ADWEEK On Background newsletter

Click here to view this email in your browser Hi there, and welcome back to On Background. This is Mark Stenberg, the senior media reporter at ADWEEK, writing to you today from a surprisingly temperate Orlando, Florida. I and half of the marketing industry have decamped to the Sunshine State for the ANA Masters of Marketing conference, a multiday affair hosted in the Rosen Shingle Creek resort. As you can read about below, I was invited to attend and interview on-stage Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated actress, model, and musical artist. To say the interview was memorable would be an understatement, but I elaborate more on the experience in my feature below, where I have adapted our conversation into a Q&A. For Quote/Unquote this week, I spoke with Bob Lord, the chief executive officer of Horizon Media, the largest independent media agency in the U.S. Lord and I met in-person at the conference, where we discussed a handful of the most-pressing topics in media. In particular, my favorite nuggets involved the emerging world of answer engine optimization, a technical Wild West that has ushered SEO into the answer engine era. Per Lord, as answer engines draw more readily from social media, it increasingly appears that the worlds of “search” and “social media” are collapsing into each other. This could have profound implications for the content strategies of brands and publishers, which will no longer be able treat their YouTube presence as an afterthought. Just before that, I rounded up a few of my most recent stories, including exclusives about new advertising opportunities on Substack, an eight-figure event from Semafor, and the second act of the influencer whisperer Cami Tellez. As always, at the bottom of the newsletter you will find my favorite stories from the week that was, including writing from The New Yorker, New York Times, Grub Street, and Texas Monthly. Replies to this email go straight to my inbox, so feel free to reach out with tips, pitches, and feedback. You can reach me at mark.stenberg@adweek.com or on Signal at 210-705-3284. If you are not yet subscribed to On Background, you can click here to do so for free. MARK STENBERG, SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER, ADWEEK mark.stenberg@adweek.com | @markstenberg If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up here. TALKING HEDS Substack Spon-Con (EXCLUSIVE): Beginning Wednesday, Substack creators will be able to apply to an early program that will enable them to monetize their podcasts with dynamically inserted ads and programmatic offerings, head of brand partnerships Dan Robbins told me. The new offering is part of a broader push afoot at Substack, which has historically eschewed advertising, to enable its creators to bring in brand sponsors and generate revenue without subscriptions. Earlier this month, the platform rolled out another sponsorship program that lets brands “lift the paywall” for free subscribers, among other novel packages. Substack had long rejected advertising, saying that the model created perverse incentives that resulted in clickbait and misinformation. It has cautiously softened that stance in recent months, a delicate repositioning that will be entertaining to watch. Semafor’s Eight-Figure Event (EXCLUSIVE): In November, Semafor is debuting its second flagship event, called Silicon Valley & the World. The“convening” is set to generate eight figures of revenue on its own, chief commercial officer Rachel Oppenheim told me. Even for a company with events at its core, the figure is a princely sum, driven by 24 commercial partners. In 2025, Semafor brought in around $40 million in total revenue, roughly half of which came from events. Based on that figure, its November conference is set to bring in nearly half that total on its own. As the media industry—and the advertising world more broadly—continue to further embrace physical experiences, Semafor is an example of what that business model looks like taken to its extreme. Cami Tellez Return