Not your average analogy

by

Not your average analogy (June 22, 2026)

BY ROB BEELER

I have to give Vadim Solovetski from InstaDB credit for this one, though I am paraphrasing: 

Between the ICU patients who are burning up with fever and the cold bodies in the morgue, the average body temperature of a hospital is a meaningless number. 

Which begs the question, how often do you miss the whole picture because you’re distracted by an “average” number?

Interestingly enough, the South of France, as usual, is extremely hot. I’m not there this week. Instead, I’m heading to Detroit to meet with the team before preparing for my mother’s 102nd birthday. Yes, I’m flexing. Mama . Tech is an amazing woman. Of course she is. She had me when she was 73… okay, maybe not 73. Let’s not do that math.

There will be publishers in Cannes this week, but not as many as there should be. 

It really is a chance to meet the right people and to close deals, making it a “must-attend” opportunity. So why aren’t publishers downing glasses of rosé en masse?  Because more and more in this relationship-driven industry, publishers aren’t a primary part of the relationship. 

Buyers can forgo meeting the publishers themselves, and instead work with any number of intermediaries on their yachts and at their parties. For many publishers, the cost is too high, and the chances of meeting the people they need to meet in a meaningful way are too low. Even though every dinner or event I’ve ever hosted   for publishers in Cannes has been successful, I always knew I was one celebrity sighting away from losing everyone. 

This is where my analogy really starts to fall apart. I’m trying to draw parallels between the hospital image and the haves and have-nots in the world of advertising. Get it? The heat of Cannes vs the cold of being left out? Okay, let’s abandon that ship (or yacht) and let me try it a different way: 

Advertising is growing, but the growth hides the fact that some sectors are burning hot and others are ice cold. The problem is we can’t pit these sectors against each other like we are. Publishers need advertising, and advertising needs publishers. Let’s make sure publishers have a seat at the table.

Here’s what you need to know this week… 

  • We’re thrilled to announce Parmy Olson (Bloomberg technology columnist and author, “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World”) as a keynote speaker at Base.Camp Madrid this November. She’ll examine the current state of AI disruption in journalism, where it’s likely to go from here, and what that means for publishers, as we wrestle with questions of authorship, trust, distribution, and long-term business impact.

  • Base.Camp La Jolla planning is well underway! And we’re excited to announce that the one and only Joanna Bloor will be joining us as a keynote speaker. Joanna is a “potentialist” who helps individuals and teams see what’s possible before whatever you’re building has a name, a plan, or even buy-in. So, if you’re someone who wants to understand how to better move people from “sounds interesting, I guess,” to “we need to act on this right now,” we hope to see you in California this October.

  • Did you miss Navigator NYC? You can now view session replays on YouTube from Justin Evans, Dr. G (first session, second session), as well as Rich Murphy and Lindsay Horrigan.

  • Community.Call: Reliability In The Age Of Hallucinations June 24, 3:00 pm ET. Join James Strang for the fifth bvcn call in this series. This session features guest speaker Graeme Thompson, a senior software developer and product company co-founder. Graeme will show how an experienced developer uses AI tools to turn repetitive manual work into small, safe automations. The focus is on low-impact builds: practical wins that stay off the revenue path and are easy to review and reverse. Register here!

Want to get caught up on everything we’ve published? Start here.

The Stack subscription is built for people on the business side of publishing who need more than recycled industry headlines. You get a clearer read on the pressures shaping publisher decisions right now that don’t always show up in public conversations.

Here’s what you’ve missed:

  • Subscribers only: How to bring buyers closer to the impression
    Until now, the industry’s mistake has been assuming the best answer comes after the impression has traveled downstream. That assumption made sense when third-party cookies did the heavy lifting, the sell side had very little time to act, and the buy side held most of the decisioning power. But it holds less now. (New from Hazel Broadley)

  • Subscribers only: Above the Fold (June 15, 2026)
    When Chrome’s Heavy Ad Intervention pulls an ad for consuming too many resources, the slot goes dark. A member now reports that Google is automatically refilling those slots by default, without anyone asking.

  • Free preview: Publishers: ‘failing fast’ only works if somebody’s writing it down
    I’m tired. A lot of my friends in ad ops are tired. We keep being asked to absorb the same preventable problems on behalf of organizations that have decided learning isn’t worth the time it takes. (New anonymous publisher op-ed with Liz Moorehead)

Here’s the latest…  

  • Own the signal, move the auction, fix the cache: what publishers should do next
    Our second edition of The Pub Report, co-hosted alongside our friends Prebid.org, brought together digital media leaders John Rosendahl (Optable), Mike Racic (Prebid), Erik Svilich (Encypher), Brian Sardo (Microsoft), Kieran Greene (Shinka), and Karim Mourra (JWX). The session moved across identity, provenance, Prebid Server, and Prebid Cache. However, the common theme was that the next set of adtech defaults are being shaped now.

  • When GPID is messy, publishers pay the price
    In this exclusive conversation, Eilon Goldstein of Rise gets into what GPID was meant to solve, where implementations tend to go sideways, and what publishers should look at first if they want to know whether their setup is helping or hurting them.

  • Manual reporting is costing ad ops teams more than time
    Manual reporting may keep teams close to the numbers, but it also asks experienced people to spend their best hours searching for problems instead of solving them. In this conversation, we get into why those workflows have persisted, where the low-value work tends to concentrate, and what publishers lose when detection depends on a reporting cycle. With Chris Quinn of ProOps Consulting.

A full list of our 2026 events we’re involved in, all in one nice little package:

Cannes 2026 Calendar

Last-minute Cannes plans?  Get the free Cannes Events MCP. Let your AI grab registration links, see which companies are doing what, check who’s speaking, and get venue’s coordinates to better organise your meetings. Cannes MCP. Also you can get The Digital Voice Cannes calendar here! 

Be safe and have fun!

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