0:02 Good afternoon everybody. I'm Jeremy
0:04 Bloom. I'm here with Travis Hawkermith,
0:08 the group VP of platform at Vizio. >> Correct.
0:09 >> Correct.
0:11 >> Amazing. Amazing.
0:14 >> So Travis, you and I were talking over
0:15 in the corner a few minutes ago. You
0:17 have been at Vizio for a little over six
0:21 years and uh you have seen a lot take
0:25 place at Vizio when you started from
0:27 essentially a hardware company to a
0:31 software company. Can you explain just a
0:33 little bit of what your role is and your
0:35 trajectory over the past six years in 30
0:36 seconds or less?
0:38 >> I don't know if I can do it in 30
0:40 seconds, but about six years ago, a
0:42 small group of us came into Vizio to
0:45 help start the ads business. And at the
0:49 time, Vizio was a house brand. Everyone
0:52 knew Vizio TVs. And we made money
0:55 essentially by selling TVs. uh our
1:00 founder William Wang um had
1:02 the foresight to understand that the
1:04 better business is in making money every
1:07 time people turn on their TVs and the
1:09 ads business is going to be a big part
1:12 of that. So when we started um there was
1:15 already an inscape data business that's
1:17 been part of Vizio for for quite some
1:20 time and we built the ads business on
1:23 top of that by bringing great streaming
1:25 content onto the platform but then
1:28 finding ways to make that attractive to
1:32 advertisers and we uh we started as a
1:34 very small group with a very small
1:35 amount of revenue.
1:38 >> When you say small how big was your
1:41 group? So when we when we when the
1:43 initial wave of us came in, Mike
1:44 O'Donnell brought us in, there were
1:46 probably five or six of us. Wow.
1:49 >> Uh starting the ads business, doing
1:52 everything from from uh ad operations to
1:55 client services to sales. We were all
1:55 kind of doing a little bit of everything.
1:56 everything.
1:57 >> Yeah. You'd wear every single hat. You'd
1:58 get your hands dirty.
1:59 >> Yeah. Exactly.
2:00 >> Make happen.
2:03 >> Exactly. But fortunately, we had this
2:06 massive tailwind of interest from the
2:10 advertising community in moving as much
2:12 of their budget to streaming as made sense.
2:14 sense.
2:16 Let's even let's go a tiny take a tiny
2:19 step back just to understand a bit more
2:22 of uh you said the team was small,
2:25 revenue was small. Uh, and when you
2:28 think about TV to broadcast to cable to
2:31 streaming, the journey itself for Vizio,
2:33 can you hit a little bit more on that
2:35 specifically of just how the revenue and
2:37 the team has grown and ascended in those
2:38 six years?
2:40 >> I mean, it all started really with the
2:42 investment that was made before we
2:44 started the ads business, which was
2:46 building an operating system that would
2:49 pull viewer attention into the streaming
2:51 environment. uh historically you'd
2:53 connect a cable box or whatever to your
2:56 vio TV and uh we had to have some
2:58 mechanism to bring people into the
3:00 streaming environment and the massive
3:02 investment over the years that William
3:05 made and Smartcast really started to
3:07 bring people in. uh the emergence of
3:10 major apps like Netflix obviously got
3:13 got uh viewers attention and when we
3:15 were able to bring people into that
3:16 environment it gave us a lot of
3:18 opportunity to introduce them to other
3:21 content as well uh to the point where
3:24 now we see our viewers spending more
3:29 time in SmartCast than linear by far uh
3:32 because we've kind of replaced the the the
3:34 the
3:37 what linear used to to viewers within
3:40 the streaming environment. Um, so you
3:43 can find anything to watch at any time
3:44 without without switching to another device.
3:45 device.
3:48 >> Well, and the growth of of targeting and
3:50 audience fragmentation. Why don't you
3:53 talk a little bit more just about the uh
3:54 specifically within the programmatic
3:57 ecosystem just how much Vizio has has
3:59 blown up. My experiences we talked about
4:02 I was very early to mogul uh Adobe
4:05 advertising cloud. So just even as a
4:07 partner with Vizio years ago, just
4:09 seeing the growth and the expansion,
4:11 it's really cool and exciting now uh
4:14 being a little bit uh adjacent to it,
4:16 but still knowing what you guys are doing.
4:17 doing.
4:19 >> Yeah, when we came in, we took a lot of
4:22 feedback from the market on how buyers
4:26 wanted to buy a video on CTV. And one of
4:28 the things that we heard loud and clear
4:30 is that the other CTB platforms were
4:33 trying to establish what amounted to Wal
4:35 Gardens and the buying community wasn't
4:38 wasn't thrilled about that. So from day
4:41 one, we were always uh of the mentality
4:43 that we want to be able to be bought
4:45 however buyers want to buy our inventory.
4:46 inventory. >> Sure.
4:46 >> Sure.
4:48 >> And in the beginning, that was primarily
4:51 IO. I mean 6 years ago most of our video
4:53 business was IO based but there was
4:55 still a healthy amount of it that was
4:58 programmatic. Um at that time uh there
5:00 was already programmatic demand but it
5:03 was somewhat nent relative to where it
5:06 is today. Fast forward to today the
5:08 programmatic business is where all the
5:11 growth is in video. We still have an IO
5:13 based business buyers who want to
5:15 transact that way but we're seeing it
5:18 increasing acceleration to programmatic
5:21 buying and we've supported it from day
5:24 one and we have built a team that's
5:27 great at providing service to our buyers
5:30 who are buying through private deals. We
5:32 have a team that's great at making sure
5:35 that we have all the best relationships
5:38 with all the SSPs and DSPs in the space
5:41 so that we make it as easy to transact
5:43 on our platform as possible.
5:45 >> So by making it easy to trans to
5:48 transact on the platform, can you get a
5:50 little bit deeper on the data components
5:54 that come with Vizia? Yeah. So, we we we
5:57 pass in the bidstream all the data that
6:00 you would expect given kind of our peer
6:03 group of publishers. So, um we're 100%
6:06 transparent. You always know exactly
6:08 what app your ad is going to deliver in.
6:12 We pass signals like genre, like rating.
6:15 Um, we have never we've never tried to
6:17 create like a programmatic blackbox ad
6:22 network type of uh feel to our platform.
6:25 It's all been as transparent as we can
6:27 from from day one.
6:30 >> So, why don't we pivot a little bit to
6:32 the Walmart acquisition? what this means
6:35 for Vizio. The growth when you said when
6:38 we were joking earlier uh just the the
6:40 revenue that would typically come in in
6:43 a typical month back then uh is what you
6:47 guys see before noon today. Uh help us
6:49 understand just how it's been just with
6:51 the transition and the pivot and being having
6:53 having
6:56 a new parent. Yeah, it's it it's
6:58 actually been everything we could hope
7:00 for in that they're allowing us to
7:03 continue to operate the business the way
7:05 that we have at the same time bringing
7:08 additional resources that uh our first
7:10 priority from an ads perspective from a
7:14 platform perspective is to make our
7:16 inventory and our platform as attractive
7:18 to the Walmart connect buying base as we
7:21 can. Um, there was surprisingly little
7:26 overlap between our core buyers prior to
7:28 the acquisition and the Walmart Connect
7:30 uh client base.
7:32 >> So, in making our platform attractive,
7:34 >> I'm really surprised about that. That's
7:36 a really cool thing to hear actually
7:37 just from an outsider looking in.
7:39 >> Yeah, it was very surprising during due
7:42 diligence to uncover this and that some
7:44 of our biggest advertisers were autos
7:46 and insurance.
7:48 We certainly had a CPG business, but it
7:53 wasn't the core of our advertiser base.
7:56 Obviously, it, you know, the the
7:57 products that you can buy in a Walmart
8:00 store is the Walmart Connect buyer base
8:04 essentially. And uh, like I said,
8:06 surprisingly little overlap. So, the
8:08 real challenge is how do we make our
8:10 platform as attractive to them as
8:13 possible? And our belief in the
8:15 integration work we've done so far is
8:17 the way that we do that is to enable
8:19 Walmart connect targeting and
8:21 measurement on the platform. And right
8:24 now in market we have a beta offering
8:27 out right now where buyers are doing
8:30 exactly that. They are buying our
8:32 inventory coupled with Walmart connect
8:34 inventory and measurement. And uh we're
8:37 really excited about the the initial
8:39 campaigns that have launched in video.
8:41 And soon to come, we'll be doing the
8:45 same and extending that capability onto
8:48 the home screen, which has been a very
8:50 fast growing part of our platform as
8:54 well. Historically, the home screen we
8:57 only really sold to what we consider
9:01 endemic advertisers like Disney Plus or
9:04 anyone who has content on the platform.
9:06 It was a great placement for, but how do
9:09 we make that placement work for general
9:11 market advertiser for Walmart react advertising?
9:12 advertising?
9:14 >> Yeah, if you're a CPG that's based in uh
9:17 Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, how does it
9:18 become a lot more relevant? And I would
9:22 also think that the uh incrementality
9:23 that comes with what you're talking
9:25 about between having both teams,
9:26 different products coming together just
9:28 in terms of what you're able to measure
9:31 and show that actual ROI between Walmart
9:34 connect and uh the Vizio teams. Uh that
9:37 that's going to be truly exciting for
9:39 your partners and your advertisers.
9:41 >> Yeah, it will be. And it's a it's a it's
9:43 a fun challenge to be tackling right now
9:47 too because the the the real challenge
9:49 in CTV as as
9:51 >> there challenges in CTV.
9:52 >> Who would have thought? >> Wow.
9:53 >> Wow.
9:55 >> But the real challenge is is really the
9:57 fragmentation. So if you're advertiser,
10:00 how do you acrew a very large audience
10:03 the way that you could in linear TV? And
10:05 you can do that in streaming certainly,
10:08 but it takes more effort than maybe it
10:12 did in in in linear leading into the
10:15 streaming era, so to speak. But the home
10:17 screen is an environment where you can
10:20 you can reach the entire VO population
10:22 very rapidly. Everyone who turns on
10:25 their TV to SmartCast will see that
10:28 placement where in video it's it it it's
10:30 not that. It's not that way. You've got
10:32 to piece together a lot of different
10:34 types of viewership in order to reach a
10:36 very large audience. The home screen we
10:39 think is going to be a phenomenal
10:41 placement for advertisers who need broad reach.
10:41 reach.
10:43 >> Uh absolutely. It's the first thing you
10:45 look at. So that that makes sense from
10:47 an audience perspective and from an
10:50 advertiser perspective.
10:52 You had brought up the topic of
10:55 leadership and a lot of the themes of
10:58 the of today's conversations throughout
11:01 the innovation collab have been
11:04 leadership, career, mentorship,
11:07 ascending, uh, networking. help us
11:08 understand a little bit more just about
11:11 you as a leader as you are have a large
11:14 team and just as you are navigating
11:18 changes and evolution just some of the
11:20 bits of feedback or guidance or advice
11:22 that you would give to those in the
11:24 audience and those watching this.
11:27 >> We were very fortunate in the platform
11:29 business that we got to basically build
11:33 a team from scratch. So um the the the
11:35 early leadership on the platform plus
11:38 side uh people like Mike O'Donnell, Adam
11:40 Bergman, myself, we we were always very
11:43 focused on bringing in the right culture
11:46 who could move fast because we knew we
11:49 had to capture this opportunity
11:53 very quickly. And our belief was that we
11:56 could only do that if we built the right
11:59 culture from the beginning. And as a
12:01 result, we brought in a lot of people
12:03 onto all of our teams who had worked
12:04 together in the past at various
12:06 different companies who had already
12:09 built trust in working with each other.
12:12 And I think that that was like the best
12:14 decision that we made in the early days
12:16 is to
12:19 kind of bring in a culture that we
12:22 already knew worked. uh you can only do
12:24 that if you get the opportunity to build
12:26 a business from the ground up. But we we
12:28 had that opportunity and we really
12:32 capitalized on it. I think um my my
12:32 personal leaders >> please
12:33 >> please
12:36 >> my personal leadership approach is is to
12:38 bring in bring in the best people and
12:42 let them do their job. Uh I I I I feel
12:44 like if you bring in the right talent,
12:46 you give them the right tools, and you
12:49 just let them do their thing,
12:52 it'll work. Uh and again very fortunate
12:56 that in taking that approach we we uh we
12:59 I think kept a lot of people really
13:03 engaged in doing very very good work for
13:04 for years. >> You
13:05 >> You
13:08 created a hardware company that is now a
13:11 hardware and a software company that is
13:17 now integrated within a top 10 global
13:19 company. it uh that says something about
13:21 culture. That says something about the
13:23 grit that comes with it. So,
13:25 congratulations. This was a great chat.
13:27 >> Thank you very much.
13:28 >> Appreciate it. Thank you.
Chrome Extension