How NBCU harnesses the power of entertainment; iconic shows, reality TV and the Olympics - Josh Feldman

0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. In this episode I'm meeting with the CMO of NBC Universal. If you don't know, they are the biggest media company in the US. And I want to find out what can we learn from the CMO who's charged with marketing NBC and all the events they do or the engagement they do and the incredible shows and talents that they manage. What can we learn from them? This is a great conversation with Josh Feldman. Welcome to the show, Josh. Thanks, John. Great to be here. Good. Good to have you on. Let's start at the beginning. You've had a career in broadcasting in the media.

0:40Now you're the CMO for NBC. Really, really exciting role. But tell us how you got into this industry in the first place and what brought you to this point today? I've always been interested in advertising and I actually was an advertising major at Michigan State University and just kind of knew this was the industry I wanted to be in. Thought I wanted to be on the creative side early on and then I learned about the ad sales side of the business and realized that actually the best salespeople are creative salespeople. So I was able to kind of take that creativity bug that I had early on and apply it to advertising in a sales capacity and worked for many, many years at Turner Broadcasting and did a lot of fun things over there, including help launch Adult Swim and grow that brand from the very, very early stages.

1:27And that's where I saw this industry sort of evolving over the course of time and realized it was going to be really, you know, two very distinct paths in advertising, right? One is obviously your data-driven, programmatic, audience-seeking buying. And then there's going to be the part of advertising where advertisers are going to still really want to be close to media companies' IP, talent, you know, great content and storytelling. And I've always kind of, you know, leaned heavier to that side of the business. So I made a decision to, you know, change up my career a little bit and get out of straight sales role and moved over here to NBCUniversal originally to run their integrated marketing teams within the sales division and then just continue to kind of bring the creative teams under my umbrella, the trade marketing teams under my umbrella, the commerce teams and so on.

2:30And so now I'm a chief marketing officer specifically for the sales and partnership division. Great. I think we're in a similar position, actually, because I've been a CMO most of my career or in marketing up to CMO. And then I've gone into a sales role as well, where I'm using my kind of CMO skills on the other side, which is quite interesting. So what is being, you know, coming from advertising and being a CMO, but now in more of a sales or business development capacity, how does that help you do your job better? You know, people think of CMOs obviously very much as marketers. I very much lean specifically on the B2B side of being a CMO, right?

3:09We have amazing CMOs here that are consumer-based every single day. I'm thinking about ways that we can either generate revenue incoming to our company or create new revenue opportunities for the company. So when I think of what my role is, I think of servicing advertisers on how they can show up within NBCUniversal's IP, whether that is through product placement to custom content to experiential. But the other half of my role is also how NBCU shows up externally. Right. So almost like a little bit of an internal agency type function of how we're showing up at different places, whether it's CanLion to, you know, our upfront event that we run at Radio City Music Hall.

3:55So it's kind of a two way street, but it's always with this sort of B2B mentality either way. Now, I'd love to talk about the B2B bit because probably one of the most frequent questions I get asked is, John, you must do a podcast on B2B. It's the one thing that a lot of us are in B2B, aren't we? And so there's a huge interest in how you get it right. And actually, I'm in a B2B role now, actually, which is huge fun. But it's quite different, isn't it, from kind of what people traditionally think of B2C. And you're selling advertising to advertisers doing mass market campaigns. But what are the main kind of strategies you've deployed from a B2B point of view that, you know, help make NBC so successful?

4:31Yeah, look, the reason I like it is because you absolutely must use your left side of your brain and your right side of your brain, right? It is equal amount creativity as it is sort of monetization opportunities, right? So when I think about, you know, what success looks like, I look at partnerships at the end of the day, because almost everything we're doing is going to be in conjunction with somebody else. So what's the ultimate win-win on how we're going to do it, right? And when somebody from a marketing team walks into a room with a client, it has a little bit of a different meaning than if it's just a salesperson walking in or somebody else.

5:11Now, look, we're complete partners with the sales team and we're doing things to support them. But we're coming at it from an angle of always looking to solve our clients' problems or try and figure out how to solve our own company's problems at the same time. That is such a good insight. I remember running a sales function years ago in my career. And on my business card, I had marketing director. Because what I found is when you go and meet a client, you say, I'm from the marketing team, they suddenly open up to you and they go, oh, yeah, we've got this much budget and we want to do this. And can you help?

5:42When you turn up as a sales director, they're suddenly arms folded and go, okay, go on then, sell to me. It's a different relationship, isn't it? And just the idea of framing, in fact, in my system one role, actually, we have a very clear strategy of partnership. So we want to build partnerships where we can add value both ways, you know, and that's been hugely successful for us. So I think partnerships is amazing. Partnerships, what else would you do in terms of strategy? I mean, we're coming to talk about some events you run as well, but events presumably are pretty important when you're bringing so many advertisers together with, you know, your talent and content.

6:15That must be a big part of it. Yeah, absolutely. So if you look at, you know, the way my team is set up is we have a group of integrated marketers that are the front door in for all of our clients. Right. This place, NBC Universal, when I say this place is massive. Right. It is really, really hard to navigate multiple broadcast networks, multiple cable networks, you know, huge amount of digital offerings. It's really, really hard. So we have a team of people that are there to solve any issue for a client, whether it's a one-off integration to I want to do something that includes your theme parks and your movie studios and everything you have together.

6:54That's one place that's in there. Then we have creative and development teams. Those are the teams that are really tied directly to our IP in a very unique way, right? If we're going to be doing something with the Tonight Show or watch what happens live, these are the teams that own those relationships with those showrunners and executive producers to make sure that we're doing everything authentically for our audiences in a very specific way. Our trade marketing team is how we're showing up. They're our strategy of how we're going to show up and really be able to monetize all of those assets in a huge way and work with our events team to make sure everything that we do for a client externally is flawless in every single step of the way.

7:35Our commerce team is there to build offerings and collapse that funnel to really make everything that we do valuable for our clients in a new and unique way. So each of the functions is a very unique function that works sort of side by side with each other, but all with the goal of making our clients' lives easier and to sell their products at the end of the day. And there's a number of events where you get together with your clients. I mean, we were in Cannes, weren't we, this summer, and that's huge for you guys. So what's your approach to Cannes and why is Cannes so important for you guys? Well, first of all, it's amazing how many people and what level of clients show up at Cannes, right?

8:14This has become the event where you know you're going to get all your C-level meetings at Cannes now. So what we do, instead of just trying to show up in a more basic way, is we choose very specific themes and we target all of our meetings around those two themes. So this past year, the Olympics was a huge theme for us because obviously being in the south of France, we're one year out from the Paris Olympics. That made a lot of sense. So we brought a ton of Olympians and Paralympians with us. We brought our production teams and we did a number of panels and events and meetings around that. The second major thing we focused on at this year's CanLion event was we announced our SNL 50 initiative.

8:58So Saturday Night Live will be in its 50th season and we're doing our huge 50 year episode, 50 season episode, excuse me, in February of 2025. So we've created this great opportunity for advertisers to come along for a ride. We're launching it at the Olympics next year. And there's like the seven or eight month window where we're going to be doing all of these different events from, you know, concerts at Radio City Music Hall to clip based shows of the history of it to documentaries around the show's history that advertisers can get closer to Saturday Night Live than ever before. So we've brought that all together.

9:38And that was another major initiative that we brought out at the Can Lion Festival. Well, we'll come and talk about some more events in a second. So I know you've got a really exciting one just coming up in a couple of weeks' time. But it's interesting how many of your shows have run for a very, very long time, haven't they? And even shows like Friends that, I mean, my daughters love Friends, you know. And even though, you know, we're a completely different generation. You know, I was, you know, late teens when Friends was launched. And now my teenage daughters love it. It seems to, some of your shows seem to span generations and almost the longer they go, the better they become.

10:10I find it amazing. I mean, just this past Saturday night, I literally watched Saturday Night Live with my 12 year old son. He loves Pete Davidson. He loves SNL, right? He'll watch it no matter who the host is. So, you know, it's amazing to me to know that I absolutely watched Saturday Night Live when I was 12 years old and here I am watching it with my 12 year old today. So, but there's, you know, that's the beauty of a company like this is the iconic nature of so much of our programs. You think about the Today Show on how long that's been on. If you think about, like we said, Saturday Night Live, there's just so much here that the Tonight Show that has been on for so long, but then there's also so much new and learning.

10:54So to get those base audiences and use that as a marketing opportunity to introduce all of our new programming is pretty amazing. You've obviously got relationships with some of the world's biggest advertisers. And what would you say is the secret to building a really, really good client relationship with these people? You've got to listen, right? You've got to listen to what their needs are, what their objectives are. You can't just walk into a room and talk about what you have, right? The beauty of the tool chest of working here from our news division to our Hispanic division to cable, to broadcast, is we have a solution for everyone.

11:32We reach 90 % of the country every given month, huge English language, huge Spanish language. We need to hear what our clients' objectives are, what success looks like for them, and then custom build something around those objectives. So not walking in with an idea, walking out with thoughts on what the idea could be to solve their problem. That's spot. I remember once being pitched for an agency and they came in and they were telling me the six things they could do. And we got like 50 minutes into our meeting. I stopped the meeting. I said, can I just say something? You haven't asked me a single question and you don't even know what I might be interested in buying.

12:12And I can tell you that none of those six things are on my mind at the moment. It's crazy. Absolutely. I did years ago, I did negotiation training. And the very first thing they teach you, like literally number one, is the art of the reverse interview. which is just when you turn up to meet someone you haven't met before, you know, a potential customer, just ask them some basic questions about how is it going? What are your objectives? You know, are you succeeding? What's keeping you up at night? If there's one thing you had to, you know, fix, what would it be? And just some simple questions like that.

12:41Suddenly you understand. And the thing that always blew me away is it's hardly ever what you think it is. And you go, oh, right, that's what you're worried about. And then so what you might have gone thinking, I'm going to sell them this. Actually, you go, actually, I'm going to sell them that, you know, because it's something else completely different. But that is so not well understood, I find. I'm amazed at how many people, you know, just go straight in it. Let me tell you 20 reasons why our agency is better than any other agency. We'll spend so much time working to perfect a deck, right, with the ideas and the right fonts and all of the imagery and all that.

13:16And then I always say it as soon as the deck's done. I'm like, all right, so the really successful meeting is we're not even going to take this deck out, right? Like we need it. You need it to refer to things. You need it in case things aren't going well. But the best meetings, you don't need to even take that deck out. It's funny, actually. I remember with my team, I think this was about last year, we had a really amazing meeting with a big, big customer. And afterwards, internally, people heard about this meeting going really well. And I then spoke to the person that was presenting the deck.

13:47And I got this slightly awkward feedback going, I don't think it was as good as you think, John. I'm like, why, why, why? I'm like, I only presented half the deck. I'm like, no, it was brilliant. I said, the point was we stopped presenting and we started listening. And because we started listening, we knew exactly what it was the customer wanted. And it was like a five-star meeting because by the end, they were completely happy and they knew that they were in safe hands and that we understood what they wanted. But the poor guy that had written the deck of 60 pages was upset because we only got halfway through.

14:18And that's probably more than we should have done. Absolutely, 100%. It's so true, isn't it? I wanted to ask you about full funnel marketing, right? Because I know you're very passionate about end of funnel and so on. But so talk to me about your point of view about funnel marketing and how the end of the funnel is so important. Well, I think that there's been this very big distinction, top of the funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of the funnel. And I think that previously there were certain mediums that, oh, that's only good for top of the funnel and that's better for bottom of the funnel. And quite frankly, that was the truth at the time.

14:55I wouldn't deny that. But with the way companies have gone and with the way technology has evolved right now, I think there's really a collapsing of the funnel happening at this real time. And I look at our commerce business as a real big example of that, right? We have the ability to create something for a partner, for a client that will give them exposure, can introduce a new brand, can give them that big, massive audience that people can learn about what their brand is while still buying it in real time on any screen that we have. Right. Whether it's linear, whether it's Peacock and streaming, whether it's digital, whether it's with a partnership, with a social platform, we can now sell directly to our audience wherever they are because we know they're watching our IP and our content in all different places at all different times.

15:47So that's really what we're all about is trying to reach the audiences wherever they are, have them lean forward with great storytelling, great content, and then be able to sell our clients' products in real time to them, which is a huge differentiator on where we were just a few years ago. We have this show in the UK, a reality show called Love Island. I don't know if you've come across Love Island. Oh, sure. We have it on Peacock. Oh, yeah, of course. Yes, absolutely. And they give them these water bottles with their name on. And, you know, it's something that you just don't think is that important.

16:17You've got to stay hydrated because it's in a hot venue. But those water bottles are just insanely popular and everyone wants the water bottle with their name on it sort of thing. So that's where that kind of opportunity to be, you know, to meet, you know, creativity and commerce together is insanely, you know, cool. Yep. Brilliant. Love it. Now, I really want to talk to you about an event you've got coming up because this slightly blows my mind, I have to say. But obviously, you know, Bravo Channel. Actually, for everyone listening, before we talk about it, what are some of the shows you've got on your Bravo Channel?

16:49Because they're hugely popular. We've got The Real Housewife franchises of all different places. We've got Vanderpump Rules. We've got Below Deck. We've got Top Chef. I mean, we have a multitude, Summer House and Winter House. There's a multitude of really phenomenal programming. and it's all kind of brought together by the ringmaster of Andy Cohen, who hosts a show called Watch What Happens Live, which is really there just to update our fans on what happened on the show behind the scenes of what the show they just watched. So what's happened is that, you know, it has become one of the most popular iconic brands in the history of cable television, and the fan base to this day is rabid.

17:36They cannot get enough. And, you know, when there's drama on the show, it spills out into the world and it's what everybody's talking about. So this BravoCon is our way of celebrating everything that happens on the Bravo network. and what we're doing is we're bringing 160, we call them Bravo Leberties, which are the stars of our Bravo shows. We're bringing over 160 Bravo Leberties with us to Las Vegas and our fans will get to meet them, interact with them, hear them on panels, hear them getting interviewed by Andy and do a bunch of amazing, amazing things over a three-day period. This slightly blows my mind, right?

18:20Because like, you know, I get people are passionate about watching a TV show, but I mean, how much would be a VIP ticket? Give me an example. I believe our three-day VIP tickets, I believe, sold for around$1 ,200 each. We sold tens of thousands of them. The day they went on sale, every single one of them was in the shopping cart to be purchased within 90 seconds. Every single one of them. I mean, this is insane. immediately. So that's how important and big this is for our fan base. So they'll all be coming along and, you know, the fans just go absolutely crazy. So doing in Las Vegas this year is absolutely perfect.

19:03It gives us this huge, huge space to do it. It's a beautiful venue and we're really, really excited for it. And of course, our advertising partners get to come along for the ride. And we do a lot of really amazing things there. We have State Farm and Lay's as our two presenting sponsors this year. But, you know, we have, you know, multiple, multiple sponsors that are going to do all different types of activations that range from experiential to podcasts to, you know, live streaming to we've created a whole room called the Bravo Bazaar, which is in essence selling products. So a lot of our Bravo Leberties also own their own businesses.

19:48So you'll know about their personal businesses through the shows because they're obviously talking about them on the shows. It's your chance to go and meet that Bravo Leberties and buy their products directly from them. And then we also bring along other non-Bravo Leberties brands to be a part of the bizarre as well so it's a really just this amazing amazing space it's comic-con but for for bravo specifically for one particular brand where where comic-con encompasses the entire entertainment industry and i've been to multiple comic-cons i love comic-con this is even crazier because it's for one particular well i've seen the players on my mind you know i get having i don't know the the the television kind of event or something, but to have a specific channel with just those shows, with all the celebrities, it's incredible.

20:39So just to put it in perspective, the tickets purchased from all 50 states, so people will be flying to Las Vegas, Nevada, from all 50 states and from over 10 countries internationally beyond the United States as well. So this has become a global event for us. So that's how big it is right now. That's insane. So give an example of a brand that's activated that really well, because it's really interesting how you get, you know, I mean, you could be on the Super Bowl, the Olympics advertising, or you could be advertising to a specific area of Real Housewives from Las Vegas, let's say, for example, can't you?

21:15So you can go from something very mainstream to really quite targeted and specific. So how do brands take advantage of that? Give us an example of a brand that's really activated. Yeah, so, you know, State Farm is back for the third year. So we built out a huge area specifically for them, which is a place that people come. Each of these brands are doing deals with specific Bravo liberties that will then, you know, show up and do a number of different things for the brand itself. Of course, State Farm's bringing Jake with them. Of course. Let me tell you, last year at BravoCon, the line to take selfies with Jake was as long as any of our Bravo celebrities.

21:57I give him full credit. This is mad, right? Full credit. A made-up character in a TV commercial has become a celebrity. Hey, he's based upon their real people that call in to State Farm. So he's become an incredible figure. But, you know, we, based upon what the brand is, we do very, very specific things for them. So I can't give away everything we're doing this year because it's premiering in a couple of weeks. But each brand will have a very specific area. And like, so for example, Wayfair is coming along this year. So we're going to create, you know, lounges with a lounge area specifically with Wayfair furniture that you can watch panels from there.

22:37But they'll be themed based upon different Real Housewives executions and so on. So everything ties back to Bravo in some way, shape or form, because that's why everybody's there at the end of the day. But this halo effect for our advertising partners is really, really tremendous. And what would be your advice for brands in terms of how to work with talent? How do you get the best out of a talent deal, for example? To me, it's always about making sure that they believe in your brand first and foremost and that they can be authentic talking about it, right? you don't want to do a partnership with a talent just because they're popular.

23:14You want to do it because they actually believe in your brand, your brand attributes. They're either personal fans or they use your product and they could talk to it personally. So when we look at how we partner talent with that, that's exactly what we're looking at. When we have our database of hundreds and hundreds of talent that we work with across all of NBCUniversal, we know their hobbies. We We know if they're parents or not. We know where they grew up. Because then what we're trying to do is trying to figure out, right? So if you're a product that is targeting mothers, who are mothers? But that's low-hanging fruit, right?

23:49If you want to know who owns a cat, we know it down to that level because they're a cat lover and they would be good for a particular product. So it's finding that sort of mesh together. It's not just about how many social followers they have. It's about them being authentic to your brand. No, it makes a lot of sense. And also you have impact even beyond the network, of course, don't you? We were talking earlier about movies launching and actually how, you know, real housewives will be talking about a movie and that can have a big impact on people then going in to see it. It's become one of our most fun things to do.

24:22Our studio partners come to us all the time. And instead of just running traditional clip-based spots on our air, we can intertwine housewives in this case, either talking about the clips or reenacting things or adding to what the scene may be. We've done it in all different types of creative executions. And our social media blows up after we do it. Our fans absolutely love it. it's become a thing that we do on a regular basis. Amazing, isn't it? Well, moving to a slightly different gear, actually. So that shows how targeted and smart you can be. But obviously, you guys, in the other end of the spectrum, you talked about Cannes and Paris for next year.

25:04You're also a sponsor of the Olympics, of course. No, not a sponsor, but a media partner of the Olympics for the next few years. What opportunities would that give an advertiser? Because presumably, it must be. Is the Olympics the biggest? The Olympics is the biggest international global event. It's the great equalizer. It brings everybody together, right? You know, the Olympics are going to be a chance for us as a nation, as individual nations, not just, you know, to whatever nation you live in, to get together, to root for the same cause, and to really, really support your country or your teams or your favorite sports in a very unique way.

25:39So the Olympics are, to us, incredibly important. We've got this incredible runway over the next few years. We have Paris next year, followed by Milan for the Winter Olympics after that, and then back here in the United States for the LA Olympics of 2028. So we've got this incredible runway of multiple cities. And what's great about the Olympics is, beyond everything I just said, it's the stories of these Olympians. It's the heart-wrenching tales of what they've gone through. our fans tune in as much to hear the storylines around each of them as they do to see the actual competition. And I'm especially excited because we're going to be using the backdrop of Paris in such a great and unique way this year.