Jeff Graham
President & CMO at CACTUS
Website Address: www.cactusinc.com
Each week on “AdTastic,” our host talks to advertising and media experts across the country. This week our host speaks with Jeff Graham from CACTUS.
To learn more, check out www.cactusinc.com.
What is the biggest change in the advertising industry that you see coming in the next 2 years?
Unrelenting pressure on client organizations to do more with less, which will lead to increased in-housing and reliance on AI and automation. For creatively-driven agencies like ours that also offer data-driven media services – it means being up to speed on all those advancements in distribution while figuring out effective/efficient/profitable ways of creating compelling content for all of those touchpoints – which likely also means employing AI/automation. Since the advent of digital, the advertising industry has always seemed to be in undergoing rapid/radical change, but client side pressures will only accelerate that in my view.
How is the trend towards streaming television (CTV) impacting your advertising strategies?
We’re a relatively small agency (70 people) therefore many of our clients have scrappy budgets where they have to do more with less, so CTV, OTT, paid social, non-linear video formats are is a huge part of media activation plans for our clients.
What’s your biggest challenge with attracting and hiring talent in the past 2 years?
Threading the needle of bringing our teams together in person at the right times/in the most beneficial moments, while respecting the imperative for flexibility required by top talent – all while trying to redefine what agency “culture” means in this post pandemic labor market, and how best to nurture and grow it.
