Scale Marketing’s Steve Wolf on CTV’s Rise and Human “Taste” in Media

In this episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem, host Ben Lambert sits down with Steve Wolf, Head of Integrated Media at Scale Marketing, to trace his two-decade journey across the media industry—from his first break at MediaVest to leading integrated planning at an independent agency.

Steve shares how pivotal career moments shaped him: from cutting his teeth on Continental Airlines and Capital One, to learning hard lessons under tough mentors at GroupM, to managing Super Bowl negotiations for AB InBev, and later embracing entrepreneurial risk at Canvas and Horizon. Throughout, he reflects on how failure, risk-taking, and mentorship played defining roles in building his leadership style.

The conversation dives deep into:

• Failure as fuel: Why the hardest lessons and biggest setbacks often teach more than success.
• Breaking down silos: How he bridges traditional and digital media thinking to reflect how consumers actually experience content.
• CTV’s rise: Why connected TV offers the best of both linear reach and digital targeting, and how brands can use it effectively.
• AI in media planning: Why AI is powerful for speed and efficiency, but real differentiation comes from human “taste” and perspective.
• Team and culture: Why collaboration, soft skills, and curiosity often matter more than being the “smartest person in the room.”

Steve also shares personal reflections on his move from St. Louis to New York to Chicago, his love for sports and how it shapes his perspective on leadership and teamwork, and even his passion for Indiana Hoosiers football.

This episode is a masterclass in blending career grit, evolving with the industry, and leading with both strategy and humanity.

TRANSCRIPT

Ben Lambert
Welcome back, everybody, to another amazing episode. Today we've got Steve Wolf, a long-time friend. Very excited to talk to Steve. Today, Steve, welcome to another episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem.

Steve Wolf
Thank you for having me, Ben.

Ben Lambert
Excited to chat today. Would love for you to kick us off. Give a little intro. To our listeners, about your current role. And then we can, we can do a little deeper dive into the amazing history of Steve Wolf.

Steve Wolf
You're overselling already. Here we go. So, Steve Wolf, I'm the head of integrated media here at Scale Marketing. We are an independent, full service agency. Creative, media planning, business strategy. All in one room, all in one agency. And again, my charge is integrated media. So, I was brought in really to break down some silos between, you know, my background is, traditional, and have more in the early, you know, later years, current years kind of focused on a more digital solution.

And so trying to find that kind of happy medium, the way that maybe more consumers think of media as opposed to media buyers thinking of media and finding, you know, video solutions as opposed to TV or CTV solutions. And same thing with audio. So that's really my remit, overseeing all buying and media planning here and working with a lot of our really great clients.

Ben Lambert
That's really awesome. And, you know, you and I go way back. You were actually living in New York City versus Chicago, where you reside today. What do you tell the viewers a little bit more about your background? How you got, you know, your first start in linear. You know, and, and then kind of where that career trajectory took you to this incredible opportunity that you have now.

Steve Wolf
Sure. You know, started out born and raised in Saint Louis, went to Indiana University. Go, Hoosiers!

Ben Lambert
Go! Hoosiers!

Steve Wolf
Go! Hoosiers. And, cinema. I tell the story because I think it's ironic, if nothing else. But, you know, my senior year of sitting in college, not knowing what I wanted to do at telecommunications, which is now way cooler, it's the Mark Cuban School of Media, which sounds way, way better than telecommunications.

Ben Lambert
Thanks. Cuban, for the donation.

Steve Wolf
Thank you Cubs. And I sat in an interview that I signed up with, right before the end of the year. Interviewed this lovely woman, who was working at Starcom Media at the time, and knew some of the people that I knew and I stayed on. You know, trying to keep in touch with them throughout the summer and trying to get an interview.

Eventually landed my first gig at Media Vest as an assistant planner, on Continental Airlines. But the person that interviewed me was Lauren Hanrahan. If you're familiar with that name, Lauren is obviously done pretty well for herself inside of the Publicis world over at zenith. And, but, yeah, she got me my first job doing print buying and out of home, and planning for Continental Airlines.

At the time, they had a rotation program. So nine months there and then nine months, working in a multi client group, working on Capital One amongst a variety of other clients. In the national broadcast team, and did my first FFP buy back in the day for, for Capital One. And that was really my introduction to, to the media world, and to New York. It was a city I've always wanted to live in, a city I've always admired.

And so, you know, thank you to Lauren Hanrahan for, for giving me my first chance to, to prove my value and worth at Media Vest.

Ben Lambert
That's awesome. Yeah. And, you know, I think one of the, the really cool parts to that is talking about how you started in, you know, print then got into linear. And now obviously in today's day and age, there's so much difference in your current role.

Obviously you're not just focused on print or linear or CTV, that there's the wide variety there and, you know, so curious what, if any, you know, big moments, you know, early on in your career outside of starting out, a little diversified, really helped shape your knowledge and, you know, your ability to kind of grow and become, you know, who you are today.

Steve Wolf
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I started my career in ‘05 at media best and, ’08 was obviously a pivotal time in the industry for a variety of different reasons. I made a jump in 2010 to work at Group M and now WPP media and Mindshare, on an amazing, amazing Unilever account.

I think that was probably the first time where, you know, I'm a kid from the Midwest. I think I'm pretty smart. I think I know what I'm doing. I had a boss, Tamara Mellish, who was my ad at the time, and Ellen Ferrari was leading that group. And genuinely kicked my butt and was like, you think you know things you don't.

Let's help focus your energy and focus that drive to to really become, I think, the leader that I am today, I credit them a lot with, with kind of helping pull me along. Ellen and I worked together not just on Unilever, but also Bacardi USA. And then when, you know, Group M, one Busch Media Group, AB InBev, a business kid from Saint Louis wanting to take that jump and work on a dream role, to manage sports for AB InBev.

That was absolutely the role of a lifetime to get that chance to negotiate Super Bowls and work under Marty Bly and that crew and again, learned a lot. Another pivotal moment would definitely be moving to my first independent agency, which was canvas. Canvas was a partnership with horizon and in ocean at the time running, you know, Kia, Hyundai essentially.

And again, the, the, the ability to, to really be a, you know, an entrepreneur to, to question why we were doing things I think really opened my eyes to a different way of working, a way that, you know, allowed for the autonomy to make those decisions. The challenge of, you know, possibly failing, but inevitably learning way, way more, and so, so that was, an incredible time, working on that piece of business and eventually Heineken.

You can see I love the outlet category. It's a super fun one, super challenging. But I really, really enjoyed that category. And then, you know, in 21, the family moved to Chicago. My wife got an amazing opportunity to start up her own creative agency inside of, whirlpool. They moved us out here, and we've been in Chicago ever since, so it's been quite a journey to get us to Chicago.

But, those are just some of the moments that I can think of, that really kind of helped drag me along. But again, credit to Ellen and Sam for, for really kind of kicking my butt and making me who I am today.

Ben Lambert
And I think it's, it's really cool. And, you know, a few things that you said that really stuck out to me was you definitely took risks early on.

And, you know, you really wanted to, you know, you talked about being a small kid from Saint Louis, going to the big city in New York, taking that that leap of faith and that risk, you know, and then challenging yourself with some of the larger accounts that are very challenging to, to manage all of those millions and billions of of ad spend and the super Bowl aspect and, you know, so curious from that aspect of the challenging and the risks.

And then you also talked about failure, which, you know, a lot of people always talk about the accolades and the positivity, but how important failure is to to be able to then bounce back and and grow from those so curious. You know, I have to share, you know, every mistake you've ever made. But, you know, some, some, some real life failures.

But then also, you know, as you're now in this leadership role, how you're kind of letting the team know, hey, don't be afraid to take risks. Don't be afraid to fail. I think it's really important to talk through.

Steve Wolf
No, I think, there's a great Jim Carrey who is like one of my, like, comedy and maybe personal idols and at least in some veins, if not all.

There's a great video of him giving a commencement speech, and he talks about how his dad, like, worked in insurance or worked as a, you know, 9 to 5 and felt very comfortable in his job and felt very happy and settled. And then one day he was let go, despite all of this goodwill and the work that he was doing, and his father had dreams to be an actor and to be more than what he was, but still failed, and at least in his eyes.

And, you know, Jim was like, he was my dad. I loved him, he was great no matter what he was doing. But he still failed, you know, doing something that he inevitably hated. And I think there's something really important about failing, doing something that you love and something that you believe in rather than just doing the easy thing or staying comfortable.

So that was always a lesson that I've tried to take with me. But I think there's something very real about it, like, you learn way more in the failures than you do in the success. One of the things that I'm working with here at the at scale is, kind of an innovation framework. And like, one of the things that I did was like, just go through and define what innovation is, because I think that's really important.

Because innovation is such a broad term. And going through quotes about innovation and inevitably, like, everyone loves a Brené Brown quote. And, you know, there is no innovation without failure or failure is inevitable. And it and trying to challenge yourself and, to me, why is like my favorite question just questioning why something is happening.

And if you start from that, you're gonna hopefully learn. But failure is part of the process. And, I have definitely had some failures in my time. I can remember sitting early on in my career, my dad worked at a company for almost 40 years. Was super happy, super comfortable. Like he always preached being happy, being comfortable.

And I sat in someone's office, a leader who I won't name because, honestly, a great person. But, you know, kind of like, read me the right. Like, I thought I deserved something because I'd been there a certain amount of time. I'd worked hard, but that isn't all that there is. You know, there are all sorts of reasons and rhymes why someone gets promoted.

And she kind of was like, loyalty is questionable. You know, there's not really loyalty. It's about proving your value and continuing to prove it. And then maybe you'll be ready once an opportunity kind of opens up. So, you know, that was a big one that happened during kind of 0809 when that time where a lot of people got stuck, despite, you know, what was going on in the market and felt like we all deserve this, this opportunity, but deserve is not the right word.

It's just continuing to do the work and, you know, make sure that, you know, I think that was a big, big eye opening moment for like, you know, you need to, you know, be also a bit of a politician when it comes to growing and being ambitious. It's not just doing the work. One last anecdote.

There's another really great video. Sorry, I love a good anecdote, but there's a great video online of a marine explaining the values of who they choose on, you know, their most dangerous missions. And if you think about a kind of a y x axis, there's like the people that are really good at their job and the people that have really great soft skills and can learn.

And, you know, inevitably you would think like the guy who can, you know, snipe from whatever or, you know, do the best job would be the person you'd want on the mission. But what he actually said is, I'd rather have the guy with the soft skills that I can teach that works in the team and can help all of us along, rather than the guy that just wants to be the lone wolf.

So, like, again, it just shows you that, like, you can be the smartest and best person ever. But if you're not good in a team, if you're not enjoyable to work with, then then, then what do you do in here? So, that's a couple of them, that, that, yeah, they kind of speak to hopefully where, where I sit today.

Ben Lambert
Yeah. That's great. And you know, I know, I know you're a huge sports fan so I can hear it in your voice. All of the sports analogies of the failure, the team work and then and then the passion that, you know, you talked about the accounts that you went to work on and the dream come true and, and how motivating that probably was.

I know this is a leap of faith. I know this is something that's a challenge for me, but because you're passionate about it and because you're excited about that opportunity, it makes it that much easier to reach, to grow and then lean on your leaders who have that experience and can give you that support and how valuable that is.

And, you know, I I'm, I'm very happy for your new team members to be able to have you as their leader. With those experiences as they're looking to, to grow and what you guys are looking to accomplish over there.

Steve Wolf
Thank you. Yeah, I'm trying to stay away from the like, you know, the Cardinals failed in ‘04 in order to win and ’06 kind of things. But you're dragging me that way.

Ben Lambert
At least you can appreciate the fact that oh four made me, as a Red Sox fan, very happy.

Steve Wolf
Sure. Let's go with it. Yes. Yes, the Red Sox have a history with the Cardinals now. It's so funny. But, you know. Yeah, I was happy for the Red Sox to finally get over the line.

But I do think that team learned a lot and hopefully brought that, to, you know, to win another six and eventually 11. But, yeah, I, I will continue to say I think failures are sometimes just, if not more important sometimes than, than your wins. They definitely teach you more, no question about it.

Ben Lambert
I love it. So as we kind of talk through, you know, the path of your career and all of your, you know, insights and learnings that you've had from the different roles, different teams, different places.

Let's talk a little bit about, you know, the shifts in the conversation, at least in traditional linear TV, to see TV, the impact of media planning, audience targeting, and really where you see TV being kind of a game changer in this ever changing environment.

Steve Wolf
Yeah, I think, I think, you know, the clients I work on today are so great because they have so much trust. And I think that's a great place. They're, they're hungry to learn, they're eager to understand. And they trust our agency. I imagine, you know, hopefully clients do what most agencies. And I think the clients that I work on right now, they've seen the traditional works. And let me be clear, it absolutely works. I still think that there's a place on every single media plan, no matter the size or scale of an audience, for broad reach solutions.

I think, you know, TV is still, you know, a, you know, if you take out like, you know, your, your, your, you know, your subscription, VOD, and you're not ad based TV is still a huge chunk of the time. And also taking that consumer centric thinking, you know, people are watching TV and then sometimes switching over to their CTV.

So to me, I think we sometimes get bogged down in this industry about what the delivery mechanism is, of our ads. But if you think about it, a lot of people, most people, I would say love coming home at the end of the day after they've had dinner, maybe put the kids to bed, and they just want to, like, zone out with something fun.

And that used to be maybe primetime TV. In some cases, it's still sports. And sports is a huge part of TV nowadays. We saw every single upfront broadcast. Everyone was touting sports, sports, sports, especially NBC. And so now it's just, you know, again, consumer centric. My mindset like, why would you not be in the CTV space?

It has everything, you know, beneficial of, of a linear solution. But the target ability of a digital. And I think if you can think about it from that perspective of our own lives and how we live them, then most people are pretty open to that kind of shift, of moving into the CTV space. And so I think once you're able to kind of get them to that space and understand the opportunity there, then it's about how do you want to, you know, utilize the medium to the best of your ability?

Is it simply a broad reach solution? Is it incrementality utilizing an ACR partner? I think one of the things that we always think about here at scale is, those opportunities which maybe historically or traditionally or thought of as a brand building, you know, platform or a broad reach or upper funnel consideration. You know, to me that is marketing speak.

I don't think that, again, a consumer centric mindset doesn't think brand versus performance. Right. And so how can we really ensure that, you know, if our goal is lead generation, if our goal is, you know, to, to, you know, scheduling if a goal is to, you know, cost purs, to get down, there are ways that we can utilize CTV from a high impact, to really ensure that we're doing more than just driving brand awareness and bringing it into consideration.

I also think, like, sweating assets is a really, really important building, you know, units fit for the platform is super important with CTV. I think a lot of times clients just take their, their fifteens or their 30s and throw it up in the CTV space because it's easy, it's cost effective. But I think what people find is that it's not as effective as building it out for the platform.

Again, that can be a variety of different things. But I think you know a thing. I'll and I'll hat tip to to Nick Nasreen, who I work together with on the Kraft Heinz business back in the day, you know, his whole thing was like effectiveness, not just efficiency. And while CPMs are there to drive, you know, overall reach, if we aren't, if we are not effective, which includes efficiency, then then then what are we doing?

You know, we're just throwing impressions into the ocean. And so, I always try to think about things from an effectiveness standpoint and how we can be more effective. And so I think that the funnel is thinking about it like a consumer, how you live your life. And then how can we make that medium as effective as possible?

Ben Lambert
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think a lot of times we get caught up in the silos and this platform is just for awareness. This one is just for conversions. And this one, you know, when you need awareness to drive conversions and you need, you know, vice versa. So being able to have them, you know, play roles but being able to, you know, measure which is a huge piece, you know, in CTV.

But across all platforms of what can you measure what impact and what's the actual effectiveness like you're talking about? Which is really huge for brands to be able to, regardless of size or budget, whether it's the mass of brands that, you know, you've got to roll as four or, you know, maybe some of the smaller, more local brands that you're, you know, touching today.

Steve Wolf
Yeah, I think Roll a Channel is an amazing place to start. Like thinking about how you can build a funnel and thinking about how we, you know, utilize each of those channels to ensure that we're, you know, driving alongside the consumer journey. All of those are great things for a deck. But when you start to activate, I think it kind of becomes a different conversation.

And how you activate effectively, I don't think is, you know, all these different things in a silo. I think, you know, a lot of the time, again, we think of CTV as an incremental solution on top of our TV, you know, people utilizing ACR and and in many cases that is a great way to think about CTV. But as CTV, you know, continues to scale up as those opportunities, I mean, sports, you know, I feel like every single deck I read, almost every single white paper right now is that conversation around that shift of sports from TV to CTV.

And the more that we can think about it again, I hate to be a broken record, but the more we think about it, the way that consumers are living their lives and less about, you know, media speak and how we build a funnel, the more effective our media plans will be, inevitably.

Ben Lambert
Yeah, 100% agree. Well, I guess the one question that's, you know, really amazing.

We haven't talked about this yet is AI and everybody you know, AI the big buzzword some people cringe at some people don't. There's so many different types of use cases and ways of AI would love to get, you know, your perspective on, you know, how you feel AI is shaping with, you know, cross-channel media planning and campaign performance and, you know, strategic alignment.

And you know, really how you guys are thinking about AI today.

Steve Wolf
Yeah. No, it's a great question. I think, there's like two layers of context that I always like to talk about when we think about, utilizing AI. One there is no such thing as silver bullet solutions. So whatever. ChatGPT or whatever solution, you know, is kicked out from there, that is not the truth.

It is a version of a solution. Okay. So I always try to think about it like that. And then, you know, you know, inevitably, you know, as we are utilizing these AI tools, no one is perfect at it. Right? Like we are always getting better. And so I, we try to like, make sure that we know that no matter what our current usages of AI, we've been using it programmatically for a number of years.

Right. But we are not perfect yet and we need to continue to get better. So I always think about that. The only other context I will just add to the conversation is, no matter where this conversation of how we use AI goes, I think it all comes back to taste. And what do I mean by that?

So every agency can build a, you know, no, every agency can, can utilize AI to the best of their ability and build these amazing solutions. But clients don't pay us for something that they could use themselves. Right. What I think differentiates each of the agencies, hopefully, is our fingerprints that we use once we have the data.

Right. So gathering all, you know, what those tools are great at? And I'll give you an example where we're we, we've been doing a couple of different rfis. I'll just kind of keep it broad. We've been doing a couple different rfis on a variety of different solutions that are in the marketplace that we just need to figure out, are we doing it right, is there a better mousetrap, etc..

Right. And so we can use those, AI tools to help us parse through really quickly all of those rfis that come back, give us the pros and cons we can build matrices to understand kind of the pros and cons of each of those, and it allows us to get through so much data as quickly as possible. We still need the human element to go through and understand.

Okay. Yes, it says this, but that actually isn't how we're thinking about it or how we should be thinking about it. There's only so much we can do from training. The models are never fully trained right? They're always going to continue to learn. So that's where, like, to me, taste is such an important aspect of AI to ensure that we're not just regurgitating what, you know, agency B down the street can do.

Because we always need to be better than what the average American can do. So, that's just some of the ways that I would say we think about AI, but it's absolutely continuing to evolve every single day. Our agency just gave us a budget that each person can go and find an AI tool and just test it, just play around with it, have a fun sandbox.

You know, client agnostic. We're not putting client data in it, but, like, just go and figure out the way that you think about doing it. And I'm really happy because, you know, 40 plus year old Steve may have one way of thinking about AI, but I guarantee you, you know, the 22, 23, 24 year olds are probably running laps around me when they think about the way they use it.

And that's what I'm excited about is how they are thinking about AI and how we can continue to be better than we were yesterday?

Ben Lambert
I think that's amazing and a really cool opportunity for everybody. And the AI 100% agree with you on the taste. I love that verbiage too, of you know what? What can we customize?

How does the human element really come into play there? And having again, multiple different people and perspectives from age, gender, every everything under the sun that you guys have to be able to come up with, looking at the data in a different way is, is really smart on your guys' part. So kudos to you guys for that.

Steve Wolf
Yeah, I mean I, I, I don't again like there are so many different ways that we are all using it now. And I think hopefully one of the things that we think about is like, I can do X amount of work in X amount of time, right? And how do we make that better?

How do we work more effectively? Not again, not just efficiently, but how can I be more effective? And the tools that come out every single day, that is what's going to get us there so that we can help clients quicker, get to the answers quicker, and that, to me, is the best use of AI. Don’t get me wrong, we can build amazing algorithms quicker utilizing AI.

We can utilize it to build code that helps us get to like, you know, reporting straight into Dax and, and utilize them for insights. But, it all comes back to taste. It all comes back to the way that you think about things. And if you're just kind of utilizing outputs, then I don't know what that says about, you know.

Ben Lambert
Yeah, I agree. Well, last question here. And again, back to the same verbiage as before. We waited all the way to the end here. We're both IU all, both Hoosier fans. We touched on it a little bit early on. I believe we've officially gone to become a football school versus a basketball school. Which many Hoosiers will probably disagree with and say we're always a basketball school because as the court goes, in 49 other states, it's just basketball.

But let's talk football here for a minute. How are you feeling about Indiana football going into this season? Are you planning on making a return to any games? And, are your kids IU fans?

Steve Wolf
Yeah. So, we trust I mean, the man has revolutionized the way that I think about football.

I mean, when I was a student at Indiana, we would get ticket packages, like, for freshman year, everyone would go to, like, 2 or 3 games and then realize the tailgate was way more exciting than the game. The joke was, you know, they would take the stadium picture when Ohio State was in town because there'd be enough red in the seats to actually matter, right?

Yeah. We were a basketball school, my freshman year, we went to the national championship. Unfortunately, they lost to a really strong Maryland team. But like, we were basketball. That's how I've always thought of Indiana. To me, and I'm a big soccer guy, so I'll make the, like, into soccer. You know, Indiana basketball is Man United at this point.

You know, they are a team that was living on, on, on the glories of yesteryear. And that, that needs to be, you know, squashed as quickly as humanly possible and focused in on, you know, everything that he is doing, which is changing the culture of the sport and of the town. I hope that my son Arthur will one day be a Hoosier.

He certainly has the jersey, the number one, Isaiah Thomas, Yogi Ferrell, etc.. But, you know, my, my in-laws, or our Texas grads, that pull is strong. My parents are Mizzou grads. So, and he lives in Chicago. So there's northwestern and all sorts of other polls that he will have on him.

And I joke that as long as he doesn't become a Cubs fan it will be okay. You know what I mean? But, but, going get him back to the football of it all. I'm really excited about this upcoming year. The recruiting class is absolutely incredible. And again, I think it all comes down to the leadership style of the one person that he's he's really, really done an incredible amount of work to, not only recruit talent that that wants to be there, but, but quality talent that's going to care about succeeding and succeeding the right way.

It's incredible the things that that man has done.

Ben Lambert
Yeah, I agree, and, you know, back to our earlier conversations of having the right passion, not being afraid to fail and taking risks. And, you know, you see it with the way he's led the program last year and hopefully this year can take that same kind of mentality into it this year.

And I'm very optimistic. My only fear is last year was so amazing and so successful that we're doomed for, you know, again, 1 or 2 more losses. And you know, it's a big disappointment year over year.

Steve Wolf
Last year was epic. I have a good buddy of mine, who is a Notre Dame booster, and I was actually able to go, Friday Night Lights down in South Bend and go to that game.
And honestly, it was just like cherry on top. I didn't care, honestly, I did not. Of course you want to win, but like, I didn't care about it. That was my first time down in South Bend, incredible campus. Interesting, football experience for sure. I'm glad that I was able to see there and be there, see that and be there and, but last year was gravy.

This year there are expectations. And you're right, that is really, really hard to get to a point of meeting those expectations because you set the bar very high. I think I will go back to how the schedule last year was a little soft. And so, you know, the expectations this year are such that we need to be in a bowl and we need to perform well.

And beat Purdue. That's about it. Right.

Ben Lambert
Beat Purdue Steve, it's been an absolute pleasure to hang out with you my friend. Appreciate everything of our growth and our relationship over the years. Super excited about your new ish role and everything that you're able to do for the team over there. Thank you for joining us today on breaking through the mayhem.

Steve Wolf
Yeah, no, I'm glad we were able to cap off kind of 20 years of a relationship, with a fun podcast. This was really, really fun. Just excited to continue to figure out how we can work together. And, I really do genuinely listen to the podcast. It's been great. You and Katz are hilarious.

So, just. Yeah, I appreciate you all having me on.

Ben Lambert
Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it.