Xandr's Amy Leifer on Operating in an Advanced TV Ecosystem

Kathy Newbergeramp160 Can you tell me about your first experience with the DirecTV part of the companyAmy Leiferamp160 I remember it like it was yesterdayamp160 I was in direct response sales at Columbia TriStar Television selling the Game Show Networkamp160 I was always in the office late because I also called on clients on the west coast and one evening my boss stopped by my office to talk over an ideaamp160amp160He had a friend over at DirecTV and they weren39t using their two minutes of avail time on the networks they carriedamp160 They hadn39t sold any advertising at allamp160 We needed ideas on how to approach the business and he asked me to think about itamp160 I went to a diner late that night with my husband and I explained that they were only in about three million homesamp160so it was going to be a challenge to get advertisers interestedamp160 And as we were talking I thought quotWhat if I grouped all the networks togetherquot and I literally started writing on a dinner napkinI went in the next morningamp160and pitched the idea of grouping the networks by demographics like adults male female amp8230 and that got us the opportunity to pitch the business which we did successfullyamp160 It was a pivotal moment for me because I had been selling and I then became this hybrid lead on a business unit where we had to operationalize sales when they39d never sold a unit beforeNewbergeramp160 You39ve gone back and forth from sales to operations a couple of timesamp160 That must be helpful when it comes to understanding the needs of a sales teamamp160 Describe your role nowLeifer amp160I moved into the sales ops and planning role in March 2018amp160 For Xandr Media I run all strategic planning amp160revenue forecasting and analysis against our multibillion dollar business and thenamp160pricing and planning for all our products especially our addressable productsamp160which have a lot of complexity plus inventory management across digital linear addressableamp160and operations for linear and addressable and digitalamp160 We39ll be rolling out account management in 2019 amp160It39s the largest group within Xandr Media led by Rick Welday which itself is part of an overall 1000 XandrWe sit in the middle of everythingamp160sort of that nucleus that combines all the sales efforts and what all the sales teams are out there selling with research and analytics product marketingamp160and backend reportingNewbergeramp160 You support all the products Xandr Media sells amp160addressable of course but also datadriven linear and the linear cluster business and digital and interactive television and even live sportsamp160 What is your team like and how are you managing such diverse areasLeifer amp160We have amazing talent people with subject matter expertise positive attitudes and a sense of urgency and the quothustle factorquot that39s served me so well in my career and which is so important to our businessamp160amp160We just had our offsite yesterday and reflected a bit on what the team has accomplished in 2018amp160automating our businesses reducing the friction that we have throughout the process accelerating addressable timelinesamp160 Our accomplishments are a credit to them and to Brian Lesser39s leadership in putting the right people in the right placesWe39re excited about the consortium that we announced with the addressable business with Altice and Frontieramp160 The team has already invested a lot of time working with those partners to create an easier process for advertisers and agencies to transact off of our addressable business and some standardization to help buyers and agencies with backend analytics to help them understand the benefits that addressable bringsamp160 We39re looking forward to bringing that to marketamp160 On the digital side of the house we39re spending a lot of time right now in Q4 to change some of our systems as well as partner with AppNexusNewbergeramp160 You mentioned the reporting advertisers see which is another touch back to your early careerLeiferamp160 When I think back about what I loved about the direct response business it39s that it was all performance basedamp160and that39s very much what our products do todayamp160 The sale then was about educating a client on your products and having them take a chance on you and what you were selling but ultimately it was about performanceamp160 If the client did well then they would continue to buy youamp160 That39s where we are many years later with addressable televisionamp160 We39ve done thousands of campaigns and we39re just continuously amazed by the outcomes that addressable brings When you can show a retail client that we can work with a custom list of customers who haven39t visited a location and have a campaign targeted to those customers and increase traffic by 30 those are real outcomesamp160As Rick Welday says addressable isn39t always about going to the bottom of the funnelamp160 There39s definitely brand awareness and other things that are happening with addressable but at the end of the day if you want to see improved sales and store visitation andamp160increase brand usage we can do that in addressable all dayamp160 So that39s the fun part and that39s where it really comes full circle for meClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Xandr's Amy Leifer on Operating in an Advanced TV Ecosystem

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Xandr's Amy Leifer on Operating in an Advanced TV Ecosystem

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