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Horizon Media and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Announce New Partnership to Advance Youth Mentorship Through the Power of Media

Over $15 Million in Donated Media Will Amplify the Urgent Call for More Mentors Nationwide NEW YORK, NY — October 7, 2026 — Horizon Media, the world’s largest independent media agency, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA), the nation’s preeminent one-to-one youth mentoring organization in the United States, today announced a formalized partnership to harness the power of media to expand awareness of youth mentorship and inspire more Americans to become mentors. According to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 58.5% of U.S. teens always or usually receive the social and emotional support they need. As traditional sources of support, including extended family and community organizations, become increasingly fragmented, young people are spending an average of seven hours a day on screens, often seeking connection in digital spaces that cannot replace the sustained, caring adult relationships they need. Through this partnership, Horizon will mobilize its expansive marketplace and partner network to provide $15 million+ in donated media – reaching a target audience of potential mentors where they are – to amplify BBBSA’s mission of increasing volunteer signups and donations and connecting more young people with life-changing mentoring relationships. Horizon will engage media partners across channels to maximize the reach and impact of BBBSA’s campaigns, while inviting the broader marketing community to join the effort. More than 100 media partners and brands have already donated media and other support, helping amplify BBBSA’s mission across audio, digital, OOH, print, social, and video. By bringing together the scale of Horizon’s media ecosystem and the collective power of the industry, the partnership aims to turn media investment into meaningful action for young people and communities nationwide. “We know that when purpose-driven companies show up for young people, it says something about how that company sees the world and how it does business. That’s what makes this partnership with Horizon Media so meaningful,” said Artis Stevens, President & CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. “Horizon recognizes that the platforms and audiences they reach every day can not only be turned into a megaphone for our mission but can amplify the message that mentorship changes lives. Through this partnership, we’re excited to reach more families, inspire more people to become mentors, and help ensure that more young people have the opportunity to build a meaningful, lasting relationship with a champion in their corner.” The partnership reflects Horizon’s commitment to investing in people and creating opportunities for the next generation, rooted in its Brand Ethos, “Business is Personal.” It also extends Horizon’s longstanding relationship with the National Football League (NFL), and its work to use the power of culture and media to drive societal impact. By joining forces around a shared commitment to youth and community, the partnership creates an opportunity to extend that impact beyond the field and into the lives of young people across the country. “Media has the power to do more than influence what people buy – it can influence what people believe is possible and inspire people to take action,” said Bill Koenigsberg, Founder & CEO, Horizon Media. “Through our partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, we have an opportunity to bring our industry together around something that matters: helping more young people access the relationships and support they need to thrive. We’re proud to use the power of our marketplace to help turn awareness into action and make mentorship more accessible to communities across the country.” Horizon’s commitment to creating meaningful impact extends across a range of causes and communities. The agency supports organizations including City Harvest, Cure Duchenne, Drug-Free America Foundation, International Animal Rescue, The Michael J. Fox Foundation and Wildlife Conservation Society, among others, reflecting its belief in using the power of its people, partnerships and marketplace to drive positive change. The pro bono partnership with BBBSA was formalized in July with first work running during Big Brothers Big Sisters Month (September). Donated media efforts will continue through 2027with key cultural and community moments throughout the year designed to drive awareness, engagement and action. Horizon and BBBSA are inviting media companies, marketing partners and organizations across the industry to join the effort by contributing media and helping bring the message of mentorship to more Americans. To learn more or get involved, please email us. For more information about Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and how to become a mentor, please visit: https://www.bbbs.org/ About Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Founded in 1904, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) is the largest and most experienced youth mentoring organization in the United States. The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. Big Brothers Big Sisters’ evidence-based approach is designed to create positive youth outcomes, including educational success, avoidance of risky behaviors, higher aspirations, greater confidence, and improved relationships. Big Brothers Big Sisters serves more than 5,000 communities across all 50 states. For more information, visit: www.bbbs.org.    About Horizon Media Horizon Media is the largest independent media agency globally, delivering data-driven business outcomes for some of the world’s most innovative and ambitious brands. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in New York, with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto, Horizon Media employs more than 2,400 people and manages over $8.5 billion in annual media investments. Guided by its belief that business is personal, Horizon Media is consistently recognized for client excellence, workplace culture, and its commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and employee well-being. Learn more: https://www.horizonmedia.com/

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Horizon Media Expands HorizonOS Labs with Third Cohort, Bringing New Partners into its Open Ecosystem to Tackle Marketers’ Growth Challenges

Cohort 3 Reflects Market Acceleration and Client Priorities as Marketing Technology Shifts From Insight to Action NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2026 — Horizon Media today unveiled 11 companies named to the third cohort of HorizonOS Labs, the agency’s structured innovation accelerator. With more than 50 partners having gone through the program, Horizon serves as a curator of emerging technology, simplifying the often time-consuming process of identifying, testing and scaling solutions so clients can build bespoke operating platforms around their unique business challenges. The program is designed to distinguish viable innovation from vendor promises through a transparent, client-centric process focused on real-world application. “The market is moving faster than annual technology reviews can accommodate,” said John Koenigsberg, EVP and Head of Platform Partnerships at Horizon Media Holdings. “One clear shift emerged from Cohort 3: the vast majority of partners are focused on growth, closing the loop between surfacing, modeling and finding – and actually driving action. What makes these capabilities valuable isn’t any one of them alone, but what happens when they connect with each other and with what a brand already knows.” Cohort 3 is organized around three Growth Frontiers. They include: Unlocking Growth from the Customers You Already Know. Brands can now understand the people already connected to them far more deeply than before, and act on that understanding in the same motion, across the channels they own and the media they buy. Creative Supply at the Speed of Everything Else. Precision in targeting and measurement has raised what creative can be asked to do, and production has caught up—generating, versioning and governing at the volume a channel actually requires. Winning Customers When Machines Shape Discovery. More of the journey now runs through machines: search that answers rather than lists, assistants that shop, screens that decide what comes next. Presence in those spaces is earned differently, and it can now be measured, shaped and acted on. Each frontier unifies what was once fragmented: paid, owned and consumer insight; media and creative; and human strategy and intelligent workflows. The 11 Cohort 3 partners, chosen from more than 600 RFI submissions, reflect Horizon’s commitment to an open ecosystem where clients can access best fit technologies without vendor lock-in or proprietary constraints. The 11 were selected on what they can do: how readily they connect to the systems a client already operates, their willingness to work alongside other companies in the cohort, and concrete evidence that the work drives business outcomes. “AI is changing the rules for how brands grow,” said Bob Lord, President of Horizon Media Holdings. “The brands that will drive growth aren’t looking for a better way to buy media. They’re solving for customer value by building an operating platform that brings their data, customers, technology and people together around the problems that matter most to their business. There’s no off-the-shelf answer to that. Horizon is committed to bringing the open ecosystem together to build the right capabilities for each customer.” The Cohort 3 Partners — Grouped by Growth Frontier — Include: Unlocking Growth from the Customers You Already Know SQREEM: SQREEM is a behavioral intelligence platform that builds real‑time, predictive audience and intent models from massive volumes of unstructured digital data (web, app, social, video) rather than relying on predefined segments or static taxonomies. Aaru: Aaru is a statistical simulation engine for predicting human behavior. Our platform enables organizations to test products, messaging, and strategies with simulated respondents to understand how people will react before making real-world decisions Zenapse: Zenapse is an emotionally intelligent, agentic marketing platform, purpose-built to quickly drive business outcomes through goal-based conversion optimization, personalization and data — all within existing media and workflows. Hightouch: Hightouch is an agentic marketing platform where AI agents and marketing teams work together to brief, create, review, and launch campaigns across 300+ channels, guided by a shared “marketing brain” that learns from your brand, customer data, and every campaign’s results. Creative Supply at the Speed of Everything Else AdGreetz: AdGreetz offers DCO+®, which personalizes any ad into unlimited, relevant, data-driven versions served to each viewer and AdChef®, which orchestrates 50+ AI models with Proprietary Creative Agents to generate original, broadcast-quality video, display, UGC/influencer, rich media, carousel and product ads from a brief, URL or prompt in minutes. Storyteq: ITG is an AI-enabled content company that helps global brands deliver personalized content at scale. Powered by our Storyteq platform, ITG combines technology, data and production expertise to lower costs and lift ROAS by up to 300%. Anoki: Anoki AI is the contextual video intelligence company advancing CTV with ContextIQ and its award-winning AI Marketing Co-Pilot, helping every ad find its perfect home, scene by scene. Winning Customers When Machines Shape Discovery Bluefish: Bluefish is the Agentic Marketing Platform (AMP) for the Fortune 500. EmberOS: emberos, the Operating System for AI brand management, shows brands what AI is about to say about them, helps them change it at the source, and proves the change worked. Olyzon: Olyzon is an agentic orchestration layer for advertising: its agents connect to any buying interface through open protocols to plan, activate and optimize across platforms, starting with CTV and extending to YouTube, Social, DOOH and Audio, live today across managed accounts. Fuse: FUSE+Emet is the truth infrastructure layer for AI data systems. AI doesn’t know when it’s wrong. Emet does. The Cohort 3 partners will be showcased at an in-person event in New York on October 1, where they will present to Horizon clients and engage in discussions around potential pilot deployments. Following the showcase, partners will be matched with interested client brands to scope and advance specific pilots, with client participation helping determine which opportunities move forward. Looking ahead, HorizonOS Labs will open its next RFI process in early 2027.

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