Former Starcom CEO Laura Desmond perceives a \u201cfull-scale crisis of confidence in marketing\u201d not due to a lack of advertising accountability but to the complicated nature of brand building.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see it play out with the holding companies and how they\u2019re doing and how they\u2019re under pressure, and that impacts every other part of the ecosystem,\u201d says Desmond, who is Founder & CEO of Eagle Vista Partners. \u201cI fully believe we can get out of this crisis of confidence, but we can\u2019t keep doing the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desmond<\/a> was one of many advertising and media veterans who assembled at Meredith Corporation\u2019s Luce Auditorium last week to participate in Beet Retreat in the City<\/a>: Television Advances as Consumers Choose. In this interview with Beet contributor Ashley J. Swartz, Desmond discusses the need to \u201cdisrupt ourselves from a new place in marketing and communications and really begin with a new value exchange with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alluding to Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker\u2019s adage in the 1800\u2019s that \u201cHalf the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half,\u201d Desmond says measurement\u2019s not the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true anymore. We have more accountability, more modeling, more smart measurement in what media and advertising is doing than ever before,\u201d says Desmond.<\/p>\n

What has changed is the rise of digital communications and the concurrent advent of so-called direct brands, which bypass traditional means of producing, promoting and distributing their wares.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, with the advent of the digital marketing ecosystem, there\u2019s so much fragmentation and people are building brands now. Brands and marketers and agencies aren\u2019t building brands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desmond cites the emergence of brands like Dollar Shave Club, which disrupted a marketplace long dominated by Gillette and Schick.<\/p>\n

\u201cGillette never saw dollar shave club coming, yet they\u2019ve completely upended the category,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While the television industry is often criticized for lacking change amid the rise of digital media, it\u2019s still \u201cthe most perfect model that we\u2019ve ever created over the last 75 years. It\u2019s scale, it\u2019s got reach, it\u2019s got engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real problem with television is the waste involved for advertisers trying to achieve effective reach when targeting desired consumer segments, according to Desmond. Therefore, the $100 billion TV marketplace \u201cneeds to be absolutely disrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She believes that innovations like data-informed addressable and connected TV will provide that disruption, but there\u2019s work to be done before they can be fully leveraged.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe supply side is somewhat ready to sell this way, the demand side is not as completely ready because mostly they don\u2019t know how to plan and buy for it,\u201d Desmond explains. \u201cBecause they need to have more software and automation to help them make sense of all the complexity. You can\u2019t do addressable advertising on a spreadsheet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by Swartz, who is CEO of Furious Corp.<\/a>, for an update on her work life after leaving Starcom at the end of 2016, Desmond says she is an operating partner with Rhode Island-based Providence Equity Partners. She\u2019s involved in two deals: one for adtech firm DoubleVerify and one for a sports marketing firm in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other part of my week is I\u2019m working with a select group of CEO\u2019s and startup companies, helping them on branding, on purpose, on go-to-market strategy,\u201d Desmond says. \u201cI\u2019ve been working really heavily with LiveRamp, with Anaplan and with a company in Chicago called Uptake Technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall<\/a> on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Starcom CEO Laura Desmond perceives a \u201cfull-scale crisis of confidence in marketing\u201d not due to a lack of advertising accountability but to the complicated nature of brand building. \u201cWe see it play out with the holding companies and how they\u2019re doing and how they\u2019re under pressure, and that impacts every other part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":53145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[7289],"tags":[3510,5092,5143,5155,5883,6181,6730,7109,3839],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}