December 12, 2019 • 42 mins
To kick off Season 2, Bob sits down with CEO and Founder of Horizon Media Bill Koenigsberg and discovers how Bill pulled off the ultimate trick: convincing his bosses to sell him the company that would become Horizon... and loaning him the money to do it! Plus, learn why Bill only hires smart people who "make him uncomfortable," how investing in a stunning office has changed Horizon's culture, and why not getting a company car was the best thing to happen to his career.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic Production I Heart Radio.
We were in enormous early out of the gate financial difficulty.
The company who I promised I was going to get
their money back to they were now concerned that they
weren't going to get their money back. So they called
me down with an ultimatum, Bill, if you don't eliminate
(00:23):
tons of jobs, we're gonna have to call in the
loan and close you down. And I took a pair
of keys out of my pocket and I said, well,
here are the keys to the company. Because you asked
me to cut my staff and half. We're the close
the company down anyway, So what do you want to do.
I didn't know whether they were gonna accept my bluff.
They handed me the keys back and they said, Bill,
(00:44):
will give you another year. Then I slowly started to
turn the company around. Welcome. I'm Bob Pittman, and this
is Math and Magics Worries from the Frontiers and Marketing,
where we dig into those two pillars of successful marketing
(01:05):
that are at the cornerstone of all great business successes.
We explored this essential combination from many angles. On this episode.
We're looking at building and evolving and never getting left behind.
Our guest is Bill Koenigsberg, the founder and CEO of
Horizon Media. Bill was a budding tennis star who got
(01:37):
sidelined by an injury and moved into advertising at an
early age and quite successfully. By his mid thirties, he
had founded Horizon Media, which grew to be the largest
independent agency in the US and an agency that leads,
not follows, the new trends, ideas and opportunities. Horizon did
not get successful by being like everyone else. Bill is
(01:58):
known for his drive to succeed for his clients and
his interest in making Horizon a remarkably attractive place to work.
He's wildly generous too, always helping others and embracing important causes.
He's had many honors, including induction into both the Advertising
Hall of Fame and the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame,
and the Best Story. Taylor Swift debuted her nine nine
(02:20):
album in a small performance on top of this building
with the Empire State Buildings lights synchronized her music in
the background. That's typical Bill, Bill. Welcome, Thank you, Bob,
it's a pleasure to be here. We're gonna jump into
you and sixty seconds Okay, here we go. Do you
prefer New York City or Miami, New York City, mc
and roll or Federal mac and row, Instagram or Twitter, Instagram,
(02:43):
call or text? Call, chocolate or Vanilla, Big Chocolate Guy,
Network or cable Cable? Cats or dogs. That's a toss up.
We have both radio or TV. Oh come on, think
about where you are right now. Got to be radio,
of course, of course, right answered, Ding, ding Ding, It's
about to get harder. Smartest person you know, Bob Pittman'
(03:05):
right childhood hero, Clark Kent, first job teaching tennis. Favorite
TV show, Friends, favorite TV show as a kid, The Monkeys,
all time favorite TV commercial. I love the mean Joe
Green commercial and obviously all the Geico commercials. Last Vacation, Barbados,
Secret talent, opera singer, historical idol Einstein, first concert, Grateful Dead,
(03:31):
greatest tennis player of all time? Rod Labor. Favorite food?
I'm a big pizza guy. What's something we might be
surprised to learn about you? Complete fear of failure? What's
something you can't live without? My friends? If you could
have one superpower, what would it be? Reading minds? I'm
reading yours right now Let's start with you pre Taylor Swift,
(03:55):
pre pit ball, and even pre Miami and Horizon. Let's
go all the way back to you as a kid
born the day before Christmas nineteen fifty five. You grew
up in Long Beach, Long Island, right outside of New
York City. Can you paint the picture of those times
in the world you grew up in? Born in New
York City, moved out to Long Island when I was
really young, probably three years old. I loved living in
(04:16):
the suburbs, lived by the beach and a beautiful suburb,
beautiful environment but also a rainbow environment. Long Beach was
a very diverse city. Understanding how to get along with
different walks of life and different people, I think carried
through with men is something that helped shape met today.
But early on I was a TV junkie, loved watching television,
(04:37):
loved watching commercials. And I was very fortunate because early
on in my life I kind of knew I wanted
to get involved in advertising. And very few people know
their passion early in life, and some people, by the way,
never find their passion. So for me finding it early
in life was pretty cool, And obviously that's been part
of my journey for the last forty years, where you
(04:57):
one of the first families to get a color TV
or one of the last one. We were probably one
of the last. My dad rarely ever repaired anything. The
shag rugs from the sixties are still in my mom's
living room, so now collector's items. By the way, we
were late adopters in terms of all new technology. I
think they just recently got rid of the rotary phones.
(05:18):
It still work, they do. Your dad ran a business.
Do you think that had an influence on you as
a business owner? So my dad had his own business.
He was in the home heating oil business. I think
it did have an influence on me because he always
told me that you had a lot less security when
you were working for somebody else, being in control of
(05:39):
your own destiny, good or bad. At least you were
in control of your own destiny. So I think that
shaped me a little bit from an entrepreneurial perspective. Do
you ever go to work with him? Early on his
facilities were up in the Bronx. He delivered home heating
to a lot of buildings in the city. My job
whenever I went to work with him when I was
nine or ten or eleven years old was to these
(06:00):
white index cards and customers would fill out their name
and their address and what kind of fuel are they needed?
And I remember sitting there for hours stamping these cards
pre internet, pre internet. Pretty probably Zero's copying machine too.
Talk about your first job. You mentioned it was giving
tennis lessons. Yeah. Other than early early jobs washing cars
(06:21):
and delivering newspapers around the neighborhood, my first real job
was managing a tennis court facility and teaching tennis. I
was about thirteen at the time. It sounds like the
right age to be a manager. Yeah, interesting enough. The
gentleman who owned the tennis courts had an older son
who unfortunately was mentally challenged. Part of my job was
(06:41):
to watch over him a little bit. He would book
the courts for whoever would call. So nine o'clock on
a Saturday morning, we have two courts. Fifteen people would
show up because he overbooked the courts, so I'd have
to go sort everything out. So that was an interesting
early lesson for me in conflict management. The second piece
there that I learned very early on was an advertising lesson.
(07:03):
There was a restaurant right down the block from the
tennis courts. I wasn't making a lot of money, and
I made a deal with the restaurant down the street
that I put signage on the tennis courts for them
in return for them giving me lunch every day. You
started the first barterhouse forget Pepper Tanner. That's correct, exactly. Yeah, yeah,
I did. So when did you start playing tennis and
how how did you go on that trajectory? Yeah, So
(07:23):
my dad was a big tennis player. He grew up
playing tennis, and I started playing tennis very early on,
when I was probably six or seven years old. It
was very competitive. I ended up winning the New York
State doubles. I trained with Harry Hoptman, with people like
John McEnroe and Eric from I went down to University
Miami with the aspirations to become a professional tennis player.
(07:44):
In Miami was one of the meccas of the world
back then for tennis, or Mecca for fun, Mecca for everything.
So mecca for fun, Mecca for tennis, Mecca for the beach. Yeah,
it was great. I did something really stupid in college.
I was late for class in my sophomore year and
in the dorm there were these stair whales and landings
(08:06):
and about ten steps and landings, and I decided, since
I was late for class, I could not have to
take the stairs. I could jump from one landing to
the next, and of course I landed on the side
of my ankle broke it about two places, torn ligaments.
I ended up in a wheelchair for quite a while.
You lose at least a half a step, and at
that level you just can't play competitively. So that destroyed
(08:28):
my tennis career. So I understand that Miami, you did
your first ad campaign and got interested in advertising, and
tell us a second, Oh my god, how do you
know that? You know you're doing a lot of great
research In the marketing major, they put together teams where
you would compete against other schools. I was part of
the team that competed for the statewide competition and the
(08:50):
first campaign we ever did was for the American Heart
Association and the tagline was learned to Live. We ended
up winning the competition and it was a great experience
about understanding how to pull off an advertising campaign. I also,
through that marketing group, had to do a campaign launching
a brand new product, and I still remember to this day.
(09:11):
The product I launched was country Star Rano La Bar.
I wrote my first jingle with actually a guy that
ended up playing with Bob Dylan. Name is J. J. Jackson.
May have heard of him. He ended up writing my
first jingle Country Country, Country Country Sarganola Bar Morning, noon
and nighttime. It's the best by far, cat. You can
take that for free. So you had this great transformation
(09:36):
of Miami, and you're a big supporter of University of Miami.
Something clearly changed you there. How did that school change you?
And what course did it put you on? What college
taught me and what Miami taught me was one, how
to get along socially with people. Number two, how to
think and immersing myself in the marketing area there at
(09:57):
the school just reinforced my passion that I wanted to
go into the marketing world. The school gave me a good,
warm feeling that I could accomplish things, maybe a little
bit like you, Bob. When I'm interested in something, I
jump into the deep end of the pool and I
go all in. When I'm not, I can't give it
the time of day. So I had some really awful
grades in college, but the marketing class. I did really
(10:20):
well in that, and that was my passion. Everyone has
a breaking into the business story, what was yours? So
actually mine was really difficult, you know. I tried to
break in. This was in the late seventies. The idols
of the industry. The gods were j Walter Thompson and
Young and Rubican and Ogilvie and Mayther and Wells Rich
and Green and Madison Avenue and the days of Madmen.
(10:43):
And I remember getting out of school and I came
back to New York and I would go into the
city on Monday and I would drop my resume off
at all of these advertising agents. Is Tuesday, I would
go home and I would call up these agencies to
see if I can get an appointment and come in Wednesday.
Had come back into the city and for six months
I couldn't get a job at one of the big agencies.
(11:03):
In account management. They wanted you back then to have
an m b A. And I didn't go from my
m b A and creative. They wanted you to have
a portfolio and some background. I didn't have that, and
I hated math. So I didn't want to go into media,
believe or not. Hated math. So literally I couldn't get
a job. And then one day, through some connection that
(11:25):
I had through my sister, sister's boyfriend's brother. Now you
got it, my sister's boyfriend's brother, he was working for
one of these very early media only agencies, like a
media buying service. They even heard of them. The company
was E. L. A or ed Lee Boff at the time.
And I went in for the interview and literally they
hired me that day and wanted me to start that afternoon.
(11:48):
And that's what happened. Did you start that afternoon? I did,
And I figured that I get my foot in the
door and I would work for a couple of months,
proved myself, and then I go to a real agency
and get a real job. At that point in time,
media buying services were starting to take share away from
the traditional agencies and the company was growing. And as
you know, I ended up being with them for about
(12:09):
seven years and grew really really quickly with that company
and look out a lot of responsibility at a very
early age, as the advent of the media buying service
was starting to come into its own in the United States.
By age you were vice president director of Broadcasting, managing
a team of a hundred and fifty people. How did
you manage them? And did you learn anything from managing
(12:32):
older people as a kid that shaped your management style.
I was managing a lot of people older than me, also,
by the way, making a lot more money than me
and had a lot more perks than I did. But
I was thankful for the responsibility that I was given.
It was all about being authentic with them and gaining
their respect and trust. I was a quick study and
I knew what I was doing. But I was also
(12:53):
a team player in playing tennis growing up, doubles is
a team, but I also was on a big baseball
player if I played a lot of team sports, and
for me, it was about managing a team and we
were all in this together. Early on, I learned from
a management perspective that if you don't get everybody moving
in the same direction, I don't care how smart y are,
You're gonna foul. What did you know about media that
(13:17):
got you such a big job for someone your age?
Early on? Didn't know anything about media. But when I
joined the company, there was another young assistant who I
didn't like at all. He was always trying to show
how much smarter he was than everybody else. He was
always rubbing up against the senior leadership at the company,
(13:39):
and it really annoyed me because I knew I was
smarter than this guy, but he was getting everybody's attention
because of the way he behaved. And from my competitive
sports days, I wasn't gonna lose, so he actually, this
guy actually drove me to become better and better and better,
and it created this competition between the two of us.
Just like I was playing a tennis match. He'd like,
(14:01):
go a quarter of a mile. I'd go a half
a mile. He'd go a mile. I'd go two miles.
And that taught me about getting ahead and getting noticed
and really standing out. And I was gonna let this
guy beat me, stay in touch with him. Are there
any foundations of media that you've discovered way back of
them that you still use today. Yeah. The power of
(14:22):
audio and the power of TV works to drive Brandon
works to drive a business outcome. For years ago, people
were coming to us for positive business outcomes, and that's
the same thing they do today. And it's interesting forty
years later if you think about everything that is transpired,
But you know what, audio and TV still work even
(14:46):
though the advent of all the new media that's out there,
the tried and true of forty years ago is still
the tried and true today. Remember reaching frequency. It's funny
how it still works. I also think that the iagination
of the mind of what audio can do, it is
probably more important today than ever before. And I actually
(15:06):
think we're seeing a resurgence. I know we're seeing a
resurgence which is going to benefit all the audio players
out there. Audio is the new media and it's the future.
We're seeing it extremely extremely bright. You know that's on
what you're doing over at I Heeart as well. Well.
You know it's interesting for us. I've spent a lot
of time, as you know, the TV. You know, if
I want engagement, I try and get some emotional attachment
(15:28):
to something. As soon as you cast it and show
a picture, you lose everybody. So sometimes their instances were
actually not having a picture allows us to have much
deeper engagement. And I know you know that, and I've
used it very well. You were doing so well back
here at the l A. Why'd you leave? It's a
fascinating story and I owe my entire success in my
(15:48):
career to a car. If it wasn't for a car,
I wouldn't be where I am today. So back then,
the Madmen days, having a company car was like the thing.
And at the right old age of nine, I was
promised a company car. All the senior executives who were
older than me had company cars. They came in one
(16:11):
day they said, Bill, you're getting a company car. I
went out and shopped, looked all around, found the perfect car.
It was one of the early BMW's and I went
to the president. I said, here are the paper is
gonna get him signed? I want to get my car.
And a few days went by, and then a few
weeks went by. He wasn't signing the papers. He comes
in my office one day and he says, Bill, I'm sorry,
I can't get you the car. The guy's name was
A I said, hey, have you told me I was
(16:32):
getting this car. Here's a picture of the car. Here's
the leather of the car. Smell it. Here's the sample
of the keys. It's ready for me to go. He says,
I'm sorry. The board want to prove it. I said,
the board, but you told me I was getting this.
So I was devastated. And you know, sometimes in life,
you think the really bad things happened to you, and
you don't realize in later in life that if that
didn't happen, something really good would happened. Lesson. So I
(16:56):
get a call the next day from a headhunter and
I was never gonna leave company. And then next day
was never going to leave this company. And Hannah said,
there's a media agency that's having trouble. They want to
open up a New York office. They want to interview you.
Someone on the interview and the interview went well, and
I asked him do I get a car? They said, yeah,
you do? You do get a car. I said great,
(17:17):
I left and I took the job and I got
the car. Now fast forward thirty years later, the guy
who renegged on the car calls me and he says, Bill,
I haven't seen you in twenty years. I hear you're
doing unbelievable. You've built this amazing company. I said, yeah,
ive and I out all to you. He goes, what
(17:38):
do you mean? I said, yeah, if this is all
because of you, he says, Bill, I knew I was
a good mentor, and I knew I told you. I said, no,
I has nothing to do with you, being a mentor
or nothing to do with you taught me. Had you
never renegged on the car, I never would have left
the company that gave me the opportunity to form Horizon.
So thank you so much for reneggating on the car.
(17:58):
Just hold on a second, because you've got so much
more to talk about. We'll be back after a quick break.
Welcome back to math and Magic. We're here with Bill Konigsberg.
You jumped to Media General. I think it was as
a senior VP. Now we get to the really good story.
(18:19):
In nine, Media General fought off a very tough hostel
takeover attempt and decided to unload their media services business.
I don't know how you did this, but we're gonna
get into it. You convinced Media General to sell it
to you and loan you all the money to buy it.
But I think everyone listening wants to know how on
earth did you do that. Someone made a run at
(18:39):
the company. They're publicly held, and they fought off the
hostile takeover, and finding off the hostile takeover, they agreed
to get rid of some of their ancillary businesses. Media
General owned TV stations, newspapers, magazines, cable systems, and they
thought they can get into the other side of the business.
Coast media agencies were starting to become the flavor of
the month. Holding companies were starting to break off in
form their met agencies as well, and they actually first
(19:02):
wanted me to try to sell this small little agency
to one of the holding companies. And I didn't want
to do that. Remember my dad told me, don't go
work for somebody else. So I wanted to take it over,
but I didn't have any money. They made me go
the rounds and go talk to a lot of the
holding companies and I went and talk to the big
guys and some other players, and it was one player
that was very, very interested, and I knew I never
(19:25):
wanted to work for this guy. So I went to
them and I said, you know what, I don't think
any of these guys are the right partners. I don't
think that you're going to maximize the value of this asset,
even though it's not worth a lot right now. Let
me buy it, sell me the company. Not only will
I get you a good return on that investment, but
they had a bunch of contingent liabilities, and when they
(19:46):
were trying to sell to somebody else. Those other parties
didn't want to inherit those contingent liabilities, so would it
cost them money. So I said, I'm going to get
you your money back. I'm going to take care of
your contingent liabilities. Lend me the money and let me
take over this company. They went to the board a
great gentleman, but Jim Lennon, Jim convinced the board to
(20:07):
go ahead. He had faith in me, and I was
going to take care of these contingent liabilities. And they
loaned me eleven million dollars at an exorbitant interest rate
to buy the company back from them and give me
some working capital. And that's how I started Horizon Media.
So there are two guys affected your life. One didn't
get your car and the other soldier of the agency
for exactly so the agency it was. And of course
(20:31):
my timing was just perfect because the world hit a recession.
We had a really, really, really rough start. We had
clients that went belly up, didn't pay me. We were
in enormous early out of the gate financial difficulty. And
because I wasn't astute financially back then, you know the
term ignorances list. I didn't realize how much trouble I
(20:52):
was in. If I had known then what I know now,
I would have handed back the keys and said there's
no way we could survive. But because us I was ignorant,
I just figured out how to kind of keep the
place going. And the check had to come in today
to make payroll tomorrow. And the company, who I promised
I was going to get their money back to they
were now concerned that they weren't going to get their
(21:13):
money back, and they had threatened to close me down,
and they wanted me to completely eliminate tons of jobs.
And I know if I had done that, there's no
way the company was going to survive. So they called
me down with an ultimatum that said, Bill, if you
don't do this, we're gonna have to call in the
loan and close you down. And I said, well, I
might as well just do this, and I took a
(21:34):
pair of keys out of my pocket. I went across
the table on a handed them the keys, and I said, well,
here are the keys to the company. Because you've asked
me to cut my staff and half going to close
the company down anyway, So what do you want to do.
I took a big gamble, and I didn't know whether
they were gonna accept my bluff. They handed me the
keys back and they said, Bill will give you another year.
(21:54):
But we got to see some traction here, and I
slowly started to turn the company around. We've never heard
that story, and I had that with m TV. Threw
Lewis came in to head up the Warner MX joint
venture which owned them TV at the time, and he'd
come from Reagan's White House and he had been in
the Transportation secretary who had fired all the air traffic controllers.
So he walks in, knows nothing about MTV, doesn't know
(22:16):
who Mick Jaggers, doesn't know who the rolling Stones are,
and he says, look, if you can't get this thing
to break even by the end of the year, was
shutting you down just a matter of fact, Bye bye,
so of us that year of well, I gotta cut everything.
How can I do it cheaper? I can we don
we get another advertiser. And by the way, we like
you survived and hit it. But it's sometimes those wake
up calls really make it work harder. Do you think
(22:37):
that kind of pressure it puts you under? Two save
the company taught you something about clients, about managing about cost.
When you really believe in something, fight as hard as
you possibly can for it. It taught me about survival.
It taught me about how to keep employees motivated when
things were not going well. It taught me about perseverance,
(23:01):
not taking no for an answer. But it also taught
me about being incredibly humble. Unless you feel the lows
of the business, you're never gonna appreciate the highs anywhere
near as much as you can if it comes easy
to you, and I believe that nothing comes easier. I mean,
look what you've done, at my heart, from when you
(23:22):
first started here, and the struggles that you went through
with the organization and the reord and how you've struggled
early on what you believed in what you were doing
and having that belief and being able to have people
follow you with that vision and with that belief and
earning their trust is golden. And I think those early
days taught me so much about survival. Let me ask
(23:47):
you a question. You own the business. You were the
CEO buck Stop there. Do you think that causes a
much different thought process than if you were the executive
ice president of something at a really big holding company.
Would you think this trained you for something that others
(24:07):
can't get if there only investment is a paycheck. When
you have no net under you, and you're the owner,
and you're the CEO of a company, and you've got
so many people relying on you, I have the responsibility
of not just employees, but their families and their kids.
You know, I feel I have the responsibility for five
to ten people being a CEO and an owner. I
(24:32):
think bear is an enormous, bigger responsibility because there is
no one else to blame. You can't blame the shareholders,
you can't blame the stock market. It's taught me about
having a responsibility to everyone. Let's talk about that as
it relates to clients. Do you think that kind of
deep level of responsibility is a competitive advantage for you
when you're talking to clients and talking about clients and
(24:55):
being responsible for their business. I started a company thirty
years ago. It couldn't pay anybody any money, and I
smothered them in culture and love and inspiration, built a
culture of businesses personal and that DNA has been in
my company for the past thirty years. That manifests itself
with my client relationships. I think the clients feel different.
They feel that attention, they feel that inspiration, they feel
(25:15):
like new clients every day. It's more about the mantra
and the ethos of how I built the company that
I think makes our client relationships so strong. They know
that the buck stops with me. I don't have to
go through a board, I don't have to go through committees,
I don't have to check off a dozen different boxes.
And I think I can move faster and make smarter
(25:36):
decisions because of that non publicly held position that our
company has. They're talking to the guy that makes the decision.
You feel those decisions, you feel the emotion in your actions.
That's always been my way, and I think my clients
feel that I am beholden only to them. I'm not
beholding the shareholders. I'm holding to my employees and I'm
(25:57):
holding to them. If I make my employees happy, my
it's gonna be happy. If I make my clients happy,
my employees are gonna be happy. And I think my
clients recognize that the air is clearer at a place
like mine, and they can see the way decisions are made.
And I think that makes a big difference that. Just recently,
we had an experience where a client called us and said, look,
(26:18):
here's what I want to do, and we were told
you can't do it, but my partner, Rich Brestler, says,
we can. We'll do it. We make the rules, and
I suspect in your place, you're able to do that
on steroids. The rules don't get in the way of
doing the right thing. And should you have a rule
which is a conflict of doing the right thing, you
just change the rule. Yeah, the rulemaking sometimes becomes quite
(26:38):
interesting and quite fun because you do have the flexibility
of doing whatever you want to do. And sometimes that
flexibility is the greatest asset in the world. And sometimes
that flexibility, believe or not, just a little bit of
a curse because why can't you do it? You got
the flexibility, you have to go anywhere. Well, because it
doesn't make any sense. I suspect it encourages radical honesty
because you can't hide behind something, you can't be s
(27:00):
someone You really actually have to confront the truth and
have the real discussion with them. Yeah, I mean we
built the company on authenticity and sincerity. Diversity inclusion, go
back to the early ten years the first ten years
I was a student. I was just student in the industry.
I was taking playbooks out of my competitors what they
were doing right and what they were doing wrong. I
was just learning. I think the second ten was more
(27:21):
about starting to write my own playbook a little bit.
And I feel when now writing the book and leading
the industry, you're smaller than the big agency holding companies,
yet you continue to win big new clients and help
your existing clients improve the performance through media. And I
was going to ask you what your different chadeer is,
but I think you just told me that. Is there
anything you would add to that? Well, when you say
(27:41):
smaller than the holding companies, yes, the holding companies as
a whole their global entities, But when you break down
the pond that I compete in, which mostly is the
U S landscape. In two thousand and nineteen, we were
ranked the second largest media agency in the US among
all of the holding company media agencies. I hope that
in two thousand and twenty we're gonna be ranked number
(28:02):
one in the US. And when you think about the
fact that I'm competing against the giants of the industry,
that's very smart people A Little Old Horizon could end
up being ranked the largest media agency in the US.
That is a testament to my people, to our smarts,
to our dedication, to my clients, to everything that we've
invested back in the business. And it's about one percent
(28:24):
incrementality every single day. If you can make a one
percent improvement every day, you know what kind of improvement
that is After three five days, it's a pretty good improvement.
So let me ask you one more management question. You
are not only a great manager, entrepreneur, business owner, but
you're also a professional. I mean, you understand media and
media buying. You're not some manager managing those professionals. What
(28:48):
happens when you have one of your really great people
at one point of view and you have another, and
you've got all the votes and they've got one vote.
Maybe how do you deal with it? First of all,
I love sparring. I'm saying endearingly. I want people that
are going to make me feel uncomfortable. One of my
mantras around the agency is that I'm not feeling uncomfortable
(29:08):
enough these days. I am flexible, and I'm teachable, and
I am bendable. And if you ever get to a
point where you don't think you're teachable, You're in trouble.
And if you ever get to a point where you
think you arrived, you're going to get run over. And
I want to hire the smartest people around me who
can make me smarter and make me think differently. I
stand very strong on my opinions, and if someone is
strong enough to convince me that I'm wrong, I will
(29:31):
absolutely change what they have to convince you. You're not
gonna roll over and say I'm gon let you do
the wrong thing, to let you do it. And as
a leader, and you know this, Bob, sometimes because you
have such a big rear view mirror and you've seen
every single problem a lot of times, you will make
a decision just based on that experience, quickly and firmly,
(29:51):
before someone has an opportunity to tell you their different
point of view. And I try to be very sensitive
to that. Even though I think I know the answer
going in, you still have to open up your mind.
I was in a meeting two days ago that I
was not very happy about because someone was making me
feel very uncomfortable with what they were presenting to me.
(30:13):
And then I had to remember I had asked my
people to make me feel uncomfortable, and I had to say,
you know what, even though this is a surprise to me,
and even though you're asking this from me, it's making
me feel really uncomfortable. And that's what I've asked you
to do. I appreciate you doing that, and I'm going
to trust you. We talked about culture and overused word,
(30:35):
but in your place, I know your company and I've
walked through your space. You really do live the culture.
How do you define the culture? At Verizon, work and
outside of work are becoming intermingled together in today's seven world.
So we believe in what we call the third bucket.
Get your salary, a bunch of people get bonuses, and
we probably have over a hundred different extracurricular activities that
(30:58):
fall into third bucket. That's about traveling to a foreign
country and helping people who are less privileged than you are.
It's about building homes in different places. It's about a
limitless advancement program for women. It's about Upstart You and
entrepreneurial program for people who want to start their own businesses.
It's about having six or seven different diversity inclusion groups
(31:20):
within my organization who can meet as a community. It's
about treating our people with respect, it's about giving people
a voice, it's about giving back. We built that culture
over the last thirty years, and that culture is the
heartbeat of our company. I think people feel that employees.
(31:40):
Every month, I write an anniversary note to every single employee,
and that's about a commitment to our people and that
you matter as a person. Wow, that's impressive. So tell
us a little bit, because I know what relates to
your culture. About your physical space, the physical workspace you
have for those people who have not seen it, such
special space with this great outdoor rooftop. We started out
(32:03):
with the Taylor Swift story, but the key to it
was your unique space. Talk a little bit about how
you imagined that space and what you intended for it
to do for the company. Early on in my journey,
I was worried about survival, but I couldn't afford a
great work environment. I actually didn't think it was important,
believe it or not. In two thousand and eight and
two thousand and nine, when the world started fall apart,
(32:24):
my leases were coming up and I was in four
buildings in New York City, and I started to feel
that environment started to me in a hell of a
lot more to people and how people wanted to work.
From a community perspective, I could have renewed my leases
in three or four different buildings in the city. And
we decided to look around and Tribeca was not what
Tribeca is today, and we found this amazing, beautiful old building.
(32:48):
But then I got the price tag of what it
was going to cost to completely renovate and build the
Office of the future. It was a thirty million dollar investment,
and I decided to take the plunge. That was another
big fork in the road, and we built out offices
with beautiful terraces and a theater and a health center
and a big gym and a yoga studio and sleep
(33:09):
pods and meditation rooms and open space and I want
everybody to enjoy the view and see the sunsets and
have the light. That's the environment that we created. And
I have to tell you, Bob had paid off tenfold
from a retention perspective, from a new business perspective, from
attracting new employees into our space to someone like Taylor
(33:31):
Swift wanting to do a concert up there, to film
companies left and right coming in and wanting to film
in our space, commercial production in our space. It was
one of the best decisions I ever made. And never
realized how big the company was because we were in
four buildings in New York City and really not so
pretty space. And one Saturday I walked in and I'm
(33:52):
walking around this space and I'm going, holy sh it,
look the size of this company, because we were never
all in one space. And it was an amazing epiphany
for me, and it scared me a little bit about
how big we had become. And the thought process all
along was to build a home, not an office, but
to build a home, and I think that's what it's become.
(34:14):
You really do invest in people. You invest in bringing
the best out in people. You run probably the best
summer intern program I've seen. Talk a little bit about
what the thought was behind it and what the key
elements of it are. I never had the benefit of
being part of an intern program growing up. I wanted
to build the best intern program that ever existed so
(34:37):
we could attract the best and the brightest back into
our company. So the philosophy was there, if you're gonna
do something, go the extra mile and build out the
best you possibly can there are probably a thousand that apply,
and the number gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Forty
actually make the intern program. These forty kids in college.
How many followers they have on their own social feeds
(34:58):
to these days? If ozans of followers. So the first
person I asked when I go into the room and
I talked to them beginning this summer, and I say
how many people am I talking to? And they call
around the room out there's fortio. No no, no, no,
no no, I'm not talking to forty people. I'm talking
to thirty thousand people. Because of all of your connections
and all of your social influence, and if you have
a good experience here, you're gonna tell everybody about it,
(35:21):
and they're gonna tell people about it. So to me,
it's about the multiplier effect of understanding the impact you
have on one individual and the impact that that can
have in the multiple other individuals that that person is
connected to. So let me talk about me. DA data
came along, Digital came along. I was at a o
L in the nineties when we've sort of introduced to
(35:42):
all this, it's gone to crazy extent of the data
we now available on the customers and attached the media.
Most people sort of looked at it as a silo. Okay,
and there's radio and TV, and then there's a digital
and data. You're one of the first people to say,
wait a minute, I know radio and TV are effective,
that data actually is going to change how I use them.
(36:04):
How did you come about that sort of thought process
of doing it a little differently? Thirty years ago I
started the company, clients came to me for positive business outcomes,
and today that's the same thing. The differences is today
we can prove positive business outcomes by the use of data.
When you think about the consumer journey, every brand, every
category has a different type of consumer journey. Data is
(36:28):
leading us every step of the way in terms of
how we interact, where we interact, the type of interaction,
the type of content that needs to be produced. Data
is at the epicenter of what we do. It informs
every decision we make, and now it's all interconnected. And
you don't own a data company. We don't. We believe
(36:51):
that you can rent an enormous amount of data today
as opposed to being beholden by owning your own data.
A day to solutions group that is taking in data
from dozens of different platforms. TransUnion is one of them
that has a database of over three hundred million individual
I d s. So we're a big believer in the
(37:12):
democracy of data and taking in data solution inputs from
dozens of different places to help us inform the decisions
that we have to make. Data at behalf of our clients.
I want to talk a second about you. You have
used your brains, power, connections, finances to help others that
you have shared the Fora's helping the industry. You've helped
(37:34):
university remind me a lot of helping kids who might
like to be like you. City Harvest Center on Addiction,
the Rise and Back Foundation role boards you sit on,
and indeed, a few years back at Week and their
Profile of the Givers listed you as one of the
top ten from the world of media, marketing, entertainment. What's
your philosophy on that giving back is part of life
(37:57):
and we teach it early on at our company. We
have her Rise and give Us Back where people can
get involved in dozens of different philanthropic causes that are
near and dear to them. I've built my company on
brand purpose and now many companies are leaning into brand purpose.
I also feel that I'm so blessed to have grown
up in this industry in terms of what I've been
able to create. That you always have to give back,
(38:19):
and that's been in my d N A early on
so many causes that I'm involved in the City of Harvest,
feeding the less fortunate here in New York City, Centers
for Addiction in terms of the ridiculous opioid crisis we
have in this country today and what's that doing to
the future generation? Two dozens of other charities that we
support and pro bone a work that we handle, including
(38:41):
organizations like the Michael J. Fox Foundation, And I go
to sleep at night every single night knowing that I'm
helping a lot of people less fortunate, and I want
everybody in my company to think that way as well,
and if they don't, they are not at the right company.
Let's lose some advice here before we leave. What advice
would you give to somebody more to get into advertising?
(39:01):
Call me, what advice would you give to your twenty
one year old self if you could make sure that
you enjoy the passage of time. That was actually a
line into James Teller's song He said, the secret to
life is enjoying the passage of time. In those early days,
I sacrificed a lot to build what I built, and
(39:21):
a lot of people ask me sometimes with the sacrifice
worth it? And I still come to the same conclusion
that I think it was. But I think I missed
out a lot. So what you're saying is if you'd
known you were going to be successful, you wouldn't have
worked so hard. That's absolutely correct. Here's the hard one.
What advice would you give to other agencies? You know,
we have a problem right now in this industry, Bob.
(39:43):
There's a problem with diversity. There's a problem with bringing
talent into our industry. I kind of feel like it's
ground Hugs day. There's a problem, I don't think with
my company, but with client trust in the industry. There's
a problem with the way the dynamics of the industry
are working. From a financial perspective, we need to continue
to prove our value to marketers as an industry. We
(40:05):
need to bring the best and the brightest into this industry,
and I think that is one of the biggest possible
pitfalls that we are facing as an industry. We can't
lose out to Facebook and Google and Amazon and those
other players. We need to have the best talent, So
as we wrap up, we always give a shout out
to the best and math and magic, to those from
(40:25):
the analytical side and from those that are wildly creative.
The showman of the business. Who gets your shout out
as the greatest math person, the greatest math person? Oh
my god, that analytical thinker. I gotta come back down
that one, Bob. That's a tough one. It will give
you a buy on that one by now. And how
about the person well on the magic person put personality
(40:48):
aside from an inventive perspective, Steve Jobs. He's gotten it
a couple of times already. Bill, you are an inspiration
to all of us in marketing and advertising. Thanks for
being here today. I love Thank you, Bob. Here's a
few things I've picked up in my conversation with Bill. One,
don't back down when you know what's right for your
company's future. When Bill's financiers wanted him to fire half
(41:11):
his staff, he stood his ground and ultimately came out
on top. Two. Being the owner and CEO allows you
to make decisions quickly and efficiently, but it also means
you have to invite your employees to challenge you so
you don't get tunnel vision three. Physical space can not
only define your workplace culture, it can determine your business future.
(41:32):
When Bill made a big investment in new offices, his
company thrived. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's it
for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math
and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show
is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger
for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent. Just no small feat.
(41:53):
Nikki Eatre for pulling research Bill plaques, and Michael Asar
for their recording helped our editor Ryan Murdoch, of course,
Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango, and everyone who helped
bring this show to your ears. Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic Production I Heart Radio.
We were in enormous early out of the gate financial difficulty.
The company who I promised I was going to get
their money back to they were now concerned that they
weren't going to get their money back. So they called
me down with an ultimatum, Bill, if you don't eliminate
(00:23):
tons of jobs, we're gonna have to call in the
loan and close you down. And I took a pair
of keys out of my pocket and I said, well,
here are the keys to the company. Because you asked
me to cut my staff and half. We're the close
the company down anyway, So what do you want to do.
I didn't know whether they were gonna accept my bluff.
They handed me the keys back and they said, Bill,
(00:44):
will give you another year. Then I slowly started to
turn the company around. Welcome. I'm Bob Pittman, and this
is Math and Magics Worries from the Frontiers and Marketing,
where we dig into those two pillars of successful marketing
(01:05):
that are at the cornerstone of all great business successes.
We explored this essential combination from many angles. On this episode.
We're looking at building and evolving and never getting left behind.
Our guest is Bill Koenigsberg, the founder and CEO of
Horizon Media. Bill was a budding tennis star who got
(01:37):
sidelined by an injury and moved into advertising at an
early age and quite successfully. By his mid thirties, he
had founded Horizon Media, which grew to be the largest
independent agency in the US and an agency that leads,
not follows, the new trends, ideas and opportunities. Horizon did
not get successful by being like everyone else. Bill is
(01:58):
known for his drive to succeed for his clients and
his interest in making Horizon a remarkably attractive place to work.
He's wildly generous too, always helping others and embracing important causes.
He's had many honors, including induction into both the Advertising
Hall of Fame and the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame,
and the Best Story. Taylor Swift debuted her nine nine
(02:20):
album in a small performance on top of this building
with the Empire State Buildings lights synchronized her music in
the background. That's typical Bill, Bill. Welcome, Thank you, Bob,
it's a pleasure to be here. We're gonna jump into
you and sixty seconds Okay, here we go. Do you
prefer New York City or Miami, New York City, mc
and roll or Federal mac and row, Instagram or Twitter, Instagram,
(02:43):
call or text? Call, chocolate or Vanilla, Big Chocolate Guy,
Network or cable Cable? Cats or dogs. That's a toss up.
We have both radio or TV. Oh come on, think
about where you are right now. Got to be radio,
of course, of course, right answered, Ding, ding Ding, It's
about to get harder. Smartest person you know, Bob Pittman'
(03:05):
right childhood hero, Clark Kent, first job teaching tennis. Favorite
TV show, Friends, favorite TV show as a kid, The Monkeys,
all time favorite TV commercial. I love the mean Joe
Green commercial and obviously all the Geico commercials. Last Vacation, Barbados,
Secret talent, opera singer, historical idol Einstein, first concert, Grateful Dead,
(03:31):
greatest tennis player of all time? Rod Labor. Favorite food?
I'm a big pizza guy. What's something we might be
surprised to learn about you? Complete fear of failure? What's
something you can't live without? My friends? If you could
have one superpower, what would it be? Reading minds? I'm
reading yours right now Let's start with you pre Taylor Swift,
(03:55):
pre pit ball, and even pre Miami and Horizon. Let's
go all the way back to you as a kid
born the day before Christmas nineteen fifty five. You grew
up in Long Beach, Long Island, right outside of New
York City. Can you paint the picture of those times
in the world you grew up in? Born in New
York City, moved out to Long Island when I was
really young, probably three years old. I loved living in
(04:16):
the suburbs, lived by the beach and a beautiful suburb,
beautiful environment but also a rainbow environment. Long Beach was
a very diverse city. Understanding how to get along with
different walks of life and different people, I think carried
through with men is something that helped shape met today.
But early on I was a TV junkie, loved watching television,
(04:37):
loved watching commercials. And I was very fortunate because early
on in my life I kind of knew I wanted
to get involved in advertising. And very few people know
their passion early in life, and some people, by the way,
never find their passion. So for me finding it early
in life was pretty cool, And obviously that's been part
of my journey for the last forty years, where you
(04:57):
one of the first families to get a color TV
or one of the last one. We were probably one
of the last. My dad rarely ever repaired anything. The
shag rugs from the sixties are still in my mom's
living room, so now collector's items. By the way, we
were late adopters in terms of all new technology. I
think they just recently got rid of the rotary phones.
(05:18):
It still work, they do. Your dad ran a business.
Do you think that had an influence on you as
a business owner? So my dad had his own business.
He was in the home heating oil business. I think
it did have an influence on me because he always
told me that you had a lot less security when
you were working for somebody else, being in control of
(05:39):
your own destiny, good or bad. At least you were
in control of your own destiny. So I think that
shaped me a little bit from an entrepreneurial perspective. Do
you ever go to work with him? Early on his
facilities were up in the Bronx. He delivered home heating
to a lot of buildings in the city. My job
whenever I went to work with him when I was
nine or ten or eleven years old was to these
(06:00):
white index cards and customers would fill out their name
and their address and what kind of fuel are they needed?
And I remember sitting there for hours stamping these cards
pre internet, pre internet. Pretty probably Zero's copying machine too.
Talk about your first job. You mentioned it was giving
tennis lessons. Yeah. Other than early early jobs washing cars
(06:21):
and delivering newspapers around the neighborhood, my first real job
was managing a tennis court facility and teaching tennis. I
was about thirteen at the time. It sounds like the
right age to be a manager. Yeah, interesting enough. The
gentleman who owned the tennis courts had an older son
who unfortunately was mentally challenged. Part of my job was
(06:41):
to watch over him a little bit. He would book
the courts for whoever would call. So nine o'clock on
a Saturday morning, we have two courts. Fifteen people would
show up because he overbooked the courts, so I'd have
to go sort everything out. So that was an interesting
early lesson for me in conflict management. The second piece
there that I learned very early on was an advertising lesson.
(07:03):
There was a restaurant right down the block from the
tennis courts. I wasn't making a lot of money, and
I made a deal with the restaurant down the street
that I put signage on the tennis courts for them
in return for them giving me lunch every day. You
started the first barterhouse forget Pepper Tanner. That's correct, exactly. Yeah, yeah,
I did. So when did you start playing tennis and
how how did you go on that trajectory? Yeah, So
(07:23):
my dad was a big tennis player. He grew up
playing tennis, and I started playing tennis very early on,
when I was probably six or seven years old. It
was very competitive. I ended up winning the New York
State doubles. I trained with Harry Hoptman, with people like
John McEnroe and Eric from I went down to University
Miami with the aspirations to become a professional tennis player.
(07:44):
In Miami was one of the meccas of the world
back then for tennis, or Mecca for fun, Mecca for everything.
So mecca for fun, Mecca for tennis, Mecca for the beach. Yeah,
it was great. I did something really stupid in college.
I was late for class in my sophomore year and
in the dorm there were these stair whales and landings
(08:06):
and about ten steps and landings, and I decided, since
I was late for class, I could not have to
take the stairs. I could jump from one landing to
the next, and of course I landed on the side
of my ankle broke it about two places, torn ligaments.
I ended up in a wheelchair for quite a while.
You lose at least a half a step, and at
that level you just can't play competitively. So that destroyed
(08:28):
my tennis career. So I understand that Miami, you did
your first ad campaign and got interested in advertising, and
tell us a second, Oh my god, how do you
know that? You know you're doing a lot of great
research In the marketing major, they put together teams where
you would compete against other schools. I was part of
the team that competed for the statewide competition and the
(08:50):
first campaign we ever did was for the American Heart
Association and the tagline was learned to Live. We ended
up winning the competition and it was a great experience
about understanding how to pull off an advertising campaign. I also,
through that marketing group, had to do a campaign launching
a brand new product, and I still remember to this day.
(09:11):
The product I launched was country Star Rano La Bar.
I wrote my first jingle with actually a guy that
ended up playing with Bob Dylan. Name is J. J. Jackson.
May have heard of him. He ended up writing my
first jingle Country Country, Country Country Sarganola Bar Morning, noon
and nighttime. It's the best by far, cat. You can
take that for free. So you had this great transformation
(09:36):
of Miami, and you're a big supporter of University of Miami.
Something clearly changed you there. How did that school change you?
And what course did it put you on? What college
taught me and what Miami taught me was one, how
to get along socially with people. Number two, how to
think and immersing myself in the marketing area there at
(09:57):
the school just reinforced my passion that I wanted to
go into the marketing world. The school gave me a good,
warm feeling that I could accomplish things, maybe a little
bit like you, Bob. When I'm interested in something, I
jump into the deep end of the pool and I
go all in. When I'm not, I can't give it
the time of day. So I had some really awful
grades in college, but the marketing class. I did really
(10:20):
well in that, and that was my passion. Everyone has
a breaking into the business story, what was yours? So
actually mine was really difficult, you know. I tried to
break in. This was in the late seventies. The idols
of the industry. The gods were j Walter Thompson and
Young and Rubican and Ogilvie and Mayther and Wells Rich
and Green and Madison Avenue and the days of Madmen.
(10:43):
And I remember getting out of school and I came
back to New York and I would go into the
city on Monday and I would drop my resume off
at all of these advertising agents. Is Tuesday, I would
go home and I would call up these agencies to
see if I can get an appointment and come in Wednesday.
Had come back into the city and for six months
I couldn't get a job at one of the big agencies.
(11:03):
In account management. They wanted you back then to have
an m b A. And I didn't go from my
m b A and creative. They wanted you to have
a portfolio and some background. I didn't have that, and
I hated math. So I didn't want to go into media,
believe or not. Hated math. So literally I couldn't get
a job. And then one day, through some connection that
(11:25):
I had through my sister, sister's boyfriend's brother. Now you
got it, my sister's boyfriend's brother, he was working for
one of these very early media only agencies, like a
media buying service. They even heard of them. The company
was E. L. A or ed Lee Boff at the time.
And I went in for the interview and literally they
hired me that day and wanted me to start that afternoon.
(11:48):
And that's what happened. Did you start that afternoon? I did,
And I figured that I get my foot in the
door and I would work for a couple of months,
proved myself, and then I go to a real agency
and get a real job. At that point in time,
media buying services were starting to take share away from
the traditional agencies and the company was growing. And as
you know, I ended up being with them for about
(12:09):
seven years and grew really really quickly with that company
and look out a lot of responsibility at a very
early age, as the advent of the media buying service
was starting to come into its own in the United States.
By age you were vice president director of Broadcasting, managing
a team of a hundred and fifty people. How did
you manage them? And did you learn anything from managing
(12:32):
older people as a kid that shaped your management style.
I was managing a lot of people older than me, also,
by the way, making a lot more money than me
and had a lot more perks than I did. But
I was thankful for the responsibility that I was given.
It was all about being authentic with them and gaining
their respect and trust. I was a quick study and
I knew what I was doing. But I was also
(12:53):
a team player in playing tennis growing up, doubles is
a team, but I also was on a big baseball
player if I played a lot of team sports, and
for me, it was about managing a team and we
were all in this together. Early on, I learned from
a management perspective that if you don't get everybody moving
in the same direction, I don't care how smart y are,
You're gonna foul. What did you know about media that
(13:17):
got you such a big job for someone your age?
Early on? Didn't know anything about media. But when I
joined the company, there was another young assistant who I
didn't like at all. He was always trying to show
how much smarter he was than everybody else. He was
always rubbing up against the senior leadership at the company,
(13:39):
and it really annoyed me because I knew I was
smarter than this guy, but he was getting everybody's attention
because of the way he behaved. And from my competitive
sports days, I wasn't gonna lose, so he actually, this
guy actually drove me to become better and better and better,
and it created this competition between the two of us.
Just like I was playing a tennis match. He'd like,
(14:01):
go a quarter of a mile. I'd go a half
a mile. He'd go a mile. I'd go two miles.
And that taught me about getting ahead and getting noticed
and really standing out. And I was gonna let this
guy beat me, stay in touch with him. Are there
any foundations of media that you've discovered way back of
them that you still use today. Yeah. The power of
(14:22):
audio and the power of TV works to drive Brandon
works to drive a business outcome. For years ago, people
were coming to us for positive business outcomes, and that's
the same thing they do today. And it's interesting forty
years later if you think about everything that is transpired,
But you know what, audio and TV still work even
(14:46):
though the advent of all the new media that's out there,
the tried and true of forty years ago is still
the tried and true today. Remember reaching frequency. It's funny
how it still works. I also think that the iagination
of the mind of what audio can do, it is
probably more important today than ever before. And I actually
(15:06):
think we're seeing a resurgence. I know we're seeing a
resurgence which is going to benefit all the audio players
out there. Audio is the new media and it's the future.
We're seeing it extremely extremely bright. You know that's on
what you're doing over at I Heeart as well. Well.
You know it's interesting for us. I've spent a lot
of time, as you know, the TV. You know, if
I want engagement, I try and get some emotional attachment
(15:28):
to something. As soon as you cast it and show
a picture, you lose everybody. So sometimes their instances were
actually not having a picture allows us to have much
deeper engagement. And I know you know that, and I've
used it very well. You were doing so well back
here at the l A. Why'd you leave? It's a
fascinating story and I owe my entire success in my
(15:48):
career to a car. If it wasn't for a car,
I wouldn't be where I am today. So back then,
the Madmen days, having a company car was like the thing.
And at the right old age of nine, I was
promised a company car. All the senior executives who were
older than me had company cars. They came in one
(16:11):
day they said, Bill, you're getting a company car. I
went out and shopped, looked all around, found the perfect car.
It was one of the early BMW's and I went
to the president. I said, here are the paper is
gonna get him signed? I want to get my car.
And a few days went by, and then a few
weeks went by. He wasn't signing the papers. He comes
in my office one day and he says, Bill, I'm sorry,
I can't get you the car. The guy's name was
A I said, hey, have you told me I was
(16:32):
getting this car. Here's a picture of the car. Here's
the leather of the car. Smell it. Here's the sample
of the keys. It's ready for me to go. He says,
I'm sorry. The board want to prove it. I said,
the board, but you told me I was getting this.
So I was devastated. And you know, sometimes in life,
you think the really bad things happened to you, and
you don't realize in later in life that if that
didn't happen, something really good would happened. Lesson. So I
(16:56):
get a call the next day from a headhunter and
I was never gonna leave company. And then next day
was never going to leave this company. And Hannah said,
there's a media agency that's having trouble. They want to
open up a New York office. They want to interview you.
Someone on the interview and the interview went well, and
I asked him do I get a car? They said, yeah,
you do? You do get a car. I said great,
(17:17):
I left and I took the job and I got
the car. Now fast forward thirty years later, the guy
who renegged on the car calls me and he says, Bill,
I haven't seen you in twenty years. I hear you're
doing unbelievable. You've built this amazing company. I said, yeah,
ive and I out all to you. He goes, what
(17:38):
do you mean? I said, yeah, if this is all
because of you, he says, Bill, I knew I was
a good mentor, and I knew I told you. I said, no,
I has nothing to do with you, being a mentor
or nothing to do with you taught me. Had you
never renegged on the car, I never would have left
the company that gave me the opportunity to form Horizon.
So thank you so much for reneggating on the car.
(17:58):
Just hold on a second, because you've got so much
more to talk about. We'll be back after a quick break.
Welcome back to math and Magic. We're here with Bill Konigsberg.
You jumped to Media General. I think it was as
a senior VP. Now we get to the really good story.
(18:19):
In nine, Media General fought off a very tough hostel
takeover attempt and decided to unload their media services business.
I don't know how you did this, but we're gonna
get into it. You convinced Media General to sell it
to you and loan you all the money to buy it.
But I think everyone listening wants to know how on
earth did you do that. Someone made a run at
(18:39):
the company. They're publicly held, and they fought off the
hostile takeover, and finding off the hostile takeover, they agreed
to get rid of some of their ancillary businesses. Media
General owned TV stations, newspapers, magazines, cable systems, and they
thought they can get into the other side of the business.
Coast media agencies were starting to become the flavor of
the month. Holding companies were starting to break off in
form their met agencies as well, and they actually first
(19:02):
wanted me to try to sell this small little agency
to one of the holding companies. And I didn't want
to do that. Remember my dad told me, don't go
work for somebody else. So I wanted to take it over,
but I didn't have any money. They made me go
the rounds and go talk to a lot of the
holding companies and I went and talk to the big
guys and some other players, and it was one player
that was very, very interested, and I knew I never
(19:25):
wanted to work for this guy. So I went to
them and I said, you know what, I don't think
any of these guys are the right partners. I don't
think that you're going to maximize the value of this asset,
even though it's not worth a lot right now. Let
me buy it, sell me the company. Not only will
I get you a good return on that investment, but
they had a bunch of contingent liabilities, and when they
(19:46):
were trying to sell to somebody else. Those other parties
didn't want to inherit those contingent liabilities, so would it
cost them money. So I said, I'm going to get
you your money back. I'm going to take care of
your contingent liabilities. Lend me the money and let me
take over this company. They went to the board a
great gentleman, but Jim Lennon, Jim convinced the board to
(20:07):
go ahead. He had faith in me, and I was
going to take care of these contingent liabilities. And they
loaned me eleven million dollars at an exorbitant interest rate
to buy the company back from them and give me
some working capital. And that's how I started Horizon Media.
So there are two guys affected your life. One didn't
get your car and the other soldier of the agency
for exactly so the agency it was. And of course
(20:31):
my timing was just perfect because the world hit a recession.
We had a really, really, really rough start. We had
clients that went belly up, didn't pay me. We were
in enormous early out of the gate financial difficulty. And
because I wasn't astute financially back then, you know the
term ignorances list. I didn't realize how much trouble I
(20:52):
was in. If I had known then what I know now,
I would have handed back the keys and said there's
no way we could survive. But because us I was ignorant,
I just figured out how to kind of keep the
place going. And the check had to come in today
to make payroll tomorrow. And the company, who I promised
I was going to get their money back to they
were now concerned that they weren't going to get their
(21:13):
money back, and they had threatened to close me down,
and they wanted me to completely eliminate tons of jobs.
And I know if I had done that, there's no
way the company was going to survive. So they called
me down with an ultimatum that said, Bill, if you
don't do this, we're gonna have to call in the
loan and close you down. And I said, well, I
might as well just do this, and I took a
(21:34):
pair of keys out of my pocket. I went across
the table on a handed them the keys, and I said, well,
here are the keys to the company. Because you've asked
me to cut my staff and half going to close
the company down anyway, So what do you want to do.
I took a big gamble, and I didn't know whether
they were gonna accept my bluff. They handed me the
keys back and they said, Bill will give you another year.
(21:54):
But we got to see some traction here, and I
slowly started to turn the company around. We've never heard
that story, and I had that with m TV. Threw
Lewis came in to head up the Warner MX joint
venture which owned them TV at the time, and he'd
come from Reagan's White House and he had been in
the Transportation secretary who had fired all the air traffic controllers.
So he walks in, knows nothing about MTV, doesn't know
(22:16):
who Mick Jaggers, doesn't know who the rolling Stones are,
and he says, look, if you can't get this thing
to break even by the end of the year, was
shutting you down just a matter of fact, Bye bye,
so of us that year of well, I gotta cut everything.
How can I do it cheaper? I can we don
we get another advertiser. And by the way, we like
you survived and hit it. But it's sometimes those wake
up calls really make it work harder. Do you think
(22:37):
that kind of pressure it puts you under? Two save
the company taught you something about clients, about managing about cost.
When you really believe in something, fight as hard as
you possibly can for it. It taught me about survival.
It taught me about how to keep employees motivated when
things were not going well. It taught me about perseverance,
(23:01):
not taking no for an answer. But it also taught
me about being incredibly humble. Unless you feel the lows
of the business, you're never gonna appreciate the highs anywhere
near as much as you can if it comes easy
to you, and I believe that nothing comes easier. I mean,
look what you've done, at my heart, from when you
(23:22):
first started here, and the struggles that you went through
with the organization and the reord and how you've struggled
early on what you believed in what you were doing
and having that belief and being able to have people
follow you with that vision and with that belief and
earning their trust is golden. And I think those early
days taught me so much about survival. Let me ask
(23:47):
you a question. You own the business. You were the
CEO buck Stop there. Do you think that causes a
much different thought process than if you were the executive
ice president of something at a really big holding company.
Would you think this trained you for something that others
(24:07):
can't get if there only investment is a paycheck. When
you have no net under you, and you're the owner,
and you're the CEO of a company, and you've got
so many people relying on you, I have the responsibility
of not just employees, but their families and their kids.
You know, I feel I have the responsibility for five
to ten people being a CEO and an owner. I
(24:32):
think bear is an enormous, bigger responsibility because there is
no one else to blame. You can't blame the shareholders,
you can't blame the stock market. It's taught me about
having a responsibility to everyone. Let's talk about that as
it relates to clients. Do you think that kind of
deep level of responsibility is a competitive advantage for you
when you're talking to clients and talking about clients and
(24:55):
being responsible for their business. I started a company thirty
years ago. It couldn't pay anybody any money, and I
smothered them in culture and love and inspiration, built a
culture of businesses personal and that DNA has been in
my company for the past thirty years. That manifests itself
with my client relationships. I think the clients feel different.
They feel that attention, they feel that inspiration, they feel
(25:15):
like new clients every day. It's more about the mantra
and the ethos of how I built the company that
I think makes our client relationships so strong. They know
that the buck stops with me. I don't have to
go through a board, I don't have to go through committees,
I don't have to check off a dozen different boxes.
And I think I can move faster and make smarter
(25:36):
decisions because of that non publicly held position that our
company has. They're talking to the guy that makes the decision.
You feel those decisions, you feel the emotion in your actions.
That's always been my way, and I think my clients
feel that I am beholden only to them. I'm not
beholding the shareholders. I'm holding to my employees and I'm
(25:57):
holding to them. If I make my employees happy, my
it's gonna be happy. If I make my clients happy,
my employees are gonna be happy. And I think my
clients recognize that the air is clearer at a place
like mine, and they can see the way decisions are made.
And I think that makes a big difference that. Just recently,
we had an experience where a client called us and said, look,
(26:18):
here's what I want to do, and we were told
you can't do it, but my partner, Rich Brestler, says,
we can. We'll do it. We make the rules, and
I suspect in your place, you're able to do that
on steroids. The rules don't get in the way of
doing the right thing. And should you have a rule
which is a conflict of doing the right thing, you
just change the rule. Yeah, the rulemaking sometimes becomes quite
(26:38):
interesting and quite fun because you do have the flexibility
of doing whatever you want to do. And sometimes that
flexibility is the greatest asset in the world. And sometimes
that flexibility, believe or not, just a little bit of
a curse because why can't you do it? You got
the flexibility, you have to go anywhere. Well, because it
doesn't make any sense. I suspect it encourages radical honesty
because you can't hide behind something, you can't be s
(27:00):
someone You really actually have to confront the truth and
have the real discussion with them. Yeah, I mean we
built the company on authenticity and sincerity. Diversity inclusion, go
back to the early ten years the first ten years
I was a student. I was just student in the industry.
I was taking playbooks out of my competitors what they
were doing right and what they were doing wrong. I
was just learning. I think the second ten was more
(27:21):
about starting to write my own playbook a little bit.
And I feel when now writing the book and leading
the industry, you're smaller than the big agency holding companies,
yet you continue to win big new clients and help
your existing clients improve the performance through media. And I
was going to ask you what your different chadeer is,
but I think you just told me that. Is there
anything you would add to that? Well, when you say
(27:41):
smaller than the holding companies, yes, the holding companies as
a whole their global entities, But when you break down
the pond that I compete in, which mostly is the
U S landscape. In two thousand and nineteen, we were
ranked the second largest media agency in the US among
all of the holding company media agencies. I hope that
in two thousand and twenty we're gonna be ranked number
(28:02):
one in the US. And when you think about the
fact that I'm competing against the giants of the industry,
that's very smart people A Little Old Horizon could end
up being ranked the largest media agency in the US.
That is a testament to my people, to our smarts,
to our dedication, to my clients, to everything that we've
invested back in the business. And it's about one percent
(28:24):
incrementality every single day. If you can make a one
percent improvement every day, you know what kind of improvement
that is After three five days, it's a pretty good improvement.
So let me ask you one more management question. You
are not only a great manager, entrepreneur, business owner, but
you're also a professional. I mean, you understand media and
media buying. You're not some manager managing those professionals. What
(28:48):
happens when you have one of your really great people
at one point of view and you have another, and
you've got all the votes and they've got one vote.
Maybe how do you deal with it? First of all,
I love sparring. I'm saying endearingly. I want people that
are going to make me feel uncomfortable. One of my
mantras around the agency is that I'm not feeling uncomfortable
(29:08):
enough these days. I am flexible, and I'm teachable, and
I am bendable. And if you ever get to a
point where you don't think you're teachable, You're in trouble.
And if you ever get to a point where you
think you arrived, you're going to get run over. And
I want to hire the smartest people around me who
can make me smarter and make me think differently. I
stand very strong on my opinions, and if someone is
strong enough to convince me that I'm wrong, I will
(29:31):
absolutely change what they have to convince you. You're not
gonna roll over and say I'm gon let you do
the wrong thing, to let you do it. And as
a leader, and you know this, Bob, sometimes because you
have such a big rear view mirror and you've seen
every single problem a lot of times, you will make
a decision just based on that experience, quickly and firmly,
(29:51):
before someone has an opportunity to tell you their different
point of view. And I try to be very sensitive
to that. Even though I think I know the answer
going in, you still have to open up your mind.
I was in a meeting two days ago that I
was not very happy about because someone was making me
feel very uncomfortable with what they were presenting to me.
(30:13):
And then I had to remember I had asked my
people to make me feel uncomfortable, and I had to say,
you know what, even though this is a surprise to me,
and even though you're asking this from me, it's making
me feel really uncomfortable. And that's what I've asked you
to do. I appreciate you doing that, and I'm going
to trust you. We talked about culture and overused word,
(30:35):
but in your place, I know your company and I've
walked through your space. You really do live the culture.
How do you define the culture? At Verizon, work and
outside of work are becoming intermingled together in today's seven world.
So we believe in what we call the third bucket.
Get your salary, a bunch of people get bonuses, and
we probably have over a hundred different extracurricular activities that
(30:58):
fall into third bucket. That's about traveling to a foreign
country and helping people who are less privileged than you are.
It's about building homes in different places. It's about a
limitless advancement program for women. It's about Upstart You and
entrepreneurial program for people who want to start their own businesses.
It's about having six or seven different diversity inclusion groups
(31:20):
within my organization who can meet as a community. It's
about treating our people with respect, it's about giving people
a voice, it's about giving back. We built that culture
over the last thirty years, and that culture is the
heartbeat of our company. I think people feel that employees.
(31:40):
Every month, I write an anniversary note to every single employee,
and that's about a commitment to our people and that
you matter as a person. Wow, that's impressive. So tell
us a little bit, because I know what relates to
your culture. About your physical space, the physical workspace you
have for those people who have not seen it, such
special space with this great outdoor rooftop. We started out
(32:03):
with the Taylor Swift story, but the key to it
was your unique space. Talk a little bit about how
you imagined that space and what you intended for it
to do for the company. Early on in my journey,
I was worried about survival, but I couldn't afford a
great work environment. I actually didn't think it was important,
believe it or not. In two thousand and eight and
two thousand and nine, when the world started fall apart,
(32:24):
my leases were coming up and I was in four
buildings in New York City, and I started to feel
that environment started to me in a hell of a
lot more to people and how people wanted to work.
From a community perspective, I could have renewed my leases
in three or four different buildings in the city. And
we decided to look around and Tribeca was not what
Tribeca is today, and we found this amazing, beautiful old building.
(32:48):
But then I got the price tag of what it
was going to cost to completely renovate and build the
Office of the future. It was a thirty million dollar investment,
and I decided to take the plunge. That was another
big fork in the road, and we built out offices
with beautiful terraces and a theater and a health center
and a big gym and a yoga studio and sleep
(33:09):
pods and meditation rooms and open space and I want
everybody to enjoy the view and see the sunsets and
have the light. That's the environment that we created. And
I have to tell you, Bob had paid off tenfold
from a retention perspective, from a new business perspective, from
attracting new employees into our space to someone like Taylor
(33:31):
Swift wanting to do a concert up there, to film
companies left and right coming in and wanting to film
in our space, commercial production in our space. It was
one of the best decisions I ever made. And never
realized how big the company was because we were in
four buildings in New York City and really not so
pretty space. And one Saturday I walked in and I'm
(33:52):
walking around this space and I'm going, holy sh it,
look the size of this company, because we were never
all in one space. And it was an amazing epiphany
for me, and it scared me a little bit about
how big we had become. And the thought process all
along was to build a home, not an office, but
to build a home, and I think that's what it's become.
(34:14):
You really do invest in people. You invest in bringing
the best out in people. You run probably the best
summer intern program I've seen. Talk a little bit about
what the thought was behind it and what the key
elements of it are. I never had the benefit of
being part of an intern program growing up. I wanted
to build the best intern program that ever existed so
(34:37):
we could attract the best and the brightest back into
our company. So the philosophy was there, if you're gonna
do something, go the extra mile and build out the
best you possibly can there are probably a thousand that apply,
and the number gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Forty
actually make the intern program. These forty kids in college.
How many followers they have on their own social feeds
(34:58):
to these days? If ozans of followers. So the first
person I asked when I go into the room and
I talked to them beginning this summer, and I say
how many people am I talking to? And they call
around the room out there's fortio. No no, no, no,
no no, I'm not talking to forty people. I'm talking
to thirty thousand people. Because of all of your connections
and all of your social influence, and if you have
a good experience here, you're gonna tell everybody about it,
(35:21):
and they're gonna tell people about it. So to me,
it's about the multiplier effect of understanding the impact you
have on one individual and the impact that that can
have in the multiple other individuals that that person is
connected to. So let me talk about me. DA data
came along, Digital came along. I was at a o
L in the nineties when we've sort of introduced to
(35:42):
all this, it's gone to crazy extent of the data
we now available on the customers and attached the media.
Most people sort of looked at it as a silo. Okay,
and there's radio and TV, and then there's a digital
and data. You're one of the first people to say,
wait a minute, I know radio and TV are effective,
that data actually is going to change how I use them.
(36:04):
How did you come about that sort of thought process
of doing it a little differently? Thirty years ago I
started the company, clients came to me for positive business outcomes,
and today that's the same thing. The differences is today
we can prove positive business outcomes by the use of data.
When you think about the consumer journey, every brand, every
category has a different type of consumer journey. Data is
(36:28):
leading us every step of the way in terms of
how we interact, where we interact, the type of interaction,
the type of content that needs to be produced. Data
is at the epicenter of what we do. It informs
every decision we make, and now it's all interconnected. And
you don't own a data company. We don't. We believe
(36:51):
that you can rent an enormous amount of data today
as opposed to being beholden by owning your own data.
A day to solutions group that is taking in data
from dozens of different platforms. TransUnion is one of them
that has a database of over three hundred million individual
I d s. So we're a big believer in the
(37:12):
democracy of data and taking in data solution inputs from
dozens of different places to help us inform the decisions
that we have to make. Data at behalf of our clients.
I want to talk a second about you. You have
used your brains, power, connections, finances to help others that
you have shared the Fora's helping the industry. You've helped
(37:34):
university remind me a lot of helping kids who might
like to be like you. City Harvest Center on Addiction,
the Rise and Back Foundation role boards you sit on,
and indeed, a few years back at Week and their
Profile of the Givers listed you as one of the
top ten from the world of media, marketing, entertainment. What's
your philosophy on that giving back is part of life
(37:57):
and we teach it early on at our company. We
have her Rise and give Us Back where people can
get involved in dozens of different philanthropic causes that are
near and dear to them. I've built my company on
brand purpose and now many companies are leaning into brand purpose.
I also feel that I'm so blessed to have grown
up in this industry in terms of what I've been
able to create. That you always have to give back,
(38:19):
and that's been in my d N A early on
so many causes that I'm involved in the City of Harvest,
feeding the less fortunate here in New York City, Centers
for Addiction in terms of the ridiculous opioid crisis we
have in this country today and what's that doing to
the future generation? Two dozens of other charities that we
support and pro bone a work that we handle, including
(38:41):
organizations like the Michael J. Fox Foundation, And I go
to sleep at night every single night knowing that I'm
helping a lot of people less fortunate, and I want
everybody in my company to think that way as well,
and if they don't, they are not at the right company.
Let's lose some advice here before we leave. What advice
would you give to somebody more to get into advertising?
(39:01):
Call me, what advice would you give to your twenty
one year old self if you could make sure that
you enjoy the passage of time. That was actually a
line into James Teller's song He said, the secret to
life is enjoying the passage of time. In those early days,
I sacrificed a lot to build what I built, and
(39:21):
a lot of people ask me sometimes with the sacrifice
worth it? And I still come to the same conclusion
that I think it was. But I think I missed
out a lot. So what you're saying is if you'd
known you were going to be successful, you wouldn't have
worked so hard. That's absolutely correct. Here's the hard one.
What advice would you give to other agencies? You know,
we have a problem right now in this industry, Bob.
(39:43):
There's a problem with diversity. There's a problem with bringing
talent into our industry. I kind of feel like it's
ground Hugs day. There's a problem, I don't think with
my company, but with client trust in the industry. There's
a problem with the way the dynamics of the industry
are working. From a financial perspective, we need to continue
to prove our value to marketers as an industry. We
(40:05):
need to bring the best and the brightest into this industry,
and I think that is one of the biggest possible
pitfalls that we are facing as an industry. We can't
lose out to Facebook and Google and Amazon and those
other players. We need to have the best talent, So
as we wrap up, we always give a shout out
to the best and math and magic, to those from
(40:25):
the analytical side and from those that are wildly creative.
The showman of the business. Who gets your shout out
as the greatest math person, the greatest math person? Oh
my god, that analytical thinker. I gotta come back down
that one, Bob. That's a tough one. It will give
you a buy on that one by now. And how
about the person well on the magic person put personality
(40:48):
aside from an inventive perspective, Steve Jobs. He's gotten it
a couple of times already. Bill, you are an inspiration
to all of us in marketing and advertising. Thanks for
being here today. I love Thank you, Bob. Here's a
few things I've picked up in my conversation with Bill. One,
don't back down when you know what's right for your
company's future. When Bill's financiers wanted him to fire half
(41:11):
his staff, he stood his ground and ultimately came out
on top. Two. Being the owner and CEO allows you
to make decisions quickly and efficiently, but it also means
you have to invite your employees to challenge you so
you don't get tunnel vision three. Physical space can not
only define your workplace culture, it can determine your business future.
(41:32):
When Bill made a big investment in new offices, his
company thrived. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's it
for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math
and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show
is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger
for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent. Just no small feat.
(41:53):
Nikki Eatre for pulling research Bill plaques, and Michael Asar
for their recording helped our editor Ryan Murdoch, of course,
Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango, and everyone who helped
bring this show to your ears. Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.