Domenic DiMeglio: I grew up in a small business. My dad came over from Italy and had a landscaping business with my uncle. You know, it was my first job. And you learn something when you're working for a small business, a family-owned business, because you really care for it in that way. And I think one of the things that has served me well in my career is wherever I'm working, I kind of bring that small business mentality.

Greg Stuart: Welcome to Building Better CMOs, a podcast about how markers can get smarter and stronger. I am Greg Stuart, the CEO of nonprofit MMA Global. That voice you hear at the top, that's Domenic DiMeglio. He's the head of marketing and data at Paramount Streaming. He's the CMO for Paramount Plus and Pluto TV and has been with CBS and Paramount in various roles for the past 18 years.

Today on Building Better CMOs, Dominic and I are going to talk about competing with TikTok for viewers’ attention — because there is a change landscape out there — the science of making an entertaining trailer, how to lead with empathy, and so much more. This podcast is all about the challenges that marketers face and how to unlock the true power that marketing can have.

We also look at what does real leadership look like, and what do you most effectively do to drive growth today? Domenic DiMeglio from Paramount is going to tell us, right after this.

Hello everyone, this is Greg Stuart here with Building Better CMOs. And I'm here with Domenic DiMeglio from... Well, Domenic, you're not really just Paramount Plus. I know you're from Paramount Plus, but it's really a much bigger role within the company because I think you handle all of... You're CMO, but also head of data for all streaming services of which there are many.

DD: A few. So my role, I head up marketing and data for Paramount streaming, which its two flagship services include Paramount Plus on the SVOD side and Pluto TV, the world's largest FAST service, so that's free ad-supported television. And I sit across marketing and data globally for those two services.

GS: What a fun place to be in streaming today, right? I mean, I don't know. I can't think of a more exciting, probably more intense, maybe more complicated category right now.

DD: Yeah. I mean, listen, first and foremost, it is an exciting space to be in. I mean, just every day brings a new adventure, constantly pushing for innovation, both us at our competitive set, but it's definitely intense. I mean there's a lot of services out there, there's a lot of great content out there that we're competing with. So we're really focused on how we continue to take share out of the market, which we've been doing, and how do we break through as a brand both from a Paramount Plus side and a Pluto TV side, given the crowded landscape where everybody's got great content and how do those brands stand out and mean something for consumers?

GS: Yeah. And it's not like you're not up against some insignificant people. I mean, I'd say at least once a week it appears that Bob Iger is talking about Disney's streaming strategy. So if the CEO of one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world is taking the time to bring the world up to speed—and Wall Street Journal's writing about that—this is a big deal.

DD: Yeah, we think so. I'm obviously biased working in streaming, but I do think it is an important part of any entertainment company's future. It's not the only part, by any stretch. I think, frankly, what we've seen work really well for us is we take this one Paramount approach as really pointing all of our assets working together in harmony, whether that be how we support theatrical titles through their windowing life cycle to the way the company overall supports our streaming initiatives and launches. Really trying to point everybody in the same direction and to really lean into our advantage because we're not singularly streaming. And so having such large reach on traditional television, having a huge theatrical business that's been pumping out a ton of number ones the past few years, and then everything in between in terms of our ability to reach consumers.

I think the other thing that the company probably doesn't get recognized for as much as it should is just our reach and engagement in social. The company for many years has really been working on nurturing fandoms around our key IP and franchises, and certainly as we have titles for streaming that appeal to those fandoms, they're already engaged and ready to jump into the next adventure with us.

GS: I was going to get into the broader streaming, but let's talk a little bit, just anchor for people a little bit about what is happening at Paramount. Okay, so you have Pluto, you have Showtime, you guys did a big merger. I mean there was a bundle package with Showtime and Paramount Plus, but you've really moved them. Why is that accretive for customers? Why would customers care at some level? Although I assume at some point I don't need to have 13 apps in the bottom of my TV, I guess. And then why'd the business make that decision for Paramount's interest?

DD: I'll mention one thing, but you've mentioned the 13 apps. We tested a bunch of things in terms of marketing lines for the new integrated Paramount Plus with Showtime plan and one of the things that rose to the top was one less password, and you're welcome.

GS: I will say at least you guys have made it easy with the QR codes. I got to tell you, it was the most frustrating thing in the world to have to type in your email address and a password off of a remote that was never designed to do that, but thank god you all fixed that. Let's talk about more complicated issues for consumers. Yeah, why put them together?

DD: We worked our way to this moment, so we had various degrees. First we had a billing integration bundle between Paramount Plus and Showtime a few years ago, but you still had to use separate apps, but that was the first step in the process and that was successful. Then last year around this time we launched the next iteration of that, which is we ingested all of the Showtime content into the Paramount Plus experience, and then we saw that supercharge the uptake of the bundle tier. And the thing we also observed there is people that were in those bundle tiers, they streamed more, they were more engaged overall, and ultimately they retained better. So they converted off their trials at a higher rate and they stayed with us for longer. And so that's the accretive part. We're really seeing good and positive impact on our lifetime values based on bringing these two things together.

And so this year we essentially put it together and now instead of having a premium tier and a bundle tier, we put the two together in the Paramount Plus with Showtime plan. And then also importantly at the same time stopped offering Showtime OTT for sale on a standalone basis. So now this is the streaming home of Showtime as Paramount Plus.

GS: Got it. Okay. I guess this is going to go the same way that the cable companies themselves went at some point, right? It's that there's just whoever can produce the best ARPU ends up consolidating the rest of the marketplace. Isn't that eventually what's going to happen?

DD: Well, ARPU is a hugely important component, but I think the key to profitability—and I think we're all focused on the path to profitability in streaming—is ARPU timescale because of the investment you need to make in content as well as marketing and technology. It's not just about ARPU, you also do need the scale to be able to support the investment required for streaming.

GS: And it's an intensely competitive space, so I don't know. Listen, I've seen some of your competitors, I've talked to some of the CMOs, some of those businesses, and they're a billion-dollar budget for a business that barely existed five years ago. That's a crazy amount of money.

DD: It's quite significant. Yeah, no, it is significant and I think while I wouldn't say we have budgets on par with all of our competitive set, I think there are certainly some out there that spend far more than other services. The two things that I would say is we're really focused on efficiency. I'm pretty sure every marketer is, right. How do we make our dollars work as hard as possible for us? And I think the combination of where our budget sits competitively coupled with the fact that we've signed up more new subscribers for streaming in the past two years in the US shows that that combination is working. We are effectively taking share from the market at an efficient marketing spend, and I think we're also seeing that happen globally in our international markets.

GS: Hey Dom, actually, how big is Paramount Plus, Paramount streaming? I don't know if I have a real sense of scale of the... I realize I'm into an earnings affecting question here, so I want to be careful, but what can you tell the audience about how big this business is for you all right now?

DD: Sure. I mean I can share some things that we recently shared with the market, which was in the past quarter, Paramount Plus grew revenue 47 percent year over year and now reaches 61 million subscribers globally.

GS: Wow.

DD: What I shared earlier, Paramount Plus has been the fastest growing streaming service in the US for the past two years in terms of share of new sign-ups. So we know we're growing fast in terms of taking share, we are reaching global scale.

GS: Wow.

DD: And then I think when you match that up with, as I mentioned before, the number one FAST service around the world, Pluto TV, that just continues to grow exceptionally fast. The two services combined to grow, total viewing hours, 35 percent year over year this quarter. And that gives us an amazing ecosystem of free and pay. I mean, Pluto TV and Paramount Plus are really complimentary to one another. We see what may surprise a lot of folks, users that are engaging with both. I think people sometimes tend to think that you're either an SVOD person or a FAST person when the reality is as we look across both services, we have a high degree of overlap and that people are interested in different content and different experiences. And Pluto has an amazing lean back curated approach to all of our channels, and it's just a really great compliment to Paramount Plus. And I do think it gives us a competitive advantage in having both free and pay in the marketplace.

And then I mentioned the other thing, too, to keep in mind here is that Paramount Plus has both an ad-supported tier and an ad-free tier. So then when we look about scale and advertising, you take Paramount Plus's ad-supported tier plus the massive scale we have in Pluto, and now you have a really amazing opportunity in terms of ad market.

GS: Yeah, that's a nice sort of product segmentation strategy. It doesn't matter how you get there, you got to get scale for entertainment business. Absolutely. That's what I assume you're going to have to know, lays the platform for you being able to invest in even better content, which only builds a platform more, so good for you guys. Wow, I didn't know it was that big, Dom. That's impressive.

DD: Yeah, absolutely.

GS: You know what's also equally interesting to me, though, around this is that streaming... I mean nothing like a good pandemic to help your business grow and focus and opportunity. I mean, who knew that that was going to come out of it? And that was the funny thing about the whole pandemic. I remember sitting at board meetings and having some marketers hide their heads a little bit and look down and say, "Our business is actually doing pretty well." So there were some people who benefited during what was an otherwise catastrophic time for the world. But a question for you is, would you know the stats about what's happened to streaming and the shift in behavior from broadcast? I don't know, either cord cutting kind of dynamics, one way to look at that, or just the shift in time spent? What has happened over the last three, four years?

DD: I mean, you've seen a continued shift in time spent to streaming with each passing quarter. I think the share of television minutes consumed by streaming is growing. That being said, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that your traditional linear television is still a monster in terms of overall size. And then I think the other thing that's important, especially for a company like ours that sits in both places, is streaming is also a hugely important driver of growth for those traditional broadcast and cable shows. I mean, within Paramount Plus and also for Pluto TV, we have current seasons of CBS broadcast content, we have it in Paramount Plus next day, as well as the back seasons. And so things that are huge for CBS, like NCIS or Survivor or this past season of Fire Country, are also huge within Paramount Plus.

And we partnered this past year with our colleagues over at CBS to really try to make Fire Country a priority. And it was a huge hit for CBS on broadcast, and then it was the number one season of a CBS broadcast show for us last year in the service, so it was just a hit across the board. I do think while we talk about streaming and share of time in the space when we think about streaming versus television, I also think that for us it's really around how do we, again, take advantage of our broad distribution and make these shows and movies as broad as possible.

GS: Got it. Yeah, also good synergy with that. And you're right, I've often talked about this, the MMA, when we used to be a little more focused on mobile, we did a series of studies in the mid-teens from probably 2012, 13 until probably 2017, 18. But we were looking at what would be a rational mix, what was the optimized mix for marketing? Now I was looking to understand what mobile was doing, especially with the infusion of data and targeting and the personalization of that device was the focus. Here's the stat, though—and we talked about this at the time, so I have no incentive to give this stat. I'm not supporting anybody part of the industry when I say this. Just to be clear, I have no bias here. Linear television in the studies that we looked at, linear, broadcast, untargeted, un-data-infused, linear television should have been around 45 to 65 percent of a mix.

And again, that's as little as six, seven years ago, which is a long time, but not that long ago to have had a dramatic shift. And what it told me, which is very funny because... you really can't trust what you read sometimes, you really have to do the research and know what you're talking about. The media would come out every year and they would talk, and I'm sure it was plants by the media agencies, "Television's getting too expensive." And it's like, no, if you're 45 to 65 percent mix, you have audience and you're the deal of the century. It was under priced no matter what pricing went up, it was under priced. But you never heard that. You never heard that go on unless you did the work. So.

DD: No, you didn't, but I remember the legendary head of research for CBS for many years, Dave Poltrack.

GS: Dave Poltrack, famous, an icon.

DD: Icon for sure, and he was a great person to partner with over the years I've been at the company. And I think he had done a lot of studies and I think one of the things—and this is probably maybe a little bit longer further back than some of the dates you're talking about—but brands that had stopped spending on linear television saw a huge hit in their sales and came back to TV. And I think that was something that our linear teams definitely used to help in their sales efforts at that time.

GS: I remember the studies, and you're right, broadcast television often used as sort of the branding, the base brand. I'm an ex-agency media guy, I don't even know if you knew that, but I spent hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of Proctor and Gamble and others. And yeah, television broadcast was the base for that. What I didn't understand at the time, but I've been more recently in some work we're doing, too, I am shocked at the degree to which those who are favorable to a brand, they churn the degradation in that favorable over time. I just saw some stats yesterday my team was showing me, and it's kind of shocking, which would be to that point, you have to stay in front of consumers. We're short memory beasts, I guess at some level.

DD: I think it's just all important. You have to be everywhere the consumer is. I don't think you can ignore any platform, whether that's linear television or it'd be like not investing in organic and paid social media. I mean, you have to be where the customers are. And so I think every platform is critical. And then also I think for each, depending on what your marketing and what your product is, I think your mix will shift a bit, right?

So for example, in streaming, being in television is really important. We want to reach entertainment fans, we want to reach sports fans. We have an amazing sports offering in the service, including two really marquee properties with the NFL on CBS, including Super Bowl this year, we'll be streaming in Paramount Plus. And then from a soccer perspective, we have the exclusive rights for really the most prestigious club tournament in the world, the UEFA Champions League. And so being in those environments is super important for us. And then as you might imagine as a streaming business, also making sure you're really present on connected devices and smart televisions. Being in front of the consumer when they're making a decision of what to watch that night is really critical for brands like ours.

GS: Hey, let me ask you another question. I hadn't thought about asking this in advance, so I didn't give you this one, so—

DD: You're good.

GS: What you're also competing with now, funny enough—which didn't exist four or five years ago—are short-form video in the case of Facebook's Reels or, in particular, TikTok.

DD: Yep.

GS: Have you guys looked at that short-form competition for people's attention to video content at the broadest way?

DD: I think you've got to look at it, there's two sides of the coin. Of course on the challenge side, it's more competition for time. I mean, ultimately we're in entertainment or gaming, we're competing for users' time and attention.

GS: Yes.

DD: And so obviously engagement there certainly takes away from hours they have left to watch scripted television and movies, et cetera. But I also think the other side of that coin is it's a massive opportunity. I mentioned sort of our investment engaging fans and fandoms in social, and so I do think bringing your best to engage on those platforms with content that feels native and authentic to those platforms is a great opportunity for our brand and our content.

GS: You're not here to announce Paramount Shorts today, right? That's not coming out?

DD: No, we don't have that to announce today.

GS: Okay, good. You would've shocked me if you'd actually suggest that. Okay, Dom, let's get into the big question, the whole thing around Building Better CMOs and the focus of what this podcast tries to always go after. And by the way, I should have set this up, right? You come from finance, you're a finance guy, right?

DD: Yes.

GS: Okay. Perfect background for doing performance-oriented marketing, certainly. And you broadened, you're a brand guy now, so I know some of that history. But as you look out, in your experience and exposure, what do you think marketing, marketers don't necessarily get? What do you think either they get wrong, what do they maybe not fully understand? What do you think they would be... If you were to, as you give your teams maybe advice, what do you look at given your own personal perspective on things?

DD: What I would say is I don't think it's necessarily what they don't get right or totally understand, but I do think especially as it pertains to what we do in entertainment and streaming, I think a lot of times all the focus is really on these hero, flashy campaign assets like your big trailer and your key art. Which, by the way, are hugely important, of course. They've got to be exceptionally strong, but they're really only the tip of the iceberg. And there's so much that happens below the water line or the surface level, if you will, in terms of all of the testing and the insights that go into how effective those assets are. The creative variety you need both in just a range of assets, but also variations of copy. Just the hundreds of assets you need to sort of fulfill in being able to be on every platform like we've talked about, as well as just everything that happens in managing the customer life cycle as part of that process.

There's just so much, I mean we can go on for a while, but there's just so much that goes into successfully building and managing and executing a campaign that you don't necessarily see beyond those flashing moments. But I think the key in success or failure is being and executing from top to bottom.

GS: So taking that for a moment, then. I think what your point kind of is that do you think people get attracted to marketing thinking about their creative brains and the fun and excitement of producing a very visually stimulated and engaging— Often there's a big focus in marketing around emotionally driven ads or emotionally evoking ads, I should say...

DD: Yeah.

GS: ... and communications. And that would suggest it's coming from the heart, it's coming from an intuition rather than a science. So you're kind of suggesting they don't understand how hard that is to get to even get to that point, which is hard. I've worked in enough creative agencies, it's hard. You've got to have a strong strategy to get to good creative ads.

DD: Yeah.

GS: Or is it all the background work that you think that they just underestimate or underappreciate?

DD: I think people are coming at marketing from a lot of different directions, and I think it's really having the full appreciation that it takes all of the various skills and piece parts of a campaign to be successful, not just that big flashy piece. But by the way, those trailers... I mean, the work and the creativity to pull together a great trailer. And you talked about the emotion, the impact and ability to connect with somebody emotionally with a well-executed trailer, there's a huge difference when that's done with excellence versus not, right? So that's hugely important. But if you're not placing that trailer in the right places, you're not giving it the right fuel to get viewed by folks, then you're also letting it down. And that's why I'm talking about everything comes together. It's like if you're baking a pie, all of the ingredients are critically important to that pie tasting good.

GS: Right. It's not just the cherries, right? By the way, I've not done trailers. Is there a science to trailers?

DD: I think there is a science to it, but the creation of a trailer is far more art. I think the science comes in the research and the consumer insights that we pull from those trailers. Identifying who are the audience segments that we think this program will speak to, and designing tests to understand how each of those different audience segments, as well as your broad general entertainment audience, responds. And I think that's where the science comes in. And I think we're trying to evolve a little bit the classic art and science, which I think is still spot on. And part of that art, to be honest, is understanding what the data is telling you, what are the insights that matter most? From a perspective of data and emotion, one of the things that I love about marketing is just trying to understand the audiences, their need states, what's going to resonate, how to connect with audiences with what we're doing in marketing. I find that that's so much fun as part of our work.

GS: We used to say in the agency business many years ago when you could say things like this, "Advertisement was the most fun you could have with your clothes on." Can't say that anymore.

DD: No.

GS: But that was, I've just put it into a podcast, so there you have it. Listen, Dom, do you have an example of a trailer that maybe the research told you to go one direction on it, which maybe felt somewhat counterintuitive? I mean, I've seen some of this stuff in the press where they're like, "Well, you think this is the viewer, but you're really attracting this." And so the trailer was developed for this audience in this way.

DD: Well, I think, yes, I think all the time. Listen, a lot of times it's really nice and validating. You put a couple of trailers or a couple pieces of art in testing and you've been doing this for long enough, you have a feeling of what you're going to hear back. And so a lot of times you're going to get validation of where you were, but a lot of other times you're going to get unique insights, things that you hadn't considered in the way people were going to respond, or moments in the trailer where interest level drops off so you can say, "Hey, that bite did not work there." And so I do think it's always good to get the validation and it's always important to get the insights of things you didn't anticipate so that you can pivot and try to improve on that asset before you put it out in the world. So I think that's where the research really helps.

I think we made the joke about the one last password, you're welcome. And we loved it. We thought it was funny, but at the same time we weren't sure how consumers were going to respond. And so that was one where it could have gone either way. And then we got the testing back and consumers loved it, so we put that in market. But if we had gotten back feedback where it came off as snarky or the joke didn't land that we were having... because one of the things about our brand is we like to be down to earth. We don't want to take ourselves too seriously on the Paramount Plus side. And so we were coming at it with that sort of brand voice, but we wanted to make sure it translated that way to consumers and audiences.

GS: I'm curious, do you have a positioning for the role of the different services and how they do present themselves? So if Paramount Plus is down to earth... By the way, I worked on Showtime many years ago, many years ago. They used to say it's adult with a small A was the way that Showtime was explained when we were doing it. This is 25 years ago, we were doing the teaching work for. So down to earth is sort of the dynamic you said of Paramount Plus. But what about some of the other services and how do you position yourselves in that competitive environment?

DD: Yeah, I think on the P+ side, it's definitely that sort of down to earth tone. I think we lean into humor a ton. I mean, we've been doing our Mountain of Entertainment spots for a few years, starting with the Super Bowl campaign, the Journey to the Peak, to announce the new branding of the service. Consumer feedback on those has always been awesome. Fans really love seeing the unexpected mix of characters and talent. And we bring a lot of humor to those that we personally have had a lot of fun creating. And I think that it helps our brand stand out to really have those live-action spots that resonate with consumers and supplement all of the amazing content-led spots: our trailers and our brand cut spots that are in market. I do think that combo and the brand voice does help Paramount Plus stand out in the streaming marketplace.

And then on the Pluto TV side, you know, Pluto has also been a scrappy brand over the years and feel like a lot of humor there, a lot of quirkiness, and I think we've had a lot of fun with that brand as well. And I'm really excited on where we take it next.

GS: Okay, so let me ask you the big controversy out there since we're talking about your brands, and I'm going to leverage some of the others. HBO Max versus Max, a lot of controversy out there on that name change. Comment?

DD: Yeah, I could see a lot of what went into that. I'd say I like not having to compete directly against the HBO brand, but I do also understand that Max allows it to be broader and also preserves what HBO has always stood for in terms of its programming. Going back to your point on the Showtime brand, I think it has always stood for and represented some of the best edgy and boundary-pushing content. And if you think about our programming goals that we've had for Paramount Plus to really be a coast to coast total household product with live sports, news, what we say a mountain of entertainment with kids and family, big tentpole movies, and amazing scripted programming, reality, a full household, whole family product. Showtime really fits in that lane, that edgy, sort of boundary-pushing content that really rounds it out. And I think together they make a powerful combination.

GS: Yeah, Showtime to me is the one place I can next go to find something interesting that I didn't expect or hadn't heard about yet.

DD: Yeah.

GS: I don't know how they continue to do that. I didn't know it was refreshed that often. I can't really tell, but I'm constantly surprised and I find myself in there like, "Oh yeah, I do want to see that. Oh, I'd like to see that." Adding it to kind of a list somewhere in some mind. And I don't know that I find that with the other services. So funny enough.

DD: Listen, I think we've just sort of accelerated that new discovery because we're now putting Showtime content in front of all of the Paramount Plus subscribers, some for the first time. And I think what's really interesting is we've now released two originals, the sixth season of The Chi, which has been incredibly—

GS: Long-standing hit. Yeah.

DD: Long-standing hit, a very engaged fan base, great stories. And that show had its biggest premiere ever and is doing really good work. And one of the things that I'm seeing in the Paramount Plus app is that half of the people that are streaming it thus far we're existing Paramount Plus subscribers. So we're pulling in the Showtime audience and then also exposing it for the first time to Paramount Plus subs. And we're doing the same thing with the latest season of Billions.

GS: Wow, we love Billions. Love Billions.

DD: Yes.

GS: Really one of the best shows ever.

DD: And Axe is back this season, the final season so—

GS: Oh wait, is Axe back?

DD: That's right.

GS: You know, it's funny yeah, so you were paying attention to your research. You saw I drifted off, just without Axe, it just wasn't that good for him.

DD: I think you're going to like season seven.

GS: Okay, okay I'm in.

DD: Come back.

GS: When does that go? You and I are not doing promos, but when does that start? When does it kick off?

DD: It just debuted, so you're just in time.

GS: Good, good. Okay, everybody. And if you haven't seen Billions... I'm constantly surprised when I find people haven't seen it, that's just nuts. It's really some of the best television there's ever been. Just compelling, characters are great. Love it all.

DD: Yes, it's a great show.

GS: And in fact, you and I'll come back and talk a little bit about Wendy here, that character in there a little bit. I think in our next part of our conversation here, if I remember right. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about some of this below the line that you're having to do and some of what people don't see. So how can we approach that? If you're producing a campaign for some particular thesis, maybe talk about the complexity of having to create the multitude of assets, whether it be sizes, channels, and everything that you find today. Or maybe it's around some of the complexity around measurement. I got to tell you, I'm an expert in a lot of those areas and I don't know how you guys do it nowadays.

DD: I think the biggest thing in terms of how we do it is we are lucky to have a team with folks that have deep expertise and experience in those areas. We run, for example, within our team, our own trading desk so to speak. We've got programmatic traders that are doing all of our performance-based programmatic buys. We handle all of our own SEM work, both from the copy, the assets, the buying and bidding itself. We're managing all of our social paid campaigns. So really those three things within a performance-based buying agency within our team that also oversees our data enablement, all those segments and just the complexity of those campaigns, the number of line items, the number of creatives is incredible. And obviously the more you can automate, the more you can lean into machine learning tools and AI to help customize there, the more successful results you can drive.

And so, that's definitely a huge area and I think one we've been investing in for over a decade within our group and feel like that's a best-in-class bunch that definitely gives us a competitive edge. But you go to the flip side of it and you think about all of the creatives working on the trailers and the art, they're thinking about all the nuances of how this campaign comes to life, including how your art is going to manifest itself in a 300 by 250, or what it's going to look like in certain social units. Really trying to think about how things size up and down and making sure that we're optimizing for all of that in the creation of the original assets. So all the adaptations have already had thoughts around how it's going to work in terms of how you go up and down. If you only optimize for that large billboard format that we all see on our drives, then you're going to potentially miss the mark when you try to bring that to all the places the campaign's going to go.

GS: I think it's kind of funny you mentioned that, I think that people don't recognize the constraints that there are in marketing. I was just having a conversation with the exec committee of the North America board yesterday, and we were talking about how everybody in the C-suite, all your peers I'm assuming there at Paramount, they all do marketing as a side hustle. I mean you guys are a media company, so I don't know if it's more pronounced or less pronounced. Dara Treseder said it at MMA event, she said that she was up against when she was at Peloton, everybody did marketing as a side hustle. But really you have to get so many parts of it right to make it all work that people just don't appreciate how hard that is to do, I think.

DD: I think that, that's right and I think we've definitely taken it on internally within our teams to try to evangelize all that goes into what we're doing. And I think that, that has helped because we do partner a lot with the studio and network marketing teams. And I think over the past few years there's been a great fluency between the teams around what's needed for streaming campaigns and when their content comes to the service, how can they do things on their end that sort of help set it up with success in terms of assets. So I do think with each passing day we continue to drive that forward as everybody while they're experts at what they do day-to-day, also really around the company we're building a streaming mindset.

GS: Let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back after this with Domenic DiMeglio.