Tag: digital media (page 1 of 1)

October 1, 2024 / 0 Comments

Thank You, Paramount

A bit of a stream-of-consciousness gratitude list.

Shana Krochmal DM’ed me on Twitter. She was hiring for a managing editor position for ETonline, and though we had never met before, we had mutual friends, and she found my takes on pop culture thoughtful. I told her that while I could do that job, I had become enamored with data in digital media and thought I might be better suited for Audience Development. She walked me down to meet JD Crowley, and four months later, I started doing precisely that with CBS Television Distribution.

Being in New York or LA with Nina Mehta and Brian Moreno and feeling like co-conspirators as we plotted how to bring brands like Inside Edition, Dr. Phil, and The Rachael Ray Show even further into the digital age.

Cash Me Outside. The Royal Wedding. Backpack Kid. 

So. Many. YouTube. Shows.

Relaunching StarTrek.com.

Going up to San Francisco to meet with Ladan Nafissi and the CNET Business Intelligence team for the first time. I joined them at an offsite where I worked with a group of analysts I didn’t know to develop data-driven pitches for the strategic direction of TVGuide.com, which we presented to Matt McMahon, the GM of that property at the time. I was shocked when my team’s pitch won. 

ET Live was launching, and I felt out of my depth. I requested a meeting with Nathalie Bordes that lasted only ten minutes, but I could sense that she might change the trajectory of my career.

She did.

Hiring Joaquin Delgado. And then Jennifer Park. Eventually, I took over the CBS All Access BI team and grew a team of six analysts to over thirty at our largest. Kristen Silvestre, Naren Duraisaimy, Ashish Birajdar, and Nick Denaro would come together to be one of the most talented groups of managers I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

Working with Nat, Grace Mclean, Keric Donnelly, and Mitch Zayas in Ft. Lauderdale or NYC  planning sessions to determine the direction of the Data and Insights Group.

Launch day of Paramount+ on March 4th, 2021. Returning to the office hadn’t happened yet, and, for the first time, I was participating in a major product launch from my at-home desk, looking out into the dark, waiting for the sun to come up and those SpongeBob SquarePants marquees to go live.

Why Women Kill. Disco. Lower Decks. Mayor of Kingstown. 1883. Strange New Worlds. Two Super Bowls.

The Subscription Analytics Continuum, SLAM, SLAM 2.0, SLAM 3.0, DVAAs (now DVoS), Audience Segmentation, PEARL, LTV, the product KPI Framework, and the Pricing and Marketing Offer Scenario Framework.

Amazon QBRs. 10 All Access Monthlies. Quarterly Performance. Weekly Highlights. 

Dashboards. Dashboards. Dashboards.

Grateful for the memories. The experiences. The lessons learned. And, of course, the people.

Grateful for the memories. The experiences. The lessons learned. And, of course, the people.

Thank you.

January 2, 2017 / 0 Comments

The Questions: 2017 Work Edition

“Whenever things go wrong, whenever things go left, you can be in charge” – Maxwell, Listen Hear

Will we continue to invest and experiment in bringing our brands to digital spaces (and in new and interesting ways) even though the money might not be there yet?

The vast majority of the budgets in the entertainment industry are focused on declining traditional platforms like linear television and cable. That wealth of creative expression needs to be redeployed to digital networks, where creative people can connect more closely with massive audiences and where it is possible to directly serve more diverse audiences as well as for people to share media with those who matter in their lives. Social platforms are reaching more people and having a bigger impact, but they are still not taken seriously by the biggest media companies with the most resources to invest, and this is limiting our collective creative culture. — Jonah Peretti, Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed

Others are.

Will programmatic ad buyers be shamed into paying for quality?

“Honestly, the long tail is to advertising what subprime was to mortgages. No one knows what’s in it, but it helps people believe that there is a mysterious tonnage of impressions that are really low cost. But low-cost impressions would mean low-cost human attention. How can any publisher of quality content survive on low-cost impressions?” —Joe Marchese, President of advertising products for the Fox Networks Group

Will we embrace the idea that audience whims can change every day, every hour, every moment?

Will we reconsider the role and responsibilities of content recommendations engines on our pages? We trade our most valuable click real estate for dollars and maybe a bit of our souls.

Will we come up with good reasons (and good ideas)  to be on even more platforms?

Will we talk more about voice?

Will we take the time to be more thoughtful in our decision-making? Will we give ourselves the space and time to sit with data, to ask the right questions, to seek the right answers, to be creative, and to do right by those that read and watch what we make?

In 2017, I hope the industry stops chasing it’s tail or the holy grail of scale and pursues something more meaningful: earning trust, respect, and an emotional connection with the real people that make up the elusive “audience.”

I know it’s what I’m going to be advocating for at every opportunity come Tuesday.