With big advertisers demonstrating mixed feelings about TV ad spending, Paramount Global is making a new move to court their smaller counterparts.
Paramount Global set a new senior vice president over its efforts to win small-and-medium-sized advertisers, another nod of the growing importance of non-traditional market segments to the business of TV, which has long relied on just Madison Avenue’s biggest residents.
Paramount named Emily Huoas its senior vice president of “SMB Advertising.” The category often includes entrepreneurial digital advertisers and regional and local marketers who in the past found national TV too broad or, more likely than not, too expensive. In the streaming era, however, smaller advertisers can run pitches aimed at narrower slices of geography or specific consumer niches. Disney and NBCUniversal are among the big media companies that has worked to lower the barriers to entry for clients with smaller marketing budgets.
“Television advertising now is available not just to the top advertisers in the industry, but to businesses of all sizes,” said John Halley, president of Paramount Advertising, in a statement.
Paramount makes the move as investors continue to scrutinize the traditional media sector, which is grappling with declines in traditional ad sales as more TV viewers migrate to streaming and as advertisers navigate what has been a foggier economic outlook.
Huo was previously Spotify’s global director of SMBG advertising ,and has also held positions at Reddit and Twitter. She is based in San Francisco. Paramount also hired Luke Peng as vice president of product for SMB Advertising. He will report to Huo, and will be based in New York. Peng has worked at TikTok, Wish and PayPal., where he has helped to build various SMB products.
“We are one of the few ad-supported streamers with a geo-targeted inventory supply vast enough to connect directly and drive results for the SMB segment, and under the leadership of Emily and Luke, we are doubling down on these efforts, bringing in experienced senior management to drive marketplace expansion,” Halley said.
