Learning & networking: In our masterclasses, participants gained hands-on inspiration and valuable insights into real-world cases.
In the subsequent exchange with other decision-makers, they gained valuable perspectives and explored new opportunities and potential for their own businesses.
1:30 – 2:15 pm - Masterclasses & Speaker Meet-Ups
2:40 – 3:25 pm - Masterclasses
3:40 – 4:10 pm - Inspiration Highlight
4:15 – 5:00 pm - Coffee & Cake & Innovation Track
Click here for the morning program
Masterclasses 2026
Slot 1
AI agents are no longer a futuristic concept; they are already reshaping commerce and advertising from both sides of the funnel. On the consumer side, agents are shopping, comparing, and purchasing on behalf of users. On the advertiser side, and even more so for agencies, agentic AI is transforming how campaigns are built, optimized, and orchestrated, with agents that autonomously manage campaign setup, bidding, and platform connectivity.
This masterclass explored how AI agents are becoming both the new audience and the new operator, and what this means for the future of advertising. Attendees gained a clearer understanding of the agentic landscape and practical takeaways for putting AI agents to work in their businesses.
David Beck
Principal Ad-Tech Consultant, Amazon Ads
David is a Principal Ad Tech Consultant at Amazon Ads, where he helps advertisers and agencies integrate with Amazon Ads’ technology stack, specializing in first-party data solutions and programmatic connectivity. His work enables clients to build scalable integrations that drive measurable advertising outcomes.
With ten years at Amazon, including eight in Amazon Ads across multiple roles and two in retail, David brings a rare perspective that bridges commerce and advertising technology. He leverages this dual expertise to guide clients through complex technical integrations, helping them maximize the value of their data and media investments across the Amazon ecosystem.
Michael Langner
Global MarTech & Marketing Enablement Lead, Bosch Power Tools
Michael Langner is Global MarTech & Marketing Enablement Lead at Bosch Power Tools, where he orchestrates cross-functional MarTech, data and AI initiatives and connects marketing use cases with governance, data foundations, technical delivery and adoption. He shapes the global MarTech and AdTech landscape, develops Customer Intelligence and first-party data capabilities, and enables measurable, compliant marketing activation across regions.
Within the Marketing AI Discovery Team, he leads the IT and MarTech workstream, defining the architecture, governance and orchestration frameworks required to scale Agentic AI and coordinating initial AI use cases and pilots from opportunity identification through implementation and adoption. Previously, he served as Global Social Media, SEM & Paid Digital Media Manager at Bosch Power Tools and held several global digital employer branding roles at Bosch.
Earlier career stages included e-commerce and digital marketing at Aldiana and project management at Interone for clients including BMW and MINI. Alongside his corporate career, he has taught Digital Marketing at DHBW Stuttgart and International Social Media Marketing at MCI Management Center Innsbruck. His expertise spans MarTech, AdTech, AI-driven marketing automation, first-party data, personalization, paid media, e-commerce and global marketing enablement..
Television is fragmenting across streaming, connected devices, and hybrid ecosystems, while advertising strategies have struggled to keep pace. Connected TV is being reshaped by new technologies, data, and changing audience behaviors. As passive viewing evolves, new opportunities are emerging for brands to move beyond interruption and create genuine connection and engagement on the biggest screen in the home.
This masterclass explored how brands can navigate this complexity and unlock the value of emerging data signals in an increasingly connected world.
Vanessa Gorklo
Senior Client & Agency Partner, Samsung Ads
Vanessa Gorklo is Senior Client & Agency Partner at Samsung Ads. In her role, she is responsible for advertisers and agencies and supports them in planning and booking their Samsung Ads CTV campaigns. Prior to Samsung Ads, Vanessa worked in sales at media companies such as Axel Springer, Ströer and Seven.One Media.
Sven B. Surges
Client & Agency Partnerships Lead, Samsung Ads
Sven B. Surges is the Client & Agency Partnerships Lead at Samsung Ads, bringing over a decade of leadership experience in digital advertising, sales, and programmatic video. At Samsung Ads, he spearheads strategic partnerships and drives cutting-edge advertising innovations, drawing on his extensive background with leading tech and media companies like smartclip.
AI may help brands to get discovered, but trust and purchasing decisions are built across a fragmented customer journey defined by premium media experiences.
Melanie Gegenleithner
Director of Business Development, The Trade Desk
Melanie Gegenleithner is Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk, a role in which she is responsible for strategic partnerships with independent agencies across Germany.
For years, marketers have treated brand and performance as competing priorities. But as search engines, platforms, and AI agents increasingly shape decisions and recommendations, that distinction is becoming obsolete.
The brands that succeed are building a common foundation across media, creativity, customer experience, and performance.
In this masterclass, attendees learned why brand is evolving into a Brand Operating System and how integrated brand and media management can create measurable, governed impact.
Julia Zimmermann
Executive Partner, Future Marketing
Julia Zimmermann is Executive Partner at Future Marketing, the Serviceplan Group’s central strategy and management consultancy since 2020, where she also heads the Brand & Business Strategy unit. Together with her team, she supports clients in developing and implementing brand strategies as a tangible guiding vision for organizational action. Her aim: to make consistent, inspiring customer experiences the benchmark for brand management - whether in the product, communications or LLMs. For more than 15 years, she has advised organizations across every industry and of every size - from FMCG and NGOs to capital goods, from start-ups to global corporations - positioning them to be future-ready and relevant to their target audiences.
Dr Sven Schiemann
Managing Partner, Future Marketing
Dr Sven Schiemann is Founder and Managing Partner of Future Marketing, the strategic consulting unit of Serviceplan Group, and the author of the Marketing 2030 Reference Model. For more than 25 years he has worked on the same question in technologically changing environments: how marketing organisations have to be built to stay competitive. He led the introduction of data-driven infrastructure for some of Europe's largest brands in the 2010s; today he works on brand, operating model, reasoning and governance for a market in which customers and their AI-assistants decide in parallel. Before founding Future Marketing in 2007 he was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company and a marketing director at Deutsche Post.
China's marketing advantage is not any single platform, creator model, or AI tool. It is the speed at which consumer signals are turned into insight, content, media decisions, and commercial action.
As discovery, influence, and purchase converge within connected ecosystems, brands have new opportunities to learn and respond in real time. In this masterclass, attendees learned how leading organizations are shortening feedback loops, connecting teams, and turning every customer interaction into a source of insight, relevance, and growth.
Christine Wang
Strategic Planning Director, Mediaplus China
Christine Wang is Strategic Planning Director at Mediaplus China in Shanghai, where she leads media strategy for the Chinese market. Her work focuses on translating market dynamics, consumer insights and data-driven planning into integrated media solutions across channels. With previous experience at EssilorLuxottica, GroupM, Dentsu and IPG Mediabrands, she has worked across premium lifestyle, healthcare, FMCG, tourism and B2B categories. She holds a Master’s in Advertising and Marketing from the University of Leeds. Christine’s focus lies in building campaigns that connect brand storytelling, consumer engagement and commerce in China’s rapidly evolving media landscape.
The first visitor to your website may soon be an AI assistant rather than a human customer. As search evolves from rankings to answers, visibility is increasingly determined by whether machines can access, understand, and recommend your content, reshaping the role of SEO and accelerating the rise of GEO. As AI increasingly influences discovery, research, and purchase decisions, organizations must rethink how they structure content, product data, and digital experiences.
In this masterclass, attendees learned what drives discoverability in the Answer Economy and how to build a visibility strategy designed for both search engines and AI agents.
Stephan Kopp
Managing Director, Mediaplus Performance
With a particular focus on the intersections between search engine optimization (SEO), artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven marketing, Stephan Kopp is an expert in performance media, search and analytics. His key areas of expertise include the future of search, the integration of AI into digital marketing processes and the practical application of data- and analytics-driven strategies throughout the entire customer journey. Following his studies and stints in the digital and media industry, his path led him to Mediaplus, where he has significantly shaped the development of Mediaplus Performance. In his role as Managing Director, Stephan Kopp stands for the combination of analytical precision and creative strategy.
Mika Riegger
Senior Manager Digital Content & AI Automation, Future Marketing
Mika Riegger is Senior Manager of Digital Content & AI Automation at Future Marketing, which is part of the Serviceplan Group. He leads GenAI strategy and implementation for enterprise clients, focusing on generative engine optimization (GEO), agentic AI and AI-native content supply chains. He has taken GenAI programs from pilot to production at more than six major companies from the automotive, insurance, finance, healthcare and manufacturing sectors. Before that, he led content production for TV, online and social for an international omnichannel with a team of 60. He is also an IAPP Certified AI Governance Professional.
Culture moves faster than campaign cycles. Trends emerge, communities react, and conversations evolve in real time, creating opportunities for brands to earn relevance rather than simply buy attention.
As data, AI, and creative execution become increasingly connected, leading organizations are building the capability to identify cultural signals and respond at speed. In this masterclass, you'll learn how real-time intelligence and agile content systems can turn cultural moments into measurable brand growth while strengthening long-term relevance and engagement.
Niat Asfaw Graca
Co-founder & Managing Director, Serviceplan Social
Niat Asfaw Graca is co-founder and Managing Director of Serviceplan Social, the Serviceplan Group’s specialized social media and digital content agency unit. The international award winner and sought-after jury member has spent her career at the forefront of digital and social - from achtung! and StoryMachine to co-leading Serviceplan Bubble across social and experience fields including fashion, sports and music for Telefónica/o2. Her superpowers: having one of the best networks in the business and an instinct for what truly engages people as they scroll their social media feeds. Together with her co-founders, she is building social as a discipline that earns attention rather than buying it.
Daniel Hoffmann
Managing Partner, Serviceplan Social
Daniel Hoffmann is Managing Partner at Serviceplan Social and a pioneer in creator marketing. He launched his first creator campaign in 2011 and became Creative Director at Mediakraft in 2015. At Serviceplan Social, he works with leading brands, government institutions and ministries, while also developing original creator-led projects. His approach brings together creativity, media and creator culture - connecting strong ideas with smart distribution to create work that earns attention and delivers impact.
Why do some brands grow more sustainably than others despite similar media investments?
This Masterclass explored how attention, mental availability, and smart budget allocation can drive long-term business success, and why brand building remains a key driver of growth.
Robin Scharlau
Senior Director of Business Development, The Trade Desk
As Senior Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk. Robin Scharlau is responsible for strategic agency partnerships and market development across the D-A-CH region.
Marketing has access to more data, more sophisticated models, and more AI than ever before. Yet turning business questions into confident decisions often remains slow, complex, and uncertain.
Decision Intelligence changes the equation. By combining Bayesian AI, Causal AI, Generative AI, and intelligent agents, organizations can connect analysis, simulation, and activation in a continuous decision-making process.
In this masterclass, The Marcom Engine and PyMC Labs demonstrated how to manage uncertainty, move from insight to action in minutes rather than weeks, and unlock measurable growth through faster, better, and more reliable decisions.
Dr Christian Luhmann
Chief Operating Officer, PyMC Labs
Dr Christian Luhmann is Chief Operating Officer at PyMC Labs, a Bayesian AI and Bayesian modeling consultancy and the team behind the open-source PyMC framework. In this role, he oversees the firm’s day-to-day global business. Christian holds a PhD in Psychology from Vanderbilt University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Northeastern University. Before joining PyMC Labs, he spent more than 20 years as a professor at Stony Brook University, teaching and researching data science, econometrics, statistics and research methods. He also leads the PyMC Community Team, co-organizes the PyMCon Web Series and regularly hosts office hours and sprints for new contributors.
Lars-Alexander Mayer
Managing Director, The Marcom Engine
Lars-Alexander Mayer is Managing Director of The Marcom Engine. He has more than 25 years of experience developing data-driven business and marketing models for global brands such as Coca-Cola, BMW, adidas, L’Oréal, Miele and O₂. His international experience ranges from building and leading a strategy and data consulting office in Berlin and Beijing to transforming complex global marketing organizations. His work focuses on connecting marketing strategy, data, AI and decision intelligence. He sees AI not merely as a tool for greater efficiency, but as the foundation for learning marketing systems that turn data into better decisions, concrete action and measurable growth.
Why the most valuable touchpoint never shows up in a report.
The challenge:
Media planning evaluates touchpoints in isolation—reach, cost, conversion. But people don’t experience advertising as a spreadsheet. They experience a sequence in which every single touchpoint influences how the next one is perceived and processed.
The theory:
Advertising effectiveness is not a sum; it is a chain.
In high-quality media environments, each subsequent touchpoint benefits from the ones before. Advertising effectiveness is not the result of isolated touchpoints simply adding up; each touchpoint builds on what came before. Every additional touchpoint changes what is already known, what feels familiar, what is remembered, how the next touchpoint is interpreted, and how likely a later action will be. This is confirmed by 30 years of print research as well as the recent RISE-2 study on the impact of contact sequences.
After this session, attendees were able to:
• explain why the last click is rarely the most important touchpoint
• plan contact sequences based on impact logic and allocate the right role to every touchpoint
• select the right KPIs for each stage of the impact chain
This Masterclass was aimed at media decision-makers, planners, and marketing leaders who wanted to understand why some campaigns deliver more than the sum of their individual touchpoints and learn how to translate that effect into a manageable, actionable communication strategy.
Christian Rohr
Director Products & Solutions, REPUBLIC Marketing & Media Solutions GmbH
Christian Rohr builds marketing strategies that work across channels - and teams that can deliver them. With more than 20 years of international experience in product marketing, content marketing, brand strategy and digital media, Christian Rohr has developed scalable brand strategies for global markets and led cross-functional teams through the digital transformation across the telecommunications, FMCG, IT, automotive, sports and healthcare sectors. At REPUBLIC, the marketing and media solutions company behind German newspapers F.A.Z. and SZ, Christian Rohr is responsible for product marketing, corporate marketing, solutions (developing and delivering cross-media communication concepts for clients) and market research. Here the focus is on thinking in products, not just projects - always at the intersection of creativity, technology and business growth.
Tino GK Meitz (PD Dr. habil.)
CEO, EMPYRICA GmbH
Tino Meitz is the CEO of EMPYRICA GmbH and an Associate Professor of Communication Science at the University of Münster. For more than 20 years, he has conducted research and taught internationally in the areas of cognitive information processing in mediated communication, media effects and advertising effectiveness. His academic appointments have included the University of Surrey and the Universities of Münster, Tübingen, Augsburg, Jena and Fribourg, as well as research positions in the United States. In 2019, he was offered a research professorship at Texas Tech University. As an entrepreneur and strategic advisor, Tino Meitz combines scientific insight with practical solutions for marketing, media and corporate communications. He also serves on advisory and supervisory boards in Europe and the United States.
As customer journeys become more complex and fragmented, marketing organizations are under pressure to deliver more relevance, more content, and more consistency across every touchpoint. Leading brands are responding by rethinking how marketing is organized.
In this masterclass, attendees learned how MediaMarktSaturn and Serviceplan are building MOMENTUM: an integrated, AI-enabled operating model that connects creativity, data, technology, and production across the marketing value chain to create relevance in every moment that matters.
Ralf Schmitt
Head of Brand Marketing & Strategy International MediaMarktSaturn
Ralf Schmitt is Head of Brand Marketing & Strategy International at MediaMarktSaturn, where he drives the strategic development of one of Europe’s leading consumer electronics brands. With extensive experience in international retail marketing and brand management, he focuses on connecting strategic positioning with meaningful customer experiences. His expertise spans brand strategy, innovative communication, and the use of emerging technologies, including GenAI, to shape the future of modern brand building.
Timo Wolf
Managing Director, Serviceplan MAKE
Combining creative visions with excellent production for over 20 years, Timo Wolf is Managing Director of Serviceplan MAKE. As a producer, visual architect and innovator, he creates commercials, spatial concepts and content formats with a special focus on automation, CGI and AI-based processes. His passion lies at the intersection of technology and creativity—always with the aim of setting new standards in production.
Felix Bartels
Chief Marketing Officer, Serviceplan Group
As Global CMO of the Serviceplan Group, Felix oversees the company’s entire marketing communications. He began his career at Serviceplan more than 15 years ago and has since held various roles across marketing and business development, playing a key role in the Group’s international expansion. Through initiatives such as the implementation of a global website ecosystem, the development of marketing and sales enablement platforms, and the establishment of new standards for international collaboration, he continues to drive the integration of Serviceplan’s capabilities across more than 20 markets worldwide. His current focus is on helping clients implement tailored operating systems for their organizations and fostering exchange and collaboration among Europe’s leading marketing executives.
In today’s increasingly competitive battle for attention, reach alone is no longer enough. What matters is the ability to create moments that people actively seek out and choose to experience together. Combining broad reach, emotional engagement, and a shared sense of connection in real-time, live sports have become a prime example of this new reality.
Together with experts from RTL Deutschland, this session explored why live sports are setting the benchmark for shared attention, what marketers can learn from these moments of collective engagement, and how brands can become an integral part of the conversation.
Meiko Reißmann
General Director Ad + Concept Studio, Ad Alliance
Meiko Reißmann, born in 1977, has been serving as General Director Ad + Concept Studio at Ad Alliance since February 2024. In this role, he is responsible for the divisions Creative Consultancy, TV Brands Concepts, B2C Solutions, and Special Solutions.
Meiko Reißmann began his professional career in 2008 at ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, where he held various positions and was notably involved in managing cooperation and partnership business. In 2018, he joined the entertainment subsidiary Seven.One Entertainment Group. As Unit Director, his responsibilities included creative monetization for Joyn, the development of innovative brand and advertising concepts, the commercialization of TV competitions, as well as the creation of co-branded campaigns for the platforms and majority holdings of ProSiebenSat.1. Most recently, he held the position of Director Go To Market & Content Platforms at Seven.One Ad Factory.
He studied Business Administration at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and graduated in 2008 with a degree in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann).
Jana Wosnitza
Sports Journalist and TV Presenter, Ad Alliance
Jana Wosnitza, born in Cologne in 1993, is a sports journalist and TV presenter. After studying business administration and completing a semester abroad in San Diego focused on journalism, she began her career at SPORT1, where she hosted programmes including “Doppelpass” and the World Darts Championship.
In the summer of 2023, she joined RTL Deutschland and has presented the network’s NFL coverage in Sunday primetime. Since the 2025/26 season, she has also been part of the broadcasting group’s football coverage team. She also presents entertainment formats, most recently the “Jetski Star World Championship”. In 2024, she finished as runner-up on “Let’s Dance”.
The one question every CMO asks daily: what does our pipeline look like, and where are we losing it? Here's the uncomfortable truth: you're investing heavily to attract visitors to your site. Yet, over 97% leave without interacting. Your sales teams are spending their time qualifying cold leads. What if it didn't have to be that way?
Hey Lou Hotels showed how it's done: turning anonymous website traffic into real, qualified customer contact, and silent interest into visible pipeline.
Esat Artug
Senior Manager, Product Marketing, Contentful
Esat Artug is Senior Manager, Product Marketing at Contentful, where he leads product marketing for AI, personalization, experimentation, automation and analytics products. He joined Contentful following its acquisition of Ninetailed in 2024. As Ninetailed's first employee and Founding Marketing Lead, he built and led the company's content and product marketing functions and helped establish its position in composable personalization and digital customer experience. Alongside his corporate role, he shares perspectives on personalization, composable MarTech and customer experience as co-host of the Experience Stack Podcast and curator of the Experience Stack Newsletter. Previously, he worked as an independent marketing strategy consultant, advising companies on product marketing and content strategy. During this period, he also founded and managed digital publications that generated more than one million monthly views and over 50,000 subscribers through SEO-focused content, while leading a multidisciplinary editorial and growth team.
Earlier in his career, he worked in product marketing at Voodoo and founded Omnia Retail, an e-commerce company that he grew through traffic, conversion and revenue optimization before selling it in 2019. His expertise spans product marketing, positioning, personalization, experimentation, content strategy, SEO, pricing and conversion optimization.
Imke Rottschäfer
CMO, Hey Lou HOTELS
Imke Rottschäfer is Head of Digital Marketing & CRM at 9dots and Hey Lou HOTELS, where she is responsible for digital marketing, customer relationship management and data-driven customer communication. Her work focuses on connecting customer insights, digital processes and CRM technology to create consistent and personalized guest experiences. At Hey Lou HOTELS, she contributes to the development of a scalable digital customer journey and the use of automation and AI-supported communication across guest-facing processes. Previously, she worked as Manager Customer Insights & Analytics at Deutsche Hospitality. Before that, she spent more than six years in CRM and relationship marketing roles at Accor, progressing from Manager Relationship Marketing and Manager eCRM to Director Guest Relationship Marketing & CRM and Director CRM Northern Europe.
Earlier in her career, she held positions in onsite animation coordination, international sales, telesales and product management within the hospitality, tourism and travel sectors. She began her professional career as a travel agent and gained international customer service experience in Dublin, Frankfurt and Munich. Her expertise spans digital marketing, CRM strategy, customer insights and analytics, guest relationship marketing, personalized communication, marketing automation and the digital transformation of hospitality experiences.
Sven Stieldorf
Senior Strategic Account Executive, Salesforce
Sven Stieldorf is Senior Strategic Account Executive at Salesforce in Hamburg. In this role, he brings extensive experience in strategic client development, CRM and data-driven marketing to complex customer relationships. He joined Salesforce in 2021 as Account Partner Director before moving into his current position in 2022. Previously, he worked as a freelance Business Director CRM at suxeedo and held business development and client leadership roles at Publicis Groupe and Publicis Pixelpark.
Earlier, he spent almost six years in the San Francisco Bay Area as an Email and Relationship Marketing Specialist at Goodby Silverstein & Partners. There, he served as consultant lead for CRM, analytics and the development of data-driven, cross-channel demand generation strategies with a focus on email marketing for Adobe. Before working in the United States, he progressed through several account management roles at RAPP Germany, developing campaign strategies and managing international accounts for clients including Hewlett-Packard, Sony Europe and Siemens Gigaset. He began his career in agency account and project management for clients such as Hapag-Lloyd Cruises and British American Tobacco. His expertise spans strategic account development, CRM, analytics, relationship marketing, cross-channel demand generation, campaign strategy and international client leadership.
Slot 2
Agentic Commerce, AI Commerce, Unified Commerce, Social Commerce, Retail Media. These terms are shaping the future of commerce, but they also point to a much bigger shift. As AI, commerce, media, and customer experience increasingly converge, new growth opportunities are emerging for brands and retailers.
In this masterclass, we cut through the buzzwords to reveal how product data, intelligent agents, and connected customer journeys are transforming commerce, and what organizations need to do to stay relevant, competitive, and future-ready in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Sophie von dem Bussche
Senior Business Development Manager, hmmh AG
Sophie von dem Bussche is Senior Business Development Manager at hmmh AG, which is part of the Serviceplan Group. Working at the intersection of commerce, data and brand experience, she develops new business areas around e-commerce and customer experience solutions. Her focus is on how product data, platforms and customer touchpoints come together to create scalable commerce experiences. She is currently exploring how agentic commerce is reshaping visibility, moving from search-driven journeys to systems that select, recommend and decide.
Carina Müller
General Manager Retail Media & Commerce, Mediaplus Group
With her expertise in retail media and commerce, Carina helps companies to effectively integrate digital and in-store advertising, strategically leverage commerce data and align sales and marketing for maximum impact. This enables cross-channel management within unified commerce and drives measurable success throughout the entire customer journey.
Agentic AI has reached a point where its value is proven in everyday use rather than theory alone. With a plug-and-play approach, AI Agents can be tailored to specific business needs with manageable effort.
As organizations look beyond experimentation, CoWorkers are beginning to support both external communication and internal processes.
In this masterclass, attendees learned how BG Prevent uses a CoWorker to help employees independently apply brand guidelines, creating a coaching effect within daily operations while reducing recurring review tasks. The session shared practical lessons on where Agentic AI already delivers value today, and where it doesn't yet.
Katrin Krall
Director Client Services Agentic AI Plan.Net Group
Katrin Krall is Director Client Services Agentic AI at Plan.Net Group, where she drives the strategic adoption of AI across organizations. Drawing on her experience in business transformation, innovation, and AI strategy, she helps companies improve efficiency and create sustainable value through technology. She connects AI-driven innovation with organizational change, to enable practical, scalable implementation. As a speaker and advisor, Katrin translates complex AI topics into concrete business opportunities and strategies.
Frank Roth
Head of Knowledge & Communiation, BG prevent
Frank Roth is Head of Knowledge & Communication at BG prevent, Germany’s largest provider of occupational prevention services. A trained journalist, he is responsible, among other things, for establishing the BG prevent brand both internally and externally. The brand itself was launched only about a year ago.
Understanding why people behave the way they do is valuable. But behavioral science creates impact only when insight is translated into action. As marketers gain access to richer data, AI, and audience intelligence, the opportunity is no longer just to explain behavior, but to influence it.
In this masterclass, attendees learned how to identify the behavioral drivers that matter, design effective interventions, and translate them into audiences, touchpoints, and campaigns that deliver measurable business results.
Karin Immenroth
Global Chief Data Officer & Managing Partner, Mediaplus Group
Karin Immenroth is an experienced data strategist specializing in AI-powered data solutions that support data-driven decisions, personalized marketing and sustainable media planning. After starting her career at Mediaplus as a media researcher, she held positions including Chief Data Officer at RTL Deutschland and Managing Director at Bertelsmann and was also responsible for building a comprehensive data ecosystem at GroupM. She combines strategic vision with operational excellence and consistently drives data-driven innovation.
Sofia Soto
Senior Behavioral & AI Consultant, Mediaplus Group
Sofia Soto is Senior Behavioral & AI Consultant at Mediaplus. She joined the Serviceplan Group in 2023, initially working in strategy before going on to specialize in AI, which she now applies to behavioral science: at Mediaplus she builds AI-powered frameworks that make behavioral methods scalable and actionable for clients. After earning her Bachelor’s degree from LMU Munich, she completed a Master’s focusing on digital innovation and business transformation—something she has since seen happen from the inside. That perspective also shapes her industry work: she is co-author of the BVDW whitepaper on AI agents.
Television is fragmenting across streaming, connected devices, and hybrid ecosystems, while advertising strategies have struggled to keep pace. Connected TV is being reshaped by new technologies, data, and changing audience behaviors. As passive viewing evolves, new opportunities are emerging for brands to move beyond interruption and create genuine connection and engagement on the biggest screen in the home.
This masterclass explored how brands can navigate this complexity and unlock the value of emerging data signals in an increasingly connected world.
Vanessa Gorklo
Senior Client & Agency Partner, Samsung Ads
Vanessa Gorklo is Senior Client & Agency Partner at Samsung Ads. In her role, she is responsible for advertisers and agencies and supports them in planning and booking their Samsung Ads CTV campaigns. Prior to Samsung Ads, Vanessa worked in sales at media companies such as Axel Springer, Ströer and Seven.One Media.
Sven B. Surges
Client & Agency Partnerships Lead, Samsung Ads
Sven B. Surges is the Client & Agency Partnerships Lead at Samsung Ads, bringing over a decade of leadership experience in digital advertising, sales, and programmatic video. At Samsung Ads, he spearheads strategic partnerships and drives cutting-edge advertising innovations, drawing on his extensive background with leading tech and media companies like smartclip.
AI may help brands to get discovered, but trust and purchasing decisions are built across a fragmented customer journey defined by premium media experiences.
Melanie Gegenleithner
Director of Business Development, The Trade Desk
Melanie Gegenleithner is Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk, a role in which she is responsible for strategic partnerships with independent agencies across Germany.
Julia Zimmermann
Executive Partner, Future Marketing
Julia Zimmermann is Executive Partner at Future Marketing, the Serviceplan Group’s central strategy and management consultancy since 2020, where she also heads the Brand & Business Strategy unit. Together with her team, she supports clients in developing and implementing brand strategies as a tangible guiding vision for organizational action. Her aim: to make consistent, inspiring customer experiences the benchmark for brand management - whether in the product, communications or LLMs. For more than 15 years, she has advised organizations across every industry and of every size - from FMCG and NGOs to capital goods, from start-ups to global corporations - positioning them to be future-ready and relevant to their target audiences.
Dr Sven Schiemann
Managing Partner, Future Marketing
Dr Sven Schiemann is Founder and Managing Partner of Future Marketing, the strategic consulting unit of Serviceplan Group, and the author of the Marketing 2030 Reference Model. For more than 25 years he has worked on the same question in technologically changing environments: how marketing organisations have to be built to stay competitive. He led the introduction of data-driven infrastructure for some of Europe's largest brands in the 2010s; today he works on brand, operating model, reasoning and governance for a market in which customers and their AI-assistants decide in parallel. Before founding Future Marketing in 2007 he was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company and a marketing director at Deutsche Post.
Culture moves faster than campaign cycles. Trends emerge, communities react, and conversations evolve in real time, creating opportunities for brands to earn relevance rather than simply buy attention. As data, AI, and creative execution become increasingly connected, leading organizations are building the capability to identify cultural signals and respond at speed.
In this masterclass, you'll learn how real-time intelligence and agile content systems can turn cultural moments into measurable brand growth while strengthening long-term relevance and engagement.
Niat Asfaw Graca
Co-founder & Managing Director, Serviceplan Social
Niat Asfaw Graca is co-founder and Managing Director of Serviceplan Social, the Serviceplan Group’s specialized social media and digital content agency unit. The international award winner and sought-after jury member has spent her career at the forefront of digital and social—from achtung! and StoryMachine to co-leading Serviceplan Bubble across social and experience fields including fashion, sports and music for Telefónica/o2. Her superpowers: having one of the best networks in the business and an instinct for what truly engages people as they scroll their social media feeds. Together with her co-founders, she is building social as a discipline that earns attention rather than buying it.
Daniel Hoffmann
Managing Partner, Serviceplan Social
Daniel Hoffmann is Managing Partner at Serviceplan Social and a pioneer in creator marketing. He launched his first creator campaign in 2011 and became Creative Director at Mediakraft in 2015. At Serviceplan Social, he works with leading brands, government institutions and ministries, while also developing original creator-led projects. His approach brings together creativity, media and creator culture - connecting strong ideas with smart distribution to create work that earns attention and delivers impact.
Audiences are increasingly fragmented across communities, platforms and interests. For brands, the challenge is no longer simply to reach people, but to understand where they can credibly participate and how they can stay relevant beyond a single campaign moment.
In this Masterclass, we explored how audience and community insights can inspire relevant entertainment ideas and how these ideas can be developed across formats, platforms and media. Using current trends, innovations and cases, we connected audience understanding, storytelling, platform mechanics, content and media to show how individual moments can evolve into scalable systems.
Franziska Gregor
Managing Director, Serviceplan Culture
Franziska Gregor is the Managing Director and co-founder of Serviceplan Culture. For more than 18 years, she has worked at the intersection of culture, communities, innovation and brand leadership, supporting brands such as Nike, Amazon Prime, L’Oréal, Coca-Cola and KFC. Her previous roles include positions at Publicis, DDB, Jung von Matt and TBWA, as well as Creative Partnerships Lead D-A-CH & NL at TikTok. Today, she advises brands on how to build cultural relevance in an authentic and sustainable way. She writes for Campaign Germany and The Drum UK and regularly speaks at major international industry events, including the Cannes Lions, ADC and OMR.
Alex Turtschan
Global Futures Director, Mediaplus Group
Alex Turtschan is Global Futures Director at the Mediaplus Group. Specializing in cultural foresight and digital trends, he explores the cultural, technological and social shifts that reshape markets, media and consumer behavior—often before they reach the mainstream. His focus: the impact of AI, gaming, social platforms and the creator economy on the attention, expectations and purchasing decisions of a new generation. As a speaker and moderator, he regularly takes to the stage at national and international conferences. His aim: to turn relevant signals into actionable perspectives for today’s decisions.
Prime Video has evolved from a premium awareness channel into a full-funnel advertising solution - offering brands everything from title sponsorships and custom integrations to interactive ad formats and shoppable moments.
In this Masterclass, we unpacked how advertisers can leverage Prime Video’s unique combination of culturally relevant content, engaged audiences, and Amazon’s first-party signals to drive impact from brand building all the way to purchase. Through real campaign examples, we showed how upper-funnel investment on Prime Video translates into measurable lifts in consideration, search, and conversion.
Bernadette Paa
Senior Video Sales Specialist, Amazon
Bernadette Paa is a Video Specialist at Amazon Ads, focused on Prime Video advertising in the German market. Before joining Amazon, she spent over 10 years at Mediaplus - one of Germany's leading media agencies - where she rose to Unit Director Video Consulting, leading a team of up to 15 and managing integrated TV & video strategies across €500M+ in client budgets.
Michael Huber
Principal Account Executive, Amazon Ads
Michael is a Principal Account Executive at Amazon Ads where he helps advertisers to build full funnel solutions, leveraging Amazon Ads' advertising portfolio. In his role as EU client lead in the Pharma and Healthcare vertical, Michael is focusing on scalable advertising solutions with proven impact on brand building and Retail sell-out alike.
With more than 8 years within Amazon - 4 in Ads and 4 in Marketplace - Michael brings a holistic view to guide white label brands on how to build a successful brand starting from Amazon as well as on how large brands can leverage Amazon for omnichannel growth.
Why do some brands grow more sustainably than others despite similar media investments?
This Masterclass explored how attention, mental availability, and smart budget allocation can drive long-term business success, and why brand building remains a key driver of growth.
Robin Scharlau
Senior Director of Business Development, The Trade Desk
As Senior Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk. Robin Scharlau is responsible for strategic agency partnerships and market development across the D-A-CH region.
Attendees learned how Contentful, Salesforce, and Palmata work together to deliver personalized digital experiences across every customer touchpoint. The presentation showed how a unified customer view, structured content, and AI-driven decision-making help teams create, manage, and deliver the right content to the right audience across web, mobile, messaging, and commerce channels, as well as emerging AI channels. Attendees also learned how a headless architecture makes content reusable and scalable. The presentation explored how analytics and AI discoverability insights reveal the factors that influence engagement, conversion, and brand visibility.
Esat Artug
Senior Manager, Product Marketing, Contentful
Esat Artug is Senior Manager, Product Marketing at Contentful, where he leads product marketing for AI, personalization, experimentation, automation and analytics products. He joined Contentful following its acquisition of Ninetailed in 2024. As Ninetailed's first employee and Founding Marketing Lead, he built and led the company's content and product marketing functions and helped establish its position in composable personalization and digital customer experience. Alongside his corporate role, he shares perspectives on personalization, composable MarTech and customer experience as co-host of the Experience Stack Podcast and curator of the Experience Stack Newsletter. Previously, he worked as an independent marketing strategy consultant, advising companies on product marketing and content strategy. During this period, he also founded and managed digital publications that generated more than one million monthly views and over 50,000 subscribers through SEO-focused content, while leading a multidisciplinary editorial and growth team.
Earlier in his career, he worked in product marketing at Voodoo and founded Omnia Retail, an e-commerce company that he grew through traffic, conversion and revenue optimization before selling it in 2019. His expertise spans product marketing, positioning, personalization, experimentation, content strategy, SEO, pricing and conversion optimization.
For decades, marketing has been organized around channels, campaigns, and functions. AI is reshaping that model, changing how customers make decisions and how organizations create value. As intelligence becomes a core business capability, leading brands are building connected systems that integrate customer understanding, decision-making, and execution.
In this masterclass, attendees learned how marketing organizations are evolving for the Intelligence Era and which operating models will define competitive advantage in the years ahead.
Christian Schmitz
CEO Plan.Net Group
Christian Schmitz has been an Executive Board Member of Serviceplan Group and CEO of the Plan.Net Group since July 2025.
Since April 2022, he has also served as CEO and Managing Partner of THE MARCOM ENGINE, focusing on marketing transformation, AI, data-driven end-to-end marketing solutions, MarTech, AdTech, and digital activation.
Previously, he was Managing Director at Accenture Song (2015–2021), where he led digital business building and marketing consulting in Munich, Beijing, and the United States. His expertise spans business design, digital platforms, and the automotive industry. As the founder of Value Rock Ventures (2005–2021), he was actively involved in venture building and venture capital.
Why the most valuable touchpoint never shows up in a report.
The challenge:
Media planning evaluates touchpoints in isolation—reach, cost, conversion. But people don’t experience advertising as a spreadsheet. They experience a sequence in which every single touchpoint influences how the next one is perceived and processed.
The theory:
Advertising effectiveness is not a sum; it is a chain.
In high-quality media environments, each subsequent touchpoint benefits from the ones before. Advertising effectiveness is not the result of isolated touchpoints simply adding up; each touchpoint builds on what came before. Every additional touchpoint changes what is already known, what feels familiar, what is remembered, how the next touchpoint is interpreted, and how likely a later action will be. This is confirmed by 30 years of print research as well as the recent RISE-2 study on the impact of contact sequences.
After this session, attendees were able to:
• explain why the last click is rarely the most important touchpoint
• plan contact sequences based on impact logic and allocate the right role to every touchpoint
• select the right KPIs for each stage of the impact chain
This Masterclass was aimed at media decision-makers, planners, and marketing leaders who wanted to understand why some campaigns deliver more than the sum of their individual touchpoints and learn how to translate that effect into a manageable, actionable communication strategy.
Christian Rohr
Director Products & Solutions, REPUBLIC Marketing & Media Solutions GmbH
Christian Rohr builds marketing strategies that work across channels - and teams that can deliver them. With more than 20 years of international experience in product marketing, content marketing, brand strategy and digital media, Christian Rohr has developed scalable brand strategies for global markets and led cross-functional teams through the digital transformation across the telecommunications, FMCG, IT, automotive, sports and healthcare sectors. At REPUBLIC, the marketing and media solutions company behind German newspapers F.A.Z. and SZ, Christian Rohr is responsible for product marketing, corporate marketing, solutions (developing and delivering cross-media communication concepts for clients) and market research. Here the focus is on thinking in products, not just projects - always at the intersection of creativity, technology and business growth.
Tino GK Meitz (PD Dr. habil.)
CEO, EMPYRICA GmbH
Tino Meitz is the CEO of EMPYRICA GmbH and an Associate Professor of Communication Science at the University of Münster. For more than 20 years, he has conducted research and taught internationally in the areas of cognitive information processing in mediated communication, media effects and advertising effectiveness. His academic appointments have included the University of Surrey and the Universities of Münster, Tübingen, Augsburg, Jena and Fribourg, as well as research positions in the United States. In 2019, he was offered a research professorship at Texas Tech University. As an entrepreneur and strategic advisor, Tino Meitz combines scientific insight with practical solutions for marketing, media and corporate communications. He also serves on advisory and supervisory boards in Europe and the United States.
In today’s increasingly competitive battle for attention, reach alone is no longer enough. What matters is the ability to create moments that people actively seek out and choose to experience together. Combining broad reach, emotional engagement, and a shared sense of connection in real-time, live sports have become a prime example of this new reality.
Together with experts from RTL Deutschland, this session explored why live sports are setting the benchmark for shared attention, what marketers can learn from these moments of collective engagement, and how brands can become an integral part of the conversation.
Meiko Reißmann
General Director Ad + Concept Studio, Ad Alliance
Meiko Reißmann, born in 1977, has been serving as General Director Ad + Concept Studio at Ad Alliance since February 2024. In this role, he is responsible for the divisions Creative Consultancy, TV Brands Concepts, B2C Solutions, and Special Solutions.
Meiko Reißmann began his professional career in 2008 at ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, where he held various positions and was notably involved in managing cooperation and partnership business. In 2018, he joined the entertainment subsidiary Seven.One Entertainment Group. As Unit Director, his responsibilities included creative monetization for Joyn, the development of innovative brand and advertising concepts, the commercialization of TV competitions, as well as the creation of co-branded campaigns for the platforms and majority holdings of ProSiebenSat.1. Most recently, he held the position of Director Go To Market & Content Platforms at Seven.One Ad Factory.
He studied Business Administration at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and graduated in 2008 with a degree in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann).
Jana Wosnitza
Sports Journalist and TV Presenter, Ad Alliance
Jana Wosnitza, born in Cologne in 1993, is a sports journalist and TV presenter. After studying business administration and completing a semester abroad in San Diego focused on journalism, she began her career at SPORT1, where she hosted programmes including “Doppelpass” and the World Darts Championship.
In the summer of 2023, she joined RTL Deutschland and has presented the network’s NFL coverage in Sunday primetime. Since the 2025/26 season, she has also been part of the broadcasting group’s football coverage team. She also presents entertainment formats, most recently the “Jetski Star World Championship”. In 2024, she finished as runner-up on “Let’s Dance”.
Host and Partners of Innovation Day
