As Nick Johnson, Turner’s SVP of Digital Ad Sales Strategy, Turner Ad Sales, launched into a career in
advertising right out of college, he soon came to the conclusion that, he
confessed, “Media was not the right place for me.” His lack of enthusiasm for
agency buying led to a complete change in lifestyle – a move back to Asia where
he spent his formative years.
Leaving the agency in the early 1990s and moving
to Japan, he joined a joint venture between Grey advertising and Daiko. “That
in itself was fun, but what became my career epiphany ultimately was the launch
of Netscape,” which gave Johnson a greater choice of English language content
in real time in Japan. “I didn’t know what that would become, but I knew that I
wanted to get involved in digital,” he concluded. And the rest is history as he
was hired as one of the first digital account executives at CNN almost 20 years ago.
I sat down with Johnson and asked him the following
questions:
Charlene Weisler: What
are the major changes in the digital landscape since you first started?
Nick Johnson: When I first got into the business at CNN,
digital was very nascent. It was a rigid advertising environment at that time
with limited video inventory. In fact, when we started launching video, we
built it as a subscription business, which I think slowed the growth of video
overall as it was expensive to serve. As there were a lot of companies
competing in the space, it wasn’t easy to turn on an ad server. There were five
of them and you had to figure it out.
Today you are dealing with high levels of addressability,
massive distribution opportunities, video consumption and growth, and new
platforms that are launching almost every day, many of which have high consumer
options and levels of video as well as ad inventory. There are also layers of
complexity to ultimately get the right ad to the right person. But I think we
are at an important inflection time in the industry, where this non-traditional
video consumption is happening very quickly and people are getting comfortable
watching video in different environments.
And too, the advent of branded content, native and now this
notion of building off channel distribution of both your video content and
branded content is light years away from where we were 20 years ago.
Weisler: What aspects
of digital are evergreen and non-changing?
Johnson: Since the beginning, the consumer experience is
very direct. You can either keystroke in a URL or discovery through search. But
the relationship across time is a very lean forward one, involving active
participation, hands on keyboard and mouse, as opposed to a passive one where
you choose to watch a show and lean back. I think the relationship between the
brand and a consumer digitally is very intimate.
Weisler: What do you
think will be the next big digital incarnation?
Johnson: Active consumption of this content in these new
distribution channels is big. The volume of content being consumed through OTT
is huge – it is something that has gotten very big very quickly. We are
spending a lot of time wrestling it to the ground and developing strategies to
super serve our customers. Branded content is another initiative we are focused
on. We are seeing a lot of interest in that today.
Weisler: Talk a bit
about measurement - what metrics do you use?
Johnson: It is everything from leveraging our data solutions
to identifying the best audiences. Standard measurement is important for
validating who and how we reach consumers and whether we are delivering the
right numbers. Platforms’ viewability. There are so many that address different
parts of the value chain. We are focused on all of them.
Weisler: What is the
prime focus for this year?
Johnson: A big focus for us is leading in the marketplace in
terms of branded and native content. We have some great internal assets. For
CNN, we have a brand studio called Courageous,
which is winning awards and our engine for creating all of that branded
content. And we have a social agency in-house called Launchpad, which we use
to deliver that branded content both off and on channel with socially informed
data. Getting organized around the wave of consumption that is happening around
OTT is also priority. Attention on our social and mobile brands is another. Also,
turning programmatic from a back office function to a consultative offering.
Weisler: What is CNN
digital's long term strategy?
Johnson: It’s very much about taking advantage of this brand
that we have. We have had a big moment in the spotlight in the last eighteen
months around the election and adding to that is the hard work that Jeff Zucker
and his team have done building a great consumer destination. Our audience has
gotten younger and is very engaged. Our goal is now to take advantage of all of
this to grow and disrupt the business over the next five years.
This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com
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