Keynote: Curiosity is key to driving outcomes over activity alone

Ovative CEO and Founder Dale Nitschke opened with a story from the last great revolution in media: the early internet. As the newly named President of Target.com, he ran the business the way he knew best, like a store. Growth was fine, but not great. Then a member of his leadership team walked in and challenged everything, underlining the importance of unit P&Ls, media hurdle rates, and incrementality.

Dale got curious. His team, directed to break out of conventional thinking, delivered three straight years of triple-digit growth, and passed $1 billion in revenue in seven years, faster than Target’s physical stores ever did.

His message for today’s AI-driven changes came down to two moves:

1. Align on a north star. For every leader in the room, that means incremental revenue, incremental customers, and brand strength, the combination Ovative measures as Enterprise Marketing Return (EMR).

2. Tie curiosity to decisions. Ask why, how, and what if ten times more often than feels natural, then have the fortitude to act on the answers.

“Curiosity that drives real change is hard. But winning is worth that pain.”

Dale Nitschke, CEO and Founder, Ovative Group

Revenue panel: Trust is the currency between marketing and finance

It is rare to see marketing leaders and their finance counterparts share a stage. This panel did exactly that. Luke Klein, VP of Integrated Growth and Marketing Strategy at Aerie, sat alongside Jon Kostuch, VP of Financial Planning and Analysis at American Eagle Outfitters, with Andy Leapaldt, VP of Performance Marketing and Digital Commerce at Post Consumer Brands. Ovative’s Bethany Hawthorne, Sr. Director of Client Services, moderated a candid conversation about turning marketing from a cost center into a growth engine, and marching in lock step between marketing and finance.

Key takeaways:

1. Collaborate all year, not just at budget time. Ongoing cooperation across Marketing and Finance, plus deliberate integration with partners like merchandising, has built the trust that underwrites marketing investment.

2. Talk business outcomes, not media metrics. Short range media metrics like ROAS aren’t always appropriate in business meeting settings. For alignment, it can be better to center the conversation on customers acquired and retained.

3. Set the assumptions before you test. When Post moved investment from linear to streaming, they aligned with Finance up front on assumptions and a measurement plan. If it worked, they would do more. If not, they would pivot.

What does it look like when cross department collaboration works? Klein recalled a “moment of joy” when finance came to him asking about a dip in brand equity, a sure sign that they were aligned.

Brand panel: Creative is now the number one growth lever

Creative has become the top driver of advertising performance. Algorithms move fast, assets fatigue in days, and AI and creators have reshaped the industry. Dianne Anderson, Ovative’s SVP of Activate, framed the conversation around Modern Making, Ovative’s approach that fuses brand strategy, cultural relevance, creators, AI enablement, and strategic media into one system built to perform.

She was joined by Felipe Zardo, SVP of Digital and Marketing at Petco; Randy Bachman, Chief Marketing Officer at UnitedHealthOne; and Bianca Bradford, who leads Meta’s North America Agency business.

Key takeaways:

1. Creative belongs in the growth model, not a cost line item. UnitedHealthOne once kept creative siloed from working media dollars. Today it is built directly into their LTV and CAC calculations, so it can be evaluated alongside other media variables.

2. Solve for learning, not just volume. Bianca Bradford observed that many teams are getting faster at producing creative, but few are closing the gap between producing volume and identifying outputs that are most effective at driving outcomes.

3. Creators are core to the creative process. Bradford described a new “creator intelligence era,” where organic and paid creator work merges into one measured system. The panel agreed, noting content half-life is now too short to produce everything in-house.

4. Small bets, fast. Petco’s “Catco” campaign, a playful cat takeover of the brand, leaned into a cultural moment with AI-enabled production. The result was a reduction in production costs and a lift in ROAS, and rapid learnings they could take to future campaigns.

AI Fireside Chat: Start by starting

Advertising has adapted to new interfaces before: TV, search, social. AI is the fastest-moving and potentially most disruptive shift most marketers will face in their careers. Jesse Grittner sat down with two leaders at the center of it: Dave Dugan, Head of Global Ad Solutions at OpenAI, who is building ChatGPT’s advertising business from the ground up, and Adam Vittozzi, who leads UnitedHealthcare’s in-house media team.

Key takeaways:

1. Ads should add value to the experience. Before launching ChatGPT ads, OpenAI aligned on guiding principles for what it would and would not do. The goal is advertising that helps people find what they need faster.

2. Pick two or three bets and begin. Brands overwhelmed by possibility can make progress by choosing a few promising tests, reserving time and budgeting for them, and being ready to scale during critical windows like holiday. Start with enabling products. Advertisers on OpenAI with active product-feed delivery had 74% higher observed click-through rates than advertisers with no product-feed delivery.

3. You can’t afford to wait. Brands can chose not to be on the wrong side of disruption, standing up teams early and expecting them to use AI tools. The benchmark: teams should be saving 30 to 40% of their time. If not, they aren’t pushing hard enough.

4. Marketers must speak finance and tech to earn the right to experiment. Scaling AI means working fluently with CTOs and CIOs on access, tooling, and investment.

“Keep asking: How can you make advertising that adds value to the platform you’re running in?”

Dave Dugan, Head of Global Ad Solutions, OpenAI

Customer panel: How AI changes the customer journey

AI is shifting how customers discover, compare, and buy. But much of the promised future isn’t here yet. Scott Dodge, Ovative’s Sr. Director of SEO, guided a grounded conversation with Amanda Hanych, SVP of Digital at SKIMS; Mark Messing, VP of Global Digital Marketing at Domino’s; and Stefanie Stewart, Head of Industry, Retail Media at Google.

Key takeaways:

1. AI is a new front door to discovery. Customers increasingly start in chat tools to research and compare, especially on price. Domino’s responded by extending more data into those experiences to meet consumers where they’re at, and piloting use of AI tools to guide content direction.

2. Fundamentals still win. Product catalogs, clean product information, and brand authority matter more than ever. The biggest AI opportunity isn’t building the coolest agent. It’s understanding the customer better.

3. A new level of thinking. AI compresses deep, labor-intensive purchase consideration thinking that historically has taken consumers week into just moments. Brands are urged to update rather than discard proven strategies, focusing on three environments: the website as a place of authority, YouTube as an inspiration hub, and product feeds.

Closing Fireside Chat: Curiosity takes courage

To close the program, Shannon Kast, Ovative’s SVP of Client Services, sat down with Ali Gemar, VP of Business Strategy and Operations at lululemon. They discussed embracing a fearless attitude amidst change.

Key takeaways:

1. Curiosity is a leadership posture. Candid leaders know that they rarely know the answer up front. The job is to stay curious and bring the right people together to solve the issue at hand.

2. Momentum is a trap. When a business is winning, it is easy to settle in and rely on what has worked in the past. lululemon has had to get deeply curious about its guests all over again.

3. Being flexible can help build better teams. Staying open to hearing about what lights people up helps build high-performing teams with the right mix of strengths.

Beyond the stage: a celebration of curiosity

The revolution is a decision