John Halley, president of Paramount Advertising, was preparing to lead an advance pitch to Publicis, one of the four major holding companies in the advertising business, when big news broke.
Bob Bakish was officially no longer CEO of Paramount Global. Much of the reason the 27-year company veteran lost favor with board members and majority shareholder Shari Redstone was due to intensifying merger talks that also kept Paramount in the headlines. A few hours before the Publicis dinner, Paramount capped its busy day with a 9-minute earnings conference call and declined to answer questions from Wall Street analysts.
“It’s not my favorite setting,” Halley dryly admitted in an interview with Deadline. “I thought, ‘Is this going to derail our messaging?’ When we entered the room it was immediately clear that this was a background and not a foreground. We recognized it and moved on. …But the fact is that we have a story to tell. That’s what our partners and customers want to hear.”
Halley said the new strategic approach to pre-sales that he introduced in 2023 has provided momentum despite – or, in a strange way, because of – the company’s crisis. Instead of a single advance presentation, as has long been the media industry tradition (none larger than the Carnegie Hall events hosted by CBS and, in 2022, its new parent company Paramount), the company is now hosting more intimate gatherings. This year there will be seven dinner events in New York as well as presentations in LA and Chicago.
While major talent may not appear across a uniform red carpet or in the ensemble walk-and-waves of a traditional show, they still show up in large numbers. Halley said the roster included Billy Bob Thornton, Sylvester Stallone, Nicole Kidman, Drew Barrymore, Demi Moore, Stephen Colbert and Jon Hamm.
The uncertainty about Paramount’s future “has in no way prevented us from achieving what we wanted to achieve,” Halley emphasized. “Whatever happens will take place over a very long period of time outside of this planning period. There is no impact on the asset base. … There’s a refreshing practicality to the whole thing.”
Aside from not having to devote resources to an event, the more decentralized approach brings the company to market sooner than the week of May 13, when media and technology companies release their consolidated pitches. While actual returns won’t be known for another few weeks, Halley said the new lineup “is a huge success for us.” It works so much better than the traditional presentation. I’ll take a look at this [upfront] week and it just seems more anachronistic than ever.” The ad group, he continued, has “received unanimous feedback that it’s a better format.” Nobody said they wished it was done the old way and Done in a wise way.”
While much of the coverage of Paramount Global lately has focused on its shortcomings (and there are some), the company has also come out on top with momentum in some areas. Last February’s broadcast of the Super Bowl broke ratings records and also showcased Paramount+’s streaming capabilities. For the 16th consecutive year, CBS is the most-watched network. Across its linear and digital portfolio, Paramount has 260 million monthly viewers and a deduplicated audience of 200 million.
“It’s pretty refreshing to come out of the strike,” Halley said. “The strike really put a strain on everyone.” On the other hand, he noted, “we looked like geniuses last year” by not holding a traditional pre-interview. After the WGA abandoned demonstrations on May 2 last year, NewFronts and Upfronts became highly visible targets of picketing, and talent fell out of sight due to optics. Paramount was able to promote talent to a series of dinners that had already been completed at the time of the strike.
Halley sees an improvement in the macroeconomic environment. “Everything is better this year than last year,” he said. “We are still in the epilogue of the pandemic, believe it or not.” In addition to the impact of Covid, he cited supply chain issues, interest rate hikes, inflation, recession fears and global conflicts, arguing that both have eased as contributing factors advertising is likely to grow again.
Halley, who has risen through the tech-focused advertising ranks at Viacom, sees not only a change in staging ahead of time, but also many changes that will impact the season’s impact.
“The more focused the company is on streaming, the less impact the upfront payment will have on your overall results,” he said. “In the past, if you think about a broadcast station that sold 75% of its inventory in advance, the prepayment would essentially be a strong signal for the year ahead. It’s just less and less.”
Of Paramount’s business ups and downs, Halley said, “From an outsider’s perspective, you think, ‘Wow, this seems like a really unfortunate time.’ It would have been much worse if it had been three weeks later and we hadn’t been in front of our customers.”
Halley recalled turning to the crowd at the Publicis dinner and telling them, “We’ll never forget this,” with a sly reference to Paramount’s treasure The GodfatherHe added: “The media business: That’s the life we chose, I think.”