Rogers Media has made what senior vice-president of sales Al Dark describes as a “small tweak” to its integrated marketing team as it embarks on the key upfront sales period.
Speaking at the Rogers Centre in advance of the company’s annual upfront presentation on Monday, Dark said the company’s integrated sales unit has been reconfigured as a “marketing services organization” built around four key pillars: Creative; account management; audience and data insights; and analytics and program management (the team responsible for bringing insights and activations to life).
Dark, who joined Rogers from CBC in 2014, told Marketing the primary objective was to “flip” the company’s traditional way of doing business, which has seen it push out marketing solutions linked to specific properties in its portfolio.
“I want this group to be less focused inwardly and more focused on client solutions,” said Dark in a wide-ranging interview. “I want this group 100% focused on solving a client’s problem, not trying to package something around a specific publication or TV show and pushing the idea to them from our point first. I want us to be a solutions-based group.”
Dark said Rogers’ sales teams responded to more than 1,000 RFPs in 2015, and said clients were getting more involved in conversations surrounding integrated marketing programs.
“I do see a change in the industry, where more and more we are sitting down directly with [client] VPs, the marketing directors and the agency, and the process is more wholesome,” he said, noting that “95%” of Rogers’ hockey deals are being conducted in that manner.
He said Rogers continued to look beyond its standard media assets for additional revenue, and identified properties such as Rogers Smart Home Monitoring as a potential form of non-traditional revenue.
Dark suggested an example in which Rogers could work with a pet food company to deliver reminders to customers about walking the dog or ensuring they have enough pet food in the house.
“We’ve been very focused on our media suite of assets, [but] as digital becomes more prevalent and the Internet of Things more relevant, we have a pretty remarkable suite of mobile and digital assets that we’re not leveraging enough,” said Dark. “There are new and interesting ways we can start to leverage communications strategies with partners, leveraging more of our digital footprint from a consumer perspective.”
Dark has tapped Brandon Kirk to head up the integrated sales team as vice-president of integrated marketing sales and publishing, choosing the five-year Rogers sales executive from between 10-15 candidates.
“Brandon is an exceptional media leader, whose background is in cross-media sales,” said Dark. “He’s touched the TV side of the business, he’s touched digital and understands publishing and the radio business.
“In a role like this you need to be a certain type of sales person, not so much hard sell, but solutions-oriented and Brandon just has the brain for it,” said Dark. “[He] is one the top leaders within my organization.”
Addressing sales prospects for the fall TV season, Dark said he was “really happy” with the new additions to the schedule, saying that City’s fall lineup – built around event programming like 24: Legacy, the Prison Break reboot and an adaptation of the ’80s action movie franchise Lethal Weapon – is “really solid,” while its FX programming “continues to shine” and attract considerable interest from advertisers.
Dark also said the new Viceland specialty channel – a joint venture with Vice Media – has exceeded its initial audience projections. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s got room to grow – but if you’re looking for that specific demographic profile, it’s hard to find content that is as specific as what we’ve got,” said Dark.
Rogers also announced new partnerships with Videology and One by AOL that will make its linear TV assets available for purchase programmatically by the fall.
“Agencies have been looking for [TV] automation for a long time,” said Dark, noting that programmatic has grown to as much as 35-40% of Rogers’ total digital sales in the past three years, and that TV could follow a similar trajectory.
“When you think about how we do our agency deals, having media buyers and sellers focused on tactical has never made a lot of sense to me – it’s a lot of wasted time on both sides,” said Dark. “If we can automate that process, so the sellers can be more focused on ideation and problem-solving, it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Rogers’ rival Bell Media also announced a new partnership with Videology that will make its TV and digital inventory available programmatically beginning this fall. The company said Videology’s “video-first approach” and established relationships in both the North America and the EMEA region made it an “obvious choice” to be its strategic partner. The two companies are beginning a “multi-phase” integration of Videology’s capabilities.
Rogers Media also owns Marketing and MarketingMag.ca.
