Episodes

Edwin Wong: The Fourth Wave

Edwin Wong, Global Head of Measurement at Uber Advertising, on why context and consumer control matter more than data volume, and why brand impact is easy to measure but hard to break through.

Apple Podcasts Spotify
 ·  The Business of Marketing  · S5 E101  · 33 min
Read the interview

"our algorithm isn't driving the feed. It's actually delivering on a need."

The Conversation

A career at the intersection of media research and marketing effectiveness, from a UK-born brand consultancy to a decade at Yahoo, then Pinterest, BuzzFeed and Vox Media, and now Uber Advertising. Wong argues that context and consumer control now matter more than raw data volume, and that a utility able to see the sale changes what measurement can prove.

Wong started as a psychology major trying to understand people, then joined Holland Partners, a consultancy born out of the UK, where as the youngest person in Los Angeles he worked on brands and communications for the likes of Yahoo and eBay in the early 2000s. That led into roughly a decade at Yahoo looking after the search business from a marketing and research perspective. He moved to Pinterest to build out its business analytics practice as the company began connecting with advertisers and thinking about how the digital space affects the physical one. Over the following decade he worked at journalism companies, BuzzFeed and Vox Media, where he became passionate about how content and information flow with consumers by way of podcasts. He now leads global measurement at Uber Advertising, a platform he describes as connective commerce.

In this conversation with host John Horsley, Wong argues that the industry is drowning in metrics while missing what matters, which is context. He describes a fourth wave of media where the digital experience has to create consumer control, and he claims Uber cuts through fragmentation because it delivers on a real need rather than an endless feed. He says brand impact is not hard to measure, it is hard to break through, and points to attention and brand studies to make the case. He is wary of AI flattening expertise, warning that new tools make everyone a researcher while the craft of asking the right question and curating good data still matters. Deliver on the need, not the feed.

Key Takeaways

  • Wong's path runs from psychology to brand consulting at Holland Partners, then a decade at Yahoo in search marketing and research, a spell at Pinterest building business analytics, and years at BuzzFeed and Vox Media studying how content and podcasts connect with people. That grounding in why humans engage with media, rather than only what they click, shapes how he now approaches measurement at Uber Advertising.
  • His central argument is that the industry has plenty of metrics but too little context. Wong frames media over 70 years as leaning back, then leaning in with mobile, then being inside gaming and augmented reality, and now a fourth wave built on consumer control. He says a utility like Uber earns deep, everyday context because it serves a real need, and that context becomes the signal marketers should chase when everything else is fragmented.
  • Wong insists brand impact is not hard to measure, it is hard to break through. He points to work with Adelaide showing Uber ads he says are around 40 percent more attentive than typical digital inventory, Kantar brand consideration lifts of about 10 percent, and a custom ad unit correlating attention with brand scores, giving chief marketing officers both an implicit and explicit read on the consumer.
  • Source destination is the signal he returns to. Knowing where someone is going, an event, a concert, a date, lets advertisers connect with intent without paying a premium to sit next to content. He cites a Pizza Hut program where strong creative held attention for three minutes and drove a 26 percent increase in new-to-brand users, and destination offers launched at Cannes as the next step.
  • On AI, Wong is measured and human-centred. He warns that Uber's algorithm delivers on a need rather than driving a feed, that governance and data hygiene will define good research, and that a smaller, constantly refreshed data set often beats crawling the whole web. He believes consumers are pushing back toward human connection, and that AI should serve the human, not the model.

Topics Covered

  1. 01 Closing the loop on incrementality
  2. 02 Context versus media fragmentation
  3. 03 Attention and brand measurement
  4. 04 Source destination and event signals
  5. 05 AI, governance and research expertise

Key Exchanges

05
01 Many marketers still struggle to answer what's driving growth. Why is that so difficult?

I think we're entering into the fourth wave, where the digital experience has to create consumer control

Growth comes back to context and changing media behaviour. The first 50 of the last 70 years were about leaning back, and advertisers capitalised on what we watched. With mobile we leaned in through the device and the feed. Over the last 10 years, gaming, the metaverse and augmented reality made it about being inside it. Now we're entering the fourth wave, where the digital experience has to create consumer control, and a utility like Uber is instant enough to impact real life. It's hard because the way consumers interact with media changes so often.

02 Why is brand impact so hard to measure?

it's probably not hard to measure. It's hard to break through.

I'd push back and say it's not hard to measure, it's hard to break through. Working with Adelaide, we built a custom ad unit. Our ads perform about 40 percent better on attention than other digital inventory, and across hundreds of Kantar studies our brand consideration scores were around a 10 percent lift, roughly three times the global average. We correlated attention with brand scores so chief marketing officers can see the consumer both implicitly and explicitly, which gave us a new way to talk about brand.

03 Has the role of research inside marketing organisations changed?

understanding why a consumer actually connects with a platform

It has, because the consumer changes so rapidly. But fundamentally I believe in understanding why a consumer connects with a platform and with media. Podcasts rose because people craved a break from the endless feed and wanted depth from trusted voices. In the wave of AI, consumers are looking for more human connection and pushing back for a reason, like the Luddites who were artisans defending their connection to the trade. Research is fascinating because we have to understand the chaos and connect authentically.

04 One marketing buzzword the industry should retire?

it's about the human, not the actual model

AI. Artificial intelligence should maybe be accelerated intelligence or augmented intelligence, or flipped to intelligence augmented, because it's about the human, not the model.

05 Knowing the location opens up hyperlocal relevance. How powerful is that signal?

nothing, uh, says events like your source destination

Source destination is a powerful signal, and Uber has it in spades. Brands want to be around events, and nothing says events like your source destination, a concert, a game, a night out. If you treat it as a signal, a chief marketing officer can connect with a fan going to a place without paying the premium to be around the content. Given how many places we deliver people to, the opportunities are pretty limitless.

S5 E101Season & Episode
33 minDuration
200M Consumers served monthly
15B Trips served in 2025

"they're actually looking for more human connection. They're pushing back for a reason"

Hear Edwin on
The Business of Marketing
Season 5 Episode 101 33 min
Apple Podcasts→ Spotify→ Edwin's full profile→ Edwin on LinkedIn→

Keep Reading