2024 Upfront Interview Series with Horizon Media’s Jenny Croswell

August 30, 2024 in 2024 Upfront Interviews, Media Marketplace Interviews, Media Marketplace People

This year’s Upfront/ Newfront season did not disappoint with numerous exciting new announcements about renewed and brand new TV shows that will keep Canadians glued to their TVs (or other viewing devices) for hours. Several broadcasters, social networks, and technology companies have launched new products and services to help you better connect with Canadians for your upcoming campaigns.

Canadian Upfront Showdown

Once again Profectio had a front-row seat and provided coverage of several of the announcements, and this year we took some time to interview several senior media buyers, and this year we had a conversation or two with people on the brand and publishers.

2024 Upfront newfront Interview Series - Jenny Croswell

In the third edition of our 2024 Upfront/ Newfront Interview Series, we sat down with Jenny Croswell for a recorded conversation about the changing advertising and media buying landscape. Some of the topics discussed include:

How can marketer plan their 2024-2024 media mix
Future of video
Big media buying trends
The future of media buying

Below is a transcript of the interview:

Who are you and what problem do you solve?

I’m Jenny Croswell. I’m the EVP of Investment and Operations at Horizon Media and the problem I solve – I create efficiencies for our clients from a media execution perspective ensure the quality of inventory and then also solve operational challenges on the agency side. So operational challenges can be pretty vast, so anything that requires a new process or some efficiencies in process, then I try to help to solve that as well.

Are there any shows coming up that you look forward to watching?

Jenny – I think from a personal standpoint, the one that caught my eye was a show called High Potential. And that one has been picked up by Bell. I’m assuming they’ll probably air it on CTV in the fall. And the reason I like that one, it’s just a personal preference.

Jenny – I really like Kaitlin Olsen, who’s the star of that show. She’s from ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ fame, which is a favourite of mine. I’m also looking forward to the return of the Law Order franchise. I’m actually wearing a Law Order shirt today, but you can see it’s got Mariska on it.

I’m a big Law Order fan. Looking forward to the return of Season 26 of Law Order SVU.

What did you think of Law Order Toronto?

Jenny – I liked the fact that obviously it was filmed in Toronto and, there was a big Canadian spin on it. I think it was the number one new show for Rogers.

I hope so. I know one of your questions coming up. I’m skipping ahead to ‘Which show do you want to star in?’ So Law Order Toronto. I’ve already been seeding that idea with Rogers. I was just saying that I want to be an extra.

Looking back at this year’s upfront new front season is there anything that really stands your in mind?

Jenny – There wasn’t a specific products and offerings, but there were more conversations about how we can make the media buying process a bit more automated and a bit more efficient, which is great for everybody.

Eliminating some of that manual administrative stuff and focus more high-value work. I think one of the themes that I saw from the upfronts in the US from some of the broadcasters, they’re are talking more about video holistically rather than separating linear TV and streaming offerings, which I think we need to do more of that.

When it comes to content, they’re focusing more on the content and not necessarily the platform that the content is going to live on. So I saw that a lot in the US whether it was Hulu or Disney Plus they didn’t really talk about where to watch the program. They just talked about the content itself and sort of said it’s available to tune in and watch it.

In the old days, there used to be what we called a “compare a graph,” the grid that was every day of the week prime-time what’s going to air. That’s kind of going away, and it’s more just about the content being available on all platforms at all times. And I’m seeing that happening more in Canada as well less and less reliance on the prime-time grid and more focus on premium content, and programming.

What should marketers focus when it comes to media in 2024, 2025?

Jenny – We really want to make sure that we’re protecting our Canadian media economy, that is an important aspect. Another area of focus is just where the viewership is migrating to. So we all know that viewership is migrating digitally, we need to look at video more. Holistically and we need to keep improving on the measurement options for holistic video as well. We’ve made some progress in the market and we’re continuing to make progress, but I think the better we can measure video holistically. The more support we can put behind that medium as a whole.

Are you noticing any trends or differences in what marketers want year over year?

Jenny – Marketers and agencies were demanding and requiring more flexibility when it comes to investments, which I think is a continued trend. With digital specifically, there’s a lot more flexibility with shifting dollars around based on performance. We’re looking for that across the board as well for more traditional vendors, and we are making steps and improvements there.

Flexibility is key, but that’s a carryover from last year in the pandemic and then budgets, maybe not as much annual planning. It’s there is annual planning, but there’s a lot more. Short-term execution happening just because we’re being a little bit more careful.

I think about the release of budgets throughout the year and also making sure that the dollars are working as well as possible. We’re optimizing as we go. So we’re, we want to make sure that the flexibility is there, and that comes with when budgets are released throughout the year as well. Do you feel like that’s a trend?

You’d have your annual budget locked in, you’d do your annual planning and then there was obviously optimization throughout the year, but I feel like It’s almost window planning now versus annual planning.

What do you equate the recent market changes too?

Jenny – Just times have changed, the pandemic probably accelerated that. It’s harder to predict what’s going to happen in the market and what’s going to happen with the performance of particular brands. It’s just a little bit of a more cautious approach to give time to be able to do that optimization and more timely planning.

There has been a surge in sports content deals, is this where brands can find consumers over the next 12 months?

Jenny – Anything live is key. Live sports, even live news, live events, that’s where the eyeballs are. You can sort of see that’s all the streaming services like Amazon and Netflix. They’re all getting into the live sports arena.

As an example game seven of the Edmonton Oilers series, garnered huge linear TV audiences. So events like that are few and far between. And sports is really where you’re going to get the eyeballs.

Everybody’s going after those right sports. It will be more expensive for the consumer because if you’re a football fan or a hockey fan, you need to subscribe to multiple services in order to see all the games you want to see on an annual basis. And it’ll be a bit more, I think it will be challenging for marketers and advertisers to navigate that space as well.

But that’s our job as an agency to advise and make sure we’re still driving the best efficiencies and we’re getting the eyeballs where they are.

Will consumers demand fewer streaming services or more bundles?

Jenny – Potentially you’re seeing that happening a little bit in the US. There’s some streaming services that are actually bundling together to offer consumers streaming service packages. I think we’ll go more in that direction, I think there’s multiple options now and a lot of the streamers are going ad-supported as you know so I think it will be it’s going to be a very fragmented and confusing market for the next little while.

What skills or qualities do you feel are most in demand to make a successful media buyer in the coming years?

Jenny – Good question. I think adaptability is a huge one because things are changing so quickly, you need to be adaptable and willing to learn new things as you go. A digital mindset is important for media buyers, but the fundamentals are still there. You still need to be able to negotiate. You still need to have the ability to build those relationships with your vendor partners, because, in the end, that’s really the most important thing. If you need a favour or they need a favour, you want to be able to pick up the phone and call that person that you have a relationship with and be able to come to a mutually beneficial solution.

What’s keeping you, what keeps you here today and tomorrow? And what are you excited about when you look at the future of media buying?

Jenny – It is a really exciting and fun industry to be in. There has been a lot of change over the time that I’ve been in this industry, but things continue to change. That’s really the exciting part about it is earning something new every day, seeing something new every day, still being able to do first-to-market executions for your client, you’d think eventually there would no longer be first-to-market executions, but it seems like there always is something new that you can explore or execute.

And I really liked the fact that the new generation of media buyers and planners and media professionals that are coming into the industry, everybody seems still very excited and hungry and want to be in this business. So I think it’s changed a lot, but it’s still exciting and it’s still fun. We do good work for our clients, but we have fun along the way,, which is really great.

Media & Publishers mentioned:

Learn more about each vendor in our Media Marketplace.

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This interview was transposed from an audio interview.

Other 2024 Upfront/ Newfront Announcements & Interviews: