Lorenzo Zefferino of Evergreen Trading on Audience-First Media Buying, AI, and Keeping Humans in the Loop

Lorenzo Zefferino: Lorenzo Zefferino, EVP of Media Investment and Innovation at Evergreen Trading.

Jeanniey Walden: All right, Lorenzo. We had to come all the way from Jersey to Miami so that we could finally sit down. I’m so excited to have you on the show. You and I have known each other for a couple years now, worked on a few different projects together, all looking at audience profiles instead of buying media the traditional way. You’re one of my favorite people because you think so innovatively and out of the box. And you’re at Evergreen. So tell everybody who’s watching what you do.

Lorenzo Zefferino: At Evergreen, we are a barter agency or trade agency. Today they’re calling it principal-based buying, so there are a bunch of different ways to name it these days. What we do is focus on clients’ assets that are depreciating, try to secure them as clients, then translate that into media and buy it on a value basis, and convert it back to value for our clients. Typically the model focuses a lot more on the media side, inventory around the big publishers in the world and other media suppliers. As the digital world has evolved, we’ve realized there’s a data play that needs attention, specifically around audiences. People are targeting standard audiences, whether it’s demos, geo regions, or even household income, but they don’t know exactly who the user is. So we focus on identifying who the audiences are, creating personas, and partnering with data partners to make sure we’re getting those right segments at value as well.

Jeanniey Walden: I’ve worked at ad agencies before, and building personas is so key to working with clients, but it’s like the world sometimes forgets about building personas and rushes out to activate. Why do you think that’s happening?

Lorenzo Zefferino: There’s a lot of data that shows the core segments around third-party data work. You have the large players who’ve been measuring it for years, but it has evolved. People’s online behaviors have gone beyond single transactions or being identified on cookies or IDs. Now the other ways to identify people are based on behavior. If someone is a sports fan, they might also like cooking; if they like cooking, they might also like gardening; if they like gardening, they might also like shopping. It doesn’t mean they’re one singular section, you have to identify the person as a whole. So using audiences, AI technology, and other data sets to find that person lets you be more specific about who you’re trying to reach.

Jeanniey Walden: I was just going to ask you about AI. How does AI play a role in defining segments, profiles, and personas?

Lorenzo Zefferino: There are a lot of different technologies. AI to me is so broad. It could be AI for identifying users’ behaviors online, tracking them with certain agents. AI is also used for curation of supply. AI is used for optimization methods. AI is so vast, you have to focus in on certain ones at a certain time. If you go all in trying to figure it all out at once, you get a little confused, so you have to compartmentalize.

Jeanniey Walden: There you go.

Lorenzo Zefferino: English is my first language, believe it or not. So we focus on one at a time. Right now we’re focusing on the audience play, just finding people and how they behave, using AI technologies to scrub the web and follow them along their journey.

Jeanniey Walden: How do you think AI is going to evolve six months from now, which I know nobody knows? We used to ask what a business model would look like in five years, and people would say I don’t know. Now it’s what will AI change about your business in six months.

Lorenzo Zefferino: There’s a lot, and I think you also add creative to that element, so there are many levels to it. I think it’s going to evolve from planning and buying becoming a lot of an agentic model. I don’t want people to think that means jobs are at risk. It’s more about how information is being input faster, more accurately, more aligned to who you’re trying to reach and what you’re trying to do, and making things faster. Everyone wants something yesterday. AI is going to let us do it today, maybe not yesterday. It lets us do a little bit more, faster and more accurately. That’s my belief.

Jeanniey Walden: You and I have talked in the past about the critical importance of having a media planner, either inside a business or at an agency you trust. For everyone watching and listening, let’s talk about the critical role of a media planner.

Lorenzo Zefferino: I always say common sense is not a common thing. That’s actually what my father said. Common sense is not a common thing. Logic comes into play. As much technology as you have, there’s still a human element to what you put together. You have to know a human, understand what they want, understand the media channels and inventory sources that are performing well. You have to use your human element to make things more specific to who we’re trying to reach, humans. So AI comes into play to help you do it more effectively, but the human element of understanding who it is and what we’re trying to do is very necessary.

Jeanniey Walden: Human in the loop.

Lorenzo Zefferino: Human in the loop.

Jeanniey Walden: So how are you taking all of this with Evergreen and putting it to use for clients?

Lorenzo Zefferino: As I mentioned, media buying and media inventory is the strong play for how we operate. We realize there’s also financial value and benefit we can provide clients by using relationships in audience plays and data plays. So instead of solely focusing on inventory, getting those at a preferred rate and sharing that benefit back to our clients, we do the same thing with audience providers and data providers. Going beyond just the inventory, understanding who that user is, using technology to create that persona, targeting it with preferred partners that let us be more efficient against inventory that’s more efficient, and putting it all together so our clients get more value back at the end of the day.

Jeanniey Walden: It’s like a win-win-win-win.

Lorenzo Zefferino: Win-win-win-win is my favorite line. I get made fun of it all the time, because usually it’s a win-win-win-win. Everyone wins.

Jeanniey Walden: So if I’m a brand, tell me three things I need to know about media buying that I didn’t know before watching this conversation.

Lorenzo Zefferino: That’s a loaded one. I don’t know that it’s things you didn’t know, because everyone knows a lot. It’s about sectioning it off. You have to be really intentional about who you’re reaching. So focus on your audience, who they are, and how you’re reaching them, not only with inventory but also with the appropriate data, refined data, tight data, accurate data, and then putting it across inventory sources that align with those. People understand that. It’s about doing it in a more specific, intentional way that will let it be more effective.

Jeanniey Walden: Awesome. All right, last thing. I heard your daughter painted your toenails and you can’t take your shoes off at this event in Miami.

Lorenzo Zefferino: My three-year-old daughter loves to paint nails. She started painting my fingernails, and sometimes it doesn’t come off, the kitty ones are not as easy to remove as they make it seem. I’ve been on a few calls thinking I can’t do this anymore, so I told her to start doing my toes. And I totally forgot I have blue toes to match my jacket today. So hopefully my shoes stay on.

Jeanniey Walden: Memorable for sure. Lorenzo, thanks for being on the show.

Lorenzo Zefferino: Of course. Thank you very much.

This conversation was recorded for Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden and lightly edited for readability.