Nadine Karp McHugh, SVP - Omni Media, Programmatic, Strategic Investments & Creative Solutions, L'Oreal, engaged her audience on Wednesday at MediaPost’s TV & Video Insider Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, when she spoke about content marketing in the current media landscape.

”It hasn’t changed. How-to videos are still what consumers want. It’s about what is that value exchange between a brand and the consumer and what permission do I have to engage."

"For women, it’s how to get that smoky eye, how to put on foundation. It’s one of the great mysteries.” Her audience chuckled in either confusion (perhaps among the men) or in agreement (perhaps among the women).

When MediaPost’s Steve Smith asked Karp McHugh about DTC brands, she said L’Oreal has more than 30 brands and some are DTC. “We’ve had our own proprietary learning in-house.” 

As far as measurement goes, the challenge is there are too many ”I don’t want to say factions -- but entities, siloes, trying to solve measurement. There are too many agendas out there.”

Smith asked her about those factions. “There are legacy media companies -- I won’t name names,” said Karp McHugh -- "that are trying to figure out what the future looks like. Premiums should be a way of doing business. Transparency needs to lead the way. Walled gardens are not as transparent as we would like. There’s no reason not to be transparent, right?”

“There’s a roundtable discussion,” said Smith, laughing.

Came the riposte: “You’re gonna need a big table.”