Horizon Media, the world’s largest independent media agency, partnered with Google to host Hacking the Screen, a one-day AI hackathon at Google’s St. John’s Terminal office in Manhattan. The event, aimed at reimagining entertainment marketing, brought together students from nine universities, including Cornell, Columbia, and NYU, to develop AI-driven marketing solutions for a leading entertainment brand. The winning team, Synth Solutions, secured a $10,000 prize for their innovative campaign messaging prototype.
Hosted May 8, 2025, in New York, by Horizon Media and Google.
Focused on AI-driven entertainment marketing solutions.
Winning team, Synth Solutions, earned $10,000 for a predictive messaging prototype.
Leveraged Google’s Vertex AI and Horizon’s audience intelligence tools.
Part of Horizon’s Blu platform development and talent cultivation strategy.
Top participants offered internships at Horizon’s AI and analytics teams.
Hacking the Screen, detailed in a May 8, 2025, press release, showcased the synergy between Horizon Media and Google, emphasizing responsible AI and emerging talent. Hosted by Bob Lord, president of Horizon Media Holdings, and Paijmaan Premji, data transformation lead at Google, the event challenged competitively selected students to create prototypes addressing real-world marketing use cases. Teams used Horizon’s proprietary audience intelligence tools and Google’s Vertex AI platform to craft solutions grounded in behavioral data.
“These students surfaced actionable opportunities—not hypotheticals,” said Bob Lord. “By pressure-testing Google’s AI tools and Horizon’s Data Insights against real business challenges, they revealed how AI can elevate strategy, speed execution, and sharpen relevance.”
The winning team, Synth Solutions—comprising Nyosha Homicil (Pace University), Matthew Labasan (Columbia University), Eric Kouperman (Pace University), and Apun Datta (Hunter College)—earned a $10,000 grand prize. Their prototype used large language models to optimize campaign messaging across nuanced audience segments, blending empathy, data, and generative AI for predictive, high-impact campaigns. Projects were judged on problem understanding, technical execution, creativity, real-world relevance, and presentation by a panel including Nadia Carta (Google), Elizabeth Twersky (Horizon’s Blu), and Cindy Kim (Horizon Media).
The hackathon aligns with Horizon’s ambition to advance its AI-native growth platform, Blu, which integrates data and AI for client outcomes. Managing $8.5 billion in media investments, Horizon aims to fuse experimentation with execution, as seen in its partnerships with tech and culture sectors. Google’s Vertex AI, used in the hackathon, supports rapid prototyping, enabling students to explore AI’s potential in entertainment marketing, a sector facing disruption from shifting consumption patterns.
The event also cultivated next-gen talent, with top participants offered internships in Horizon’s AI, analytics, and innovation teams. This reflects Horizon’s commitment to diversity and workplace satisfaction, evidenced by its “Best Workplaces” awards and high Glassdoor ratings.
The hackathon mirrors 2025 trends in AI-driven marketing, as seen in initiatives like NinjaCat’s agentic AI for Fortune 500 marketers and PubMatic’s AI-powered media buying platform. Entertainment marketing is evolving, with synthetic audience models and AI-driven content testing gaining traction, per a 2025 Saïd Business School report. The winning prototype’s focus on predictive messaging aligns with Google’s emphasis on AI-powered creative testing, which reduces timelines and predicts brand lift with high accuracy.
Posts on X highlight enthusiasm for the hackathon’s innovation, with users noting its potential to shape AI-driven advertising, though some raise concerns about scalability in niche markets. These sentiments are inconclusive but reflect engagement with the event’s goals.
Hacking the Screen underscores Horizon and Google’s leadership in responsible AI innovation. By bridging academic talent with industry tools, the hackathon sets a precedent for collaborative experimentation in media. As Horizon advances Blu and Google expands Vertex AI’s applications, similar initiatives could redefine entertainment marketing, driving efficiency and relevance in a competitive landscape.
Horizon Media, the largest independent media agency globally, delivers data-driven business outcomes for some of the most innovative and ambitious brands. Founded in 1989, headquartered in New York, and with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto, the company employs 2,400+ people and has media investments of more than $8.5 billion. Horizon Media's fundamental belief is that business is personal, which drives its approach to connecting brands with their customers and engaging with its own employees, resulting in industry-leading workplace satisfaction levels (Glassdoor). The company is consistently recognized by independent media outlets for its client excellence and has earned several "Best Workplaces" awards reflecting its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the life and well-being of everyone at Horizon Media.
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