Next in Media How Mike Law Is Navigating the CTV Targeting Puzzle at Carat
In this episode of Next in Media, I sit down with Mike Law, CEO of Carat North America, to talk about one of the biggest tensions in modern media: the push for more targeted TV advertising versus the risk of going too narrow and losing brand growth. Mike and I discuss how brands have at times gotten too addressable, siloing themselves into repeat customers while forgetting to grow the top of the funnel. We dig into the fragmentation challenge across streaming, CTV, and social video, and why defining your audience has never been harder with a million data sets and walled gardens competing for attention.
We also get into how YouTube is becoming more like TV every day, the evolving role of creators in upfront conversations, and whether creator media belongs in the same budget bucket as a big show on CBS. Mike shares how Carat is using AI agents to run multiple media plan scenarios in minutes instead of hours, and we explore what the next generation of media planners (AI native, digital native) will bring to the industry. We wrap up talking about measurement, why the industry needs to come together to solve identity and addressability, and what Go Addressable is doing to advance deterministic audience-based advertising at scale.
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Key Highlights
📺 CTV Targeting vs. Brand Growth: Mike argues that brands have sometimes gotten too addressable, squeezing existing customers dry before realizing they need to find new audiences to grow the business.
🔀 Fragmentation Is the Core Challenge: With a million data sets, walled gardens, and consumers bouncing between streaming, search, and LLMs in seconds, the media planning landscape is what Mike calls a "bowl of spaghetti."
📱 YouTube as TV Replacement: Mike sees YouTube becoming more like television every day, but its dual identity as both a TV replacement and a social video performance platform makes it tricky to plan against.
🎥 Creators in the Upfront: Long-form, episodic creators are increasingly part of upfront conversations, but the question remains whether they belong in the TV budget or require their own planning approach.
🤖 AI Agents for Media Planning: Carat is using AI agents to generate eight to ten versions of a media plan at once, letting planners compare trade-offs and craft strategy faster than ever.
📊 The Measurement Gap: Cross-platform measurement remains fragmented, and Mike believes the industry needs to come together to solve identity and comparability across CTV, linear, and digital.
🌐 Go Addressable and Industry Collaboration: The episode is part of a special series with Go Addressable, the trade organization working to advance deterministic audience-based advertising across the full TV ecosystem.
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Resources & Next Steps
🌐 Learn more about Go Addressable at GoAddressable.com
🔗 Follow Mike Law on LinkedIn
🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts
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Timestamps
00:00 Cold open: the state of TV targeting and brand growth
01:07 Introducing Mike Law, CEO of Carat North America
01:43 Where we are with CTV targeting today
03:25 When brands get too addressable and forget reach
05:00 The cycle of squeezing audiences and finding new ones
06:50 Fragmentation, walled gardens, and identity challenges
08:50 How identity resolution tools are evolving
10:15 YouTube as a TV replacement and where it fits
12:53 YouTube in the upfront: TV bucket or something else?
14:47 Creators in upfront conversations and long-form episodic content
17:30 The premium creator economy and brand integrations
19:30 AI in media planning: what is changing day to day
22:00 AI agents running multiple plan scenarios at Carat
23:13 The next generation of media planners (AI and digital native)
25:30 Measurement challenges across platforms
27:30 Industry collaboration and lessons learned
28:42 Wrap up and Go Addressable sponsor message