May 3, 2022 • 24 mins
According to Mark Zagorski, the death of the cookie is so 2021. Instead, marketers have a new digital advertising challenge to obsess over – the value of attention as the metric du jour. We chat with the DoubleVerify CEO about the importance of captivating consumers at a moment when time is at a premium and data is ubiquitous, the rise of the “math people,” and fostering trust and transparency in Adland. He also fills us in on DoubleVerify’s recent acquisition of OpenSlate and the ambition to give marketers a better solution for measuring and targeting in the fragmented world of social video and connected TV.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of I Heart Radio. I
would say the battle cry is going to be pay attention. Hi,
I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company, where I'll explore
how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting, transforming our
lives and the way we do business at a breakneck speed.
(00:23):
I'll be joined by some of the greatest business minds
and strongest leaders who will share how they build companies
from the ground up or transform them from the inside out.
My bed is you'll pick up a lesson or two
along the way. It's all good. It's a great pleasure
today to welcome Mark sagor Sky, a good friend and
(00:44):
a partner. I'm happy to add Mark is the CEO
of double Verify, but more importantly a good friend and
as well a very seasoned executive with decades And it's
funny to say that because there's only about two decades
where I could use these words in the same sentence,
since a digital marketing and ad tech and I'm happy
(01:04):
to say in full disclosure to our listeners, Mark as
an as an investor in in double Verify, a happy
one and certainly pleased to welcome you to Good company,
So welcome. Awesome. Well, it's great to be here. And
and I don't know how if I appreciate very seasoned
as being stressed, is that a good thing or or
(01:25):
at this point in my life, I don't know. Well,
you know, when I introduced someone I've known for a bit,
I used to say old friend. Now I say long
time friends. So I'm you know, I'm getting I'm getting
more sensitive as well, trust me. Yeah, I mean, look,
it has been you say decades. I mean I've been
doing this digital stuff for twenty five years now, which
sounds insane. Was my first digital job Mark. I tell
(01:47):
a story occasionally about the first panel that I participated on,
not as a moderator but as a panelist, And I
was seated next to a young lady at the time
named Whenda Harris Millard and those of you who know
when they went on to become my partner at Media
Link for many, many years. But we were on a
(02:08):
panel together in the mid nineties and she was seated
next to me, and she had her name card, as
one does on a panel, and it said Whenda Harris
Millard double click, and I cupped my hand literally over
the microphone and said, excuse me, what's a double click?
And that was about six or nine seven, So there
(02:30):
you go. Well, interestingly enough, my first digital job was
in this at the agency that Double Clip Poppy merged
out of, Yeah Bozell Interactive, and they were all held
by the same holding group, right right, they were right upstairs.
Double Click was in some little office upstairs from us
at Poppy Tyson, and we were downstairs. We thought they
(02:50):
were the weird technical guys. And but Mark, that's an
interesting question to start with. You know, what we've seen
and what Media Link has participated in over the years
is kind of the morphing of the people with the
pocket protectors uh to to join forces with the people
with the pocket square as I used to say, because
the weird tech people are the people who actually ended up,
(03:13):
as somebody said, the mad men were replaced by the
math men. The math people kind of went to the
top of the class. No, it's an interesting it's an
interesting observation because I always wanted to be one of
like the cool entertainment creative guys, but I was really
just a dork. And that's why I got into digital
(03:33):
because it gave me the opportunity to like, Hey, this
is where entertainment and media and all these things are going,
and I actually have something to contribute here. See, And
I was on the other side, Mark, I was the
cool guy. I wanted to be the dork, you know
I was. We should have met up then, But Mark,
you know it's it's a great segue to kind of
(03:54):
what attracted you about double verify because you made the move.
Double Verify had been established quite some time before you joined,
but you you joined at a critical time and in
an interesting time as as you know, as you know
better than I you know, iron to say, the rest
is history. But double Verify is clearly one of those
stories of a tech startup that actually made it to
(04:16):
the other side in a very very meaningful way under
your tutelage. Yeah, I mean, look at DV was certainly unique.
In where I've been in my career, I've always, well,
at least the last few roles, I've been brought into
kind of fixed broken children. And this was the first
time that I was actually brought in to take something
that was an incredible success and helped make it even
(04:38):
a bigger success, which was really attractive to me, but
but probably more attractive than that was the fact that
it was right at the crux of the transformation of
what was going on and what continues to go on
with media measurement and the drive towards determining and driving outcomes.
Right as we see traditional media metrics fall apart, other
(05:02):
things like media quality, brand safety, attention, all those become
bigger and bigger play a bigger role of, you know,
what advertisers are looking for to help them figure out
what's working and what's not. And d V was kind
of right. It's right there, right at the at the
at the key point of helping make those decisions for advertisers.
(05:22):
So that was super attractive for me. You know, Mark,
I've subscribed for a long time to the definition of
luck as the intersection of preparation and opportunity. You've had
great success, whether it was to Laria or double Verify,
and you know in both cases. But you know, if
I look at it as a combined basis, you've created,
(05:44):
you know, somewhere north of six or seven billion dollars
in shareholder value in two different circumstances. What was it
that told you that was the right moment kind of
striking while the iron is hot in the double Verify case. Yeah,
I mean, look, it's it's I will start with what
you said, which is luck can never never downplay the
(06:05):
importance of luck and timing right. And maybe i'll I'll
work luck to timing right because there's a lot of
great businesses and a lot of great opportunities that were
out there just at the wrong time. Right. Um, this
came up at the right time as well. But I
think you know, all of those companies, whether it was Excellent,
which was my first exit to Nielsen for a couple
(06:27):
hundred million dollars, um forgot about that one, Laria to
Rubicon merger to this one, They've all kind of built
on each other. So it excellent. I really learned, you know,
how data was transforming things. And when I sold that
to Nielsen, well was that Nielsen For a couple of years.
I saw what was going on with TV and video
and that and CTD really and where the gaps were
(06:48):
not only just in measurement, but how it was being sold.
And that's when I saw the Tolaria opportunity. And so
it builds off what I found out Nielsen, And when
I was at Tlaria, I saw, you know, a lot
of the challenges not just around measurement, but around fraud
and viewability and all the things that we're happening in
the CTV world that had happened to banner ads ten
years before, Right, people were stealing money from banner ads.
(07:10):
Now they're stealing money from forty dollar CTV ads. People
weren't viewing banner ads, and the same thing we've see
now is CTV ads are not viewable because the sets
off right, So every one of those roles kind of
built on the previous one, something I learned from the
one before. So it really has been a sense of
incrementality over time. And luckily, you know, the value of
(07:34):
those business has incrementally grown too. It went from a
two million dollar exit to you know, a Rubic Contari
merger that was over a billion now worth a couple billion,
to the dv I p O, which is you know,
upwards of four and a half five billion dollars. So
they've all built on each other. Well, back to what
I said at the outset, my children and grandchildren thank
you for that. Trust me, um Mark. Years ago, I
(07:59):
was doing a handle in the industry and I said
that year to Rose Ryan, who was one of the
leaders back in the day of J. Walter Thompson, and
I said, okay, so as the fashionists would say this year,
brown is the new black or gray is the new black,
and I said, dad is the new black. And this
was years ago. If if I was right, then I
(08:21):
could double down on that now and say, there's no
conversation that we have in our industry that doesn't pivot
on words that begin with the letter t. Okay. And
let me just throw this out to you. It's not
a question in a traditional sense, but it's a statement.
And what I've said is the following words are the
(08:44):
pivots in our industry Trust, transparency, technology, talent, and transformation.
And it's just a luck of the draw that I'm
a I'm a word smith. Occasionally I was an English major,
and I focused on the fact that we don't have
a conversation at media link with anybody, any person in
(09:04):
the ecosystem where those five words are not front and center. Trust, transparency, technology, transformation,
and talent. You fall right in the center of that.
So I'm throwing it out for you to riff a
bit on those five words and how double verified plays
in that world. Yeah, Now, I mean, look that the
first two of those are the cornerstone of why we exist,
(09:29):
which is driving greater trust and transparency right in the
in the advertising ecosystem. You know. Our solution I always
use this analogy is how the digital world has changed
the way advertising his body and sold, not just programmatically,
but you know, think of the analogy I've used to
go to your corner store, right, you know, and you
hand the guy ten bucks when you bought something and
(09:50):
he knew you, and you knew them, and you knew
if the product wasn't good, right, you could return it,
and he knew your money was always good. Right. There
was this connection, There was tra its, parency and trust.
Now look at the way media is and that used
to be like TV too, you know the guy who
you bought TV from, you know, the guy about radio from. Right, Now,
look at the way digital media is bought the way
I used to be exactly, I used to be the buyer. Anyway,
(10:15):
go ahead, yeah, now now look you know in the
same way you know, you don't go to corner store anymore.
You go to a big box store. They have no
idea who you are. You have no idea who's on
the other side. They need a system of trust between
a buyer and seller. So who emerged credit card companies,
transaction protection companies, Right, there is a way to protect
that transaction. DV plays that same role in a digital
(10:36):
world where buyers and sellers have no idea who the
other is. They have no idea whether the quality of
the media is what they expected to be. Um, you're
no longer buying four television networks, You're buying four hundred
CTV channels or forty thousand websites or four million individuals
across the social media network. Right, So all of those
(10:58):
mean that any tools that can drive transparency and trust
are going to be essential and ensuring that there's an
ecosystem that's stable, right. You know, without those two things,
ecosystems fall apart. And we see this all the time
when when there's a lack of trust between a buyer
(11:19):
and a social network because reporting has been misaligned or
billing has been you know, there's been over build like
those things erod uh trust over time. So I think
where we fit in is really trying to ensure that
there's trust between buyers and sellers as great as transparency
in that transaction. We do so through technology, right and
(11:42):
you know to to to to nawl your final ties.
You know, we can't build the technology unless we have
incredibly talented people, which we pull from all over the place.
And part of this is is transformation. And look d
V as a company, I've been only been here for
a couple of years and I've been lucky enough to
be part of an organization that's been around for over
(12:03):
a decade that was you know, it's not an overnight transformation.
You know, you didn't get people to believe in fraud
or viewability as real metrics overnight. It takes time. So
I would say transformation has occurred. DD has been part
of that, but it has been a you know, it
has been a process. But back to the conversation of
you know mad people and math people. Um, you know
(12:27):
my joke taking the mad men, you know, analogy further.
You know, the media guy wore a bow tie and
was downstairs in the basement with an advocus figuring out
cost per points and Don Draper was out having three
martini lunches. Uh, you know, and and how did we
transfer that? But it's exactly what happened, and and you
(12:48):
know the center of the gravity, the gravitational pull went
to the center of where you live, and you did
get to be the cool guy or you know, the
cool kids. But that to my kids, Yeah, exactly, exactly, Mark,
could you chat a bit about the recent acquisition of
of of open slate and and talk about kind of
(13:12):
the why and you know, knowing the importance of contextual targeting,
love to understand from from an M and A perspective,
but really from a corporate development you know, kind of
why and what what was that acquisition you know focused
on Yeah, I mean open So it was really a
continuation of what we had already started building out, which
(13:36):
is the idea of not only measuring quality and brand
safety and suitability after someone buys an impression in blocking
it before it gets delivered, but keeping them from making
those bad decisions to begin with, right, And we do
that in the programmatic world, so via platforms like Google
and the Trade Desk and dozens of others, were able
(13:56):
to implement our metrics into those programmatic platforms and basically
keep people from bidding on bad impressions. What we didn't
have was a solution to keep them from buying bad
impressions on non programmatic media, so YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, other
social platforms, and basically that's what open Slate provided with us.
(14:17):
So it took that idea of pre bid filtering that
we do in programmatic and moved it into direct buying environments.
So it seamlessly fits with our narrative of connecting pre
and post, of single metrics across pre impost, but also
expanding and having a single metric across social, connected, television, video, programmatic,
(14:44):
you know, mobile, all different places where people buy. So
it fitted really nicely. There was zero redundancies of solutions.
It plays nicely with our clients set, and you know,
ultimately we've told this to investors. You know, we look
at companies like open Slate as point solutions. Right, they
(15:04):
do one thing, and they do one thing really well.
But at the end of the day, you work with
you know, hundreds of advertisers that media link, right, and
the last thing they want is fifty different providers of
fifty solutions. They want a single solution that can provide
them with quality metrics, targeting, and you know, filtering capabilities
(15:24):
that are consistent so they can use that everywhere they go, right.
They don't want one solution for Facebook and one solution
for YouTube and one solutions for programmatic. They want one
platform where they can put their metrics in measure and
target across all of them. So open Slate just gives
us another arrow in our quiver to go out to
the big brands and say, look, complete solution, pre and
(15:45):
post across all different platforms. It's so interesting, Mark, you
say that years ago I had Wendy Clarke now running DENSU,
but was when when she was the president of Sparkling
Beverages at Coca Cola. I had her come speak to
a media link off site and you know our model
in the emerging media space where we will go on
behalf of companies like double Verify and make the opportunity,
(16:09):
you know, a little more robust to get in the
right conversations. And Wendy would always be somebody who would
take those meetings when I would ask you to do it.
And she, in the context of that said to our team,
the industry is searching for end to end solutions. Point
solutions are interesting, but end to end solutions and what
we should all be striving for, and you just nailed it.
(16:32):
I mean that that gives a different gives a different
flavor because you're you're giving an end end solution to
people who are desperate for it. Now as the math people,
you know our front and center, well, it's you know,
it's it's a typical software evolution, you know, and that's
what we are. We're software. Right if you look at
whether it's CRM tools or marketing automation tools, it goes
(16:56):
from a series of point solutions to salesforce right. You know,
I want to control the customer relationship cycle from beginning
to end in one platform, and they want to do that,
you know, end to end in every market. And that's
the other thing too, is you know, you need to
be a global business. And DV continues to explain expand
(17:16):
around the world. Of our revenues outside of the America's today,
over of our investments last year in head count, um,
we're outside of the America's So you know, it is
end to end everywhere. And I think that's what advertisers
want and that's where we're headed well and doing a
great job of it. Mark, I want to switch gears
(17:36):
for a second. The death of the cookie. Lots of noise,
lots of talk, lots of impact. Every year there's a
new battle cry is there when you see for two
that you would if you if you were lion king,
what would what would the battle cry for you be? Uh,
it's it's a great it's a great question. Um. You know,
(17:59):
I think to be a bit self serving, but I
think it's it's valid. I would say the battle cry
is going to be pay attention and by that saying
that the world is moving beyond reach and frequency as
a measurement tool for driving outcomes, and attention is going
to become something that advertisers are going to look to
as as important as any other metric that they do
(18:21):
in measuring their dollars spent on any media and the
outcome that gets out of it. So I think this
is really going to be the year of attention. You're
gonna hear a lot more about it as a metric
because it's great if you reach a certain demographic, but
if they're not engaged in paying attention to your at
they're not going to go out and buy anything. So no,
I think I think I think that's great because you know,
(18:42):
time and attention are the two most valuable commodities when
you think about it, both from a Marketer's perspective, but
as well, just from a life perspective, there's a lot
of things. I'm okay if you waste, but my time
is not one of them. And and that's you know,
both finite, right, time is finite, And attention continues to
be sliced thinner and thinner and thinner as media fragmentation occurs. Right,
(19:07):
No one sits a further TV now without their phone
and their iPad sitting right next to them, right. So,
so I think that the ability to gauge what is
actually going on in that living room is going to
becoming bigger and bigger. Deal absolutely, And you know, you
know it's so funny because when you talked about you know,
the go back to the cool kids. You know, I've
(19:27):
I've said this to several network heads that you know,
people who had that proverbial green light in Hollywood that
you could say yes or no to that content being made,
that TV show, that movie. I said to a few
of them over the years. Now that you don't have
to rely so much on your gut, do you, because
(19:48):
you can rely on the data. You know, we we
we we know what what Mark Zagorski is going to like,
we know that we have the ability to be you know,
predictive in a way we never did. But when you're
a programmer, and I mean not a computer programmer, but
a content programmer, do you just go with what you feel?
Or and the I'm not asking you, but I've asked
(20:09):
this question. Do you just go with what you feel?
Or do you or does the data influence it? And
you know, the right answer has always been it's both.
I still go with my gut, but my gut is
influenced by the data. It's the same thing. I mean,
it's just it's fun to watch it happen. Yeah, no, absolutely,
I mean, look, data plays a role in everything. But
(20:31):
you know, whether it's advertising or content, there's you know,
the one unmeasurable factor in many ways is the creative
right and what will that inspire in a human being
and what does it make them want to do? So
there's always art involved in anything. And I would never
get to a point where I'd say, hey, the data
(20:52):
that we produce, well, you know, absolutely guarantee an outcome.
It will get you closer. But there you know, the
end of the day, it's what you're saying and whether
people believe it, and I think a lot of times
that's measurable afterwards, but it's driven by the gut, you
know beforehand. It's interesting you say that, and I've this
is an old standby for me that I can pull
(21:14):
out of the hat at a moment's notice. And I'm
about to do that. But years ago, we did an
AD Week panel conversation Advertising Week on the loss of
serendipity in marketing, and the point was, you know, we're
all struggling for the right device, the right time, the
right context, the right person, the right message. But we
(21:35):
also have to bear in mind we are in the
marketing business and sometimes it's serendipity. You know. Again, I
use this example all the time, but the auto manufacturer
always wanted to find somebody who was quote in market
for a car. But there are times when somebody isn't
in market, but the right message might put them in market,
and might put them in the frame of mind. So
I always say, you can't lose sight of what the
(21:58):
core of our businesses, which about storytelling and and serendipity
on occasion, getting somebody who wasn't thinking of vacation all
of a sudden season add and goes you know, what
I do want to go on a vacation, absolutely, absolutely,
And I think that is can't be underplayed in advertising
and can't be underplayed in content either. I mean, look
look at look at the success of Tiger King. Right,
(22:22):
It's something that I'm sure no one would have ever
gone through any market research or data driven exercise to
say that would be successful, right, And it was because
it was the time in the zeitgse that was going
on at that period. But you know, the follow ups
have been like it hasn't had the same experience. So
like sometimes you just catch lightning in a bottle and
(22:43):
it works. Sometimes you catch someone because they're just going
to buy something, so you can analyze to death, but
you're never, as you said, you're never gonna You're always
gonna leave something on the table if you know it's
But but look, you know, I think a great place
to kind of draw our conversation. And because Mark, I
could spend you know, five hours talking it's been you know,
(23:04):
five days talking to you, because I could learn so
much and our audience could. But I think you know
part of what the double Verify story is, and you
said it earlier, it's to kind of make sure, not
post what you've done, but in advance of what you've
done as a marketer to be making the right decisions
and to be you know, going in the right direction.
And you know, my my appreciation is for your time
(23:28):
and attention to spend the time on Good Company and
chat and light it up for our listeners. Now it's
been great, so listen. I appreciate it's been an awesome conversation,
so many great insights on on your side, Michael, so
appreciate the time you got it. Mark Zagorsky, I want
to thank you for joining Good Company, and uh I
(23:49):
look forward to uh, you know, seeing your round campus
as well as we get back more in person. Absolutely,
I'm Michael casting. Thanks for listening to Good Company. Good
Company is a production of I Heart Radio Special Thanks
to Lena Peterson, Chief Brand Officer and Managing Director Immediately
(24:10):
for her vision I'm Good Company, and to Jen Seelis,
Vice President Marketing Communications Immediately for programming amazing talent and
contentm
Good Company is a production of I Heart Radio. I
would say the battle cry is going to be pay attention. Hi,
I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company, where I'll explore
how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting, transforming our
lives and the way we do business at a breakneck speed.
(00:23):
I'll be joined by some of the greatest business minds
and strongest leaders who will share how they build companies
from the ground up or transform them from the inside out.
My bed is you'll pick up a lesson or two
along the way. It's all good. It's a great pleasure
today to welcome Mark sagor Sky, a good friend and
(00:44):
a partner. I'm happy to add Mark is the CEO
of double Verify, but more importantly a good friend and
as well a very seasoned executive with decades And it's
funny to say that because there's only about two decades
where I could use these words in the same sentence,
since a digital marketing and ad tech and I'm happy
(01:04):
to say in full disclosure to our listeners, Mark as
an as an investor in in double Verify, a happy
one and certainly pleased to welcome you to Good company,
So welcome. Awesome. Well, it's great to be here. And
and I don't know how if I appreciate very seasoned
as being stressed, is that a good thing or or
(01:25):
at this point in my life, I don't know. Well,
you know, when I introduced someone I've known for a bit,
I used to say old friend. Now I say long
time friends. So I'm you know, I'm getting I'm getting
more sensitive as well, trust me. Yeah, I mean, look,
it has been you say decades. I mean I've been
doing this digital stuff for twenty five years now, which
sounds insane. Was my first digital job Mark. I tell
(01:47):
a story occasionally about the first panel that I participated on,
not as a moderator but as a panelist, And I
was seated next to a young lady at the time
named Whenda Harris Millard and those of you who know
when they went on to become my partner at Media
Link for many, many years. But we were on a
(02:08):
panel together in the mid nineties and she was seated
next to me, and she had her name card, as
one does on a panel, and it said Whenda Harris
Millard double click, and I cupped my hand literally over
the microphone and said, excuse me, what's a double click?
And that was about six or nine seven, So there
(02:30):
you go. Well, interestingly enough, my first digital job was
in this at the agency that Double Clip Poppy merged
out of, Yeah Bozell Interactive, and they were all held
by the same holding group, right right, they were right upstairs.
Double Click was in some little office upstairs from us
at Poppy Tyson, and we were downstairs. We thought they
(02:50):
were the weird technical guys. And but Mark, that's an
interesting question to start with. You know, what we've seen
and what Media Link has participated in over the years
is kind of the morphing of the people with the
pocket protectors uh to to join forces with the people
with the pocket square as I used to say, because
the weird tech people are the people who actually ended up,
(03:13):
as somebody said, the mad men were replaced by the
math men. The math people kind of went to the
top of the class. No, it's an interesting it's an
interesting observation because I always wanted to be one of
like the cool entertainment creative guys, but I was really
just a dork. And that's why I got into digital
(03:33):
because it gave me the opportunity to like, Hey, this
is where entertainment and media and all these things are going,
and I actually have something to contribute here. See, And
I was on the other side, Mark, I was the
cool guy. I wanted to be the dork, you know
I was. We should have met up then, But Mark,
you know it's it's a great segue to kind of
(03:54):
what attracted you about double verify because you made the move.
Double Verify had been established quite some time before you joined,
but you you joined at a critical time and in
an interesting time as as you know, as you know
better than I you know, iron to say, the rest
is history. But double Verify is clearly one of those
stories of a tech startup that actually made it to
(04:16):
the other side in a very very meaningful way under
your tutelage. Yeah, I mean, look at DV was certainly unique.
In where I've been in my career, I've always, well,
at least the last few roles, I've been brought into
kind of fixed broken children. And this was the first
time that I was actually brought in to take something
that was an incredible success and helped make it even
(04:38):
a bigger success, which was really attractive to me, but
but probably more attractive than that was the fact that
it was right at the crux of the transformation of
what was going on and what continues to go on
with media measurement and the drive towards determining and driving outcomes.
Right as we see traditional media metrics fall apart, other
(05:02):
things like media quality, brand safety, attention, all those become
bigger and bigger play a bigger role of, you know,
what advertisers are looking for to help them figure out
what's working and what's not. And d V was kind
of right. It's right there, right at the at the
at the key point of helping make those decisions for advertisers.
(05:22):
So that was super attractive for me. You know, Mark,
I've subscribed for a long time to the definition of
luck as the intersection of preparation and opportunity. You've had
great success, whether it was to Laria or double Verify,
and you know in both cases. But you know, if
I look at it as a combined basis, you've created,
(05:44):
you know, somewhere north of six or seven billion dollars
in shareholder value in two different circumstances. What was it
that told you that was the right moment kind of
striking while the iron is hot in the double Verify case. Yeah,
I mean, look, it's it's I will start with what
you said, which is luck can never never downplay the
(06:05):
importance of luck and timing right. And maybe i'll I'll
work luck to timing right because there's a lot of
great businesses and a lot of great opportunities that were
out there just at the wrong time. Right. Um, this
came up at the right time as well. But I
think you know, all of those companies, whether it was Excellent,
which was my first exit to Nielsen for a couple
(06:27):
hundred million dollars, um forgot about that one, Laria to
Rubicon merger to this one, They've all kind of built
on each other. So it excellent. I really learned, you know,
how data was transforming things. And when I sold that
to Nielsen, well was that Nielsen For a couple of years.
I saw what was going on with TV and video
and that and CTD really and where the gaps were
(06:48):
not only just in measurement, but how it was being sold.
And that's when I saw the Tolaria opportunity. And so
it builds off what I found out Nielsen, And when
I was at Tlaria, I saw, you know, a lot
of the challenges not just around measurement, but around fraud
and viewability and all the things that we're happening in
the CTV world that had happened to banner ads ten
years before, Right, people were stealing money from banner ads.
(07:10):
Now they're stealing money from forty dollar CTV ads. People
weren't viewing banner ads, and the same thing we've see
now is CTV ads are not viewable because the sets
off right, So every one of those roles kind of
built on the previous one, something I learned from the
one before. So it really has been a sense of
incrementality over time. And luckily, you know, the value of
(07:34):
those business has incrementally grown too. It went from a
two million dollar exit to you know, a Rubic Contari
merger that was over a billion now worth a couple billion,
to the dv I p O, which is you know,
upwards of four and a half five billion dollars. So
they've all built on each other. Well, back to what
I said at the outset, my children and grandchildren thank
you for that. Trust me, um Mark. Years ago, I
(07:59):
was doing a handle in the industry and I said
that year to Rose Ryan, who was one of the
leaders back in the day of J. Walter Thompson, and
I said, okay, so as the fashionists would say this year,
brown is the new black or gray is the new black,
and I said, dad is the new black. And this
was years ago. If if I was right, then I
(08:21):
could double down on that now and say, there's no
conversation that we have in our industry that doesn't pivot
on words that begin with the letter t. Okay. And
let me just throw this out to you. It's not
a question in a traditional sense, but it's a statement.
And what I've said is the following words are the
(08:44):
pivots in our industry Trust, transparency, technology, talent, and transformation.
And it's just a luck of the draw that I'm
a I'm a word smith. Occasionally I was an English major,
and I focused on the fact that we don't have
a conversation at media link with anybody, any person in
(09:04):
the ecosystem where those five words are not front and center. Trust, transparency, technology, transformation,
and talent. You fall right in the center of that.
So I'm throwing it out for you to riff a
bit on those five words and how double verified plays
in that world. Yeah, Now, I mean, look that the
first two of those are the cornerstone of why we exist,
(09:29):
which is driving greater trust and transparency right in the
in the advertising ecosystem. You know. Our solution I always
use this analogy is how the digital world has changed
the way advertising his body and sold, not just programmatically,
but you know, think of the analogy I've used to
go to your corner store, right, you know, and you
hand the guy ten bucks when you bought something and
(09:50):
he knew you, and you knew them, and you knew
if the product wasn't good, right, you could return it,
and he knew your money was always good. Right. There
was this connection, There was tra its, parency and trust.
Now look at the way media is and that used
to be like TV too, you know the guy who
you bought TV from, you know, the guy about radio from. Right, Now,
look at the way digital media is bought the way
I used to be exactly, I used to be the buyer. Anyway,
(10:15):
go ahead, yeah, now now look you know in the
same way you know, you don't go to corner store anymore.
You go to a big box store. They have no
idea who you are. You have no idea who's on
the other side. They need a system of trust between
a buyer and seller. So who emerged credit card companies,
transaction protection companies, Right, there is a way to protect
that transaction. DV plays that same role in a digital
(10:36):
world where buyers and sellers have no idea who the
other is. They have no idea whether the quality of
the media is what they expected to be. Um, you're
no longer buying four television networks, You're buying four hundred
CTV channels or forty thousand websites or four million individuals
across the social media network. Right, So all of those
(10:58):
mean that any tools that can drive transparency and trust
are going to be essential and ensuring that there's an
ecosystem that's stable, right. You know, without those two things,
ecosystems fall apart. And we see this all the time
when when there's a lack of trust between a buyer
(11:19):
and a social network because reporting has been misaligned or
billing has been you know, there's been over build like
those things erod uh trust over time. So I think
where we fit in is really trying to ensure that
there's trust between buyers and sellers as great as transparency
in that transaction. We do so through technology, right and
(11:42):
you know to to to to nawl your final ties.
You know, we can't build the technology unless we have
incredibly talented people, which we pull from all over the place.
And part of this is is transformation. And look d
V as a company, I've been only been here for
a couple of years and I've been lucky enough to
be part of an organization that's been around for over
(12:03):
a decade that was you know, it's not an overnight transformation.
You know, you didn't get people to believe in fraud
or viewability as real metrics overnight. It takes time. So
I would say transformation has occurred. DD has been part
of that, but it has been a you know, it
has been a process. But back to the conversation of
you know mad people and math people. Um, you know
(12:27):
my joke taking the mad men, you know, analogy further.
You know, the media guy wore a bow tie and
was downstairs in the basement with an advocus figuring out
cost per points and Don Draper was out having three
martini lunches. Uh, you know, and and how did we
transfer that? But it's exactly what happened, and and you
(12:48):
know the center of the gravity, the gravitational pull went
to the center of where you live, and you did
get to be the cool guy or you know, the
cool kids. But that to my kids, Yeah, exactly, exactly, Mark,
could you chat a bit about the recent acquisition of
of of open slate and and talk about kind of
(13:12):
the why and you know, knowing the importance of contextual targeting,
love to understand from from an M and A perspective,
but really from a corporate development you know, kind of
why and what what was that acquisition you know focused
on Yeah, I mean open So it was really a
continuation of what we had already started building out, which
(13:36):
is the idea of not only measuring quality and brand
safety and suitability after someone buys an impression in blocking
it before it gets delivered, but keeping them from making
those bad decisions to begin with, right, And we do
that in the programmatic world, so via platforms like Google
and the Trade Desk and dozens of others, were able
(13:56):
to implement our metrics into those programmatic platforms and basically
keep people from bidding on bad impressions. What we didn't
have was a solution to keep them from buying bad
impressions on non programmatic media, so YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, other
social platforms, and basically that's what open Slate provided with us.
(14:17):
So it took that idea of pre bid filtering that
we do in programmatic and moved it into direct buying environments.
So it seamlessly fits with our narrative of connecting pre
and post, of single metrics across pre impost, but also
expanding and having a single metric across social, connected, television, video, programmatic,
(14:44):
you know, mobile, all different places where people buy. So
it fitted really nicely. There was zero redundancies of solutions.
It plays nicely with our clients set, and you know,
ultimately we've told this to investors. You know, we look
at companies like open Slate as point solutions. Right, they
(15:04):
do one thing, and they do one thing really well.
But at the end of the day, you work with
you know, hundreds of advertisers that media link, right, and
the last thing they want is fifty different providers of
fifty solutions. They want a single solution that can provide
them with quality metrics, targeting, and you know, filtering capabilities
(15:24):
that are consistent so they can use that everywhere they go, right.
They don't want one solution for Facebook and one solution
for YouTube and one solutions for programmatic. They want one
platform where they can put their metrics in measure and
target across all of them. So open Slate just gives
us another arrow in our quiver to go out to
the big brands and say, look, complete solution, pre and
(15:45):
post across all different platforms. It's so interesting, Mark, you
say that years ago I had Wendy Clarke now running DENSU,
but was when when she was the president of Sparkling
Beverages at Coca Cola. I had her come speak to
a media link off site and you know our model
in the emerging media space where we will go on
behalf of companies like double Verify and make the opportunity,
(16:09):
you know, a little more robust to get in the
right conversations. And Wendy would always be somebody who would
take those meetings when I would ask you to do it.
And she, in the context of that said to our team,
the industry is searching for end to end solutions. Point
solutions are interesting, but end to end solutions and what
we should all be striving for, and you just nailed it.
(16:32):
I mean that that gives a different gives a different
flavor because you're you're giving an end end solution to
people who are desperate for it. Now as the math people,
you know our front and center, well, it's you know,
it's it's a typical software evolution, you know, and that's
what we are. We're software. Right if you look at
whether it's CRM tools or marketing automation tools, it goes
(16:56):
from a series of point solutions to salesforce right. You know,
I want to control the customer relationship cycle from beginning
to end in one platform, and they want to do that,
you know, end to end in every market. And that's
the other thing too, is you know, you need to
be a global business. And DV continues to explain expand
(17:16):
around the world. Of our revenues outside of the America's today,
over of our investments last year in head count, um,
we're outside of the America's So you know, it is
end to end everywhere. And I think that's what advertisers
want and that's where we're headed well and doing a
great job of it. Mark, I want to switch gears
(17:36):
for a second. The death of the cookie. Lots of noise,
lots of talk, lots of impact. Every year there's a
new battle cry is there when you see for two
that you would if you if you were lion king,
what would what would the battle cry for you be? Uh,
it's it's a great it's a great question. Um. You know,
(17:59):
I think to be a bit self serving, but I
think it's it's valid. I would say the battle cry
is going to be pay attention and by that saying
that the world is moving beyond reach and frequency as
a measurement tool for driving outcomes, and attention is going
to become something that advertisers are going to look to
as as important as any other metric that they do
(18:21):
in measuring their dollars spent on any media and the
outcome that gets out of it. So I think this
is really going to be the year of attention. You're
gonna hear a lot more about it as a metric
because it's great if you reach a certain demographic, but
if they're not engaged in paying attention to your at
they're not going to go out and buy anything. So no,
I think I think I think that's great because you know,
(18:42):
time and attention are the two most valuable commodities when
you think about it, both from a Marketer's perspective, but
as well, just from a life perspective, there's a lot
of things. I'm okay if you waste, but my time
is not one of them. And and that's you know,
both finite, right, time is finite, And attention continues to
be sliced thinner and thinner and thinner as media fragmentation occurs. Right,
(19:07):
No one sits a further TV now without their phone
and their iPad sitting right next to them, right. So,
so I think that the ability to gauge what is
actually going on in that living room is going to
becoming bigger and bigger. Deal absolutely, And you know, you
know it's so funny because when you talked about you know,
the go back to the cool kids. You know, I've
(19:27):
I've said this to several network heads that you know,
people who had that proverbial green light in Hollywood that
you could say yes or no to that content being made,
that TV show, that movie. I said to a few
of them over the years. Now that you don't have
to rely so much on your gut, do you, because
(19:48):
you can rely on the data. You know, we we
we we know what what Mark Zagorski is going to like,
we know that we have the ability to be you know,
predictive in a way we never did. But when you're
a programmer, and I mean not a computer programmer, but
a content programmer, do you just go with what you feel?
Or and the I'm not asking you, but I've asked
(20:09):
this question. Do you just go with what you feel?
Or do you or does the data influence it? And
you know, the right answer has always been it's both.
I still go with my gut, but my gut is
influenced by the data. It's the same thing. I mean,
it's just it's fun to watch it happen. Yeah, no, absolutely,
I mean, look, data plays a role in everything. But
(20:31):
you know, whether it's advertising or content, there's you know,
the one unmeasurable factor in many ways is the creative
right and what will that inspire in a human being
and what does it make them want to do? So
there's always art involved in anything. And I would never
get to a point where I'd say, hey, the data
(20:52):
that we produce, well, you know, absolutely guarantee an outcome.
It will get you closer. But there you know, the
end of the day, it's what you're saying and whether
people believe it, and I think a lot of times
that's measurable afterwards, but it's driven by the gut, you
know beforehand. It's interesting you say that, and I've this
is an old standby for me that I can pull
(21:14):
out of the hat at a moment's notice. And I'm
about to do that. But years ago, we did an
AD Week panel conversation Advertising Week on the loss of
serendipity in marketing, and the point was, you know, we're
all struggling for the right device, the right time, the
right context, the right person, the right message. But we
(21:35):
also have to bear in mind we are in the
marketing business and sometimes it's serendipity. You know. Again, I
use this example all the time, but the auto manufacturer
always wanted to find somebody who was quote in market
for a car. But there are times when somebody isn't
in market, but the right message might put them in market,
and might put them in the frame of mind. So
I always say, you can't lose sight of what the
(21:58):
core of our businesses, which about storytelling and and serendipity
on occasion, getting somebody who wasn't thinking of vacation all
of a sudden season add and goes you know, what
I do want to go on a vacation, absolutely, absolutely,
And I think that is can't be underplayed in advertising
and can't be underplayed in content either. I mean, look
look at look at the success of Tiger King. Right,
(22:22):
It's something that I'm sure no one would have ever
gone through any market research or data driven exercise to
say that would be successful, right, And it was because
it was the time in the zeitgse that was going
on at that period. But you know, the follow ups
have been like it hasn't had the same experience. So
like sometimes you just catch lightning in a bottle and
(22:43):
it works. Sometimes you catch someone because they're just going
to buy something, so you can analyze to death, but
you're never, as you said, you're never gonna You're always
gonna leave something on the table if you know it's
But but look, you know, I think a great place
to kind of draw our conversation. And because Mark, I
could spend you know, five hours talking it's been you know,
(23:04):
five days talking to you, because I could learn so
much and our audience could. But I think you know
part of what the double Verify story is, and you
said it earlier, it's to kind of make sure, not
post what you've done, but in advance of what you've
done as a marketer to be making the right decisions
and to be you know, going in the right direction.
And you know, my my appreciation is for your time
(23:28):
and attention to spend the time on Good Company and
chat and light it up for our listeners. Now it's
been great, so listen. I appreciate it's been an awesome conversation,
so many great insights on on your side, Michael, so
appreciate the time you got it. Mark Zagorsky, I want
to thank you for joining Good Company, and uh I
(23:49):
look forward to uh, you know, seeing your round campus
as well as we get back more in person. Absolutely,
I'm Michael casting. Thanks for listening to Good Company. Good
Company is a production of I Heart Radio Special Thanks
to Lena Peterson, Chief Brand Officer and Managing Director Immediately
(24:10):
for her vision I'm Good Company, and to Jen Seelis,
Vice President Marketing Communications Immediately for programming amazing talent and
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