PMG Takes the Stage This September

Automation now runs more of marketing's daily execution, and flat budgets have made every line of the plan harder to defend. Together, they've left many teams asking how they stay accountable for results when the decisions behind them happen inside a black box.

That’s a question we often hear, and this September alone, five conferences on both sides of the Atlantic invited our leaders to speak, alongside customers who chose to share the stage with us. Our leaders span media buying, measurement, connected TV, creator marketing, and storytelling, and they come from different corners of PMG, reflecting the company's breadth and depth of expertise.

Their sessions circle the same ideas—how to regain control of performance, which metrics are worth measuring, and when a calculated bet earns its place. Different people on different stages, sharing the same thinking our teams bring to brand customers every day

MediaPost Planning & Buying Insider Summit — Chicago, Sept. 8–11

At the Planning & Buying Insider Summit:

• Sept. 9: NRG's Chris Conner presents “From Black Box to Business Lever: Regaining Control in an AI-First Marketing World,” on how his team stopped reacting to platform behavior and started shaping it by connecting data, measurement, media, and content into one operating system.

• Sept. 9: Chris and PMG's Casandra Jones co-lead the roundtable “What Performance Data Is Actually Telling You,” a candid working session on reading past the surface of a report to the signal underneath.

• Sept. 10: PMG's Elizabeth Dahlgren leads the roundtable “The Right (and Wrong) Way to Buy Local Media,” drawing on the patterns that separate local plans that scale from ones that waste budget.

• Sept. 11: Elizabeth returns for the panel “The Judicious Planner” to talk through where discipline ends and worthwhile experimentation begins, and how to make that call when every dollar is under scrutiny.

Digital Ascendant Semi-Annual Gathering — Silicon Valley, Sept. 15

PMG's Mike Treon joins marketers from Wendy's and Shipt for “Measure What Matters — and Win,” a conversation about which metrics actually move the business and which ones just fill a dashboard. Event details.

Mediavine Investment Summit — Hudson Valley, NY, Sept. 15

PMG's Neomie Arevalo sits with other marketers to discuss The Future of Media Buying: AI, Agentic Buying & the Rise of Curation, tackling how AI is changing planning and optimization, where human strategy becomes more valuable in an increasingly automated ecosystem, and how brands are balancing reach and scale, among other topical questions.  More info.

JAIKU Storytelling Summit 2026 — London, Sept. 17

PMG's Pete Banforth joins “From Griots to Influencers,” a look at how stories travel across generations and what brands leave on the table when they aim only at the youngest audience in the room. More info.

Marketecture Live — Chicago, Sept. 23

Mike Treon takes the main stage with Netflix and Matter More Media for “Has Performance TV Jumped the Shark?” The panel debates whether holding TV to social-style accountability actually helps marketers or asks the channel to be something it isn't.

AdExchanger Programmatic I/O — New York, Sept. 28–29

PMG's Jennifer Quigley-Jones presents “Is Creator Marketing Going Programmatic?” Drawing on her experience building and selling one of the fastest-growing influencer agencies, she traces the parallels between the two worlds, from platform fragmentation to measurement gaps, and argues for what the creator economy gains when programmatic discipline is applied to it. Event page.

Also this month: Amazon unBoxed

PMG's Sam Bloom sits down with Marketecture Media at Amazon unBoxed 2026 for a podcast conversation on where retail media and measurement go next. Look for the episode when it drops.