Media Matters: Nick Papa's Air Game, Ground Game Approach
Currently the VP of Media at Giant Spoon, Nick Papa is a strategic marketer and media professional with a proven track record of developing innovative, high-impact media strategies that deliver measurable results. With deep expertise in both foundational media planning and creative media partnerships, Nick excels at creating media campaigns that live at the intersection of creativity and performance.
He has championed bold, competitive media offerings across his time at various agencies - helping brands stand out in a crowded marketplace through innovative approaches that push beyond traditional playbooks.
Nick has spent the bulk of his career at Giant Spoon, tailoring bold media strategies to meet unique business challenges and accelerate brand growth for clients like Cash App, GE, Square, and Synchrony Financial. Formerly at OMD working on accounts like Coach, GE, Sony Music, and Ray Ban - then transitioning to pioneer the media practice at Invisible North where he won multiple awards for brands across Web3, Retail, and FinTech.
He currently lives in Philadelphia and outside of marketing has a passion for supporting independent music as the founder of upandovr, a creative support team that provides free creative resources for young musicians in Philly.
LBB> What was it about the world of advertising media that pulled you in? What did you do before you got into media?
Nick> What drew me into advertising was how connected it is to culture and our collective human experience.
I joined the industry from a fully integrated perspective in media, including understanding audiences, and planning, crafting and executing media plans across all channels. Working on a business like GE early in my career allowed me to see media from an incredibly different perspective and think about providing value for people and impact for brands. GE was a company that wanted to tell an innovation story, so naturally, everything they did out in the world with media needed to reflect that.
I learned media from a human perspective and understood the value of storytelling for brands early on. This completely shaped my perspective and experience in crafting bespoke media plans that program brands into culture in a way that drives outcomes for their business.
LBB> Over the course of your career, what have been the most significant changes you’ve seen in the media side of the industry?
Nick> From our perspective at Giant Spoon, a lot of brands come to us for media plans that program their brand in culture. Oftentimes we build these media plans in sort of an ‘air game, ground game’ approach, knowing that brand marketers face the challenge of balancing brand and performance.
Over the last few years, I think the shift towards automation (including programmatic) has been the most significant change in the media industry. And what’s interesting is how that has created an uphill battle for brand marketers and CMOs to prove the value of spending on brand marketing.
The industry can be an echo chamber sometimes around this topic – where we all agree on the value of brand building – but when faced with pressures on immediate ROI, we waver. And when you do that, you’re playing not to lose, instead of playing to win.
At Giant Spoon, we believe business growth happens when brands stop taking a binary approach to brand and performance and instead converge them to work together – not just spending on big brand moments and performance platforms separately, but thinking strategically about the intersection of media and creative, modern consumer psychology, and creating meaningful encounters at every touch point in the consumer journey.
When you do that, it doesn’t matter if it’s a paid social post or a banner ad; If they have a memorable experience with your brand, it’ll grow.
LBB> What was your first job in the media industry and give us a taste of the path that your career has been on?
Nick> My first role was working in an integrated team at OMD for brands like GE, Sony Music, and Ray-Ban. It was an interesting place to start my career because I was surrounded by so many different departments and teams within an agency.
The work I was doing was a combination of all of those disciplines. It was like I was learning to be a CMO from day one, which has supercharged my growth because today, it feels like that’s what’s expected in our industry, especially when you work with growth brands and businesses that can’t spend an infinite amount of dollars hitting every channel, every minute of every day.
It taught me to be intentional and impactful with a brand's investment and to have a deeper understanding of how attention moves throughout culture.
Since my start at OMD, I’ve worked at a mix of agencies and indie shops and even helped to build the media practice at one. Giant Spoon has been pivotal for me in so many ways, but most importantly, it’s that our approach to media feels the most ‘future proof’ – it's all about placing the consumer at the forefront and architecting plans into culture.
In that way, Giant Spoon has always been ahead of the curve because of how much we need to keep up with how culture shifts.
LBB> In more recent years, which projects or clients have proven to be the most stimulating and satisfying to work on and why?
Nick> There’s been so many. The clients we find the most success with are those who share a similar philosophy on building a brand (and marketing overall) and those who are at an inflection point in their business.
I’ve mentioned GE, and they will always be a top pick because of the synergy between our philosophies at Giant Spoon and GE and our ways of thinking around the period of engagement. We were aligned with our POV on the way a business should build its brand in the modern media ecosystem, which placed importance on leading the conversations you want to be known for.
With GE Corporate, we helped to shift a consumer's perception of the brand by building awareness of its role as an innovative modern company whose products helped to move the world forward. We did that by telling stories in formats as groundbreaking as GE’s products; Through a deep understanding of how technology and culture influence each other, we developed media partnerships by taking a culture-first approach to media planning to tell GE’s story.
There’s a laundry list of achievements: from producing ‘Droneweek,’ a week of nonstop programming highlighting GE’s power systems, to developing a recurring on-air segment for kid inventors with Jimmy Fallon, to launching VR for the first time at scale onto the doorsteps of 1MM+ New York Times subscribers,
With Synchrony Financial, we found a partner who was hungry to differentiate themselves within a competitive market. Instead of showing up as expected, we developed an ownable IP that humanised the brand and used that to expand its media footprint and scale its message over time. The result was “Business Schooled” – a business playbook in podcast form, hosted by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
With MassMutual, one of our longest-standing partnerships, we were tasked with making the brand more accessible to a broader audience. Through audience strategy, comms planning, and strategic channel and partnership investments, we developed a brand media strategy that not only helped to grow the business but also helped to support lower funnel efforts.
Some of the highlights were stories of mutuality that brought to life their brand purpose to ‘Live Mutual’, where we told stories about how different people and communities help one another, to an NHL partnership where we helped to negotiate a four year NHL sponsorship spanning multiple channels and helped to drive awareness of the partnership and MassMutual brand, to the first ever MLB jersey patch deal through a sponsorship with the Boston Red Sox that included a full cross-channel approach.
There are so many others: Cash App, Ritual Vitamins, and Yelp, to name a few. I could spend forever on this answer because they were all so rewarding when you find the right agency-client relationship.
LBB> In media, an understanding of human behaviour is so important - what are some of the most interesting changes you’re seeing in terms of how we behave with and interact with media?
Nick> Audiences demand authenticity and want brands to feel more human. They can tell when you haven’t done the homework to understand them on a more human level. Some of the work Giant Spoon does entails deeper dives into understanding audiences on that kind of level – not just their media channels, but their media rituals. How do they go about their day? What shapes their worldviews and how they engage with content? How do they make content?
Well, we bring this up a lot, but consumers have a new relationship with media that can’t be solved by the traditional media practices of old. In a landscape that was once driven by scarcity is now driven by infinity. Too much choice, too many channels, and too much content have paralysed brands and agencies alike because they don’t know what to do. They adhere to the legacy models of old because they can’t manage the complexity.
We thrive in the chaos, helping our clients understand a modern consumer’s psychology and their new relationship with brands, with content and with each other to create narratives and ideas that will break through and reach our client’s business goals.
At Giant Spoon, we look at the marketplace as a canvas to bring brands to life and believe that media isn’t bought, it’s built. We don’t RFP the marketplace for off-the-shelf solutions – we program brands into culture.
LBB> Brand safety is more important than ever and consumers and campaign groups are increasingly holding brands to account for the media they choose to spend on - what are your thoughts on this phenomenon and how are you and your teams navigating it?
Nick> There’s a famous quote by John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” It’s been used so much, but it’s something we keep coming back to because, in the world that’s obsessed with racing towards ‘media as math’ and automation, this becomes increasingly more accurate – which you think would be the opposite.
But it goes back to the media ecosystem becoming so infinite. For sure, if you’re a brand that can spend 100s of millions a year, then you should be able to get to a place where you can become more efficient with where your dollars show up and the level of transparency you can obtain around brand safety.
But for the rest of the brands, it’s more of a challenge. They need to be more intentional with how they balance ‘brand vs. performance’ channels because the latter is more challenging to track. They are valuable channels, and they serve an important purpose, but marketers spend more time and investment there because they are pressured for immediate returns more than ever before. So we’re doing it to ourselves, in a way.
Brand safety tends to be more of a focus in digital environments. It’s critical, but goes beyond just not publishing around controversial content. It comes down to making sure partnerships are vetted for alignment between brand values and its target audience. We have expertise and understanding of brand safety tools, but that’s why we over-index in premium environments that people will see and interact with, because it reduces the unknown. It helps when people see brands in familiar environments.
The future of brand safety is making sure brands show up in safe channels using tech in environments where you can’t monitor every ad, but balancing that with premium options people can see in real-time.
LBB> What do you think are the most pertinent debates happening in the media field right now?
Nick> I think the two most pertinent debates are brand vs. performance, and the role AI will play in the future of media buying. At its core, I don’t believe in brand and performance being at odds with one another. I urge them to think about how to build a brand in ‘performance’ channels and vice versa.
With AI – phew, where to start – I think there are a lot of conversations around how AI can help automate media even further than it already has. I think there’s tremendous potential in how it can help with personalisation.
But with that power comes responsibility. You can get more personalised, but at what cost of data privacy? I think what appeals to me the most is how agencies can incorporate AI to help optimise their process and workflow around media planning and buying. Independent agencies are always at a disadvantage compared to holding companies when it comes to tools and tech, so using AI to level the playing field is exciting for me.
As an industry, I’m always pulling for the growth shops to find ways to compete. We tell the best stories and understand people as people, and I want more of that in our industry, no matter who it is.
LBB> Decoupling, recoupling, creative agencies trying to build media functions, media agencies creating content studios… what’s your take on the relationship between creative and media and where do you think it’s going?
Nick> It’s probably going to continue to decouple and recouple in a big way, especially as agencies typically don’t start with a fully integrated model – they start with a specialty.
While it depends on where the core agency services begin, being integrated is incredibly valuable. Everything is media. It has always felt incredibly short-sighted to me to have a media agency go out to the market and buy their little boxes and then turn to the creative agency and ask, ‘What are we putting in these boxes?’ It doesn’t make sense because you’re missing so much human factor and mindset.
In what often seems like a sea of sameness for agencies who all have the same capabilities and tools, the reason clients come to Giant Spoon is that they are looking for something different. They want their dollars to work harder for them. They want an agency that can understand the consumer deeply and can connect the right message in the right medium to drive the most impactful results.
Typical media agencies think in terms of the environment where a message appears, and a creative agency considers what message should be told. Because we sit at the intersection of creative and media, we are naturally able to understand and lead comms planning.
By helping our clients navigate these complex ecosystems, we provide a level of strategic rigor to the implementation of a campaign to ensure that brands are creating meaningful encounters across all media touch points.
LBB> The wider industry has become really obsessed with artificial intelligence, but media has been using variations of AI and algorithmic automation for some time - what’s your take on the longer-term influence of AI on media? Are there any aspects of media planning that you think AI could still have a big impact on?
Nick> It’s already made a significant impact in automating media buying. When you look at programmatic auctions or paid social, etc., those are algorithm-based models that use automation to learn about the right audience segments and how they’re performing. It will continue to revolutionise media in areas like targeting and personalisation. The next frontier lies in creative development and predictive analytics, which has also been around for a while, but the versions used in automated buying are really important.
LBB> More attention is being paid to the environmental impact of various media types, particularly in digital - where do you think the industry is in terms of tracking that impact and minimising it?
Nick> We have a long way to go in understanding and mitigating the environmental impact of digital media. However, I will say that some progress has been made through things like optimising ad serving to reduce data server usage. Another improvement might come in the form of standardised metrics to reduce our carbon footprint as an industry. We should all prioritise working with our clients to be more sustainable – not just with mandates, but by also having a POV on how to consistently improve.
LBB> As an industry, we’re obsessed with the new, and for good reason. It’s often where the money lies! But are there any more traditional forms of media that you think we’re sleeping on a bit or that you think still make a big impact when it comes to connecting with consumers?
Nick> Media consumption is so cyclical. We see it happening everywhere all the time. Podcasts are becoming TV shows, streaming platforms are bundling channels and joining forces, and physical mediums are more appreciated by younger generations who are experiencing mental health decline from social media – it’s everywhere. So it’s not really about what channels we’re sleeping on, but rather how quickly we as an industry and as marketers adapt to these learnings.
Most of the time, we hang on to the ‘TV is dead’ narrative long enough until we’re right, but there are still a ton of people watching linear TV. That conversation has been happening in our industry for over a decade, so we just get in our way to be able to be agile and take advantage of certain channels based on the realities of how consumers interact.
But more plainly, I think traditional channels excite me because there’s so much more room for reinvention, creativity, and ownership of brands.
LBB> Who are your media heroes and why? And what sort of media do you enjoy?
Nick> The media leaders I tend to gravitate towards are those who reflect my values and fight for those core principles.
Honestly, our leadership team at Giant Spoon are some of the most influential minds in the industry. I’ve worked with our cofounders Trevor, Marc, and Jon for almost a decade and partner Laura Correnti even longer, and have been inspired by our new chief media officer, Julie Berger.
What they all have in common is that they are trailblazers in innovative approaches to marketing and media. They value and understand the changing needs of the modern consumer and are relentless in reinventing how brands should show up in the world by staying ahead of the curve.
I can count current and former Spoons on the list: Joey Goulart, Corbin Brown, and Caleb Smith, to name a few strategy minds that have helped me grow immensely. David Jacobsen, who I had a chance to build with at Invisible North, and Will Simpson, who leads Cash App strategy and planning.
There are a ton of others – from CMOs we’ve worked with over the years like Linda Boff, former CMO at GE, to a rotating cast of media innovators at various publishers I've had the chance to create with, from the New York Times to Vox, Enthusiast Gaming, Axios, and many others who are always advocates of doing breakthrough work. This is an industry full of really special people that deserve more recognition.
