Truth And Dare

In recognition of its newest partnerships, Harris Morris, chairman and CEO of Wazee Digital hosted a casual Q&A session with Phil Lalonde, senior VP, ad sales, Viacom Media Networks during 2018 NAB Show

- Vinita Bhatia

A Harris Morris, chairman and CEO, Wazee Digital and Phil Lalonde, senior VP, ad sales, operations, Viacom Media Networks had an informal chat about how the media and entertainment M&E asset management landscape is shaping up. During their discussion, the duo spoke about how the Wazee Digital and Viacom will leverage automated facial recognition and enriched metadata within Wazee Digital Core to identify the talent and provide data back to Viacom. Here are excerpts of their chat: 

Harris Morris (HM): What is fascinating when you read the press is that linear advertising doesn’t matter, but that’s where of lot of the revenue comes from. But it’s also where complexity comes from. 

Phil Lalonde (PH): It’s where the delivery comes from and how we deliver it. Our rating are like declining across the board, because people are finding different ways to consume.

But that’s great and we embrace that, because we make good content as an industry. Like there are no cats on skateboards; I hate that example, but it is the easiest one to use, and people want to advertise in that ship. Infact, they want to advertise in premium stuff.

So it is about what and where people want to watch. And, as a bunch of technology innovators, system integrators and people that work in operations, we have to figure out how to facilitate this best. After all, at the end of the day they are our clients and are spending the money, so we have to make it easier for them.