Up Next with Gabriella Mirabelli

Epizode

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  UN 429 - YPulse. Shopping & Finance: Physical and Digital Converge. 17.09.2026 29min

  Young consumers increasingly say they prefer shopping in physical stores. But that doesn't mean they're abandoning digital. MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, joins host Gabriella Mirabelli to discuss new research on how Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and millennials shop and manage money. They explore why the mall comeback is more complicated than the headlines suggest, how young consumers move fluidly between online and in-person shopping, and why AI is becoming part of product research without taking over the purchase itself. The conversation also looks at mobile wallets, changing financial behaviors, and a persistent gender gap in investing. For brands, the opportunity may not be choosing between physical and digital, but understanding how young consumers move between them.
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  Un 428 - Anku Rani. Scoring Cultural Accuracy. 10.09.2026 24min

  Anku Rani, a doctoral researcher at MIT and an MIT Tata Center fellow, joins Gabriella Mirabelli to challenge a working assumption in AI video production: that a better-looking clip is automatically a better clip. Rani built a culture score that separates identity, behavior, and context, then tested it against leading video generation models and against real viewers from nine countries. The results complicate how brands should think about choosing a video model for global campaigns, especially once cinematic polish and cultural accuracy start pulling in opposite directions.
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  UN 427 - IJRM. Beyond Before & After. 03.09.2026 28min

  Do process photos increase charity donations? Josh Lundberg, assistant professor of marketing at North Carolina Central University, joins Up Next to answer that question. His research with colleagues, published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, finds that photos showing a charity's process, the actual steps taken to help someone, get people to donate more than the standard before-and-after photo. Gabriella and Josh talk through why this works, when it doesn't, and what any charity can do about it right away.
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  UN 426 - Jack Myers. Judgment is Scarce. 27.08.2026 26min

  Jack Myers, media ecologist, futurist, and Peabody Award-winning author, joins Up Next to argue that AI has not solved the judgment problem in business; it has hidden it. As intelligence becomes cheap and abundant, discernment becomes the scarce asset, and Myers explains why organizations keep outsourcing trust to algorithms instead of building it in people. The conversation covers the coming collapse of agency holding companies, why hiring processes filter out the humans who matter most, and what CMOs should stop, start, and continue doing with their media budgets. A direct look at what AI changes, and what it doesn't.
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  UN 425 - YPulse. Youth Data Pipeline. 20.08.2026 26min

  Dan Coates, CEO and co-founder of YPulse, joins Gabriella Mirabelli to explain why the youth research firm built a direct connector into Claude and other similar gen AI systems. Coates describes YPulse's move toward what he calls decision support infrastructure: survey data atomized down to the individual respondent, queryable alongside a client's own internal data. The reports and question design that built the business haven't gone away; the connector is a new path into that same research. The conversation covers data provenance, the EU AI Act's consent requirements, and why Coates believes AI models are becoming a distribution channel for research vendors.
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  UN 424 - Scott Goodson. Brand Purpose. 13.08.2026 26min

  Scott Goodson founded StrawberryFrog, a global agency built on a philosophy he calls movement marketing. In this episode, he and Gabriella Mirabelli trace that framework from its origins through decades of application across healthcare, automotive, consumer goods, and fintech. Goodwin explains why the building blocks of any real movement include dissatisfaction and a named nemesis, and why brands that skip those elements tend to produce noise rather than momentum. The conversation covers Pampers, Northwell Health, Smart car, and a recent Visa campaign that generated 20,000 organic posts without paid media.
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  UN 423 - IJRM. Passive Power. 06.08.2026 28min

  Rod Duclos, Associate Professor of Marketing at Ivey Business School at Western University, joins Up Next to discuss research published in April 2026 in the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM). The paper, co-authored with Amir Sepehri and Jonah Berger, draws on over 160,000 real complaints and five controlled experiments to show that the grammatical voice customers use when filing a complaint reliably predicts escalation risk before any explicit threat is made. The conversation covers the mechanism behind this signal, its limits, the looming AI confound, and what a CMO should do with it.
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  UN 422 - Joshua Lifrak. Win Today. 30.07.2026 25min

  Joshua Lifrak spent five years building the mental skills program for the Chicago Cubs, including the 2016 World Series championship run, before taking that framework into the corporate world. His book, Win Today, lays out six daily practices for mental resilience and peak performance. In this episode, Lefrak breaks down each step, from framing how you meet the day to the science of why negativity is a protection mechanism, not a character flaw, and explains why willpower will always lose to systems.
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  UN 421 - Kaley Mullin. Reading Culture Right. 23.07.2026 26min

  Kaley Mullin is a sociologist and cultural insights practitioner who cofounded Cool Shiny Insights after serving as Head of Youth and Trends at YouTube and working on Disney's ABC Family to Freeform rebrand. In this episode, she explains what semiotics does for brand strategy, how cultural listening differs from social listening, and how to use the residual/dominant/emergent framework to time market moves. The conversation covers why brands consistently enter cultural spaces too late, what made Carhartt's cool-by-accident trajectory so instructive, and what organizational structures most marketing teams are still missing.
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  UN 420 - YPulse. Gaming is Tween Culture 16.07.2026 26min

  MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, joins Gabriella Mirabelli to discuss new research on how tweens relate to gaming. Three-quarters of 8- to 12-year-olds now call themselves gamers, a rate that matches teens, and the identity carries real weight for how brands reach this age group. Bliss and Mirabelli talk through why gaming functions as a shared culture, how virtual purchases build brand loyalty that follows kids into adulthood, and why marketers without a gaming strategy are missing the biggest channel to young consumers.
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  UN 419 - Thomas Bunn. The Clarity Report. 09.07.2026 28min

  Thomas Bunn is Global Chief Client Impact Officer at Zeno Group and the architect of Clarity 2030, a study of more than 1,400 communications professionals across 10 countries. The data surfaces a striking gap: 72% of respondents expect communications to have greater influence over business strategy by 2030, but only 29% feel fully ready. Thomas and Gabriella examine what's behind that gap, whether AI transformation is a technology problem or a people problem, and why earned media has become central to how brands get discovered in an LLM-driven world.
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  UN 418 - IJRM. Habit: Loyalty v. Autopilot. 02.07.2026 27min

  Ryan Webb, associate professor at the Rotman School of Management and director of the Management Data Analytics Lab, has spent years studying why consumer behavior is so hard to change, and why marketers are often measuring the wrong thing. His research, co-authored with experts across neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics, and published in the IJRM - International Journal of Research in Marketing, argues that what looks like brand loyalty in scanner data may be something else entirely: automated behavior that bypasses conscious choice. This conversation covers what habit means, why disruption backfires on market leaders, and how platforms and loyalty programs fit into the picture.
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  UN 417 - Kris Johns. AdGood. 25.06.2026 25min

  AdGood Foundation accepts CTV ad inventory that publishers donate, routes it to nonprofits at $5 to $6 CPM, and charges roughly 70% below market rates. The model sits inside the existing ad stack, uses the same targeting and reporting tools as any commercial buyer, and requires no production budget: a self-serve AI tool generates a broadcast-ready 30-second spot from a nonprofit's URL for a minimum spend of $250. Kris Johns, the founder and CEO, explains why publishers donate, what the fill rate economics look like, and what CTV can and cannot prove about donor behavior.
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  UN 416 - YPulse. The Post-Social Playbook 18.06.2026 29min

  MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, joins Gabriella Mirabelli to discuss YPulse's Post-Social Playbook report, based on a survey of 1,500 13 to 39-year-olds in the US and Canada. The data makes clear that algorithm-driven feeds have made follower counts functionally irrelevant for brands, and that reaching young consumers now requires a different model entirely: entertainment focus, nano creators, and community building off the feed. The conversation covers platform-by-platform breakdowns, the Dr. Pepper jingle case, and where to start when budgets are limited.
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  UN 415 - Jesse Weinstein. Employee Rights. 11.06.2026 25min

  Jesse Weinstein is a partner at Phillips & Associates, a former Bronx prosecutor, and a U.S. Navy combat veteran who now represents employees in discrimination, retaliation, and whistleblower cases. In this conversation, he breaks down what counts as discrimination under New York law, why vague complaints to HR can undermine your legal standing, and how retaliation often shows up not as termination but as isolation, removed responsibilities, or inclusion in algorithmic layoffs. Weinstein also explains how contingency fee structures work, what severance agreements waive, and how pre-suit negotiation can protect careers.
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  UN 414- IJRM. Algorithmic Dynamic Pricing & Consumers Trust + Behavior. 04.06.2026 27min

  Arnd Vomberg, Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, and his colleagues have spent years studying how consumers respond when prices shift without notice. Their findings, published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, are directly relevant to every brand competing for attention in an algorithmically priced marketplace. He joins the show to discuss price fairness theory, the habituation effect, and why a guarantee that almost no one redeems can still shift consumer behavior. If dynamic pricing is already in your category, or it's coming, this conversation is where to start.
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  UN 413 - Ilan Strauss. AI Markets, Not Models. 28.05.2026 28min

  Most AI safety conversation focuses on what's happening inside the model. In this episode, Dr. Ilan Strauss, co-director of the AI Disclosures Project, shares why he thinks that's the wrong place to look. The bigger risks, he argues, live in the market — in how AI products get optimized for engagement, how infrastructure concentration replicates the platform economy's worst outcomes, and why content creators are unlikely to be compensated without new market mechanisms. If the web taught us anything, it's that open infrastructure and closed infrastructure produce fundamentally different power distributions. AI is at that same fork.
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  UN 412 - YPulse + Evan Shapiro - Gen Z Broke the Media Playbook. 21.05.2026 31min

  MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at YPulse, brings proprietary brand tracker data to a conversation about how young consumers perceive entertainment and streaming brands right now. Media analyst Evan Shapiro joins her to connect those findings to the structural shifts reshaping the industry. Together, they make the case for why YouTube may already be winning, why fandom is the most durable business model in media, and why the companies still betting on legacy distribution models are running out of time to change course.
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  UN 411 - Jack Oujo. Too Smart to be an Umpire. 14.05.2026 28min

  In this episode, Jack Oujo discusses his book, Too Smart to Be an Umpire. After eight years chasing his dream of becoming a major league umpire, Oujo was let go and faced with the fact that his "Plan B" was now his "Plan A." The rejection could have broken him. Instead, he translated everything he learned from officiating into building an incredibly successful wealth management firm. The conversation explores how umpiring taught him to think under pressure, manage difficult people, and focus on process over results. Oujo explains why parallel planning matters when pursuing long-shot dreams, how to let angry people exhaust themselves, and why getting fired from baseball became the catalyst for building something greater than he imagined.
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  UN 410 - IJRM. Consumer Financial Data Exchange. 07.05.2026 29min

  Simon Blanchard, Dean's Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University and co-editor at the Journal of Marketing Research, joins Up Next to discuss research published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing on consumer financial data exchange. When a customer earns loyalty points at an affiliate restaurant or checks out using a buy-now-pay-later option, their financial data typically passes through actors they've never heard of. Blanchard applies equity theory to that four-actor ecosystem and explains why brands at the front of the consumer experience may carry reputational risk from partners they don't control.