Breaking the Marketing Mold: Harry Kargman Of Kargo On 5 Innovative & Non Traditional Marketing Strategies That Can Engage Audiences Like Never Before
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Social Impact Projects — Gen Z, which is the next primary audience target, has made it clear that brands need to stand for something more than just their products. Establishing social impact projects that better society, the environment and more can help a brand establish trustworthiness with a younger audience while expanding its reach.
Traditional marketing methods are no longer sufficient in today’s dynamic and fast-evolving market. To truly engage and captivate audiences, businesses need to think outside the box and adopt innovative and non-traditional marketing strategies. What are these strategies, and how can they transform audience engagement? I had the pleasure of interviewing Harry Kargman.
Harry Kargman is the founder and CEO of Kargo, the leading creative-led programmatic advertising platform. Harry was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016 and leads Kargo’s strategy and growth. Under his stewardship over the last 20 years, Harry has bootstrapped Kargo from a small start-up into one of the advertising industry’s largest and fastest-growing technology companies — announced as an Inc. 500 winner and Deloitte Technology Fast 50 company. Harry has won the Advertising Club President’s Award and is a board member of the AdCouncil, Tech:NYC, the Partnership for New York, and the MMA Media & Data Board.
He is a frequent speaker and panelist at CES, IAB, Advertising Week, Web Summit, Cannes and other advertising and technology conferences, and has been featured in The NYTimes, The Today Show, AdAge, Adweek, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and dozens of other media outlets.
Harry graduated with honors from Harvard College, where he is an advisor to young entrepreneurs through the Harvard Innovation Lab and lives in New York City with his wife and three children.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! To start, could you share when and how you got started in marketing?
I started in marketing in the early 2000s when I noticed media companies struggled to sell mobile ads for several years. I decided to pivot my company, Kargo, from creating sites for mobile carriers to sell products such as ringtones to instead focus on the ad business so that I could place ads on sites rather than relying on sites’ publishers to do so.
What has been the biggest shift in the marketing industry and can you give us an example of how it impacted you?
The biggest shift in the marketing industry has been the advancements in mobile web and CTV. Marketers and Advertisers now have more access than ever to reaching their target audiences, but changing privacy laws have affected how we can reach them. As the war against cookies continues to wage on, we at Kargo have had to find new, innovative ways to reach our audiences without disrupting their experience. As a result, we’ve developed new CTV Overlay ads that are designed to engage viewers without being intrusive.
Can you explain why it’s essential for businesses to break away from traditional marketing and embrace new strategies?
Innovation is at the heart of Kargo’s success. To keep up with our competition, we are constantly having to stay ahead of the curve by ideating new concepts, art and technology. As people continue to become increasingly reliant on their devices, traditional marketing tactics will no longer be sufficient, and we’ll have to find new ways to meet them. The inclusion of artificial intelligence is just one way Kargo is embracing new strategies because it enables us to elevate our already high-level creative and create audio tracks to complement our campaigns.
Could you share and briefly explain the first major change you made to break the trend of traditional marketing that was not so common?
We launched Kargo’s Narrative CTV format, which allows brands to transform basic assets into visually stunning and captivating CTV assets. Narrative allows for any advertiser, big or small, to reach their audiences on CTV because it brings the cost of production to $0. With Narrative you can test different messages, reach niche audiences and adapt to market changes, quickly and easily, while maintaining the integrity of your creative assets. This unit has been proven to drive attention, engagement, and memorability — KPIs that often lead to a better bottom line.
What specific results did you see after implementing this change?
We implemented Narrative for a campaign with a beverage brand, and Kargo outperformed both CTV and linear on attention metrics
+ 29% vs. CTV norms
+20% vs. linear norms
Among young Millennials, a key age target, Kargo showed even stronger performance for attention metrics
+ 46% vs. CTV norms
+30% vs. linear norms
How do you ensure that these new marketing strategies resonate with your target audience?
We are constantly measuring the results of our work to make sure everything we do resonates not only with our audience but also with the clients’ audiences. As the results above show, our campaign not only attracted our target audience but also reached Millennials in an impactful way.
Great. Now, let’s dive into the heart of our interview. Could you list “5 Innovative & Non Traditional Marketing Strategies That Can Engage Audiences Like Never Before”?
1. Virtual Reality — Immersive experiences such as virtual reality transport users into a game-like scenario in a completely branded world.
2. User-Generated Content — This allows the audience to put their own personal touches on content and provides them with an opportunity to feel part of their beloved brands’ identities.
3. Social Impact Projects — Gen Z, which is the next primary audience target, has made it clear that brands need to stand for something more than just their products. Establishing social impact projects that better society, the environment and more can help a brand establish trustworthiness with a younger audience while expanding its reach.
4. Rewards — Who doesn’t love rewards points? Offering points develops loyalty among brands and their audiences. Points encourages users to stay on-brand, whether it’s loyalty to a hotel chain or a coffee shop. They also promote repeat business as the desire for more points brings them closer to their next reward.
5. Shoppable Content — This integrates e-commerce directly into the content consumers are already engaging with, making for a seamless purchasing process. Whether it’s through clickable product tags on social media posts or livestream shopping events, this strategy meets consumers where they are, making it easier for them to purchase on impulse.
What challenges might companies face when transitioning away from traditional marketing strategies, and how can they overcome them?
Everything becomes an experiment as companies transition from the comfortable to the unexplored; however, the key to overcoming these challenges is to research and persevere down the right path that’s appropriate for each brand. What works for one does not necessarily work for another, so always remember to know your audience inside and out as you embrace innovative strategies.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these new marketing strategies?
Success, of course, can be measured literally by tracking the results of our ad campaigns in terms of attention, brand lift and more, but it also can be looked at more holistically. Are our clients happy? Are we getting media attention for our work? Are we proud of what we’re putting out into the world? Positive feedback to our work is just as important as the measurement results we receive for each campaign because it means we’re doing a great job.
Looking forward, how do you see the role of innovative marketing evolving in the next 5–10 years?
I believe artificial intelligence is going to play a large role in innovative marketing. Although what we know about its uses now remains limited, in 5–10 years AI could revolutionize targeting, creative and perhaps even how publishers approach buying supply for their sites. Brands with limited budgets may have increased access to the marketplace as AI becomes a cost-efficient solution; however, with increased access comes a risk of crowding.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitant to move away from traditional marketing methods?
Keep learning. Read everything there is to read about what’s going on in our industry and the technological advances coming our way because if you don’t, you’ll be left behind. Stay curious!
Can you share any upcoming initiatives or plans you have for further innovating your marketing strategies?
Kargo has various new products and initiatives being launched in 2025 that will be game changers for the marketing and advertising industries. We will be focusing on helping brands target younger audiences by tapping into what’s culturally relevant and meeting them where they are.
How can our readers follow your work and learn more about your approaches to modern marketing?
We share all our work on our website, www.Kargo.com, as well as on our LinkedIn and Instagram pages. We frequently pen blogs, submit bylines and are regularly featured in ad-focused publications for the impressive work we do on behalf of our clients.
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur and Thought Leader with over 25 years of business experience. He has founded, operated, and exited multiple companies and now builds into a handful of high impact CEOs. Chad has launched multiple online communities, including a recent leadership development platform, and also serves as a strategic advisor for Authority Magazine’s thought-leader incubator program.
To learn more and connect with Chad visit: chadsilverstein.io
Breaking the Marketing Mold: Harry Kargman Of Kargo On 5 Innovative & Non Traditional Marketing… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.