How To Build a Winning Ad Stack and Educate Your Sales Team with Jean Carucci, the Streaming Strategy Scholar

Tim Rowe, Host:
Welcome back to the State of Streaming Podcast. Today, we are talking all about what it takes to win as a streaming TV publisher. We're going to talk about industry table stakes. What ads do you need to have in your ad stack to have not only parody, but to drive performance, to cash in on programmatic dollars, but also to protect the premium? How do you defend the direct sales opportunities, the biggest opportunities within your platform? Today will be a conversation about that. We'll also talk about what's trending. What do you got to keep an eye out for in 2026? We're going to talk a lot about different types of ads and go to market today. So if those are blind spots for you, if those are things that you're thinking about, want to be better at in 2026, this is the conversation for you. Enjoy. Jean Carucci, the streaming strategy scholar. We are having a very timely conversation. We actually just answered a question on LinkedIn from our friend Nick from the Netherlands about pause ads. And we'll talk about all that great stuff in today's conversation, but welcome to the State of Streaming podcast.

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it.

Tim Rowe, Host: Absolutely. It's going to be a fun conversation. You've been involved in so much of the go-to-market strategy for a lot of big platforms that we know as consumers, we know like and trust that get talked a lot about in the industry. And I'd love to understand how your career journey led you to that. And then maybe we can get some key lessons from those early understandings that, uh, that you've pioneered. Would that be a. Absolutely. Fair place to start. Yeah. All right.

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Um, I started my professional career literally decades ago in traditional big advertising space. So I was on the agency side. working at a big, big agency, Saatchi& Saatchi, on one of their biggest clients, which was Procter& Gamble. And back in those days, account management is what I did, but basically it was sort of the gatekeeper between the agency and the client. controlling everything from, you know, the strategy to the creative, to the media implementation. And, you know, those five years where I was at Saatchi on Procter& Gamble really sort of formed the bedrock for the rest of my career. Procter& Gamble has written on disciplined marketing approaches. And what I learned from that was really that at each step of the advertising journey needs to be really, really intricately involved with research and strategy and consumer insight. And everything that we proposed for our client, we needed to back up with research, with rationale. And then post-campaign, we had to come back and really understand how the effectiveness of it was. So that really sort of was an MBA in and of itself on how to kind of create, you know, strategic, successful advertising. And I was able to take that to a smaller midsize agency working on the bottled water industry. Once Nest bought the Perrier group, but again, applying that really disciplined strategic marketing approach there. And truthfully, Tim, you know, I've taken, that has been the through line in my career and had a small stint out in Chicago with a food service agency. Again, still, you know, creating that very disciplined approach. Took a little time off from the corporate world to have my three children in three and a half years. Yeah. Then when I kind of entered back into the sort of personal space, I was then consulting and for a lot of startups and some nonprofits, but really my first foray into the media space I'll call. is with DirecTV. This is a number of years ago when they were sort of digital and everybudget else was analog. Sure. And it kind of allowed me to use that same approach of understanding the marketplace, consumer needs, and how to speak and connect with them for their customer relations and current customer communications. So I did that for about five years, but really learned a lot of the ins and the outs of media, you know, from a TV service provider, you know, what are the relationships that we have with networks? What are the relationships we have with agencies and with clients? And really, really fascinating. I was able to sort of segue that into. Continuing on my media journey to what was then the Discovery Networks, prior to with them, working with Scripps. And when I entered working with Discovery, it was right at sort of the beginning of the streaming timeline. So they were using what they called their Go apps, but they were TV Everywhere apps, which is basically authenticated apps through the cable service providers. It allowed us as a network to have a much deeper library of on-demand content that we could sell to a whole new audience. So that was that kind of dipping our toe into the streaming sort of ecosystem. And the opportunity for me as a company was to really educate all of our traditional linear salespeople into what streaming was, what were the benefits, right? So to be honest, That was for me, I had to learn it myself as well. And so that's when I really started to do these deep dives into the streaming marketplace. How were we taking all of the capabilities from the dot coms that we had and even social and transferring that into the large living room experience, right? I need to know that there was a new kind of streaming viewer who wanted to watch what they wanted when they want wherever they wanted. So it was a much more sort of self-selecting audience that allow us to create a higher CPM, right? Because they're much more desirable. They're seeking you out. They're not passive. They're active. And that actually led us into, well, what else can we do with regards to ad products, which was another thing we could look at. Do we own this content? Can we sell exclusivity to somebudget? So that was really kind of the beginning of the journey for streaming for me and for Discovery. We were able to create some really wonderful packages and sponsorships, not only for the eight Discovery brands, but then almost you know, double that when we merged with Scripps and incorporated HGTV and Food Network. Wow. Well, it was really, really a great time. But then, you know, just as soon as you get that sort of under your belt, we started introducing direct to consumer apps. So I'm talking about 2019 when the actual, you know, sort of streaming ecosystem exploded. Right. So that's when you are. Disney Plus came out, right? Apple TV Plus, Peacock was introduced. There was CBS All Access that became Paramount Plus. From a discovery standpoint, we introduced Discovery Plus, a lot of pluses here, but then CEO Max, right? So literally every media company was creating their own direct-to-consumer apps. So I was able to take all of that knowledge from the TV Everywhere apps and apply it to Discovery+, but then go deeper and further because there were some exclusive content there. But really what I learned through all this is it changes so quickly that unless you stay on top of all of this, you're going to be behind the eight ball. And so it is a little sort of overwhelming for companies and for clients to understand the capabilities. So that's really when I thought, this is where I'm sort of gonna shine. I'm gonna continue to study the marketplace proactively. Quite frankly, I did it. It was self-promoting, right? I need to say, hey, you're looking for your expert, it's me. And I was able to impart that wisdom to our salespeople because the objective there was in a confusing marketplace, I wanted them to be seen as subject matter experts on streaming. So was able to do a great job with Discovery+. All of that wonderful stuff that we created was applied to HBO Max. But as Want will have in the media world, a lot of different mergers went by the wayside. Layoffs happened, mergers. So decided to hang up my own shingle after that eight year stint. for Karrueche consultants and really just help other platforms and media companies do what I did at Discovery and Warner Brothers Discovery, right? Which is basically really understand the marketplace, create a powerful go-to-market narrative that is distinctive, that is easy to understand, not only for the viewer, but for the advertiser, and most importantly, for our salespeople to be able to tell that story in the marketplace. So that's sort of where I got to, and I'm helping to do that now. Created my own Substack article, creating my own Brand, the streaming strategy scholar, did that not only, yeah, love alliteration, but it really talks to the three pillars of what's important, right? Streaming is one of the most dynamic and all-encompassing sort of term right now, but I think it's important. If you're not understanding streaming, you're not in the media game. But the 2nd, 1 strategy, it's all rooted in strategy, right? You've got to understand the marketplace. You've got to understand what your end objective is and create a strategy to get there and scholar. Quite frankly, it changes. So often, it's a continual learning process. And I'm committed to that because as it changes, I want to make sure that I am as educated as I can be so I can impart that to salespeople, to clients, to media companies, to agencies, so they can make informed decisions as they look to expand and grow their businesses.

Tim Rowe, Host: That's perfect. Thank you for giving us that, that, that backstory. And I'd love to get into some of the education. Your sub stack is brilliant and it's loaded with content. So if you're looking to get up to speed on streaming, it'll be linked close by. To this episode. I've already found a ton of value. I'd like to spend a little bit of time on the challenge of educating sales teams, because I think that that's something everyone can relate to, and especially shifting the narrative from a, you a linear traditional story to this merger of digital and television and targeting and measurement. What are the biggest challenges that come with that and how do you, how do you prescribe navigating it?

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: So I think the biggest challenge is the sheer volume of information that's available in the marketplace now. I find that it's overwhelming for anybudget. I think it's overwhelming for that salesperson who wants to keep up to date, but it's also overwhelming for their clients. So inevitably what happens is when we are faced with so much information, we tend to just shut down. I call it analysis paralysis, right? However, the danger in that is that you are then making decisions that are uninformed. So from an education standpoint, what I've tried to do is to look through a lot of the really important areas I think that people should be informed on and then pull out and curate on a quarterly basis, basically, you know, what are those trends that you need to be aware of? Who are the new competitors? What are their new capabilities? And how are you as a company responding to it? So if I can break it down to those four things and continue to sort of educate in a way that makes sense and is easy to digest and to talk about, to salespeople, I find that they're much more motivated to dive in themselves. Trust me, we should be doing these on a monthly basis with some of our clients because the marketplace changes so often. It's important to educate the salespeople because it's the currency with which we're operating on streaming is different than linear, right? So gone are the TRPs, right? One thing I don't read anymore, Tim, is ratings because, quite frankly, it doesn't matter in streaming, right? I'm looking for subscribers. I'm looking for viewers. I'm looking for the length that you're watching stuff. I'm looking forward to measuring engagement because it's such a lean in experience there. And if we can start shifting the paradigm for salespeople and clients to sort of. evaluate campaigns on a different way, I think that we're heading in the right direction, right? The problem is we're using these legacy sort of metrics in a whole new sort of system and it's not matching up. So we're piecemealing it, right? We're grabbing a stat from here and there. So You know, from a patient standpoint, I think it's about consistency. I think it's about pulling out what's really, really important and putting context for salespeople to feel empowered to go to the market and say, hey, here's what's important for you to understand. It's a very fragmented marketplace. Here's how we're solving that, right? Understand the problem. and then digging deep to figure out how you solve it for your clients. So I think that after years of doing this, I can tell you is really, really important to do. And it's that I think you should do on a continual basis. More often than not, what happens is it's a one and done. Well, we did that marketplace overview. We're good, right? We're good. Never again. Yeah, I mean, I have been on the road giving these presentations and I distinctly remember being in LA once for about five days and having to change the presentations three times because three new, three new services were being launched or there were new mergers and capabilities in the marketplace. And I wanted to be able to kind of give them the heads up and, and, and we may not have a response to that, but at least they need to be informed about it.

Tim Rowe, Host: I think since we started the, the episode that Apple has now dropped the plus, I think they're just, now it's just Apple TV. I think they've dropped the plus. So exactly to your point, everything's always changing and it's almost impossible to keep up. But if we focus on some core fundamental block and tackle, here's how we're going to approach rapid change versus here's how we're going to keep up with rapid change. Very, very different approaches, very different mindsets. Thank you for that.

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: I try to inform salespeople and clients so they can be responsive versus reactive. Very different things to your point. Responsive is, yeah, I've been looking at this. I've been studying it. Here's how I think we need to address it. Reactive is, oh crap, we're late. Get this out in market, right? Very different.

Tim Rowe, Host: That's so true. That's so true. I'd love to spend some time on specifically this. Substack article about the streaming ad product scorecard and guys, some of the distinctions between some of the platforms, maybe we can familiarize the audience with some of the different types of ads, really the table stakes, maybe some of what's gaining momentum. Could you take us through the ad scorecard? What is it? What should we take away from it? And then maybe we can unpack some of those trends.

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: It kind of came out, again, self-preservation here. When we were launching Discovery+, I really wanted to understand, well, what's everybudget else doing in the marketplace, right? So I came up with that grid that you saw on Substack that kind of really lists the capabilities and then seeing who offers it and who doesn't. Gotta be honest, we have cute names for a lot of these capabilities, but in essence, they all do the kind of same thing here, right? So you'll see here that we have solo ads, right? That means I'm sponsoring one sponsor for a whole show, right? ad-free. We used to call those binge ads, right? And who offers it? So really, I wanted to understand who does what, how can we make sure that we're offering it as well? And then this is another one that needs to continually be updated here. And in my article, This is what we're seeing. This first one is what I call the OG direct-to-consumer streamers, right? These are the first ones that kind of entered the marketplace, and then a lot of other ones fell in line. But you'll see that Hulu, Peacock, Discovery+, and HBO Max now kind of offer the entire kind of spectrum of ad products or advanced ad products, I can say, for clients. And, you know, some of these require, and you'll see that in my article, that you own the IP, right? To do an ad, you need to own the entire show so you can manage the inventory, right? Others, you need to own your user interface so I can actually have more of a branding presence on there. But before you talked about table stakes, and I can tell you, I think if you don't have the following four ad products in streaming, you're simply not competitive. And the first would be contextual targeting. So gone are demo targeting, right? Women 18 to 54. That's, I mean, it's there, you can target it, great. And you can target an audience like auto and tenders. But what streaming has afforded us is an incredibly deep content library. So how can I align my message and category with a specific kind of content? Not just genre. You can do that. Is it home? Is it food? Is it science? Is it action? Is it adventure? But you can get as specific as, I'm a mattress company. And I wanna sponsor those shows about people who are redoing their bedroom. You can get that specific. Should you? Probably shouldn't just rely on that from a scale perspective, but that's what contextual advertising does, right? Because research has shown us that consumers, when they're involved in a program, wanna see advertising that is aligned with that content. So, we're able to do that. The next one we just talked about on LinkedIn, you and I, is pause ads. Now, pause ads, I love, love, love because they're this unexpected little. From an advertiser or publisher standpoint, it's fantastic because it is incremental. doesn't eat into my ad pod at all, right? It's a user-generated experience where I pause for whatever reason, but it's a lovely sort of billboard that comes up that could make sense to the act of taking a break, pausing, stopping, and then aligning your message with it. It can be interactive with a QR code. Again, it's an extension to the campaign. It really, really rounds it out. It's a big part of how people interact streaming. They watch for a long time. They need to pause and take a break. Take advantage of that. The third one are interactive ads. Those are those ads that come up in the mid-roll, but allow us to interact with our remote. We can answer a quiz. We can take a trivia. We can scroll through different kinds of products or services. I can find my local retailer, right? These allow us to really put the connected in connected TV. I think if you don't have interactive ads, you're simply not competitive. And finally, an extension of interaction is shopability, right? This idea of increasing the speed to transaction is what clients want. And if we have a way in an ad to allow people to either with a click of remote, add it to a cart, scan a QR code, I can buy it right from my phone. Some mechanism that's allowing us from a tap to a transaction, it's speeding up. Those days of just increasing brand awareness and be done with the campaign are gone, right? So that really is one of the areas where you should be leaning into. And if you're not as an advertiser, you really should, because you're missing the boat from a connected TV perspective. So those are table stakes. There were three areas that I think have actually gained momentum. The first is prominent home screen placement. So when you enter to your streaming device, the first thing you see is that's a billboard, right? Speaking to an outdoor guy. That's what you see. And is there an opportunity that you can sell that space that's relevant, right? So if you're a sports streamer, perhaps what you have on there, you know, people are here to watch the big game. You know, think of Dick's Sporting Goods. I can buy a jersey or a shirt, right? You know, think about how can you make it make sense on that entire sort of home It's very valuable real estate. And for a lot of platforms that are curating content and they not own the IP, that is something they do own. And we can clearly carve out an area for an advertiser to get noticed because it's the first thing you see when you turn on your TV. So that is really gaining momentum. The next is sort of exclusive pre-roll ownership. I turn on whatever I've decided to watch, but there is an ad that comes up that I notice right away that perhaps aligns with the content, be it a soccer game, an award show. Think about how you can create those exclusive experiences before I even enter the content for a subscriber. And I think this works well on an on-demand experience or a live experience, right? So take 15 seconds before I jump into that game to kind of have an opportunity to say, this moment brought to you by blah, blah, blah. You're really going to get noticed there. Again, make sure it's relevant. And finally, in that same vein, with regard to ad placement, it's that first ad in a pod. It's called a prime pod placement. I'm the very first ad you see in that first ad break. really, really valuable, especially when you're watching live TV, you can tend to tune it out, but people remember that. And that's something that you can carve out and get attention, right? With so much opportunity out there. So it's, it's prominent placement. any kind of pre-roll quick alignment and then that prime pod. And I see that even some of the fast channels are doing these prime placements. They're curating their own list, but you get to have that first placement there. And that's gained a lot of momentum as well.

Tim Rowe, Host: Excellent. Thank you for that. Really helpful to hear all of those things, the trends, the table stakes, kind of how it all comes together. I'm curious how much of that is available programmatically. Is a lot of this still controlled and kind of done on a direct basis? Which opportunities make sense for which activation types do you think?

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: So I think that most of this is available programmatically and that's now pause ads and interactive ads as well, which is great. So it becomes a little bit more accessible. The ones I think I would advise clients to do on a direct basis are any sort of ownership, like those solo ads, right? If you really want to be associated with one series or content, you've got to do that directly through an IO. you know, that kind of alignment is just, you guarantee it more. You can do any kind of really custom work around that. Think of a custom pre-roll I would do as a direct IO. But the good news is most of these are now becoming available programmatically. So what that does is it really democratizes the playing field. So you don't need a $500,000 budget in order to dive in and be part of the streaming ecosystem. And I think that that's going to open up a lot of doors, especially for local advertisers, because sometimes you don't have that kind of dollar amount to put behind it. But by making it available programmatically, by making it available to be sold on a DMA basis versus national really does help as well. And you can do all of the ones that I just mentioned on a local as well as national basis.

Tim Rowe, Host: Wow. It sounds like there are follow on conversations for us to have. There's probably a webinar or two along the way. There's a lot here, Jean. For folks that want to learn more, connect with you, continue to stay in the know, where should they go? Give them the socials, give them the website. Where should everybudget go to connect and stay in touch?

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: Sure thing. So by all means, reach out to me on LinkedIn and follow me there. I'd love for your listeners to subscribe to the Streaming Strategy Scholar Substack article. A lot of what we just talked about today with regards to the ad product scorecard is there. I dive into it even deeper. and kind of break down who the platforms and the powerhouses and fast channels are. I try to touch on a lot of this sort of deep dives into how to access the streaming ecosystem. So, that would be great and I'd love to sort of help you out if you're a client that is looking for help in creating a powerful go-to-market story. That's what I love to do. I love to dive in and see where you are versus the competition and really math it out. So, you can reach out to me at paroochieconsultants.com, reach out on Substack or LinkedIn. I'm one of those geeky, I see a pause ad and I'm thrilled and I take a picture. I see an interactive ad. He's doing that. I'm adding things to our cart. I love turning on my TV to see who's in that prominent position there and it gets my sort of wheels flowing there. So yeah, I love it. I think that it is constantly changing. I can't wait to see what this next iteration holds and I'm super happy that I'll be part of it.

Tim Rowe, Host: We're super happy that you'll be a part of it, and we look forward to being a part of it with you. Jean, thanks for being here.

Jean Carucci, Principal Owner @ Carucci Consultants: Thank you so much, Tim. I've enjoyed it.

Tim Rowe, Host: Same. And if you found this conversation to be helpful, please share it with a colleague, share with a client, and start a conversation today. Make sure to subscribe, smash that like, follow, share button wherever you're listening, and we'll see y'all next time.