"About That with Carl Mayer:" Steve DeMain (Episode 4)

Steven DeMain leads Locality’s national sales network for streaming ad inventory, driving revenue growth across various media and tech companies. A pioneering figure in streaming advertising, Steve has built revenue-generating products for startups and established brands alike.

Before joining Locality in 2023, he spent four years at VIZIO, where he led initiatives in agency development, home screen sponsorships, and branded content, playing a key role in launching their platform business. Prior to that, Steve transformed Condé Nast’s video business and expanded it into streaming video and branded content sales.

Earlier in his career, Steve was an early Hulu employee, eventually overseeing national revenue. He later led ad operations at Vessel, a short-form video startup, before its acquisition by Verizon. Steve began in traditional television sales at 20th Television and later transitioned to sports and advanced ad solutions at DIRECTV.

Transcript:

Carl Mayer: It’s autumn in New York City. The crisp air, the pumpkin spice, it could only mean one thing. It’s Advertising Week. It’s About That. I’m Carl Mayer. We’re on location at Advertising Week. Join me, won’t you?

I am here with Steve DeMain, the EVP of Sales at Locality. Steve, Advertising Week is always great, but so fun to bump into you here.

Steve DeMain: You as well.

Mayer: You know, every year, there always seems to be some buzzword, some term that everybody uses ad nauseam, perhaps without even knowing really what it means. What’s that word this year?

DeMain: So generative AI comes up pretty much on every panel. I’m going to be a little biased and say local also is a very popular topic this year. There’s been more panels that I’ve seen this year around local than I’ve seen in years’ past. So I’m going to go with AI, one, Local, two.

Mayer: Well, I could never be sick of hearing about local. Now our two companies, me at Active International, you at Locality. We’ve been partners for a while so I know what it is you do but for anybody out there that’s not familiar, what is that Locality offers your clients

DeMain: Sure. So Locality is a preeminent video solutions provider across broadcast and streaming. We work with hundreds of broadcasters as well as streaming services to monetize their content, but also bring converged video solutions to advertisers in the U.S. market.

Mayer: Now, one thing you were telling me about a little earlier is a new product offering that you have, which I’m excited about. You have to be really excited about it. Can you tell everybody more about it?

DeMain: Sure. So we introduced a product a week ago, really officially this week called Reach Plus. The idea is to bring broadcast and streaming together in one media plan with one invoice, one single point of contact. Ultimately making local video easier to buy.  Local can be complicated. There’s a lot of line items on plans, different markets, so if we can make it easier for agencies and clients to buy local, that’s really what we want to do.

I think the sort of cherry on top of it is using modern measurement, really ACR technology to identify reach and frequency across broadcasts and streaming and to help buyers optimize as close to real time as possible to really maximize the amount of reach in any particular market throughout the US.

Mayer: That’s fantastic. I can’t wait to work with Locality and our mutual clients in the remainder of 2024, going into 2025 with Reach Plus. Thank you very much.

DeMain: Thank you, appreciate it.

Mayer: Enjoy the rest of Advertising Week.

DeMain: You too.

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