Global Marketing Association DPAA debuts “Launchpad of Innovation” podcast with first episode featuring Horizon Media’s Domenic Venuto and AiOO’s Hammad Benjelloun
Tuesday, May 12, 2026 · Promoted content
New monthly series hosted by DPAA President & CEO Barry Frey delivers unfiltered C-suite conversations on the future of advertising, marketing, and media — presented in partnership with AiOO, the AI retail media platform built for real-time audience activation and closed-loop attribution in physical retail.
The debut episode features Domenic Venuto, Chief Product & Data Officer at Horizon Media, and Hammad Benjelloun, CEO & Co-Founder of AiOO, alongside portions of interviews from CES with Elicia Azali, CMO, Beazer Homes and Julia Fedor, Director Brand Marketing, United Airlines
NEW YORK — May 12, 2026 — DPAA, the global trade marketing association driving the innovation, growth and digitization of out-of-home media, today debuted its new podcast, Launchpad of Innovation, with Episode 1 now available at launchpadofinnovation.com and can also be found on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Deezer and Amazon Music/Audible.
Launchpad of Innovation features unfiltered conversations with the C-suite executives shaping the future of advertising, marketing, and media. From AdTech breakthroughs to brand-building strategies to the career moves that define eras, the show is where the industry’s boldest thinkers come to discuss what’s next.
It is hosted by DPAA President & CEO Barry Frey, a leading voice in the industry whose career has spanned top positions at companies across all mediums – broadcast and cable, local and national, digital and mobile. For more than a decade, Frey has led the charge toward the digitization of out-of-home (OOH) advertising. This has included evangelizing, advocating for, and uniting the industry’s key players with the mission of better aligning DOOH as part of the overall omnichannel media mix. Over this time, the DPAA has broadened its scope to be a truly global marketing association with members around the world, and to bring different subdivisions of OOH – including cinema advertising, experiential marketing, retail media – under one roof. He is well-known as the master of ceremonies for DPAA’s year-round events, culminating in its Global Video Everywhere Summit each fall, during which he leads conversations with newsmakers, CMOs, agency leaders, media companies, research firms, and tech innovators; tirelessly networks attendees with each other; and showcases the newest trends driving revenue and results up and down the funnel. This podcast marks an extension of these conversations.
The podcast is presented by DPAA Global in partnership with AiOO, the AI retail media platform purpose-built for real-time audience activation and closed-loop attribution in physical retail. AiOO has built a closed-loop retail media stack where the audience signal, the activation engine, the SSP, and the attribution layer all run on the same infrastructure. Anonymous in-store sensors detect shopper cohorts in real time. The activation engine analyzes the full live signal across demographics, in-aisle behavior, dwell, intent, and journey stage, and decides which campaign to play next, not just which creative variant to render, optimizing every play to maximize the expected sales revenue from that impression. The SSP exposes the inventory programmatically to DSPs the way they already transact CTV. The attribution layer matches exposed cohorts to SKU-level POS transactions and feeds the uplift back into the live campaign, optimizing spend, segments, and creative while the campaign is still running, not after. The store anchors the loop, because that is where the transaction happens. Every other DOOH surface, mall, transit, roadside, becomes an out-of-store retail media touch point inside the same loop, attributed across the full funnel and held to the same performance standard as any digital channel.
“Digital Out-of-Home is the launchpad of innovation for advertising, marketing, and media — and this podcast is built to reflect that,” said Frey. “Every conversation pulls back the curtain on the decisions, the technology, and the career paths driving this industry forward. We’re thrilled to kick things off with two leaders who are doing exactly that.”
Episode 1: A Launchpad for What’s Next
In the debut episode, Frey is joined by Domenic Venuto, Chief Product & Data Officer at Horizon Media, and Hammad Benjelloun, CEO & Co-Founder of AiOO, for a wide-ranging conversation on technology’s accelerating impact on omnichannel advertising — with a particular focus on DOOH.
Venuto explores how AI is reshaping the agency model, sharing how Horizon Media is using its Blue Platform and Horizon OS to drive client growth, solve real business challenges, and deepen engagement in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Benjelloun unpacks the trends defining the next chapter of DOOH and retail media — from digitization and automation to audience planning, dynamic creative optimization, and the rise of retail media networks as a strategic growth engine for brands.
Together, the conversation maps out where omnichannel advertising is headed and what marketers, agencies, and tech leaders need to do now to keep pace.
“Retail media is the third great wave of digital advertising. Yet the physical store, where roughly 80% of commerce still happens, remains the largest unmeasured media channel on Earth,” said Hammad Benjelloun, CEO & Co-Founder of AiOO. ”That ends now. AiOO is the first platform built specifically for real-time audience activation and closed-loop attribution in physical retail. We activate the right shopper at the right moment based on live in-store behavior, attribute every exposure to actual sales outcomes, and feed those outcomes back into delivery so campaigns get smarter while they run. Partnering with DPAA on Launchpad of Innovation puts that conversations in front of the C-suites who will define what comes next. The future of out-of-home has to be activated in real-time, attributed to outcomes, and optimized as it runs. Anything else is just reach.”
The podcast will also feature portions of interviews that took place at CES with Elicia Azali, CMO, Beazer Homes and Julia Fedor, Director Brand Marketing, United Airlines.
Full video episodes can also be watched on the DPAA Global YouTube channel at youtube.com/@DPAAvision/podcasts. For more information and to listen to Episode 1, visit launchpadofinnovation.com, or most major podcast platforms, including those listed above.
About DPAA Global
DPAA is the global trade marketing association, driving the growth and digitization of out-of-home (OOH) media and its growing role in the Omnichannel mix. Membership in the DPAA community brings many business acceleration benefits, including a wide array of products. DPAA offers members an extensive database of research, best practices and case studies; tools for planning, training and forecasting; social media amplification of news; insights on software and hardware solutions; further integration into the advertising ecosystem by connecting DOOH networks, brands, agencies, ad tech and others. DPAA’s Video Everywhere Summit, the largest one-day media/marketing event of its kind is set for October 13 at Pier 60 in New York City. Learn more at dpaaglobal.com.
About AiOO
AiOO is the retail media platform built for real-time audience activation and closed-loop
attribution in physical retail. It activates shopper segments in the moment, attributes every
exposure to actual sales, and feeds those outcomes back into live campaigns, turning the largest
unmeasured channel on Earth into a true performance channel for brands and retailers. The store
anchors the loop, and every other DOOH surface, mall, transit, roadside, joins it as an out-of-
store retail media touch point, attributed across the full funnel and held to the same standard as
any digital channel.
AiOO operates from Dubai, Madrid, New York, Paris, and Rabat. Learn more at aioo.tech.
Press Contact:
Matt Biscuiti
The Lippin Group for DPAA
Nasreen Bawazer
AiOO
