Operative Blog

I was sitting in my living room last night, eating some very yummy cheese, apple and crackers when I got a text message.  It was from Greg Carr, one my Account Executives saying, “The annual 212 boat cruise was sold out…they turned away half the paid guests”.

This made me think…wait a second, I thought we were in a recession…how did a boat cruise get sold out by double.  Not only was it sold out, but there we actual quality folks that attended.  When I say quality, I mean it the way an ad sales person would mean it…lots of media buyers from interactive ad agencies.

This brings me to only 1 theory – the recession can bring some good with the bad.  Sure, digital ad dollars have flattened out and sure companies are going out of business…and yes, CPMs have plummeted.  But when I see the 212 boat cruise sold out with quality people, this tells a story of new born collaboration in digital media.

Reason 1: With so much uncertainty in the market place, it’s human nature to find out one thing: what is going on?  What are people saying?   What are they seeing?  When will they see it?  How do I protect myself?  Folks who typically sat in their ivory tower and had their underlings do their dirty work are feeling pressure to go back to their roots, get out and ask questions.  Because of  this, people that you may not have had access to before, are now accessible.  Major brand managers and marketers, Media Directors at top Ad Agencies…all accessible and approachable.

Reason 2: Everyone is being forced to do more with less.  If you are an ad agency and have less employees, that’s less people to come up with the big idea.  This has led and will lead to more brainstorming between publishers and agencies.  Agencies can no longer afford to do things the way they used to…think tanks are smaller and ideas can no longer be created in a vacuum.

Reason 3: Lastly, relationships are now more important than ever.  Ad Agencies are under pressure to perform.  They want to meet the people they are buying media from, they want to know them personally and can now afford to, because every morsel of business is so important to them.  People are getting closer to their competition, more so than ever before.

Now, maybe it was just a nice summer eve on Thursday evening in NYC and the sound of a few drinks on the Hudson sounded divine…but I think there’s much more to it than that.

As an industry, we’ve been running so fast and trying to automate so much, you start to lose sight of what got us here.  Collaborating with each other.  This theme, in my opinion, will continue for a while since it’s the very behavior that got us here in the first place…getting out and meeting people in order to be successful.

-Lorne

Operative Dashboard Client Summit- WE LOVE OUR CLIENTS

Yesterday we hosted our 3rd Operative Dashboard Client Summit at the SoHo House in NYC, where several clients spent the day with the Operative Product Team to envision product innovation.  The first half of the day focused on upcoming Operative Dashboard releases, and educating our clients as to what our developers are ruthlessly dedicated to deploying over the next several months.  The second half of the day included breakout sessions tackling issues such as: campaign management as they relate to 3rd party discrepancies, solutions to streamline the proposal/RFP process for sales, and best practices for managing partners and networks.

Massive thanks to our super clients for taking the time out of their crazy schedules to share with us and help us work toward the next milestone- One process, one data set. 

To see more pictures of the event, check out this URL: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=lefkhgf.bq3r9uqv&x=0&y=9e2rt3&localeid=en_US

Mike Leo at AdMonsters Speed Dating

Join Operative CEO and Predident, Mike Leo, at the AdMonsters Publisher Forum on Tuesday, June 9 at 11:15am in the session: “How to Drive Renewals: Tying the Value of Ad Operations to Revenue”. 

‘Doing more with less’ is a common theme in this economic climate, but there are best practices that publishers can adopt to help preserve revenue while simultaneously operating efficiently.  If you are a VP of Ad Ops for a digital publisher, Mike will identify the strategies you can implement to increase focus on revenue.

Operative: @OperativeInc

Mike Leo, CEO and President, Operative: @rmike1

Lorne Brown, Founder and VP Sales, Operative: @LorneBrown

Benjamin Reid, VP Account Management, Operative: @adlens

Meghan Quillinan, Marketing, Operative: @megsandeggs

Manu is introducing OperativeOne, the working name for our new platform and the result of a year of some serious work. We will be releasing more products based on this platform in the next 9 months then we have released in the last 9 years. There is tons of Blue Ocean here. Lots of tough BUSINESS problems in the digital media space that need to be solved that are not being addressed. We will be addressing them. Some products…Partner360, Campaign360, AdIntel..more to come.
Lots of smiles here at the Operative client summit, both from clients and a very proud team.

I’m at the Operative Dashboard Client Summit (our 3rd in the past 12 months), and can’t type fast enough to keep up with the dialogue! 

So, you want to know what movers and shakers are here to help us collaborate on future product direction?  Check out this list of digital media mavens

AARP

BET

Dow Jones

Fox Interactive Media

NBC Universal

National Public Media

Reuters

Scholastic

Smart Money

Top 10 Reviews

United Online

Manu Warikoo, VP Product Management, Operative

“We will continue and invest in our integration with SalesForce.com.”

“Inventory is complicated. There are lots of products out there to improve the management of inventory. We are looking to expand from a simplistic to a more sophisticated model of inventory management.”

“We, as an industry, have  moved beyond simply leveraging the ad server as the primary inventory management tool.”

“Our clients should have the choice of what tool will best help them manage inventory. We are committed to providing you with that flexibility.”

“We continue to invest in integration with other technologies.  We launched AdTech integration in April. The value of ad server integration is critical.”

Morning anecdotes from Operative CEO and President, Mike Leo:

“Every company needs one process and one data set in which to run their business.”

“We are going to deliver more value for our clients over the next 6-12 months.”

“We’ve moved more people to Account Management and Support. We are absolutely dedicated to helping our clients drive revenue.”

“2/3 of all metrics that each department uses to measure their success are ‘client-focused metrics’. What do you (our clients) want us to be measured on?  How can we deliver better for you?”

Client Summit- Dec 2008

Twice a year, the Company invites strategic Dashboard clients to attend the Client Summit.  This one day event unites our clients with the Operative product team and senior executives in an effort to share ideas, educate each other on business strategies, and gather product feedback.  Tomorrow, the Dashboard Client Summit will take place at the SoHo House here in New York, and will include executives from companies such as NBCU, FIM, AARP, National Public Media, and SmartMoney to name a few.  Check back tomorrow for announcements, commentary and provocative insights from leaders in digital publishing.

Check back to learn more about the Operative-sponsored breakfast at the iMedia Agency Summit in Austin, Texas and White Paper on “How to Grow and Protect Revenue”.