A dinner series by Events by Water

Ethics in Advertising
on the Water

A curated conversation series for founders, marketers, and technologists asking the hard questions about data, attention, and the future of advertising. Hosted on luxury yachts across five markets.

Reserve your seat → See upcoming events

What happens when the smartest people in advertising get on a boat?

We believe the best conversations happen when you're surrounded by water, away from your screens, with nowhere to hide. Each Ethics in Advertising dinner brings together 12–20 curated guests — brand leaders, agency founders, technologists, and creatives — for an evening of radical honesty about where advertising is going and whether we're okay with that.

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Curated conversation

No panels, no decks. One provocative question per dinner. Facilitated discussion. Real talk from people who shape how the world receives information.

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Chatham House rules

What's said on the boat stays on the boat. No recording, no attribution. This is what makes the conversation real.

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On the water

Luxury yacht, sunset cruise, chef-prepared dinner, open bar. The setting is the message — we're building something worth preserving.

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Web3 & data sovereignty

Special sessions on what it means when consumers own their data, how blockchain changes advertising consent, and what ethics looks like in a decentralized world.

Five conversations we need to have

01

Your attention is the product — and you never signed a contract

How algorithms are engineered for addiction, what brands are complicit in, and whether ethical advertising is an oxymoron in the attention economy.

02

The metadata millionaires: who gets rich from your digital footprint

A deep dive into data brokers, surveillance capitalism, and the emerging Web3 tools that let you reclaim — and monetize — your own information.

03

Consent is broken. Here's how we fix it.

Cookie banners nobody reads, terms nobody understands, and what genuine informed consent could look like if we actually tried to build it.

04

Crypto, Web3, and the advertising revolution nobody's talking about

Token-gated experiences, NFT loyalty programs, decentralized identity — advertising in a world without cookies, without platforms, without middlemen.

05

What would advertising look like if we built it from scratch today?

If you had a blank canvas, knowing everything we know about psychology, data, and human behavior — what would ethical advertising actually look like?

2026 Series — Five cities, five conversations

Miami, FL

The Attention Economy

Coming Summer 2026

Biscayne Bay sunset cruise. 16 guests. Chef-catered. Full bar. One question: who owns your attention and what do they owe you for it?

From $350 / person
Request an invitation →
Annapolis, MD

Data Sovereignty at Sea

Coming Fall 2026

Chesapeake Bay evening sail. Web3 special session with founders and technologists building the decentralized advertising stack.

From $350 / person
Request an invitation →
Washington, DC

Policy, Power & the Feed

Coming Fall 2026

Potomac River dinner. Policy makers, brand leaders, and technologists in the same room asking: what should government actually do about this?

From $350 / person
Request an invitation →
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Request your invitation

Dinners are limited to 20 guests. Tell us a bit about yourself and we'll be in touch.