If you think about an orchestra, there are string instruments, wind instruments, percussionists, vocalists, and so on. Like most teams, the orchestra is comprised of musicians who have specialized expertise in their instrument and those in their instrument cluster. The conductor understands enough about each of those “functional areas” to bring a broader vision to life.
As DeepIntent’s first Chief Operating Officer, I compare my role to an orchestra conductor, ensuring all the teams are in their seats and playing their instruments in unison. My goal is to produce music that makes clients smile.
When companies go through rapid growth, it’s common for silos to develop. As individual teams expand, role specialization within teams is a natural outcome. My primary focus is the company’s overall business operations, ensuring everyone is aligned on common business objectives.
DeepIntent is at the intersection of a few very exciting trends: the rise in programmatic advertising, the privacy-safe cookieless future, and increased consumption of CTV. I’m excited to further integrate and scale our sales, campaign management, client success, and business development teams as we execute our plan to continue defining DeepIntent as the leading platform for digital advertising in healthcare.
Paving the Path for CTV Advertising in Pharma
As WarnerMedia’s Executive Vice President of Advertising Products, Analytics & Insights, I led the company’s linear and digital revenue operations functions. I grew three different product lines from zero to more than $500 million, which I attribute to a keen eye for what’s next.
When I joined the company in 2015, I got a ground-floor view of connected TV (CTV). Services like Hulu and ESPN+ were in their infancy. The entire virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) category didn’t exist. People didn’t even use the term “CTV” yet, referring to all streaming content as “OTT” regardless of the device on which the content was consumed.
Throughout that evolution, one thing that has remained constant is the fact that marketers will follow the eyeballs. And right now the eyeballs are on CTV. According to the Leichtman Research Group, 82% of U.S. households are reachable via CTV — and most of them have been streaming more during the pandemic.
The consumer shift to CTV has led to a greater awareness of CTV as an endpoint, albeit a complex endpoint. As the maturity of programmatic advertising makes its way to CTV, the pharma industry is at a crossroads.
Healthcare marketers have historically prioritized linear television, which accounted for 70% of their 2021 ad spend. That dynamic is quickly changing as traditionally linear buying teams shift budgets to CTV, understanding that the channel is an effective supplement, not a replacement, for their existing TV strategies.
Orchestrating the Future of Operations at DeepIntent
In my past roles, I’ve helped companies win by investing in technology and data. DeepIntent has deep roots in programmatic and delivering ROI for pharma marketers.
There’s a high degree of maturation on platforms for things like invalid traffic and viewability. Because these are now table stakes for programmatic advertising, there’s a much higher degree of trust with marketers. That trust is crucial as we help our clients navigate the rapidly evolving advertising landscape. Client satisfaction speaks for itself; the company has tripled in revenue over the last year.
Aggressive growth naturally yields many more people. While we had about 60 employees at the onset of the pandemic, we’re now at more than 250. My vision is to continue to build on the strong legacy of solutions-based innovation and harness the superpowers of all our team members while retaining all that has been amazing about the company’s culture.
“Succeed together” is my favorite of our five core values. We all win when the entire team comes together toward a common goal of pushing out better solutions, focused principally on improving patient outcomes and doing so at scale.
DeepIntent already has the right people, unique technology, and a clear vision. As we continue to lead pharma into the future, I’m here to help bring it all together.
