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JOE MANDESE

Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.

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  • ANA Finds Influencer Marketing Agencies Averaging 30% Commissions by Joe Mandese (MediaDailyNews on 02/19/2026)

    @Dan C. from MS Entertainment: Re. purpose, you can read the report by clicking on the link, but here's what it says: "to identify areasof waste in influencer marketing and then remedies to reduce that waste and optimizespending. That working group has covered areas including selecting influencers, vettinginfluencers, models for influencer management, governance/compliance, and measurement. Influencer marketing agency compensation emerged as a significant and ongoingchallenge for marketers and an opportunity for additional learning, given widespreadconcerns around transparency, consistency, and alignment to performance."Re. your second question, I believe many marketers have been striving to understand the net agencies take on their gross spending for a variety of reasons, including negotiating better terms, in-housing, etc., but mainly just to understand the relative ROI of their "working" vs. "non-working" media budgets.Re. your point about non-disclosure, based on my coverage of the business, I don't think that's necessarily true, especially between big advertisers (the kind that are ANA members) and agencies, but if you read the report you'll see there's not 100% unanimity even about that.

  • Why Bad Bunny Review Was Bad 'TV Blog' by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 02/11/2026)

    @Artie White: Hmm, also worth noting that MediaPost covered "Bad Bunny" in 33 articles leading up to the Super Bowl, according to our internal search engine:https://www.mediapost.com/publications/search/?q=%22Bad+Bunny%22

  • Why Bad Bunny Review Was Bad 'TV Blog' by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 02/11/2026)

    @Laurie Sullivan: Muy interesante! Or as Tito Puente might have said, "Oye cómo va!" Also think it's worth noting that about a dozen of Santana's most prominent songs were entirely in Spanish. Oh bueno!https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/santana-en-espa%C3%B1ol/pl.d81496cc97e34e55aba48f23b7fb83fc

  • Changing The Guards: Duggan To Retire From ANA, Succeeded By IAA's Szulce by Joe Mandese (MediaDailyNews on 01/27/2026)

    @Bill Duggan: Apologies if it was unclear that we were reporting you will be retiring from the ANA in June. MediaPost for one looks forward to covering future Duggan endeavors.

  • Marketers Plan Biggest Ad Boosts In Digital, Social, CTV - AI, Influencer, Retail Lag by Joe Mandese (MediaDailyNews on 01/21/2026)

    @Ed Papazian: Great point. I didn't analyze how and why money was shifting from one line item to another, just reported on what the planned shifts are. I mean, AI spending could be coming at the expense of search, etc.

  • The Boy Who Prompted Wolf by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 01/16/2026)

    @Ken Fadner: Good question. I have no idea if it was serendipity, or something else. I'm just reporting what happened. My guess is that Biden's travel plans were last minute, and I was already reserved in a seat the Secret Service determined to be the best available option and that they profiled me in advance somehow and figured I was harmless. It surprised me.

  • The 2.8% Solution by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 01/04/2026)

    @Ed Papazian: Just goes to prove why you're still the media analytics guru. I did not originally ask that prompt, but I just did and Gemini estimates that nearly 50% of the comments made on MediaPost articles in 2025 were related to political commentary. Gemini estimates political commentary "over-indexed 18x" comments on all other content published by MediaPost last year.I'm not sure what to do with that insight though. I think it's just the nature of the subject matter.

  • The Most Red - Er, I Mean Read - White & Blogs by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 12/29/2025)

    @Dan C. from MS Entertainment: Heh-heh, I can always count on you to express something debasing, can't I. Not sure how it helps the discussion, but just to fact-check a couple of points you may not understand: 1) I've covered political media and marketing for nearly half a century at Adweek, Ad Age, and yes -- even journalistically at MediaPost. It has always been one of my beats. That might be why my publisher asked me to take over "Red, White & Blog" to provide my own opinion-based commentary. By the way, opinions are inherently biased and Ive never implied mine were any different. As always, if you don't like reading them, why do you -- and why do you take the time to troll -- er, I mean comment -- about them?Lastly, opinions have always been a part of journalist. In fact, news organizations often have whole sections devoted to them. They're called "op-eds" and even though we call "Red, White & Blog" a blog, it is an op-ed commentary.Hope that clarifies things for you, but I'm sure this comment will be repeated in some form sometimes soon.Happy New Year!

  • The Suite Smell Of Nielsen's Big Data Success by Joe Mandese (TV Watch on 12/22/2025)

    @William Abbott: You are fundamentally correct, and it's mostly due to the fact that I often write columns like this one too cryptically. If you read between the lines (including the use of the word "suite" in the headline), I was hoping readers would realize some of Nielsen's Big Data success was intended as sarcasm. But I've always appreciated Howard Shimmel's efforts to make his case and figured this might be as good a time as any to present it.Personally, I'm not convinced, and the most important part of this story (as well as the Big Data integration stories coming out of big ad agencies) is that we now live in an industry that prizes data for data sake and that it has become the grease that keeps the gears turning.It has been frustrating for me personally, because it's almost impossible to vet superior data integration claims when I can't see either the data or the integration, so all a trade journalist can do is report what people and companies say they can do, and let it stand on its own merits. But I can also keep raising the question: Is it actually better?That's what I was trying to do with this column.The other most important part is the ongong reference to Kelly Abcarian's brilliant quip that "every single number" the advertising and media industry now uses is modeled. Not primary audience measurement. I think that's important to remember, because modeled numbers are only as good as the model (assumptions being applied) and the data inputs they're being applied to.I have no doubt that Nielsen has some of the best data modelers in the world working for it. (See Howard Shimmel.) But they are models nonetheless.

  • Misinformer Of The Year: Nick Fuentes by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 12/19/2025)

    @Dan C. from MS Entertainment: Funny how you read things into columns "Madese" never wrote or even implied. Other than my Global Alliance for Irresponsible Media plug, all of it came from Media Matters' "Misinformer of the Year" announcement.Speaks volumes that you don't think Fuentes should be condemned for what he promotes.

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