Strategy Days 2025

We recently hosted our annual Strategy Days for the fifth time in a row. Smartclippers from all over the company joined virtually or met in their respective offices to follow the sessions.

Since we first organised Strategy Days in 2021, the event has become an integral part of our internal culture. We use these two days in spring to educate and inform smartclippers about the strategic direction of our company, as well as the broader objectives set forth by our parent companies, RTL Deutschland, RTL Group, and Bertelsmann.

While the event has evolved over the years, its core purpose remains unchanged. It serves as a valuable opportunity for our colleagues to connect with organisational goals, deepen their understanding of the current industry landscape, and strategise for future success. In addition to our all-hands meetings, offsites, and smartweek, our Strategy Days create an engaging platform for promoting transparency, boosting collaboration, and uniting our efforts as we work together toward our common objectives.

“It is always important to remember why we are here. There’s a specific reason why smartclip was chosen to provide RTL with advertising technology”, said Thomas Servatius, Co-CEO of smartclip, during his opening presentation of the Strategy Days. “We are following a bigger plan”. He further discussed the current status of the company, areas of improvement going forward, and the strategic imperatives for the coming years.

The opening presentation was followed by an update on the product strategy led by Gloria Eichler, Chief Product Officer at smartclip, and members of her team, including Heike Kuge, Business Product Director Demand Products, and Frank Plähn, Vice President Audience Products. During the session, they dove into the smartclip product strategy and presented an overview of the strategic areas, objectives, and initiatives in the coming months.

Next up, Stefano Matteucci, Senior Business Product Owner, outlined how smartclip can leverage artificial intelligence. During his session, he gave an overview of what artificial intelligence is and what strategic relevance it has for our company.

For the last session of the day, Guillaume Belmas, CEO of Realytics, took a turn to present the latest strategic update from Realytics. He also gave insights into the integration of Realytics’ Bee into smartx — smartclip’s ad server and SSP.

To kick off the second day, we invited Ian Whittaker to speak. It’s always refreshing to get an outside perspective on current topics and trends in the media and tech industries, so we asked Ian to discuss how the streaming wars amongst major streaming platforms and traditional broadcasters will play out. With a background in history and more than 20 years of experience as a financial analyst for the media and tech sectors, he outlined his view on where the industry is headed in both the US and Europe.

This was followed by Oliver Vesper, Co-CEO of smartclip and Chief Digital Officer & Deputy CEO of RTL AdAlliance, who gave an overview of the RTL AdAlliance strategy, along with Pieter van den Bergh, VP Product & Revenue Development at RTL AdAlliance, and Stephen Byrne, VP Global Supply at RTL AdAlliance.

Afterwards, Stephen Byrne gave an overview of the market and the competitive landscape for smartclip in particular. He used “Top Trumps” as a blueprint and presented each player with an individual card, before creating a smartclip trump card with the help of the audience.

Before we closed out this year’s event, Martin Hoberg, Chief International AdTech Officer, presented an update on RTL Deutschland’s SHINE strategy and discussed what role smartclip plays in the grand scheme of things.

This year, we introduced something new: a short quiz that attendees could take before the Strategy Days began. They were invited to listen to Shoshana Zuboff’s podcast on surveillance capitalism on RTL+ and answer questions. Out of all the correct answers, we randomly selected three winners who received the book ‘Surveillance Capitalism’ by Shoshana Zuboff.

Thanks to the efforts of the organisational team and speakers, this year’s Strategy Days were a success. One smartclipper summarised the event in our anonymous feedback survey: “The mix between status update presentation and look into the future provides a perfect representation of where we are as a company and what topics and themes we are invested in to prepare for the future. I like the personal way each presentation was held.” We don’t have anything to add. Thanks to everyone who participated and made these two days memorable.