Digital & Dirt
00:12:27 · Lucy Markowitz
[00:12:27] S1: Well, I think that I sort of joke that my time at Goldman like taught me a bunch of valuable lessons. So I'm glad that I started there. I had amazing mentors and bosses, but I think the other piece about it was that I was given a lot of liberty to do a job and a lot of trust was given to me even at a company that was that large. Now that being said though, you're in a fast paced environment. You have to be able to handle a lot. You're handling stress, you're handling pressure, the expectations are really high. I think what I learned from that was that I then had those expectations of myself. So coming into Vistar, I sort of felt to a degree like that could be my superpower, which was to know that I would push myself. I didn't necessarily need to be just pushed by the person that I was reporting into. And I think in that regard, I was lucky enough, Michael really trusted us. And I think that I've sort of felt that even in our earliest conversations that he was gonna trust for us to go out and do what we needed to do. But also he was realistic in knowing that you're probably not gonna make the sale on your first, second, third try. So I think setting us up for success and sort of us all knowing what the goal was, but also what we were up against. I think that that makes everyone be on the same page and feel like we're working towards something as a group to kind of get people to change their opinions and thoughts. And so it's funny early on, we actually sort of positioned what we were offering in market to be an extension of location based mobile. And that was really how we sold it in because we needed to figure out what is something that people will buy. We were using location data. We were using this idea of people based marketing of where individuals are going is a really good indicator of almost a real world cookie. And we were able to parlay that into out of home of these just being another screen that existed outside of So the once we sort of found a place where people could say yes, I would say that's when things kind of took off.
00:14:36 · Lucy Markowitz, Ian Dallimore
I joke and I tell this story sometimes to people that first start out at Vistar or a bit more junior, that the first deal that I closed at Vistar Media was $14,000 And at the time I was dating someone that wanted to celebrate this monumental win, which to me was like extremely small and embarrassing and sent flowers and balloons to the office, which I popped the balloons in the hallway. [00:15:00] S0: I was about to say this is not you. [00:15:02] S1: And like pretended that this was like for something else because I didn't want people to think that I was like celebrating, this huge win that was actually pretty small. But I mean, that was my first deal that I closed at Vistar. Following up on that, ironically working with then a different telecom that now has been bought by T Mobile who bought Vistar became like the behemoth that then I would say the taste of that win and then wanting more of it was like, Oh, this is what sales feels like. This is what it feels like to win getting people convinced that what you have to offer is something that they want. And I think we all have that belief though in the start, which was this was actually meant to make an industry better, not just to change it. And I think to me having something that was differentiated product that didn't exist, also a real product that I could see, that I could watch how it worked, knowing we would continue building on that and building for what our customers wanted was a really exciting proposition.
00:16:07 · Ian Dallimore
[00:16:07] S0: Yeah. And I think that's what's interesting, right? Because you're selling something that's not only for the brand and the agency and this new idea and new methodology. And I'm thinking back to my first time I ever met you and the conversations we've had, it had to have been super challenging as well, because not only are you selling that campaign for the brand or the agency, but you're also selling the vendor the believability into it. I'll tell you my first side story, my first sale programmatically, because at this time Sean Reilly had his pulse on everything. Like I've never texted and spoke on the sale more with Sean than the first few weeks, and John Miller as well, of programmatic, because internally there were a lot of people that were like, This is nonsense, what are we doing? There's a lot of agencies that had that. So our first sale ever was, I won't say the agency CEO name, but she's, since moved on, but she had a GM campaign that we sold for $83,000 and I think our entire first year of programmatic revenue was like a $100,000. And we celebrated that, other people celebrated, and I was like, no, no, no, this this isn't enough. So I guess the question is, you're selling both the story of the idea to the brand, the agency, but more importantly, you're also selling vendors to, like, believe in this. Because at the end of the day, if you don't have enough, I say vendors, publishers, award companies, transit companies, place based companies, then you don't have a product to go out and sell. So what was that like having to push the other side of the shop to make sure that you're getting enough supply? And quite frankly, some of the big names like the Lamar's, like the Clears, like the JCDecaux and Outfronts that believed in this as well.
00:17:51 · Lucy Markowitz
[00:17:51] S1: Yeah. So I think when you think about even like our journey of knowing each other, while I've pretty much known you the entire time I've been at Vistar, Lamar didn't actually become part of the Vistar marketplace until 2016. That was the year, big year. That was the year we got billboards. And prior to that, we were mostly selling place based inventory. And I think that it was very chicken and egg because to your point, if these larger companies, public companies are going to get into the programmatic space, They want to make sure that they're going to have something to show for it. And so, we needed to have this balance of how are we driving up the amount of revenue. And I think one of the things we started seeing on the agency side was more interest in wanting to buy this way. Because the idea of buying all of their channels the same way, being able to buy through a platform to be able to add this service layer that their teams could really apply data, apply agency owned data, have measurement was really important to them. And they knew that for out of home, it was still a bit fragmented, especially at that time where you could maybe get data and measurement applied individually to each different format type. But the idea of doing it in a more universal way, I think that was one of the first things that buyers were like, this is kind of how we want to buy. And so part of the convincing was by us, but we actually needed for some of our partners that were buying at the time to like kind of give the okay to the vendors of telling them or the media owners, this is how we're thinking about buying and kind of getting them to say like, we believe that this is some of the revenue projections where it wasn't just Vistar, we were kind of standing alongside of some of these buyers across, I would say a mix of out of home teams as well as programmatic and digital groups because we really had like two sets of stakeholders. And I think at the time even digital out of home, like sat within its own team within out of home. So I feel like part of it was having it not just come from us, but actually getting the buyers on the other side to talk to our potential partners, convincing them that this was gonna be necessary in order to grow the partnership.
00:20:10 · Lucy Markowitz, Ian Dallimore
And I think over time, one of the things we've seen is like this convergence of these teams at the agencies are starting to work together. [00:20:19] S0: And [00:20:20] S1: that was just an idea back then. Right. I would say folks like Lamar, you had to trust that if this is what your buyer is asking, like it's probably something we should do. But I would say at that point it was actually not a transparent marketplace. We couldn't even say, we could show a logo slide. [00:20:38] S0: I remember this, yeah. [00:20:39] S1: But we couldn't tell you where you ran. We could tell you ran on billboard, but we couldn't tell you you ran with Lamar, which I think at that point too, transparency was such a big thing. And of course we launched a fully transparent market. I want to say it was like March 10. So just 2020, just a few days before COVID. So I think that email may have been buried in some people's inboxes, but I think since then it's been, that was one of the catalysts for growth is really being able to have that transparency.
00:21:09 · Ian Dallimore
[00:21:09] S0: Yeah. And what you're talking about is massive in our space, right? You're meeting the demand, but you're also making sure that that demand isn't just short lived. And that's what I've always loved about Vistar. It's kind of like, hey, if we're going to build something, it's not going to just be because this isn't the future in the way, because it is. And that's what I've always seen is you and the team and others have always seen where the future is headed. So it's kind of like what you were thinking about, and Michael and others on the team twelve years ago, it's kind of like, hey guys, automation is going to be the biggest success. So I'm going to switch over to the cultural side. And I'm going to say this, right, with that statement. As much as you have automation, as much as you streamline processes. I see a lot of companies and I hear a lot of people talking today really around like, Hey, if we just automate things, we could have it run more efficiently and we can have less people and costs and the ROI. And one of the things that I'll quote Kevin Riley, our president and chairman always said is he told, told myself and Ross Riley and a few others, he said, as you guys continue to adapt technology, as you continue to adapt automation, programmatic, future of AI, whatever's out there, it doesn't need to replace the people. Because the people are the heartbeat of what we do within Lamar and our company, and that technology should only aid. Day one working with you, I knew that you were gonna be a star. So I'm gonna brag about you for a moment. It's there's it's a very tough industry to be in. This is my twentieth year with the company and I feel every day I'm still trying to make a name for myself through the work that I do, the team that I create, the passion that we build. And as others have always said, you're standing on the backs of others. It's hard to stand out in this industry, but there's also not a lot of people that are like so passionate about like a billboard, a transit screen, an airport, and more than you. And watching you kind of not only help build out this marketplace and build out this demand and this excitement behind something, but you've really kind of carved yourself into it. We were just chatting offline about your time at Cannes and it seemed like you were everywhere.