21 - Steve Mader - After Dinner Chats, Signals & Sparks: Amazon, Agents, and British Passports

21 - Steve Mader - After Dinner Chats, Signals & Sparks: Amazon, Agents, and British Passports

Welcome to Signals & Sparks! Host James Welch sits down with Steve Mader, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Criteo, who operates at the intersection of retail's future and global brand strategy. Steve unpacks the latest signals from Amazon Unboxed and explains how to simplify and scale retail media across the largest CPG companies. This is a must-listen for anyone looking to navigate the explosive growth of the retail media ecosystem.

Interview Guide
This chat follows our "Signals & Sparks" format, where we find the method in the madness and the data behind the creative spark. Here’s what we covered:

The Signal in the Noise: Steve focused on the recent Amazon Unboxed conference. He sees their campaign builders and full-funnel orchestration agents as a critical signal, simplifying the buying process and democratising access to retail media for agencies and brands.

Connecting the Dots: Steve connects the dots by leveraging Criteo's scale (230+ retailers) and data to serve demand-side partners. He looks at how large brands must "rewire themselves" to capitalise on e-commerce, ensuring Criteo's insights on shopper behaviour and assortment trends drive better investment and outcome across the entire network.

The High Five: A quick-fire round to get to know them better:

Hero: The original leadership team at Kantar where he began his career. He admires them for teaching him how to distil everything into simple "four box models" and think about the holistic impact of retail on a business.
Best Decision: Moving to London. He and his wife decided to move to the UK from Boston without having visited, calling it his favourite city and the best decision they made.

Worst Decision: Very early in his career, operating with a "move fast and break things" mentality when no one else in the company did. He quickly learned that if you're the only person doing that, "all you are is just an ass."

Funniest Moment: Watching his usually highly-articulate wife go completely mute on Canadian national TV during the London Olympics after a news correspondent put a microphone in her face.

A Bright Spark: Patrick Ryan. Steve recommends him as the former Global Head of Business Development at PHD for his "very unique storytelling ability" and ability to orchestrate complex agency resources.

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