Episode 10: Turning Marketing into an Economic Contributor with Nexxen CMO Ben Kaplan
Host: Joe Zappa
Guest: Ben Kaplan, CMO Nexxen
Length: 38 minutes
Published: September 14, 2026
Nexxen CMO Ben Kaplan joins the pod IRL from New York City to discuss crafting a full-funnel b2b marketing program that drives both awareness and pipeline, rooting a story in unique data and media, and fostering a positive relationship with the CEO and CFO.
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Full Transcript
Joe Welcome to the AdTech Marketing Podcast, the only podcast exclusively devoted to the very niche topic of adtech marketing. I am Joe Zappa, and I'm joined today by Ben Kaplan, the CMO of Nexxen. How's it going, Ben?
Ben It's going great, Joe. I'm happy we're doing this.
Joe We are in Midtown Manhattan, deep in the belly of the socialist beast.
Ben Yes, absolutely. Who else-- Where else would you wanna be?
Joe Miami, where I'm sitting-
Ben Oh, that's true ...
Joe in the, the land of unfettered capitalism. So we have a lot to get into today. I've known Ben for a couple of years. Um, he's one of the very few adtech CMOs who is out there mixing it up on X, on LinkedIn. So Ben, let's start here. What is, what is Nexxen? You know, it's a, it's a conglomerate, it's a monster of many things mashed together. How do you, how do you think about what you guys really do these days and, uh, what the core differentiators are?
Ben Uh, so Nexxen. Nexxen is the advertising platform powered by unique data and media. What that means is delivering full funnel performance to customers across the adtech ecosystem, and the way we do that is through a DSP, an SSP, and a data platform at the center.
Joe Mm.
Ben Said it very succinctly and clearly.
Joe Yeah, so I think the challenge with that, right, is that there are obviously many DSPs and SSPs out there. Any of them today says, "We're full funnel," "We're omni-channel," this stuff. One thing I heard is performance, which I think is interesting. We should get into that because I think that is not something you hear from everyone, though like outcomes has become very commonly cited.
So how do you think about that positioning and sort of the other companies in the space who might claim it and how you drive a wedge between yourself and them?
Ben Yeah, so I think it's important to break out the way the positioning statement comes together, and then within the context of Nexxen, how we or our positioning statement is distinct from others in the space. So when I think of a positioning statement or where all of your marketing communications activities connect to, it really starts with how are you going to solve the customer's problem, and then the unique ways that you're able to do that. And so for us, especially in a credible environment, like I'm on a podcast or we issue a press release- I actually switch it. So I actually lead with differentiation- and then I go into value, and then I go into the how. So for us, the differentiation for us is being the advertising platform powered by unique TV data and media. We can get into the specifics of that- but that to us and what we have there is distinct from anyone else that you'll see. We then go into the value proposition or even- what we're able to solve for customers. Now, that ability to solve that problem is not necessarily distinct to us, but the way in which we do it through our differentiation makes us unique.
Joe Hmm. Let's dig into the, the data piece-because I do think when I talk to leaders in the space, they commonly come back to this nowadays as they're like, "Look, there are a lot of claims out there." I've been telling people like, "You're never gonna get people to believe that whatever like combination of technologies you've put together is distinct. You have to point to a unique data asset because that's tangible, right?"
Ben Right.
Joe And everyone can understand that you're talking about something real. Yep. So if you think about like Magnite's doing that with SpringServe, Vine is doing it with Tvision and IRIS. It's like there needs to be some sort of like direct connection or data asset. Yep. So what is Nexxen's version of that?
Ben Yeah, so it's on the data and the media side. When it comes to data, it's both the assets that we have and then the product capabilities built on top of those assets. So Nexxen has access to forty-five million global signals that are unique ACR data. ACR is consumption data. This is deterministic. This is before the click. There is no one else in the independent adtech space that has that type of scale and exclusive data. And then on top of that, we can build and connect to other signals that are both unique to us, unique to our partners, and third party signals, and that goes in the products we have like Nexxen InDiscovery, like our data platform, our DSP and our SSP.
So it's both the signal of the unique asset in and of itself- and also what you're able to build with that asset as a unique ingredient on top of it.
Joe How do you get that ACR data?
Ben That is through investment partnership that we have with a company called ViiV.
Joe What's the deal with that?
Ben What do you mean “what’s the deal?”
Joe What is it?
Ben The- The company was formerly called VIZI. Yeah. VIZI TV Operating System.
Joe Okay, tvOS. Okay.
Ben Correct. Exactly.
Joe All right.
Ben So that signal is unique to us. In order to access that signal, you need to work with Nexxen. Similar in our partnership with ViiV is on the media side. There's two ways that unique, uh, media comes to life.
Number one is our partnership with that same company around access to the home screen unit. Home screen. So home screens are where- minutes a day people are spending their time. We have access to that unit exclusivity in the United States. And on top of that, I mean, you talked about DSPs, EDPs. For us, we are, and I'll say this slowly, we are the independent adtech platform on the DSP side that has the most direct connections to supply. I'll say that again.
We are the largest independent adtech- Yeah ... on the DSP side that has direct connections to supply. And you may say, "Ben, where do you come up with that statement?" Look at Jumps, you know Jumps with Kane. Mm-hmm. We are in the top ten, top five for CTV in terms of supply coverage. There is no other DSP close to that. The o-only two there are Google and Amazon, right? And those are not independent. So the unique media is both the partnership we have with ViiV on the home screen side, but also the direct connections we have through our DSP to supply. So again, those a little bit more in detail on the differentiators. The value proposition is our ability to deliver full funnel performance. And the way in which we do that is through our platform that includes a DSP, an SSP, and a data platform at the center.
Joe Okay.
Ben So again, they're all components of the same positioning state.
Joe Yeah.
Ben So value, differentiation, and then kind of the how. But depending on the context that you're in, so again, I'm talking to you on a podcast, I want to lead with differentiation- and then wanna go to value.
Joe Yeah, yeah, if you're talking directly to a buyer, whereas you-
Ben If I'm going to a buyer, right, like if I'm going to a buyer, I'm gonna switch it.
Like if I'm going to a buyer or a publisher, right- first is how you're gonna solve my problem. Mm.
Me going to an agency or a publisher or a data provider and say, "Hey, I have unique data and media" It doesn't help solve that problem.
Joe So it's interesting, right? Because you're talking about this unique data and unique media that you guys have at your disposal, and I take that point. I think with Nexxen what's complicated is people like snarky journalists, right, are always going to be like, again, it's a mashup, right, like I said at the top. And so I think it's how do you-- when people think Nexxen-they think, okay, Unruly, Tremor, Amobee, all these different things, you know, a company, I think you guys were founded originally in like '07 or something, right? So that's like twenty years of different- like corporate moves and positionings. So how do you make that story about unique CTV data and media breakthrough-when you're associated with so many different assets?
Ben Yeah, that's, that's been the biggest focus of mine and kind of the journey that we've been on at Nexxen since I got here. You know, when I got here three years ago, we had just rebranded to Nexxen. It was a great opportunity to say, "How can we cement who we are in market?" And really, we started from a place of sort of being what you articulated, right? A combination of legacy ads- tech companies. That's how we introduced ourselves. We kind of were a master of, of none because we did a little bit of everything. I think my and the team's focus has been around how do we really make sure we cement what it is we wanna be known for and where we can win? And so it's this balance of being specific to the audience that you're talking to- which is any marketer's challenge, but at the same time tying it back to that overall positioning. So being able to have a bespoke conversation with an independent agency or a specific presentation with an investor, and having each of those audiences feel like they're being spoken to of how our solutions meet their needs- but at the same time, tying it back to the overarching statement, which again is our ability powered by unique data and media to deliver that full funnel performance.
Joe Right.
Ben So it takes repetition, it takes rigor, it takes time, it takes clarity, and it's not something that happens overnight, but it's been great to see. You know, look, when we look at brand lift studies or how people recognize, people recognize the Nexxen brand more than all the three legacy brands combined right now. And that is a testament to the rigor and the work that it takes. Uh, you know, the way I like to think about it is especially in a place like adtech, it's not just about marketing and communicating Nexxen, it's about positioning Nexxen. Right? Us having everything in equal headlines or trying to be at a ten on everything, it's basically just making noise. It's why I think last year more folks knew about Nexxen than the other brands, but didn't necessarily know exactly who we were and what we stand for, because everything is Nexxen.
If we have everything connect to Nexxen, right, the advertising platform powered by unique TV data and media, then there starts to be more of a sophistication understanding of what we're about. So you're going from a marketing message, which is just noise, to a positioning message, which is about how does the noise work together and make sense.
Joe Yeah. I think if you look at adtech platforms now and how they're positioning, it's like all about articulating that unique data and media asset and then taking the technologies and saying, "We're, we're turning that data into intelligence," right? That the buyer can then leverage to drive outcomes against that media, right? So like if you think about like Viant, for example, positioning in their last earnings call as like an advertising intelligence platform, which is obviously like a future facing- like positioning, but again, it's predicated on a focus on CTV, maybe even to the detriment of other channels, right? They're saying, "We're willing-" Dude. "... to let other people win on those channels, and we're all in on CTV because we believe that's the primary channel to drive incremental demand for our advertisers, and then we're gonna leverage the T-Vision and Iris data, which are s- you know, assets we've acquired to drive better results on CTV." So for you guys, it's kind of there's a similar play, I think it sounds like, in that you have like the unique data and media and then all these different assets you've acquired and developed and combined over the years-become the technology you leverage to get the most out of that data and media. Is that fair? You're frowning.
Ben I, I think that's a fair statement. I think first of all, it depends on the context that you're in, right? Again, if we're talking to a customer, right, or if I'm in a commercial context, I'm not gonna lead with unique data-Because frankly, saying you have unique data and media doesn't help solve the customer's problem. So I'm gonna lead with how we solve the customer's problem, which is for us is deliver performance for them, but to do it across the funnel. Like, I feel like there's such a focus on outcomes or performance, and that association is only with lower funnel. I mean, we can get into this if you want to talk about AI, but most of this performance is just about circling the drain, which actually is gonna increase your costs. So focusing on how I drive performance across the funnel, which actually helps grow the brand and lower level funnel cost, is a huge value proposition that I'll lead with in a commercial environment. If I'm on an earnings call, yeah, sure, I'll lead with unique data and media.
Joe Yeah, yeah.
Ben I think for us though, really where I think we have an edge against the competition is one, the scale of that unique data and media, which I would argue for an independent adtech company is unapproachable by anyone else, and second, the ability to leverage not just a DSP, not just an SSP, not just a data platform, but all of these assets working together that allows us to provide solutions, products, capabilities that leverage those assets in a way that we don't feel like the competition can.
Joe Okay, let's get into the performance piece-
Ben Sure ...
Joe and also let's dial in on who is the Nexxen customer? Like, is it big brands? Is it mid-market? Are you selling to agencies? A combination?
Ben Yeah. So what has been one of the greatest challenges but also the greatest opportunities incoming into Nexxen, especially from a marketing perspective, is the number of spaces that we play in, right?
We play in a DSP space. We talk to independent advertisers, independent agencies, holding company agencies. We talk to channel partners. We have an SSP. We also talk to publishers. We talk to publishers that are omni-channel, mobile app, CTV. We have a data platform. We talk to data providers, curators. By my count, I think we operate about five or six different spaces, and initially, when I came and did the persona work, I think there was like thirty-nine or forty-two different personas. So we're in a lot of different spaces. We have a lot of different customers. That's very advantageous to the Nexxen business because in terms of revenue diversification-TAM, it's much larger From marketing perspective, that can be really challenging- like because that's how you get into the master of knowledge-or what they stand for. So it really just double down for me this concept of, uh, the way I think about is almost like a tree, right? The trunk of the tree is the positioning statement, right? The advertising platform powered by unique data and media that delivers this full funnel performance, and then how to each of those branches we can be more specific to addressing that independent agency in Dallas, Texas, or that holding company in New York City.
So the work to be customizable but also scalable and making sure there's real ways that the performance, the differentiation all shows up effectively.
Joe So among all those different constituencies-like if you were picking like twenty five where you're like, "We wanna get in front of these twenty five companies-" "who would it be?" Like, who's really moving the, the needle?
Ben Look, I, I would say in general my feeling is the way we can best help our publishers is by working with some of the best brands and agencies out there. We feel like we have tools and technologies to be really strategic partners for those. We don't believe that it's only about holdcos or only about independents or only about brands, about working with all them. Sometimes it's working with an agency and that end brand together. It's really what's going to maximize that full funnel performance for the customer. As I'm sure you know and listeners know, each of those audiences, yeah, they're technically all buyers, they have different motivations, different things that they're trying to do. And so the ways that we solve that problem or what full funnel performance means to them might be a little nuanced.
So again, getting back to the way that we market it is, how do you have that nuance for them, but still being able to tie back to how does that manifest the full funnel performance? How does the unique data and media show up effectively for that business model?
Joe How do you think about the independence or objectivity arguments in adtech? 'Cause for example, this used to be like a very big thing- and when it was m- clear that there were DSPs and SSPs, and now almost every major DSP or SSP is sort of playing on both sides of the- of the fence. So curious what you would make of a DSP that would say, for example, "We're only on the buy side." Right? “So we operate purely in the interest of our advertisers," whereas a company like Nexxen that's on both sides of the market has conflicting interests.
Ben Okay, well, I have a hot take for, for people listening on this- Which is I actually think if you're on one side, you're actually more biased.
Joe Hm.
Ben And the reason I feel that way is if you're on one side, you can only make your margin on one side of the business. And your job as a business is to maximize that margin as much as possible. Versus if you operate on both sides, you actually can have both sides have their cake and eat it too, because you can be more efficient with media. You're able to ensure that both the advertiser is lowering their cost and the publisher is maximizing their monetization. I don't have to just get my money from one side. And so, yeah, there's this maybe narrative that, oh yes, being sell-side or being buy-side only actually makes you unbi-- I actually think it makes you more biased because you need to optimize and make your margin in one area specifically.
Joe Hm.
Ben I told you, a hot take.
Joe Well, we'll, we'll have a, maybe we'll have a debate about that at some point.
Ben Oh, great.
Joe Let's talk about the performance piece. So-
Ben Yes ...
Joe a couple of years ago, every adtech company started talking about performance and outcomes. Um-
Ben Didn't you coin, didn't you coin that idea?
Joe The Outcomes Era- Yeah. Uh, as I've said, and now it's like you can't even-- Like if you walk into an adtech office, and they're like, "We drive like full funnel measurable outcomes," you're just like, "Shoot me in the face," right? So it's like, um, what you were gesturing before toward the specific argument you guys make about that.
Ben Yes.
Joe Tell me more about how Nexxen uniquely drives performance.
Ben So again, I think it's important to recognize, I think delivering performance and delivering full funnel performance is a value proposition- not a differentiator. When I say value proposition, it's solving the customer problem, but we can deliver full funnel performance. I'm sure there's a bunch of others.
Joe Yeah, of course.
Ben So I want to be recognized that us saying we deliver full funnel performance-
Joe Yeah. Yeah ....
Ben is not distinctly or different or anything its own. So the way we think about delivering performance, again, is about each stage of the funnel, which in today's world, especially with the advent of AI, is kind of collapsing or enveloping on itself. But it's not just about lower funnel only. At least from the data that we see and the customers that we talked to, when it's lower funnel only, especially on the buy side, folks are actually seeing their costs rise, and the reason for that is because you're limiting your audience, you're circling the drain.
Versus if you think about levels like consideration and awareness as well as the bottom of the funnel, it's actually gonna grow your pie.It's gonna give you ideas for new audiences you hadn't thought of before or new products are created that you hadn't considered, and that's actually gonna not only help your brand TAM grow, it's also gonna lower your cost 'cause you've increased the pie. So for us on the Nexxen side, the way we're able to do this distinctly again is through the unique data and needy that we have, is have a system and a technology that is fully designed to maximizing that full funnel-. for the customer. Again, as we said before, each of those customers is gonna be a little bit different. So performance for me could be about lowering costs in general, right? Performance can be about selling more cars. Performance c- for me could be I wanna change up my reach and frequency. So that, that, that is gonna be different based off of the customer.
But again, because we have unique data media assets, because we have the end-to-end stack, and because we invest so much in that interconnected system, we believe we have an edge to deliver that full funnel performance as well better than anyone else in the space.
Joe So let's, let's switch gears and think about driving full funnel performance as a B2B marketing organization. So you and I were talking about this before we started recording, like my obsession right now is the idea that B2B marketing must make an economic contribution to the business.
Ben Yeah.
Joe And the reason I say that is because I think often, like marketing is poorly understood in B2B- by CEOs. In brands, like in B2C brands, like not so much. Like marketing is known to be like a huge driver 'cause they're not doing end-to-front sales obviously. So it's like their whole game is like, "Let's get the chocolate bar commercial in front of people, and then they're gonna like, you know, buy our chocolate bars." But for us in B2B, like I talk to CEOs all the time. I mainly sell to CEOs, and They often have, like their conception of the value that marketing offers to their business is really as rudimentary as like, "We wanna get the word out." And I'm like, absolutely, we should get the word out, but you're gonna fire me if you have a down quarter and your only understanding of my value is that I'm, quote, getting the word out. So it's like I need to have, as a marketer, a higher bar for myself- than you actually have for me 'cause you're content to hire me on the basis of let's get the word out, let's like boost awareness in this very vague way.But I think you and I both know that when the rubber hits the road, right? Like when there is a tough year or whatever, for marketing to stick around and for it to grow, it really needs to prove contribution to pipeline which starts with awareness, as you were just talking about Nexxen's customers, but then trickles all the way down to sales.
And so I'm curious as a CMO and guy who's been a CMO at a public adtech company for three years now, which is an unusual position and a big accomplishment, how do you think about telling that story?
Ben Well, now we share the same obsession. Uh, and I, I've had this obs- obsession pretty much since I joined Nexxen, and my feeling is that ... And maybe it's more of the science into the art of, of marketing communications, but it's really always been critical for me to be able to quantify the impact that marketing and communications is making. And I think it's important to recognize, and I totally hear you on the economic impact, but I think it's important to recognize as marketers in general, but I would say in the B2B space, you're trying to maximize business value- while also try to maximize brand value. And I think what's I appreciate about the marketing discipline function is that it's one of the only disciplines that actually thinks in those two lenses.I'm not saying it's the only, but it's one of the only.
And so at Nexxen what we've done is really thought about how do we measure impact in a quantifiable numeric way across both of those lenses, across brand and business. Now obviously they work together and connect, but the lens that I've really come into and really worked with the team on and the way we report our marketing impact is in both of those ways. And going back to performance and full funnel performance, that's the way we think about it. So we showcase track report on Nexxen brand and business performance from marketing perspective in two funnels. So we have a funnel for brand performance-and we have a funnel for business performance. Brand performance is a similar funnel that we've kind of talked about. Awareness at the highest level consideration and conversion.
And on the business side, we have four levels to that funnel. The first is what we could call discovery. This is kind of leads becoming more qualified, them engaging with our content, us, you know sellers showing them presentations and things. And then we go onto opportunities that you would know as opportunities wins and then net revenue for the business. And so we as a market and communication team for the past, I don't want to say three years, that's probably a little generous. Probably for the past two years every single month, every single quarter, every single half year, every single year showcased quantitatively to our executive team and to our organization the impact that we're making. And how it's helped us not only showcase what we can do justifies the existence of marketing being me. We've actually taken it to a point now where we're able to optimize certain efforts that we're doing because of the quantitative data that we're seeing placed to invest more of our resourcing versus-
Joe Right, right ...
Ben And so the reason why it's still my obsession and I'm, I'm right here with you is every single quarter, month even week, we're thinking about ways to evolve.
Joe Yeah, exactly.
Ben How do we make sure we're approaching it like some of the best B2B and B2C markers out there? How do we think about it as a multi touch attribution approach versus last touch? How do we think about it for MMM purposes? How do we think about B2B marketing like any of the customers that Nexxen services think about it? I know that's easier said than done, but this obsession of how we showcase and demonstrate clearly the impact that we're making is critically important from my perspective.
Joe Yeah, I like what you said about reviewing the performance at regular intervals and thinking about how you can do better and make the case for more 'Cause like one way I've been challenging myself is essentially like if I have relationship with a client and they're paying us you know 15 grand a month or whatever- It's like if I couldn't imagine going back to the client and asking them to pay us double, then we're probably doing something very wrong because it's like there should be some sort of quantifiable impact tied to the activities and it should be like okay, if we did more of this- we would have a bigger impact, right? And you may occasionally hit the ceiling for a certain tactic or whatever, but it's like I think you know we need to challenge ourselves as marketers like not just to measure the impact, but to be able to say like these activities are driving this impact and so on and like if we were to scale it, it would grow. Right?
Ben My, my feeling is, and I'm, I'm being very general so we can get more specific if you want, is what the data has shown me very clearly and I'm sure that you and maybe your listeners can empathize with this is that in marking communications especially in B2B you're pulled in so many different directions. There's so many things you could or should be doing and I think what's helped us a lot at Nexxen is we've leveraged the data and the performance insight to understand we actually should do fewer things with greater emphasis. Or said differently it's help us prioritize certain areas of what we do in a marketing communications perspective that have outstanding or exponential results because we've doubled down in some areas and kind of let some areas slide. So yes, it's helpful on the performance side to showcase how great we are, sure. But it's also helped us understand hey, if we prioritize and do a fewer things with great emphasis and clarity, we'll actually have outside results.
Joe So what are some of the few things you guys have done that have driven the biggest impact?
Ben Yeah. So one area that I think we've really, really seen it manifest is experiential event marketing. When I came we were probably doing between sponsored and owned events I want to say close to 200 events a year. Event companies don't even do that many events.
Joe Yeah.
Ben So yeah okay, let's do less events but what does that really look like in terms of how these experience are performing from a brand perspective and a business perspective and I can confidently say we've lowered that number exponentially and the return we've seen or the return we've seen that in the experiential has more than doubled since we've done that. So it's been a signal that it's not just about being in every single event. It's the fewer more places that you want to prioritize that's yielding the upsense.
Joe So let's dig into that. So how do you decide which events are worthwhile and how are you measuring the contribution of the event marketing or the experiential- marketing to pipeline?
Ben The same way we do with other aspects of our business. So we look at experiences both in terms of the brand That they drive in terms of the brand performance as well as the business performance. So on the brand side is when we promote the event, what's the awareness around that or is there any coverage around the event that we've done? How many attendees or sign-ups have we had?-how many of them have been open to us reaching out to them? And then from there, I don't want to say it's easy, but then it goes right into our CRN-- CRM system.-
Joe Yeah. Yeah So it's like- Is it becoming an opportunity? Is sales talking to them?
Ben And do we know- Excellent .... from the events we've done what leads from there have generated revenue? So when I say that I can tell you what the ROI is on experiential, I'm not being facetious. We know the operating budget that we've invested, we know the net revenue we've seen, and I can tell you, "Hey, this is the ROI we've seen in general." I can even tell you what the ROI that we've seen from net new customers, so customers who hadn't spent with us for the last rolling 12 months. So that's the type of sophistication level which I believe is, which we're doing and I believe is possible for other marketers.
Joe So first off, I think there are two kinds of motions in, like go-to market motions in adttech. There are adtech companies where it's like, "We're targeting 3,000 mid-market agencies". And it's almost easier for those companies and for the CMOs of those companies to demonstrate measurable business impact because you can do growth marketing with that. Like, you can do like LinkedIn ads and like Google Ads and SEO and all this stuff, and you can kind of create like a mousetrap, right? And then you can show like all these people like downloaded this report, and then we reach out to them, whatever. It doesn't mean you don't do all the other stuff. I'm just saying it's more there's a scalable play there, and data-driven platforms like LinkedIn tend to lend themselves to that kind of target account universe.
Then there are adtech companies where I speak to the CMO, and they're like, "Joe, we only have like 50 customers we want. Like, there are 50 publishers out there or there are 50 brands, and we wanna go target them." So you're not really gonna run ads to target 50 people. Your CPMs would be crazy.
Ben Yeah.
Joe It's more custom, it's more creative, and that's where I think those types of organizations tend to lean very heavily on events because, as you were describing, they can easily tie the event to an opportunity, right? Where they can say, "You know, we did an activation at CES."- Sure ..." You know, these people from these hundred brands came by. Then over the course of the next 12 months, like sales followed up with them. We closed eight of them," and now it's like boom,- Yeah ... marketing is a contributor to pipeline. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's accurate. That's great, you know? What I've been trying to crack, especially as a guy who's not an event marketer, is what do we do around the event-
Ben Yeah ...
Joe for like the other 12 months from a communications and content marketing perspective- Yeah ... to warm up those prospects-so that they actually come to our events, so that our sales team can reach out a month before and be like, "We're doing this dinner. We'd love for you to come"? So curious what you do from that perspective.
Ben Yeah. And I'm actually really happy you brought this up 'cause I don't know if we got to this as much in the first part in terms of the way in which we at Nexxen operate in marketing communications. And we're set up or structured, I would assume like many marketing communications organizations. We have an events discipline, we have a go-to-market discipline, we have a communications discipline, but we recognize that we don't show up to the marketplace, we don't show up to the industry as Nexxen the events team- or Nexxen the communications. We show up as Nexxen. And so what I've really driven home with our team, and the way that I'm really happy that we show up, is we show up collaboratively. And so if we're doing an event like a CAN or a Possible or even a, you know, own and operated experience in Chicago, it is interconnected with the other disciplines of marketing. So it is not just event on its own. It's how is this also connected to what we're doing around thought leadership and press? How are we promoting this before or after leveraging digital? How do we think about materials, talking points that we can give to our teams to be able to effectively be on the ground, whether it be new capabilities or points of view on the industry, for them to be effective as possible? It's the same pre-event, during the event, and post the event. So we operate in a collaborative, holistic way in the way that we market, even though we're structured by discipline. And from my perspective, that is actually the way that you make the biggest noise. It's not about showing up in this one spit over here or this one effort over here. It's how you're showing up in an interconnected way. I mean, let's take Cannes, for example, right? Sure, we had a meeting space that was branded. We had an apartment. It was beautiful. But we also had signage on the Croisette. We also had, I don't know, about eight or nine different thought leadership touchpoints, whether it was the Stagwell Sport Beach or partnering with Adweek.
You know, so all of that is connected. And to me, if you want to show up in the most cohesive position and largest way, it's about an interconnected marketing strategy where the lead may be an event, but there's other pieces that work with it.
Joe So I've been trying to crack this nut because I think a lot of my clients, like, you know, it's easy to say it's connected, but it takes creativity to connect those things, and it takes a lot of like operational like sort of bandwidth too, right? So what I find for a lot of my clients is there's a big disconnect between the top funnel stuff, thought leadership, which is obviously more my domain- and then like events. And of course, as like a practitioner of content communications-it's frustrating to me because events gets all of the credit for because they're the last touch, right? It's, uh, our clients have like- the, the, the brand client of companies like Nexxen have the same problem where like it's like Google gets all the credit because it's the last touch. So I've been thinking about how to connect these things. And, uh, what we'll do with a lot of companies in the space is we do these thought leadership programs, right? We're known for executive evangelism, so we work with the CEO. When we'll-- Historically, what we would do is we meet with the CEO, we talk about what's going on in the industry and in the news, and we create content for them, right?
So what I'm doing now is I'm saying, "Give me a list of like 50 to 100 prospects who would be really valuable to you"-so like dream prospects, "and let's customize our thought leadership content creation efforts around those 50 to 100 prospective clients." "So that every week if we're like meeting with, you know, you and the CEO to talk about what's going on, we say we don't just look at, okay, there was like an Amazon like scandal or whatever, right?" But it's more like What is going on in that set of prospects- that we could create content around, so that you fuse the thought leadership and the thoughts on the market with s- happenings related to specific targets.
And you can then leverage the, like, executive evangelism, the CEO thought leadership, to get in front of those specific prospects, and that way you are using, like, the communications efforts and the CEO's expertise to create a special touch with the prospective client, and then they are more likely to, like, come to an event or whatever, and then you close them- or you hand it off for marketing sales.
Ben I'm with you 90%. The last 10%, the piece that you're missing from my perspective, and again, the way we do it at Nexxen is how does that then tie back to the positioning? Right? One of the things that I'm really obsessed with, that I say to the team all the time is how are we advancing the conversation versus adding the conversation? So for your thought leadership perspective, yes, obviously we want this to be a topic that they care about, but why is Nexxen distinctly able to have that conversation, right? When we do thought leadership or do press or an event or, y- you know, I feel this way even in our materials is can we take the Nexxen logo off and slap another logo on? If we can, we haven't done a good enough job.
Joe Yeah. Yeah.
Ben So I love the way you're thinking about it and that type of interconnectedness and showcasing the value is important, but again, especially in B2B and adtech which is so saturated, how is that tying back to that positioning? So for us it's how does that tie back to the being the advertising platform that's powered by UDTV data and media?
Joe Right, and I think that is the magic of the sort of executive evangelism driven ABM program is that presumably the CEO, if the CEO's sending an email to a prospect, right? It's gonna be informed by what does the CEO and what does Nexxen uniquely see in the market.
Ben Gotta be rigorous though. I think that's the pieces because adtech is innovating so fast, and because I don't care if you're DSP and SSP and NN or whatever, the market is moving so fast, there's so much saturation, there's many new entrants. My opinion is that being consistent and being rigorous, I'm not saying it can't be customized, is so critical 'cause otherwise, again, you're making noise, you're not making ...
Joe I mean, I think it has to be rigorous, and part of the rigor is customization because, and this is why this is hard, right? Like, it would be really easy to take 100 prospects and just, like, create, like, a bullshit, like, cold email campai-... Like, we all get, like, a million pitches a week, right? From these, like, lead gen vendors. But what we know about the way B2B marketing works in our industry is that that's not how it works. Like, it's not, it's not just, like, send an uncustomized, like, report out to, like, 100 prospects. It's, like, we do enterprise sales. Like, it's complicated.
Ben Well, I thought you said it well before when you said there's sacrifices that you need to be make. Like, there's certain things that you would like to talk about that maybe you wouldn't, and that is so much easier said than done. Right? When I think about why, at least from what we see quantitatively and qualitatively, we are in a much better place with Nexxen's marketing understanding of the brand, what we offer than we were two to three years ago, it's been about the little decisions every single day and the sacrifices we're willing to make that have gotten us here. The inertia is gonna take you to being more bland or being generic or going where everyone else is going. It's how do you be able to recognize the places you need to be while also making sure that you're tying things back to that identity, otherwise, you know, you're gonna get watered down, you'll lose it.
Joe Yeah, and it takes a lot of creativity and elbow grease to do that. Lot of t- to think about, you know, let's say three prospects a week and say, "I'm gonna send them, like, a really smart, customized email that synthesizes, like, their concerns, what's going on in the market-" Yeah ..."and Nexxen's positioning." You know, that's a complex problem, and I would argue that very few adtech companies do it. Like, I think connecting all those dots is very challenging, and that's where I'm kinda trying to go is, like, evolving from a communications agency to a real, like, full funnel marketing communications agency, and this is, like, one way I'm exploring to do that.
Ben And I feel like it's a chall- you know, maybe outside of a few big behemoths in the space, but if you're independent adtechnology, whether you're public or not, this challenge you are facing, I, I really don't care who you are and how well known you are, you're facing this challenge. You either are trying to cement who you are in the market- or you're trying to redefine who you are in the market. I don't know which one is necessarily harder. So in, you know, in my experience, again, I think where we're seeing traction at Nexxen is being able to, to my tree analogy before, have the different branches, but be rigorous enough that we're going back to the trunk, and a trunk that we really believe that we can win.
Joe Yeah. Think that's a pretty good note to end on.
Ben Oh, pleasure.
Joe Full, full funnel marketing, connecting all the dots, proving measurable impact.
Ben Yeah. Well look, I love the way that you've been thinking about it. I think I've been really imbued to, to, to close with just some, some flowers for you. I think the way that you've approached, 'Cause we've known each other a little while.The way you've approached marketing, in my opinion, is both on the one hand refreshing, but it also feels so thoughtful, proven and diligent too, and I think that's why, in my opinion, you've had the success and hopefully the continued success that you have because what you're saying may sound simple and easy, but it's not. And it really takes, again, creativity, but also to use your language, the elbow grease. So I've been-
Joe Thank you …
Ben a pleasure to watch.
Joe I appreciate that. I mean, I think we're just getting started- Yeah ....because I think the bar for, you know, communications agencies in B2B is honestly, like, very low. I think, like, it is historically we are treated as, like, these awareness generation vehicles, but I think CFOs and CEOs are generally very unclear on the value. And I think if we challenge ourselves- to go beyond just the awareness and sort of collaborate with, you know, CMOs on this full funnel marketing program, we will make a bigger contribution to the business. And yes, we're gonna do all the awareness generating activities we always have- and measure them in the way we always have. But if we can go beyond that to go full funnel and take the thought leadership we do with CEOs in the space and connect it to the event marketing and pipeline generation, whatever, like, I have already been seeing CEOs really respond to that because they're like- even the CEOs who love doing thought leadership, a lot of them are kind of like, "Yeah, I love doing it and I think it works, but I have no idea if it really does." So being able to prove that is a big difference maker.
Ben I've, I've heard that before. Look, low bar high bar is fundamentally changing as a lot of industries are fundamentally changing, and it's how do you thrive in that environment? And one of the things I'm, I'm sure you feel the same way Joe, that about B2B and specifically about AdTech is bias maybe. There's few spaces that innovate as fast as ours, and when you couple that with just the general changes in marketing communications, on the one hand it can be scary, on the other hand it's very opportunistic. And my belief is that the independent agencies or the companies that take advantage of this change are the ones who will be successful.
Joe Good note to end on. Ben Kaplan, thank you very much.
Ben Thank you, Joe. Always a pleasure.
Joe All right.
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