How Can a Small Sales Org Make a BIG Splash? New York Interconnect Has the Answer

Can one place Amazon, Google and New York Interconnect in the same group? The answer is yes, according to Ed Renicker, CEO, NYI. New York Interconnect (NYI) was named the #3 Overall Sales Organization alongside these nationwide heavy hitters.

“This is the story of the little New York TV Media Buying Corporation that could - and did - not only land on a list that included national and global household names, but also managed to keep their clients happy and profitable in the middle of a tumultuous year in a market that was initially the epicenter of the pandemic,” explained Renicker. “This was all happening while placing #1 in categories like Proactive Impact, Innovation, and Communicate Value.”

MediaVillage sat down with Renicker, to find out exactly what NYI does to pull ahead of the pack and its future plans to insure they stay there.

New York Interconnect’s Audience One

“New York Interconnect (NYI) has been an industry leader for over three decades,” he began. In fact, the company is a joint venture between three impressive media firms - Altice USA, Charter Communications and Comcast. For Renicker, “NYI continues to pave the way for the future of TV media buying across all screens in the nation’s largest, most diverse, and most affluent market.”

It is a time of great transformation in the media space with more platforms and quality content than ever before. “In this revolutionary ecosystem, NYI continues to navigate the ever-evolving TV landscape through its ground-breaking Audience One platform,” Renicker explained and added, “Audience One is a multiscreen approach that integrates TV content into one holistic marketing platform that incorporates TV, digital, video on demand, live streaming, OTT, and exclusive network sponsorships, for an end-to-end media plan that connects advertisers to the right consumers.”

NYI Sales Organization Kudos

NYI was recently named #3 Overall Sales Organization in the Myers Report alongside corporations that include Google and Amazon. For Renicker, that success is no surprise. “NYI has that rare advantage of being a corporation that operates like a small business, as far as our ability to maintain close personal relationships with all our clients and first-hand knowledge of the brands they represent, yet NYI has the power, influence and reach of a large, powerful organization,” he shared.

“We’ve been at this for thirty years and NYI is always on the cutting edge of the next technology and at the forefront of the TV media evolution. So that combination has allowed us to be in the unique position of ranking up there with household names like Google and Amazon,” he added.

NYI also was the recognized leader in such attributes as Proactive Impact, Innovation, and Communicate Value. “Being proactive and innovative has always been part of the fabric with NYI,” he explained, “Whether finding the next great opportunity for our clients or recognizing an industry trend that we think our clients need to be aware of, the sales team at NYI never stops looking for the next great move for our clients.”

NYI makes it a point to communicate value across a range of messaging from trade publications and industry events. “We also pride ourselves for always moving the conversation forward when it comes to our industry. We’re always eager to share our latest research and findings with not only clients, but with colleagues because we believe that anything that advances our industry is good for everyone,” he noted.

Marketing During the Pandemic

The Myers Study client satisfaction study was fielded during the pandemic in 2020. In such an unusual and difficult year, the question is, how did NYI manage to steer their clients’ strategies to success, especially when New York, in particular, was initially the epicenter of the pandemic in the US?

Renicker and his team met the challenge. “When the pandemic hit New York, our teams were forced to chart a new course for each of our existing clients (as well as some new ones), all without ever even being able to step foot back in the office. Our sales and support teams all quickly recalibrated, reallocated, and rebounded from this setback in a way that not only left the company reaching its 2020 sales goals, but also helped to ensure the continued success of its clients, their brands, and their verticals.”

NYI’s Multi-Pronged Approach During the Pandemic

Renicker was quick to take the necessary actions during the pandemic to insure success for both his clients and his team. The areas of concentration were:

Messaging: The NYI sales team saw that the environment had changed and advised their clients of the new tonality. In fact, he noted, “Many business verticals had to pull their current creative to revise messaging to be more mindful of the current climate. In addition to pulling creative to protect their clients’ brands with acceptable tonality and re-allocating dollars because of pulled and revised programming, the team reconfigured schedules for the betterment of their clients and to accommodate the changes in programming.”

Following the Data: Data became especially important to guide the decision making process. “Our teams followed the data to find the desired audience of their clients now that so many cancellations were coming into play, especially when it came to live sports,” he said and added, “Audiences were migrating to news and entertainment programming; our data allowed brands to actually follow and continue to connect to their target consumers wherever and whenever they were watching.”

Business Verticals: During the pandemic there was a notable and not unexpected shift in advertiser categories. And NYI was ready. “For every vertical that pulled back on their TV media schedules in 2020, there were more that came to the forefront,” Renicker explained, “All matters of healthcare and hospitals found themselves wanting to get important information out. New verticals like online gaming and food delivery services found themselves in great demand. The sales team of NYI fought to keep their struggling verticals visible so they would be strongly positioned when the market rebounded. They also sought the right opportunities for the verticals that were now in high demand by creating effective media plans to maximize their exposure and profitability.”

News, Sponsorships and Political: Programming and advertising categories shifted in importance. He explained that, “All eyes were on the news in 2020. Daytime viewership skyrocketed and prime-time was now around-the-clock. Local cable news networks including News 12 and Spectrum NY1 found loyal viewers tuning in for hours at a time daily as their coverage spanned everything from updates on the pandemic, new healthcare protocols and news on protests taking place around their local neighborhoods. We placed important healthcare ads during peak viewership hours and created sponsorship opportunities that would align with the new programming being implemented by the cable networks.” He added that, “Political was also huge in 2020. A holistic advertising approach was the key to getting the word out in 2020 which is just want our teams did. The campaigns benefited from a more-targeted, audience-based approach in addition to their standard linear buys.”

Digital & Multiscreen: Through all of this, a multi-platform approach was pivotal to establish one-on-one connections with customers. “Brands need to reach them across devices at-home and beyond,” he shared, “Digital targeted advertising acts as a primary touchpoint for smaller brands and a bolster to video advertising across platforms for larger ones. The digital arm of a holistic marketing strategy is particularly crucial to attribution. Brands can see the conversion rate of households exposed to its commercial on multiple platforms, as well as metrics like website visitation, location data, or tune-in conversion after being exposed to an ad.”

The Beauty of the New York Market and NYI for Advertisers

When you are representing the biggest, most diverse global market as New York, you can’t help but see the great importance the market has for advertiser brand’s TV media strategy. It is a must-buy. “It all happens in New York!” Renicker exclaimed. “We are the #1 market in the country. We have the most affluent, diversified consumers and now, thanks to data and reporting, we have the ability to target like never before and prove a brand’s ROI.”

NYI should be the centerpiece of any marketing effort. In addition to the accolades NYI has received with the Myers Report rankings, their Marketing Team was recognized as Marketing Team of the year by the Faxies- and NYI was a runner up for Best Sales Organization. “NYI has always strived to maintain a great blend of talent that includes Sales personnel, Operational personnel, Marketing personnel, Business/Financial Planning personnel, HR personnel, and overall sales support personnel,” he explained, “We truly work as a team with the objective of servicing our clients at the very highest level. We do this by having homegrown talent combined with bringing in talented subject-matter experts when required.”

When asked to summarize what the secret sauce is to NYI’s success, Renicker didn’t hesitate in his answer.  “1. Client service, 2. Client service and 3. Client service. Our technology is always the most current, but our philosophy is always the most tried and true. Our clients come first in everything we do and keeping the best interest of our clients as our driving force has never steered us wrong.” The proof is in the Myers’ ranking.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

 

Paul Haddad Explains How a4 Is Inventing the Way Advertising Works

Navigating the transition from collecting and mining data to actually applying it in addressable advertising is a talent that a4 President Paul Haddad (pictured at top) has in abundance. With an engineering background and extensive work in collecting data at the set-top box level from his tenure at Cablevision, he has a keen sense of how the addressable landscape looks and what the underpinnings of data and analytics need to be to ensure a seamless, real-time, targeted experience for both consumers and advertisers.

His evolution from entrepreneur to data geek (an epithet that we both agree is a source of pride) to president has been facilitated by his early work at Cablevision, the mentorship of then-department head Kim Norris (currently the division vice president), Spectrum Reach, the acquisition of Cablevision by Altice, Patrick Drahi’s support of disrupting status quos, Dexter Goei’s coaching on building growth-driven business and the recognition by the industry of the value and power of data and targeting.

A One-Stop Advertising Shop
Utilizing data culled from many sources and offers, a4 is "a one-stop shop for audience-driven, integrated, multi-screen advertising and end-to-end ROI analytics across the U.S.," Haddad said.  But as complete as that sounds, that is not all it is.  Owned by Altice, which purchased Cablevision in 2015, a4 is actually a large advertiser in its own right, representing Altice's $200 million budget as an in-house agency.  So, a4 not only offers capability in both the buying and selling aspects of advertising, it also manages and stewards small $250 campaigns to multi-million-dollar campaigns, as well as national and local accounts through an interface platform controlled by the advertiser.  a4 is helping to transition the media world by "inventing the way advertising works," and it has been very successful.  "We now have over $500 million in total media revenue, over 500 employees and the fastest growing business at Altice," Haddad noted.

Going from Local to National
Transitioning from local MVPD operation to a national footprint was not without some internal questions.  "What is an audience to us?" Haddad posited. "Is it market-driven or is it location-driven or is it size-driven?"  After two years of tests, he realized that "audience targeting has no location or specific size."  So, the conclusion was that "when it comes to audience, we do not see the world as local or national at all," he explained.  "We do not see the world as TV or digital.  We see the world as household targets.  We deliver a household-based audience targeted campaign across all screens anywhere in the U.S. at any time and at any size of segment."  In sum, a4 essentially removes the need to label anything other than audience at a household level -- and that appears to be the wave of the future.

Haddad said that those still operating under the legacy mindset of local versus national are "limiting" themselves and warned that his competitors who stick to the old parameters of measurement are "being held as techno-hostages."

Finding Intent in Targeting
a4 has access to a myriad of datasets at the MVPD set-top box level, at the device level, at various digital touch points and through third and first-party partnerships.  To ensure privacy and create effective reach pathways, "our datasets are focused on household targeting," he explained.  "To target a household, you need to understand and provide to our advertising clients the means to create a segment.  And the way to create the segment is to collect data that finds intent."
He noted that intent on a household level is based on:

• Viewing and content consumption (a4 currently covers 12.5 million homes at the set-top box level covering 210 DMAs)
• Spending patterns (such as luxury items or beauty products or tech-gadgets)
• Consumer profile data (totaling 300 million homes)
• Geo-location data (sports stadium visits or high-end store or auto dealership visits)
• IP targeted data with a platform deployed behind the firewall at most MVPDs in the U.S. (accessing 50 million household data on digital and mobile devices for in and out-of-home addressability.)

"When you put it all together you can use the data for audience creation on the front of a campaign," he explained.  "You can then use the 'same' segment to plan when and how to reach them.  Finally, you measure and report all the impressions for that 'same' segment across all their devices, and clearly analyze the effect and whether you reached these audiences or not and what was the ROI."
In addition, a4 gives the client an on-boarding, self-service, full stewardship platform where proprietary CRM data can be uploaded privately and safely and matched with all of a4's data free of charge and within hours, not days.  So, from audience creation to media planning to media activation across all screens (which includes linear and optimized TV, OTT, digital video and display, social media, mobile display and in-apps banner), "we provide the measurement at the household level, plus all of these screens for the campaign, from the exposure to the medium to how often, and then we post at the end of the campaign."

As far as privacy is concerned, Altice applies a strict and disciplined compliance approach to all its data operations and business use cases.   "Privacy is extremely important and serious to us," Haddad asserted.

Time for a "Datalution"
Giving the client full access and control over all aspects of a campaign by targeting the intent of households is something that few companies offer. Haddad shepherds his company in a new direction that is poised to change the business of advertising as we know it.  "The advertising world is broken into a fast lane of born-data companies and the slow lane of legacy processes," he said.  "The slow lane has no choice but to revolutionize the way they do business.  It's a question of time."

The clock is ticking.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com