Episode 159: Bob Lord of Horizon on How Indie Agencies Compete

Bob Lord, President of Horizon Media, joins Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi to talk about why independent agencies can move faster, how Horizon OS is built around an open partner ecosystem, and how AI is changing day to day agency work. They also cover Blu ID, performance-based pricing, the LLM ad debate, and key takeaways from IAB ALM.

Takeaways

• Indie agencies move faster because they don’t carry legacy tech and data debt.
• Horizon OS keeps the stack open so brands can swap partners as needed.
• Blu ID links Horizon’s identity to client first-party data for more precise planning.
• Horizon wants performance based pay so incentives match business results.
• AI delivers quick wins through reconciliation and workflow automation.
• The ads debate is really a trust play between Anthropic and OpenAI.

Chapters

00:00 Travel, Super Bowl, and AI talk.

04:22 Bob Lord joins the show.

06:38 Why holdcos struggle with tech and data debt.

08:17 Horizon OS and client access to data.

10:39 Switching agencies and owning first party data.

11:40 What Blu ID is.

12:13 Open ecosystem and partner plug-ins.

14:19 From staffing to growth partnership.

15:45 Performance based agency economics.

16:59 Why AI fits open systems.

18:12 Agent Q, Gemini, and fewer hallucinations.

20:14 AI wins: reconciliation and pitch work.

21:30 Horizon and Havas partnership.

23:41 Viveki then vs now.

28:45 LLM ad war and Anthropic ads.

36:33 IAB ALM and publisher AI accountability.

40:02 Project Ados and ADCP friction.

45:24 Earnings: Google, YouTube, Uber Ads.

51:56 Closing thoughts on open ecosystems.

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