Digitas’ Melissa Berger on Speed to Culture and Smarter Customer Connections

In this episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem, host Adam Katz sits down with Melissa Berger, Chief Solutions Officer at Digitas, for a lively and insightful conversation about leadership, innovation, and loyalty in the modern marketing era.

Known simply as “Berger,” Melissa shares how her evolving role at Digitas bridges media, commerce, CRM, and creative to help brands drive meaningful growth. She discusses her work leading a small but mighty “solutions” team that builds scalable strategies and products—like the SWAT Suite—to connect creativity, data, and technology.

The conversation explores:

• AI and application: How Digitas integrates AI agents and workflows across teams to boost efficiency while keeping human creativity at the center.

• SWAT and speed-to-culture: Why authenticity beats trend-chasing when connecting brands to real cultural moments.

• Loyalty redefined: Insights from her podcast Building the Loyalty on how brands earn genuine preference—not just program participation.

• Leadership and collaboration: How a diverse executive team drives “networked experiences” and kinetic ideas that move people and brands forward.

• Balance and growth: Why Melissa admires Arianna Huffington’s message of wellness and balance, and how she applies that mindset amid a fast-paced career. 

Outside of work, Berger talks about her love for travel, golf, champagne with friends, and her obsession with neon aesthetics and nostalgic 90s fashion.

This episode captures a dynamic mix of humor, authenticity, and strategic depth—showing how Melissa Berger and Digitas are shaping the future of connected marketing with both speed and soul.

TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
Welcome back to Breaking Through the Mayhem. Wow. We're moving along here, live here at AD Week. How are you?!

Melissa Berger
I am so great. How are you?

Adam Katz
Thank you for joining me today.

Melissa Berger
Anytime.

Adam Katz
So, who are you?

Melissa Berger
Who am I? Melissa Berger, but everyone calls me Berger. A lot of Melissa's out there in the world. And I work at Digitas. I am based in Atlanta. I'm our Chief Solutions Officer.

Adam Katz
What does that mean?

Melissa Berger
Exactly. My role has kind of continued to evolve. But when Amy Lanzi, who you know very well, joined Digitas, she really wanted to start up a more solutions focused team based on some of our core offerings. So we are very scaled in media. We are very scaled in creative. We're really trying to continue growing social transformation, serum and loyalty, which we call addressable relationships, and commerce. And then we have some sub-areas, B2B, innovation, performance media. So really, we have experts on the team who are helping to grow those areas. We do everything from thought leaderships, trainings, new pitches, organic work. So I would call us somewhat of ninjas as it relates to the work that we're doing. So you've met a lot of my team.

Adam Katz
Do you have a team then?

Melissa Berger
I do. I do. I have a small but mighty team.

Adam Katz
So are they called “Solutions People?” What's the vibe in the name of the name?

Melissa Berger
Most of the people like on my core team are all kind of strategists by trade and true SMEs in those areas that I shared. And so what we focus on again is kind of growth in those areas. So we do have a small team, but the goal is really to help kind of win and then hand off. So we have other experts across the agency in all the capabilities and when we win, we pass off. But you know what happens, a lot of people fall in love with people on the team. So it's an ever evolving effort.

Adam Katz
You up you end up having some of your team subbed on to brands helping kind of just an amazing little culture helping each other.

Melissa Berger
That's exactly right.

Adam Katz
What are you most excited about here at AD Week to learn about?

Melissa Berger
So I feel like it's conference month, right? There's so much going on, all the different platform conferences we've had at AD Week. So I think here, what I'm really interested in hearing about is just what are clients and brands thinking about in this age one of AI, in the age of LLMs and kind of how we can use that. I think one of the biggest things is how are we changing behaviors? How are we thinking about matching that versus just, we can do this faster and easier? It's not totally the solve. So I'm really interested in hearing some of those more impactful use cases where we can see it actually changing a client's business or a consumer's engagement with that brand.

Adam Katz
That’s super cool. And are you speaking on any panels today?

Melissa Berger
I am, I am. I'm actually on a panel with T-Mobile Bliss team with Alex today, which is very exciting. And then I told you earlier, I host my own podcast, Building the Loyalty, which obviously you'll be on at some point. And we're doing one tomorrow morning, which is very exciting.

Adam Katz
Who do you have tomorrow?

Melissa Berger
We have Kelly Kavanaugh from Haleon. She's a great partner. Really love working with her. So I asked if she'd be willing to do it. And she said, yeah.

Adam Katz
How long has the podcast been around?

Melissa Berger
Uh, about two and a half years now, almost three.

Adam Katz
How many episodes in?

Melissa Berger
Gosh, at this point, we're probably at like 30 or 40 episodes.

Adam Katz
What made you start that?

Melissa Berger
Well, when Amy Lanzi was head of publicist commerce, she hired this, gentleman, Brad Blackman to be head of CRM. were trying to bring commerce and CRM closer together acquisition and retention. And he talked to Amy about starting a podcast. This is a funny story. He called me and said, Hey, Amy asked me to start a podcast. You want, you should be my first guest. And my answer was guest. I want to be your cohost! And he laughed, went to Amy and she was like, of course. So Brad and I did it together for a couple of years. And then he took an incredible role with, We Are Eight, moved to London with his family. And so Amy is now my cohost, which is very exciting. So yeah. So Amy Lansy and I cohost, it's been exciting evolution, but all about just loyalty, not programs, brand loyalty, we obviously do talk about how to think about loyalty programs, but so much of it is just how do you get someone to choose your brand, your product, your service over another.

Adam Katz
I love that. mean, listen, all these things we do obviously to help get our name out there, but also show love to the brands that we work with. What are the most exciting brands that you see out there today?

Melissa Berger
Gosh, that's a big question. Ones that I personally like or just exciting?

Adam Katz
Both! I want to hear about your opinion on brands.

Melissa Berger
You know, it's interesting because I think, you know, now being unique and finding like a white space isn't as easy as it used to be. So there are some kind of old school brands that I am in love with, right? Like I'm a Nike girl through and through. But part of that is, you know, lifestyle and comfort. Always enjoy it. Another brand that I've become really obsessed with is Aloha Collection, waterproof bags, bright colors, what their founder kind of started the business on. love, I buy all their unique and kind of limited offers. I'm kind of crazy about it, ask my husband. So personally, those are two brands that I love. What I think is interesting is about some of the newer, more socially based brands. And you think about what you're seeing kind of all over TikTok and Instagram. I think everyone really trying to kind of get into this 90s nostalgia thing that's coming back. It's fascinating watching some of those evolve and now being more socially born and seeing what's happening. But yeah, those are like the brands that I'm really interested in following.

Adam Katz
What do you wish you never threw out based on your 90s nostalgia?

Melissa Berger
Oh my gosh, a question.

Adam Katz
I had all this stuff. I had the Jordans, had the sneakers, I had the JNCO’s. I wore rocket jeans as well. I don’t know if know that.

Melissa Berger
That's pretty impressive.

Adam Katz
I grew up in Brooklyn, so I had some of the hood stuff too that a lot of people didn't wear. Triple Five Soul.

Melissa Berger
I mean, I had a really nice Von Dutch hat that I feel like is having a come back.

Adam Katz
Didn’t Von Dutch have a run in the last few years now?

Melissa Berger
Yes, they did. So it's like it's coming back, I think, but started with this kind of trend. Also, I feel like bucket hats, bucket hats were there. They're coming back and I like them.

Adam Katz
Really? Bucket hats are back?

Melissa Berger
Yeah, you’re not seeing them? They’re all over.

Adam Katz
What’s interesting is our head of sales Ben wears a bucket hat and I always think I'm like…

Melissa Berger
Has he always worn it or is he…

Adam Katz
No he’s always worn it. I always look at him like, I don't know. I can't figure it out.

Melissa Berger
Yeah. I know. mean, I've always loved neon, just neon in general. And everyone's like, you're so in trend now. And I'm like, like neon since I came out of the womb, like me as a kid. And my wedding was like, I call it a neon tropical explosion. Like, I just love bright colors. I know this doesn't show that, but I love being bright.

Adam Katz
You wore a neon dress to your wedding?

Melissa Berger
No, but my flowers were quite neon and bright. I just like bright things. It helps brighten the world.

Adam Katz
Are you like a big planner?

Melissa Berger
Yeah.

Adam Katz
Got it. Okay. So if you, when it comes to like planning and thought process into the next step of obviously back to Digitas, how are you guys thinking about like AI? Obviously it's an annoying question that everyone asks, I'm not asking it from a perspective of like, is it going to be big?

Melissa Berger
Yeah, we know it’s a thing.

Adam Katz
How are you guys thinking about like educating your team on it?

Melissa Berger
That's a great question. So we do have Digitas AI platform, which our team has created. It's incredible. Obviously, it's very easy for us to develop agents. We do it a lot internally for our use, of course. But also, we've created some for clients based on personas. So a lot of the synthetic audiences being able to respond to creative without doing a full focus group, great directionally. Our strategy team, our CSO Ali Amarsy, his team has created agents that really kind of help throughout the process from a strategy perspective. But then on top of that, we're really building kind of like a foundation of workflow processes internally for us. So from a CRM perspective, I'll call that one out, we've been working on different points through the process of where we can leverage agents to really simplify, but the human is still such a core part of that. So for us, we don't want it to be the thing. It needs to be a part of the process. So that's been really exciting. So from an education perspective, our chief systems officer sends a Fri-AI-Yay email. I'm saying that right. Hopefully. Yes, there's a lot.

Adam Katz
I don’t know what just happed.

Melissa Berger
Every Friday he sends an email out that helps talk about what's in flight for us, how to prompt. it's kind of education wise. And then we're doing a full kind of blackout day coming up where we're going to do AI work across the teams and really kind of finish building some of the components that we need. I think Digitas is doing a lot in this space.

Adam Katz
I couldn’t agree more.

Melissa Berger
It's exciting.

Adam Katz
You know, I'm a big fan of DigiHouse. I think you guys are always a step ahead

Melissa Berger
Back at you!

Adam Katz
And thinking like a small company in a big company.

Melissa Berger
Yes!

Adam Katz
And I think what's super cool about the agent conversation is that it feels like you guys are trying to apply it to actual application versus just thinking about putting it out there in terms of like SWAT. You know, we see a lot about the data and how to think about that there. How are you looking to weave SWAT into not only social but commerce, loyalty, other places and the rest of the ecosystem of Digitas?

Melissa Berger
Yeah, I love that you asked that. I think some of the stuff I know, some of the themes you've been talking about is kind of like speed to culture, right, and authenticity. So for us, SWOT is all born in speed to culture. So a lot of brands jump on bandwagons of trendy things happening. We actually take a little bit of a closer eye, as you know, to make sure, is that actually applicable for the client? So Christina and I on the team, we've been talking a lot about how we can leverage a lot of that content through other channels. CRM for us and commerce for us is not just about an email or a media channel or a platform. So we think about the full ecosystem of how people are shopping, how to build relationships. So a lot of SWAT content we leverage because we're engaging with a current customer that we want to buy more. So that's something we've been working around is one, leveraging a lot of that data that you and I have talked a lot about and those insights to make sure we're actually creating something interesting that customers care about. But yeah, really weaving that throughout, which has been exciting.

Adam Katz
Do you feel like there's never been more new business pitches than now?

Melissa Berger
What a question. Yes, it is very wild right now. The volume is high. Everyone is very busy. don't know anyone in the agency or partner network right now that has lulls anymore. It is always on. What?

Adam Katz
Why did that just come to my head out of nowhere?

Melissa Berger
I don't know, probably because you're thinking about a new opportunity that you might have on the horizon.

Adam Katz
I just feel like there's new business everywhere. And I think one of the cool things about our relationship is how quick we're open to helping there. And I think what I see from you guys is that you're still setting yourselves apart as an agency with the tech.

Melissa Berger
Thank you.

Adam Katz
How do you think that that's going to evolve? Right? Like watching companies be product companies, but agencies, but services, but this it's like…

Melissa Berger
You want to be everything basically?

Adam Katz
I like confused. Yeah, I'm like, how do you see that playing out over the next couple of years?

Melissa Berger
Yeah, that's an interesting question. And part of the solutions team, we do develop kind of products and offerings for our client leads. And a lot of the role that we do is kind of socialization of new things that we can sell. Some of that is just easily packaging up a CRM playbook, right? You don't have to start over with a scope. We know exactly the input, super simple. But wherever we have data or technology as a part of an offering, that's when we call it a formal product. So SWAT is a product. And that's one because we have a lot of data and technology behind it. And as you've been chatting with the team, there's more that we want to do as it relates to the SWAT suite. So for us, we're not about more is more. It's really kind of focusing in on what we're hearing from clients, what we're hearing from our partners and kind of just the industry as a whole and saying, OK, based on what we have, the people we have, the technology we have, the data we have, what can we create that's interesting? So that's really where we try to stand out.

Adam Katz
This is where I have to shout out like Christina again, thank you, Stephanie, thank you, Leanne, the crew!

Melissa Berger
Yes, the team!

Adam Katz
You guys have like an extremely powerful leadership team and it's extremely diverse, which I think is super cool. And you guys are very loyal and confident together. How do you guys think about like strategic development as a group for people to learn from?

Melissa Berger
Well, it's interesting. We meet as an executive leadership team, obviously, frequently and do some off-sites. And a lot of that is, how are we kind of growing towards the future? And from a strategic perspective, obviously, we have a great core strategy team. But I would argue everyone in the agency has to be strategic. So a lot of it is really thinking forward of like, of like, what do we mean by networked experiences agency? So as we think about no dead ends, how are we making sure that we're connecting with the consumer? So everything has to start from that. So our strategy team foundationally talk about kinetic ideas. And I like the word kinetic because it's movement. And so a lot of what we do is just really think about how are we going to make an impact. And we talk a lot about that from a leadership team.

Adam Katz
Outside of work, are your favorite hobbies that people don't know about you?

Melissa Berger
Oh, what a great question. I used to be an avid runner until I had a young person's knee replacement. And so now I'm an avid walker, which is exciting. I do actually really enjoy kind of being active, moving. I like playing golf. Probably, you I know that my husband is very good. I am only sort of good.

Adam Katz
What do you mean by good? Is he a scratch player?

Melissa Berger
He could be. Yeah, yeah, he's not bad. I don't know his handicap, but he's he's pretty good.

Adam Katz
That’s amazing.

Melissa Berger
So I really enjoy golfing. And then I don't know if drinking champagne is a hobby, but I'm going to list that.

Adam Katz
It’s a hobby.

Melissa Berger
We have a friend who owns a wine shop in Atlanta that we love. And it's become like a community place for us. We've made a lot of friends there. And so it's kind of a special place that we go. And so we spend a lot of time there. I travel so much that when I'm home, connecting with my friends and having some sparkling bubbles is always a good time.
Adam Katz
You enjoy traveling the amount you have?

Melissa Berger
I do. It's a little more than I would like at the moment, especially still being newlywed. I'm trying to kind of manage over the holidays and everything. it's a little much at the moment, but not too bad.

Adam Katz
I'll close with a question I like to ask a lot of people. Yeah. If you can go to dinner with one person that's not dead, but not your family, who would it be?

Melissa Berger
Wow, that's a big question. Do I have to know them or it doesn't matter?

Adam Katz
No. Whoever you want.

Melissa Berger
Wow. This is a really big question. I might say Ariana Huffington.

Adam Katz
Wow, I was not predicting that.

Melissa Berger
You weren't predicting that.

Adam Katz
I misread that.

Melissa Berger
I am a terrible sleeper and she has like, just love her wellness vibe. She wrote a book that I really enjoyed around kind of like sleeping

Adam Katz
Bad sleeper because of too much thinking or can’t sleep?

Melissa Berger
Probably both. So I really like kind of she had a in her book, she talks about how she basically like put herself into a really bad health situation because of how much she was working. And I think that made her kind of take a step back and say, I need to balance my life better, which is where she then kind of started her wellness journey. And now does a lot with that. Publicist Group has a partnership with her company.
Adam Katz
That’s so cool.

Melissa Berger
Yeah. So I think it's important. So yeah, it was nice to hear a powerful woman say I needed to take a pause and rebalance my life because I don't always think in the advertising world and frankly, a lot of worlds we do great at that all the time. It's an always on job, as you know.

Adam Katz
Well, that's a good way to close. Thank you so much. It was awesome.

Melissa Berger
Thanks for having me.