
Angelina Eng
Vice President, Measurement & Attribution
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Measurement & Attribution
A seasoned executive with 24+ years of digital media, marketing and operations experience, Angelina Eng has focused her career on supporting agencies and brands to define, build and manage digital media and marketing efforts while enabling teams to operationally work efficiently and effectively with both internal and external partners and platforms. She’s been responsible for the development and management of internal systems and workflow, establishment of deliverable standards, designing ad trafficking and tracking guidelines, implementation of emerging platforms, as well as establishing best practices at companies such as Morgan Stanley, Merkle, Dentsu Aegis and Publicis Modem.
Over the years, She has been involved with multiple organizations and events to help define, establish and advocate some of the industry standards that we see in today’s digital media ecosystem (such as ad verification/brand safety, ad fraud, viewability and programmatic, social, etc)
Angelina has been awarded the AdMonsters 2018 Power List, IAB Data Rockstar 2016 and AdMonsters Digital Media Leadership Award 2016.
Jeffrey Bustos
Vice President, Measurement Addressability Data
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Measurement Addressability Data
Jeffrey Bustos
Vice President, Measurement Addressability Data
IAB
IAB - Vice President, Measurement Addressability Data
Jeffrey Bustos is the VP, MAD+Commerce (Measurement Addressability Data) at the IAB where he develops industry standards and guides for measurement and addressability solutions to enable revenue growth, efficiency, and scale with a focus in Retail Media Networks, Video / Advanced Television, and Privacy Enhancing Technology. Key projects include: Categorization & Definitions Buyers Guide for Retail Media, Data Clean Rooms and Privacy Preserving Solutions Research, and Attention & Engagement Metrics Standards. Previously Jeffrey worked at GroupM where he led Data & Audience Strategy for eCommerce clients, consulting them on cookieless solutions, audience strategy & activation, and data taxonomy & identity resolution for CDP and Data Clean Room activations.
Indy Khabra
Co-Founder
Livewire
Livewire - Co-Founder
Indy Khabra
Co-Founder
Livewire
Livewire - Co-Founder
Claire Nance
Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy
Activision Blizzard Media
Activision Blizzard Media - Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy
Claire Nance
Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy
Activision Blizzard Media
Activision Blizzard Media - Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy
An award-winning business and marketing leader, Claire Nance has over 15 years’ experience driving global strategic initiatives within the advertising, technology, entertainment and media industries. As Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy at Activision Blizzard Media, Claire serves as the connection point between the gaming and advertising industries, providing strategic guidance to Activision Blizzard’s advertising revenue-facing support functions and owning its market-facing approach and industry presence.
Claire has held senior marketing and communications roles at IPG Mediabrands, News Corp and North 6th Agency. An active member of the advertising and marketing community, Claire was on the board of directors of the Public Relations Society of America’s New York chapter from 2020 to 2022 and has acted as a mentor with several industry organizations including New York Women in Communications and She Runs It. Claire has been recognized within the industry including: Ragan Top Women in Communications in 2024, The PR Net’s MarComms Most Influential in 2023, Crain’s Notable Leaders in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations in 2022, Business Insider’s PR Rising Stars in 2021, and PRSA-NY’s Exceptionals Under 35 award in 2019.
Matt Goodman
COO & Co-Founder
NexTide Media
NexTide Media - COO & Co-Founder
Matt Goodman
COO & Co-Founder
NexTide Media
NexTide Media - COO & Co-Founder
A native of Chicago and a life-long gamer, Matt spent the first part of his career in Hollywood working in Film & TV Production as a Writer, Producer and Production Coordinator on such shows as Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Diagnosis Murder before making his move into digital media.
Matt began his digital media career at iFilm.com where he built and led the Ad Operations and Account Management teams and helped develop the web’s first :15 sec pre-roll. At its height the iFilm Video Network powered such sites as Disney, College Humor and Rotten Tomatoes.
He spent the next decade at Yahoo! leading a national Account Management team supporting over $250MM in annual revenue for the Autos, Entertainment/Gaming and CPG/Pharma categories. Matt has built and led Customer Success teams at Yahoo!, Glassdoor, Helix, ZeldaVision and Enthusiast Gaming.
As EVP Partnerships at Enthusiast Gaming, Matt closed and oversaw many key deals including a multi-million dollar partnership with the National Football League (NFL) and oversaw production of NFL’s Tuesday Night Gaming.
As COO and Co-Founder of NexTide Media Matt is building the next generation of Gaming Media focused on the Live Streaming Environment.
Matt earned his BFA from USC School of Cinema-Television.
Nathan Lindberg
Head of US Brand Partnerships
Overwolf Ads
Overwolf Ads - Head of US Brand Partnerships
Nathan Lindberg
Head of US Brand Partnerships
Overwolf Ads
Overwolf Ads - Head of US Brand Partnerships
Brandon Kaplan
Chief Innovation Officer
Journey
Journey - Chief Innovation Officer
Brandon Kaplan
Chief Innovation Officer
Journey
Journey - Chief Innovation Officer
The founder of Journey’s AI Experience studio, Brandon works to ensure we’re perfecting and deploying emerging technologies such as Unreal Engine, 3D modeling, virtual twins and GenAI to produce work that’s meaningful, memorable and, of course, multidimensional. A trailblazer with deep roots in voice and AI technologies, Brandon has a history of outpacing technology’s advance, having founded, incubated, and sold a number of startups over a two-decade career. His groundbreaking voice campaigns for leading brands have contributed significantly to the channel’s multibillion-dollar growth. Journey is built for innovative leaders like Brandon, who keenly understands how emerging tech, blended with bold strategy and category-disrupting creativity, can build worlds and unlock explosive growth for our client partners.
Keith Soljacich
EVP, Head of Innovation, PMCI
Publicis Media
Publicis Media - EVP, Head of Innovation, PMCI
Keith Soljacich
EVP, Head of Innovation, PMCI
Publicis Media
Publicis Media - EVP, Head of Innovation, PMCI
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