James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Sasha Savic, Chief Executive Officer, MediaCom USA & Laura Molen, President, Advertising Sales & Partnerships, NBCUniversal.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James Kotechi. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from CS. Hello,
I am James Kotechi. You're here with me in the
C Space Studio at CS and here with me today
are Sasha Savik, the CEO of Media Com USA, and
(00:24):
coming back to the studio for her second interview of
the week, Laura Mullin, President about sales and Partnerships NBC Universal.
Thank you both so much for being here. Thanks, thank
you for thank you. So we're here to talk about
the New Majority Ready movement. But first, Sasha, can you
just contextualize what Media Com is and what how you
define that brand. Media Comb is a global media and
communication agency UM part of Group M which is part
(00:49):
of w PP. We operate in northern hundred countries around
the world, work with some of the biggest brands around
the world. UH and in US, US is one of
our key markets, key geographies. I'm c CEO of Medicome
Here I joined Company nine Musicgo. So what is New
(01:13):
Majority Ready and how did that get started? Well, New
Majority already started actually, UH ideas started maybe eighteen months ago.
I was in I was in Russia actually in a
World Cup soccer with some of some of your colleagues.
(01:34):
We kind of had had a conversation about what is
the current status of of advertising in media investment for
the diverse audiences, Uh, how much we all our clients
are planning to invest to Hispanics, African American station and
(01:55):
audience and and and all the rest of it. And
we kind of joined the concluded that there is a
huge discrepancy between importance of this segment of population and
investment that goes towards this segment. And you know, numbers
are staggering because if you look for percentages of people
(02:19):
that are younger than eighteen, ah, this audience is already
majority in the country, in the state in the United States.
I think if you look across all of population we're
talking about is kind of diverse audiences. So non white
(02:40):
Caucasian audience. If you look investment specific investment for advertising
and marketing that goes towards this audience is much much less.
It's kind of depends agency by agency and client by client,
but it's something like from zero to five and next.
(03:02):
So we said, like, you know, we need to do
something about it because This is really not just about
getting ratios right, but this is about marketers and marketing
needs to express purpose of their brands that needs to
work for all people living in the country. And you know, so,
(03:25):
so this is one of these UH efforts and initiatives
that starts for the right reasons. But you know, also,
if we look purchasing power this segment, we're talking about
thrillions of dollars and every brand and every company right now,
we're kind of living in the marketing that has speed
(03:47):
of now. So in this environment, it's very important to
be very smart about new sources of growth follow them.
And I thought that that finding in this segment of
population was a smart and UH and a good short
term and long term to do it. So that's kind
(04:08):
of reasons why we started Movement. Yes, and we're very
like minded because that NBC Universal, we are uniquely positioned
to reach nearly every Hispanic in the US, and that
is because we have both Spanish language networks and English
language properties. Telemundo is Telemundo and UM Universe so as
(04:31):
well as so many of our platforms. And what we
see is that research shows that half of US Hispanics
do not watch English language television. So you cannot reach
the full scope of US hispanic if you don't have
a Spanish language television network. And so what we've been
(04:52):
doing is working together with marketers to really show the
value because there are so many myths, one being that
you can reach all US Hispanics in only English language TV,
but another one being that they don't have spending power.
And Asasha mentioned, they have tremendous spending power. And we
took it a step further using Comcast set top box
data along with credit card and loyalty data to show
(05:16):
how US Spanish watching Spanish language TV as well as
English language TV are spending more than the average consumer.
They have bigger families, they're very loyal. There are certain
categories that they excel in, whether it's auto UM, a
lot of different packaged goods, beauty, healthcare UM and you know,
(05:38):
I tell CO I can go on and they're just
a valuable consumer. And so having an opportunity to work
with Group M and the New Majority with other like
minded companies UM because we are part of a coalition
of many media companies as along with Group M, to
go to clients and speak to them about the opportunity
(05:58):
the business case that can grow their business by reaching
this audience, speaking to them in culture, in language, and
um changing their economics for growth. Yeah, I think what
what is a great thing about New Majority early effort
is that we created alliance of most important and biggest
(06:22):
media companies in US and and and we had a
very clear set of rules of engagements. Uh and kind
of we clearly define what what is the purpose? And
you know, interesting thing here and we're here ces. I
mean we talked about the live technology and innovation every
(06:44):
year in the second week of January. What we know
that message that is relevant and personalized delivers up to
thirty better conversion than message that is broad and you know,
last to its three years. Market to spend lots of time, effort,
money invested in piping and technology and all of this
(07:06):
to be able to do that. However, that did not
translate into personalization towards Hispanic, African, American, Asian and all
the rest of it. So one of the one of
the connections we cs is actually how do we use
personal data of this population to give the message that
resonates personally with that and it's a huge opportunity business
(07:30):
opportunity for growth. It seems like the business case for
doing this is crystal clear, but what's also clear is
that it hasn't happened yet. Is that partially due to
maybe a lack of diversity or understanding on who marketers
and advertisers generally are and so is there a culture
change that needs to happen is happening, But having worked
in this space for about a decade, what we've seen
(07:51):
is that companies, as they're looking to save money, you know,
they came out of a recession looking to save money,
marketing off and gets hit and so the centers of
excellence that were representing these markets got pulled out of
the companies and the agency's group M has managed to
keep the center of excellence within their company UM led
(08:11):
by Gonzalo del Fa, and they really are able to
then give the clients the insights and the research to
show them the business case. And so what we're doing
together as a group is going to clients with research
and giving them a source that they don't have in
their companies and help really break through the red tape
and make some smart decisions around it. And it doesn't
(08:34):
look like it's coming from me as a salesperson from
NBCU because there's other companies involved, like Disney, like Univision, um,
you know, there's Google, I Heart Radio, like, There's so
many in there, and so collectively they know that this
is not a sales pist. This is actually a business opportunity.
And you you know, you mentioned be in this world
(08:55):
where we addressable TV, which universal we do allows us
to speak to each consumer individually, and so we can
help marketers with creative with data, with insights, with technology,
and that's what the new Majority is doing. And so
it's so much easier to do when you have a
collective voice, because otherwise the clients have so many voices
(09:16):
coming at them. And so we appreciate the group have
mistaken the lead on this and given us one collective
voice in the industry. Are there certain technologies, uh, Sasha,
that you think are empowering marketers to do this better
in our technologies or technologies in some ways holding them back. Well,
that's a very good question. Actually, I was leading some
(09:37):
discussion yesterday morning when we opened group M and W
P paris here and and my kind of opening statement
was that we all kind of come here to get
inspired by innovations and new technologies and all of this,
But it's a little bit like what happens at CES
(09:58):
in Las Vegas, states in Las Vegas. You know, I
think generally speaking, consumers people UH showed ability to adopt
new technologies and adopt new technologies much quicker than marketers.
So I think the biggest, biggest challenge for all of
us is like too quickly distill what's new, what's going
(10:22):
to really change the way we communicate with the people,
and to apply that now when it comes to what's
going to change and influence our ability to communicate with
the audiences. I think in any medium you have tremendous
shifts UH because of technology. So if you think about
radio and voice, it's about podcast. If you think about TV,
(10:44):
it's actually TV and video and addressable and and all
what's happening day. If you think about online marketing, whatever
that means, it's infinite number of ways that that you
can use it. But I think common denominator is that
we're moving in a marketing where we need to know
(11:07):
precisely who we're talking to and what's the result in
real time. So all technologies that are that are kind
of connected to that are dramatically changing the way we
we execute campaigns, build brands, communicate with people. And how
are you seeing that? On your stone? We are really
seeing that. I mean, we have to continue to push
(11:28):
to break legacy. So much of our business was transacted
and done in a decades and decades ago, and like said,
the consumer has run so much further ahead of us,
and we need to catch up, and we need to
help marketers catch up by investing in technology we are.
We announced today one platform where a marketer could really
(11:48):
reach us hispanics fully across our entire platform of products
at NBC Universal, which has not been done before. One measurement,
one plan UM one delivery since UM and do we
can do it in an addressable way? One on one
we can create content with marketers that speak to the audience.
So having again like minded UM partners in Group M
(12:13):
with the new majority helps us to be able to
listen to marketers what they really need and build add
products to solve the problems that they're looking for. Well, clearly,
tenanus is not enough time to have this conversation, and
another conversation will continue to go on as we close
out one question of both of you it's time to
stop blank and start blank. Sasha, you go first, Well,
(12:36):
I think I'll start with what we need to start.
I think we need to in the media and marketing,
we need to go back to what this country was
always about. And this country was always about place that
has respect for every person and every segment of population
and celebrates diversity. Uh. So that's that's what we need
(13:00):
to start to do. And I think I think New
Majority already what we need to stop. I think we
know we need to stop blaming someone else, blaming politicians,
blaming industry, blaming stock markets and pressures for growth. Let's
stop doing that and let's take personal efforts to change
(13:21):
things for better. And Lauren, did I ask you this
question yesterday? But I think we need to stop doing
things the old way, looking in the rear view mirror,
really break legacy and start putting the consumer first, because
they already are moving ahead to the way that they
want to consume media. And when you speak to them
in authentic voices and go to the places that they are,
(13:43):
you're it's ap proves that sales was also there for
the marketers. So Sasha Savik Media Com Laura Mullin NBC Universal,
both partnering together for the new Majority Ready movement. Thank
you so much, Thank you for both of you for
being here in the C Space studio. This podcast isn't
partnership with the iHeart Podcast Networks M
Hi, I'm James Kotechi. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from CS. Hello,
I am James Kotechi. You're here with me in the
C Space Studio at CS and here with me today
are Sasha Savik, the CEO of Media Com USA, and
(00:24):
coming back to the studio for her second interview of
the week, Laura Mullin, President about sales and Partnerships NBC Universal.
Thank you both so much for being here. Thanks, thank
you for thank you. So we're here to talk about
the New Majority Ready movement. But first, Sasha, can you
just contextualize what Media Com is and what how you
define that brand. Media Comb is a global media and
communication agency UM part of Group M which is part
(00:49):
of w PP. We operate in northern hundred countries around
the world, work with some of the biggest brands around
the world. UH and in US, US is one of
our key markets, key geographies. I'm c CEO of Medicome
Here I joined Company nine Musicgo. So what is New
(01:13):
Majority Ready and how did that get started? Well, New
Majority already started actually, UH ideas started maybe eighteen months ago.
I was in I was in Russia actually in a
World Cup soccer with some of some of your colleagues.
(01:34):
We kind of had had a conversation about what is
the current status of of advertising in media investment for
the diverse audiences, Uh, how much we all our clients
are planning to invest to Hispanics, African American station and
(01:55):
audience and and and all the rest of it. And
we kind of joined the concluded that there is a
huge discrepancy between importance of this segment of population and
investment that goes towards this segment. And you know, numbers
are staggering because if you look for percentages of people
(02:19):
that are younger than eighteen, ah, this audience is already
majority in the country, in the state in the United States.
I think if you look across all of population we're
talking about is kind of diverse audiences. So non white
(02:40):
Caucasian audience. If you look investment specific investment for advertising
and marketing that goes towards this audience is much much less.
It's kind of depends agency by agency and client by client,
but it's something like from zero to five and next.
(03:02):
So we said, like, you know, we need to do
something about it because This is really not just about
getting ratios right, but this is about marketers and marketing
needs to express purpose of their brands that needs to
work for all people living in the country. And you know, so,
(03:25):
so this is one of these UH efforts and initiatives
that starts for the right reasons. But you know, also,
if we look purchasing power this segment, we're talking about
thrillions of dollars and every brand and every company right now,
we're kind of living in the marketing that has speed
(03:47):
of now. So in this environment, it's very important to
be very smart about new sources of growth follow them.
And I thought that that finding in this segment of
population was a smart and UH and a good short
term and long term to do it. So that's kind
(04:08):
of reasons why we started Movement. Yes, and we're very
like minded because that NBC Universal, we are uniquely positioned
to reach nearly every Hispanic in the US, and that
is because we have both Spanish language networks and English
language properties. Telemundo is Telemundo and UM Universe so as
(04:31):
well as so many of our platforms. And what we
see is that research shows that half of US Hispanics
do not watch English language television. So you cannot reach
the full scope of US hispanic if you don't have
a Spanish language television network. And so what we've been
(04:52):
doing is working together with marketers to really show the
value because there are so many myths, one being that
you can reach all US Hispanics in only English language TV,
but another one being that they don't have spending power.
And Asasha mentioned, they have tremendous spending power. And we
took it a step further using Comcast set top box
data along with credit card and loyalty data to show
(05:16):
how US Spanish watching Spanish language TV as well as
English language TV are spending more than the average consumer.
They have bigger families, they're very loyal. There are certain
categories that they excel in, whether it's auto UM, a
lot of different packaged goods, beauty, healthcare UM and you know,
(05:38):
I tell CO I can go on and they're just
a valuable consumer. And so having an opportunity to work
with Group M and the New Majority with other like
minded companies UM because we are part of a coalition
of many media companies as along with Group M, to
go to clients and speak to them about the opportunity
(05:58):
the business case that can grow their business by reaching
this audience, speaking to them in culture, in language, and
um changing their economics for growth. Yeah, I think what
what is a great thing about New Majority early effort
is that we created alliance of most important and biggest
(06:22):
media companies in US and and and we had a
very clear set of rules of engagements. Uh and kind
of we clearly define what what is the purpose? And
you know, interesting thing here and we're here ces. I
mean we talked about the live technology and innovation every
(06:44):
year in the second week of January. What we know
that message that is relevant and personalized delivers up to
thirty better conversion than message that is broad and you know,
last to its three years. Market to spend lots of time, effort,
money invested in piping and technology and all of this
(07:06):
to be able to do that. However, that did not
translate into personalization towards Hispanic, African, American, Asian and all
the rest of it. So one of the one of
the connections we cs is actually how do we use
personal data of this population to give the message that
resonates personally with that and it's a huge opportunity business
(07:30):
opportunity for growth. It seems like the business case for
doing this is crystal clear, but what's also clear is
that it hasn't happened yet. Is that partially due to
maybe a lack of diversity or understanding on who marketers
and advertisers generally are and so is there a culture
change that needs to happen is happening, But having worked
in this space for about a decade, what we've seen
(07:51):
is that companies, as they're looking to save money, you know,
they came out of a recession looking to save money,
marketing off and gets hit and so the centers of
excellence that were representing these markets got pulled out of
the companies and the agency's group M has managed to
keep the center of excellence within their company UM led
(08:11):
by Gonzalo del Fa, and they really are able to
then give the clients the insights and the research to
show them the business case. And so what we're doing
together as a group is going to clients with research
and giving them a source that they don't have in
their companies and help really break through the red tape
and make some smart decisions around it. And it doesn't
(08:34):
look like it's coming from me as a salesperson from
NBCU because there's other companies involved, like Disney, like Univision, um,
you know, there's Google, I Heart Radio, like, There's so
many in there, and so collectively they know that this
is not a sales pist. This is actually a business opportunity.
And you you know, you mentioned be in this world
(08:55):
where we addressable TV, which universal we do allows us
to speak to each consumer individually, and so we can
help marketers with creative with data, with insights, with technology,
and that's what the new Majority is doing. And so
it's so much easier to do when you have a
collective voice, because otherwise the clients have so many voices
(09:16):
coming at them. And so we appreciate the group have
mistaken the lead on this and given us one collective
voice in the industry. Are there certain technologies, uh, Sasha,
that you think are empowering marketers to do this better
in our technologies or technologies in some ways holding them back. Well,
that's a very good question. Actually, I was leading some
(09:37):
discussion yesterday morning when we opened group M and W
P paris here and and my kind of opening statement
was that we all kind of come here to get
inspired by innovations and new technologies and all of this,
But it's a little bit like what happens at CES
(09:58):
in Las Vegas, states in Las Vegas. You know, I
think generally speaking, consumers people UH showed ability to adopt
new technologies and adopt new technologies much quicker than marketers.
So I think the biggest, biggest challenge for all of
us is like too quickly distill what's new, what's going
(10:22):
to really change the way we communicate with the people,
and to apply that now when it comes to what's
going to change and influence our ability to communicate with
the audiences. I think in any medium you have tremendous
shifts UH because of technology. So if you think about
radio and voice, it's about podcast. If you think about TV,
(10:44):
it's actually TV and video and addressable and and all
what's happening day. If you think about online marketing, whatever
that means, it's infinite number of ways that that you
can use it. But I think common denominator is that
we're moving in a marketing where we need to know
(11:07):
precisely who we're talking to and what's the result in
real time. So all technologies that are that are kind
of connected to that are dramatically changing the way we
we execute campaigns, build brands, communicate with people. And how
are you seeing that? On your stone? We are really
seeing that. I mean, we have to continue to push
(11:28):
to break legacy. So much of our business was transacted
and done in a decades and decades ago, and like said,
the consumer has run so much further ahead of us,
and we need to catch up, and we need to
help marketers catch up by investing in technology we are.
We announced today one platform where a marketer could really
(11:48):
reach us hispanics fully across our entire platform of products
at NBC Universal, which has not been done before. One measurement,
one plan UM one delivery since UM and do we
can do it in an addressable way? One on one
we can create content with marketers that speak to the audience.
So having again like minded UM partners in Group M
(12:13):
with the new majority helps us to be able to
listen to marketers what they really need and build add
products to solve the problems that they're looking for. Well, clearly,
tenanus is not enough time to have this conversation, and
another conversation will continue to go on as we close
out one question of both of you it's time to
stop blank and start blank. Sasha, you go first, Well,
(12:36):
I think I'll start with what we need to start.
I think we need to in the media and marketing,
we need to go back to what this country was
always about. And this country was always about place that
has respect for every person and every segment of population
and celebrates diversity. Uh. So that's that's what we need
(13:00):
to start to do. And I think I think New
Majority already what we need to stop. I think we
know we need to stop blaming someone else, blaming politicians,
blaming industry, blaming stock markets and pressures for growth. Let's
stop doing that and let's take personal efforts to change
(13:21):
things for better. And Lauren, did I ask you this
question yesterday? But I think we need to stop doing
things the old way, looking in the rear view mirror,
really break legacy and start putting the consumer first, because
they already are moving ahead to the way that they
want to consume media. And when you speak to them
in authentic voices and go to the places that they are,
(13:43):
you're it's ap proves that sales was also there for
the marketers. So Sasha Savik Media Com Laura Mullin NBC Universal,
both partnering together for the new Majority Ready movement. Thank
you so much, Thank you for both of you for
being here in the C Space studio. This podcast isn't
partnership with the iHeart Podcast Networks M
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