Over the past eighteen months, Viacom has acquired a suite of new media venues ranging from WhoSay, an influencer-marketing platform; VidCon, a conference for video creators; AwesomenessTV, the YouTube network; and PlutoTV, an ad-supported streaming-video hub. “All of this puts us in a place where we have the broadest reach of premium content hitting younger consumers,” Sean Moran, head of advertising solutions at Viacom, told Variety in an interview. “That differentiates us.”
Viacom has in the past grappled with the dynamic affecting all traditional media companies: how to keep advertising levels the same as more consumers migrate to new-tech screens that aren’t always counted in traditional ratings. But now the company believes it has a group of new-media offerings that will let it bring advertisers “a reach that is over 50% of the people between 18 and 34 in this country,” says Moran.
Viacom is making its pitch to media buyers this week as TV’s annual “upfront” sales season looms. Each year, U.S. media companies use the the yearly session to try to sell the bulk of their ad inventory for the next programming cycle.
Viacom’s overall revenue for its fiscal year 2018 fell 2% to $12.94 billion from $13.26 billion in the year-earlier period. Advertising revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter was off 6% to nearly $1.15 billion.
To be certain, Viacom has lots of TV ad time to sell. The company will be touting a new late-night series starring David Spade and a new scripted half-hour led by comedian and rapper Awkwafina on Comedy Central. CMT has greenlit Nashville Squares, a game show featuring Nashville talent. MTV is reviving The Hills.
Viacom will be launching 10 to 15 different channels for Pluto devoted to various popular brands the company operates, says Moran. And because these will be known entities, the company will tout “brand safety in a TV-quality environment” that will help sponsors reach cord-cutters and other young people who do not maintain a traditional subscription to cable or satellite distributors. He expects the company to make available “library” content from sources such as Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central with which many consumers are already familiar.
“You can get it on your phone, but the majority of it is watched on the big glass,” says Moran.
The company is expanding its range of media assets as many big entertainment companies work to attract an emerging category of advertisers that have come to be known to consumers through digital means, but wish to tap into TV to gain better share of consideration. “We are doing business with clients we’ve never done business with before,” says Moran.
Also, from Broadcasting & Cable:
Reaching Young Viewers in New Ways is Viacom's Pitch
Upfront deals will include Pluto TV
Though young people are cutting the cord and not watching Nickelodeon or MTV on cable the way they used to, Viacom’s pitch to advertisers is that it can help them reach these hard to reach consumers in new ways.
This week Viacom begins a round of high-level dinners for marketers and media buyers. CEO Bob Bakish and the presidents of Viacom’s agencies will be there to spell out the company’s strategy, according to head of ad solutions Sean Moran.
The smaller, focused dinners are also a way for Viacom to get a better handle on what its clients are looking for.
The message Viacom is trying to deliver in those meetings is “we’re here with the solutions that are going to help you reach the most valuable younger consumers in a way no one else can that’s going to drive your business,” Moran said.
Over the past year or so, Viacom has acquired a number of companies in an effort to expand its marketing capabilities. Those include the influencer marketing company WhoSay and digital branded content producer Awesomeness TV. More recently, Viacom paid $340 million for Pluto TV, the ad supported over-the-top video platform.
“Now we’re in a position where we’re going to market with this feeling of providing solutions that really makes us this younger, safer, smarter option in the marketplace,” said Moran. “We really see ourselves as having the broadest TV quality reach for this younger audience. Simply put, that’s a real distinction between what out there.”
Moran said that between Viacom’s linear networks, its digital content and its over-the-top Pluto TV, it reaches more than 50% of all of the 18- to 34-year-olds in the country.
“That’s a tremendous point that CMOs as well as [agency] holding company execs are very interested in,” he said.
Viacom will be talking about its plans to add programming to Pluto TV. Moran said that over the next few months Viacom will roll out between 10 and 15 channels associated with brands including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
Pluto gives Viacom billions of new high quality video impressions and those impressions will be added to upfront deals as an extension of clients’ TV buys. Moran says 50% of the Pluto impressions are viewers 18-34 and 80% of them are seen on the “big glass” of TV screens, where brand recall is likely to be highest. Dynamic ad insertion will be available right away on Pluto TV and ads will be addressable, making them that much more attractive to clients, he said.
The Pluto TV ads will be part of Viacom’s Advanced Marketing Services unit, which includes Viacom Vantage, Viacom Velocity and its other advanced advertising capabilities.
While Viacom’s overall ad revenue have been shrinking for years, AMS revenue grew 54% in the company’s fiscal first quarter and account for 10% of total ad sales. “Vantage will be playing a big role in the upfront and it’s been rolled into every holding company deal we’re doing,” Moran said.
So while traditional ratings are down, Viacom is “embracing that fragmentation rather than being put off by it,” Moran said. The company is offering marketers solutions that include multiple touch points and new ways to cut through the clutter.
“”It’s not about whether one distribution platform is up or down, but who can connect them [with young viewers] en masse, whether you’re a disrupter, like one of those new [direct to consumer] brands or you’re a defender, one of those legacy brands, like those in consumer packaged goods, the automakers or a studio with a new release.”
With it’s new capabilities, Viacom has been able to win new business from both new companies like Spotify--Viacom created a digital campaign featuring RuPaul looking back at last year’s big hits--and long-time clients like Pepsi, which needed to reach additional viewers around the Super Bowl using an influencer campaign.
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From Ad Age:
VIACOM WANTS TO BE THE ENTRY POINT TO TV FOR D-TO-C BRANDS
Pluto TV, among other acquisitions, will be a focal point during upfronts
Viacom wants to be the entry point for direct-to-consumer brands looking to try TV advertising.
During the annual spring ad haggle, Viacom intends to speak to the brands that have typically relied on digital advertising and might have never aired a TV campaign.
Sean Moran, head of ad solutions at Viacom, points to several acquisitions the company has made over the last two years, including AwesomenessTV, VidCon and social marketing firm WhoSay, as entry points for these types of clients.
"We now have the ability because of these touchpoints, they don't have to come in through traditional media… they can come in through an influencer campaign, or they can get involved in branded programming through Awesomeness, or they can go on-the-ground at VidCon. And all of a sudden we are starting to expand the long-tail of who is playing at Viacom because of all of those entry points."
These various acquisitions, which also include the recent purchase of streaming service Pluto TV, have opened up opportunities for smaller marketers to utilize TV, but at lower price points that are more realistic for direct-to-consumer brands, Moran says.
The direct-to-consumer category is certainly an area of interest for TV networks, which are eager to woo such brands as they try to compete with digital ad behemoths Facebook and Google. TV's growing ability to utilize data to better target specific audiences beyond age and gender demographics, as well as emerging capabilities that allow brands to secure guarantees based on business outcomes, have made TV a more attractive vehicle for brands that want more granular results in real-time.
Last week, A&E Networks introduced a new ad tool that allows small and mid-size clients to target audiences and optimize their commercial buys on a single network, and receive reports that are more akin to those they would get from a Facebook or Google. The entry point is under $500,000—at least 50 percent lower than what one of these deals would normally cost across A&E's portfolio.
And late last year NBC Universal said it was rolling out a new program that makes advertising on TV and premium video more accessible to d-to-c brands.
Viacom will be talking up its acquisitions at a half-dozen agency and client dinners over the next few weeks, where it will be showcasing how they can fit into media plans and help brands re-aggregate young audiences who are consuming content on a variety of platforms and devices.
Viacom has been more formally trying to create a deal structure that pushes demand away from its linear networks, which are experiencing some of the most severe audience erosion on TV, according to one media buyer. So if an advertiser was spending $10 million on a pure linear buy, for example, Viacom is going to want a certain percentage of that be allocated to digital video or Pluto TV, the buyer says.
In the aggregate in the fourth quarter of 2018, Viacom's cable networks, which include MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, saw a 13 percent decline in commercial ratings in the three days after a show airs (C3) in the relevant target demos. This marked the second straight quarter in which not a single Viacom brand showed year-to-year growth, although some of the most significant losses are impacting the 2-11 demos at Nickelodeon.
For brands that have a long history advertising on TV, Moran says the new touchpoints will allow them to connect with younger consumers. In particular, he points to Pluto TV, which will be a meaningful part of Viacom's upfront pitch following Viacom's $340 million acquisition of the company earlier this year.
Pluto's sales team will be part of Viacom's ad group, Moran says, and there is a combined strategy for approaching all the holding companies and clients. There are opportunities for marketers to buy branded channels, for example, or own different genres of programming.
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From Adweek:
Viacom’s Upfront Pitch: To Reach Young Adults, You Have to Go Through Us
Newly acquired streaming service Pluto TV gives company a 18-34 demo boost
As Viacom’s annual upfront Presidents Dinners with agencies begin this week, the format may be the same, but several of the chiefs’ faces will be new—CEO Bob Bakish made several exec changes since last year—as is this year’s message to marketers: Thanks to a key acquisition last month, the company can help them reach half of all adults in the 18-34 demo.
This is the third year that Viacom is foregoing big upfront events in favor of intimate dinners with agencies, during which the network presidents, Bakish and head of ad solutions Sean Moran will all woo buyers. Viacom held five separate lavish upfront events annually as recently as three years ago, but they have all been eliminated; this was the first upfront season that did not kick off with Nickelodeon’s usual event.
The lineup at this year’s six Viacom Presidents Dinners will look much different than a year ago, after Bakish made changes at Nickelodeon (Brian Robbins, who came on in October following the June exit of longtime Nickelodeon Group president Cyma Zarghami), Paramount Network and TV Land (Comedy Central chief Kent Alterman took over for Kevin Kay as part of a restructuring last October), CMT (MTV, VH1 and Logo president Chris McCarthy took over for Kay) and BET Networks (CEO Debra Lee left in May; president Scott Mills now oversees it).
“The past year was one of transformation for us,” said Moran. And now that the dust has settled on all those exec changes, Moran will be spotlighting not only Viacom’s linear networks but the company’s big acquisitions over the past year, which have bolstered its brand partnership opportunities and expanded its reach in the coveted 18-34 demo.
“Viacom has the broadest, TV-quality reach with young audiences,” said Moran.
This year, Moran will be going into the upfront with Pluto TV, the free, ad-supported streaming service that Viacom acquired last month, which will be the cornerstone of the company’s streaming strategy. “We see OTT as the most transformative thing to happen to our industry right now,” said Moran, “and that’s why Pluto TV is such an exciting thing for all of us.”
Moran’s upfront pitch for Pluto TV: “No. 1: it’s got the brand safety with premium content that they’re looking for, in a TV environment. No. 2: it really strengthens and deepens Viacom’s reach with this really difficult-to-reach 18-34 audience, which makes up half of all Pluto’s 12 million monthly average users. It also brings billions of high-quality video addressable impressions.”
In fact, Viacom’s premium, full episode addressable video supply will triple next year with the addition of Pluto. (Buyers can buy Pluto TV inventory through Moran’s team, as part of a cross-platform buy, or with Pluto’s existing sales team, led by CRO Rich Calacci).
That will strengthen Moran’s “Viacom Everywhere” push this upfront: “When you put together our linear offerings, our OTT offerings and Pluto, we’re able to reach over 50 percent of all 18-34s in the country,” said Moran, adding that Viacom’s reach extends to 80 percent when adding in its social capabilities via the Viacom Digital Studio and influencer marketing company WhoSay.
Moran will continue to leverage Viacom’s big purchases last year: WhoSay’s influential capabilities, experiential via VidCon (the world’s largest conference for YouTube and other online video content producers) and branded programming through multichannel network AwesomenessTV.
“Viacom is now at a position where we can really be that one-stop shopping for reaching that younger consumer,” said Moran. “Because no matter what, you’ve got to be in touch with the younger consumer.”
That reach has allowed Viacom to increase its advertiser base over the past year. Late last year, it worked with Spotify for the first time on a digital campaign in which influencers RuPaul and Riverdale’s Lili Reinhart shared their favorite artists of the year.
As its reach has expanded, Viacom Velocity, its branded content studio, and Wildness, Awesomeness’ in-house creative shop, are helping marketers build creative that is “the right format in the right environment,” said Moran.
Among the upfront-related announcements and highlights from Viacom’s networks that will be shared at the Presidents Dinners:
- MTV has now had six consecutive quarters of year-over-year primetime growth in adults 18-34, which is the longest streak in network history. The network is reviving its reality show The Hills, which ended a decade ago, with The Hills: New Beginnings, expected this summer. Teen Mom: Young Moms Club will follow moms that are part of a group of friends living in the same city. The network will celebrate New Year’s Eve with the SnowGlobe music, sports and art festival for New Year’s Eve in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
- Paramount Network, which aired last year’s top-rated new cable series, the Kevin Costner Western Yellowstone, will be welcoming that back for Season 2. Next year, it will debut Younger creator Darren Star’s dramedy Emily in Paris, about a midwestern twenty-something who moves to Paris for a social media job.
- Comedy Central is taking another 11:30 p.m. swing with a new David Spade late-night show, coming later his year. Jordan Klepper, the last person to try his hand at 11:30 with The Opposition, returns in the network’s first docuseries, Klepper. The network will also be airing a new series starring Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s Eight breakout Awkwafina as a twenty-something living in Queens with her father and grandmother, as well as a revival of puppet prank show Crank Yankers, designed for a digitally-driven audience.
- VH1, which has seen three years of primetime ratings growth, is home to nine of cable’s top 20 unscripted series; Love & Hip Hop was 2018’s No. 1 unscripted cable franchise among adults 18-49 and women 18-49. One of its biggest hits, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party, will return in the third quarter.
- BET looks to add to its top-rated cable awards shows—BET Awards, Soul Train Awards and Hip Hop Awards—with a BET 40th Anniversary Special, airing in January.
- CMT will air Nashville Squares, a country twist on the classic Hollywood Squares game show.
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More Nick: Nickelodeon Embarks on New Direction with its Biggest, Most Wide-Ranging Content Slate Ever!
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