Unlike many industry events where there is a clear theme for the session, the ANA Media conference cast a wider net of topics including: artificial intelligence, diversity, in-housing, and retail media networks.

In between the more “show-and-tell” sessions, there were some very good presentations with actual data and 🔥 takes. More on those in a moment.

ANA Event Structure

If you’ve never attended an ANA event, here’s what you need to know.

The Association of National Advertisers represents (uhh) national advertisers as their main media-focused trade organization. They host roughly a dozen in-person conferences and a smattering of virtual events throughout the year.

The ANA Masters of Marketing event each fall is their mega event. Then there are a few significant tentpole events throughout the year, like Brand Masters, B2B Masters, Financial Management, etc. Then there are the far more bespoke events for specific topics like diversity, social, tech, and more.

The Media Conference last week had a bit more broad appeal because it touched on many media-adjacent topics like data, transparency, diversity, tech trends, procurement, and more. Consequently, it lacks a bit of the focus that is baked into the other events on the calendar but is also early enough in the year that it is good for setting the stage for what’s to come.

Top 3: ANA Conference Sessions

Here are my favorite sessions from the conference. To be fair, there were many great presentations not on my list. I am particularly fond of presenters who take contrarian positions and buck the common media wisdom. I also give automatic bonus points for content with actual facts, data, and attributable statistics.