Shann Biglione has a point of view. The head of strategy at Zenith USA believes that the choices you make with money feed or starve what you support. If you’re chasing profits at the cost of your beliefs, you’re not building, you’re subtracting.

Listen here: https://specific.substack.com/p/shann-biglione-on-the-ethics-of-your-415?r=n6j6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

Transcript by Otter.ai

Adam Pierno 0:18
Alright, welcome back to another episode of the strategy inside everything. We should probably change the name of the show two things I saw on Twitter. I wanted to follow up on so today’s guest is the head of strategy at Zenith USA. Got a very rich experience in media planning, buying consumer understanding. Shann Biglione that I How much did I butcher your name?

Shann Biglione 0:54
You’re perfectly fine.

Adam Pierno 0:56
I’m self conscious about my pronunciation skills.

Shann Biglione 0:59
You’re good. You’re good. Thank you very much.

Adam Pierno 1:01
It is wonderful to meet you. I know you from the internet, but we’ve never met. So this is our first semi face to face meeting. And lovely to have you on. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. And would you do me a favor? I know I’m familiar with you and your point of view on media and some of your experience. But would you mind giving people a sense just a little background on your career and kind of what who you are and what you’ve done, so they have a sense of context of your understanding of this topic?

Shann Biglione 1:29
Sure. I’ve been in the business of marketing for about 15 years. And I’ve worked across quite a few different places. I worked in digital creative. Where was the most creative planning there? Did some engagement planning, social media planning that I want you to media planning. When I moved to China, that was about five, six years ago, um, and I worked in this market for about five years. And I moved to New York pretty much exactly a year ago to sit with the publicist not working for Zenith in the US, and here, I mostly work on clients like GSK pharmaceutical brands, for example. So yeah, I’ve had the chance to kind of see what actually different aspects of how we plan things. But the media part, especially the last 5 or 6 years has been the my primary focus. And tell me more you started on the planning side and then you move to the media side. What was that just a career opportunity or something about media interesting to you, or, or a little bit both? bit of everything. He was just looking for a career change and to move to China and something came up in media and just felt like, you know what, I’m curious enough to try to find out how that works. And to be honest with you, I never really appreciated the work of the agencies. When I was on the creative side, and I thought it was potentially maybe down to me not really understanding what they were doing. So if I can get a bunch to go and figure it out, so I did, what was the biggest cultural learning, you just you wanted to go to China, you would like

Adam Pierno 2:58
about let’s move to and see what it is.

Shann Biglione 3:01
Yeah, that that was a big, big, big drop. I mean, I had lived in Japan, where I studied for for a few months, for a year, and really, and with my wife we had lived in I’m French, German, and we had moved to the UK. And then we moved to the US and Los Angeles. And kind of a next step after that felt like this go to Asia. And China is where it’s at in Asia right now. So we was working on international marketing. And

Adam Pierno 3:26
we figured that, you know, we could not call ourselves global marketers without understanding China. And that could be the way to learn. So we went, Wow, that’s amazing. What are some of the big cultural differences? I mean, going from China to the US has got to be a huge difference in culture, the the approach to advertising and marketing and then I have a feeling some of what we’re going to talk about

Shann Biglione 3:47
spring. Yeah, we’re going to talk about definitely big differences. I think from from my perspective, it’s, it’s, it’s too big, big markets. And Funny enough, I find more similarities and differences, the differences course in economics, Chinese versus American, and like, you know, there is definitely some, some there’s different differences in how mature the market is how exposed advertising people have been, you know, you have to remember that people you work with grew up without advertising, it was a time when they were kids. So propaganda. It wasn’t already used for brands. So we have very different, you know, historic backgrounds, the language is very different. And the ecosystem from a media perspective is entirely different. Most of the companies we used to work with here are censored over there. So you tend to work a lot more with with local brands like Teitelbaum, Ababa, and 10 Sentinel those guys. So there’s plenty of differences. But funnily enough, there’s actually quite a lot of similarities. And I probably say the same problems that we encounter. Yeah, I find bringing more similarities between China and the US in the media world than I would between France and the US to some extent, I know,

Adam Pierno 4:55
that’s, that’s really interesting. what’s the what’s the biggest difference then between France, France and the US or France and China?

Shann Biglione 5:03
It’s the way people think about scaling the business first here, and China’s just like, you know, these are very pragmatic buying driven market. So you get to the UK, it’s much more planning driven. And you know, people like to theorize more versus in countries like the US, China find people to be on, say, just more pragmatic, but really, like, you know, very, very, very clear about delivery of the price, what’s the priority? And actually, like, Show me the money now? Yeah.

Adam Pierno 5:29
Yeah, delivery and points versus nuance, and how does the brand look and feel in this space? Yeah, well, that ties in exactly to what we’re going to talk about. So recently, there have been some things in the news. Now, I want to caveat that this is a purely hypothetical conversation. But for someone like you, who has observed media around the world, and seeing different types of communication going out on broadcast channels, and different types of media owners having different type of editorial points of view you, hypothetically, there’s a role for the person who is choosing media, on behalf of a brand to make a decision or to steer a brand? And how do you do that in the face of viewpoint of what that media point of view is? So does the does the brand promise align with the editorial promise of that outlet? I guess, is the cleanest way to say it. And even without referencing some of the media, I think people listening are shaking their head and saying, Oh, I know. I roughly know what he’s what he’s talking about. But give me a sense, your point of view on how the how the media planner and buyers, more the planners, but how the media organization can help protect the brand or help steer our brand?

Shann Biglione 6:53
Well, I think there’s a lot of different levels that can work for this. I mean, ultimately, you know, the the job number one of the upcoming is just to make sure we reach the right audience. And especially in in recent times this in the last 510 years with audience buying with there has been a lot of discussions where it became a lot more about who do we target, then where do we target them in a way, context became something less prominent, you know, used to be the context was kind of a proxy for reaching people. So you buy the New York Times to reach people were slightly more affluent, for instance, versus nowadays, you can use data signals to kind of go and target those people in a very, very basic website, if you wanted to. And and I think context is something that had a history, a magical loss to the advertising industry, it then going to went down as we move more towards audience buying. And I think it’s definitely coming making a comeback now, partly because of fraud, partly because of the inventory. But also because context can matter to the quality of the ad impact as well, and make sure it’s in the right place is something that that matters to the brand.

Adam Pierno 8:01
So is that part of what you were referencing about the difference between France? And I would say Europe in general and the us is that context is still important there? Or? Or is data and data taking place of some of that context by as well, as overtaken most countries, right?

Shann Biglione 8:15
Let’s look at where the money, the media money’s flowing. And it’s mostly today to targeted platforms. Well, you know, and when, when Facebook and Google and so on sell you services, they show you Google says you some of YouTube, but it’s ultimately they sending you access to an audience much more than so they’re sending you access to a context, that context is not being the key strength of this big data platforms, which are trafficking more and more of the inventory of advertising nowadays. And so that context is, is definitely in the mind of the planners, there is basically two aspects. If I was to make it very, very simplistic, there’s two aspects to it. One is when we try to maximize the reach of the audience, we tickle afters, which is a big, big part of the job of media, making sure we scale to the right people enough and for a long enough period of time. But then after, there’s also making sure that the context would align. So it kind of doesn’t just look at which shows, for instance, are the biggest rating shows, it’s definitely a big consideration and selecting those, but it’s also like, well, we think that this show here based which based on what you want set, you saying is quite relevant for your brand. Therefore, we tend to think like this to be a good place to go on the scene. So that aspect of context is something that I think, you know, used to exist very, very deeply in the work of media planning, I think has reduced a bit is making a comeback, because we want to see more of that front and center, I think we realized that there are limits to audience only targeted systems. So we see more and more even within the data systems, we see more and more private marketplaces with pre approved environments and so on that are waiting, they’re kind of wait listed by by the brand, so doesn’t matter. But I think to the to the topic going to talk about today, there is a there’s an extra layer to it, which is like how do you protect the brand? But also, can the brand and its media investment play a role in the shape of the media ecosystem? And it’s in its in its own? Right? Yeah,

Adam Pierno 10:15
well, let’s, let’s go. But let’s talk about context for a second. Because context means we’re trying to catch someone in a certain state of mind. And that was the that was the promise of data. But instead, data has delivered, like you said, an audience of specific people that might fit or more likely to meet the criteria of that context, or in that buying funnel, versus being in a true context of thinking about a specific problem at a given time. More than more than we used to buy.

Shann Biglione 10:49
Yeah, I mean, we used to buy the New York Times that we can buy the New York Times reader and Right, exactly, that’s, that’s that’s kind of the big difference in terms of how it’s done and and, and the big diamond those two, is it the right way to do it? Should you target the New York Times reader out to New York Times isn’t really going to make the best impact for those guys that do you want to be associated with that channel? I think the question around whether the channel is heavily associated with with with with the Bryan Callen scenes it seemed there. It’s a complicated topic. To be honest, I’ve seen contrived contradicting evidence there. And it’s sometimes you feel like yet I mean, sure, there are things we can matter. But, you know, we had very often debates around who, what if you appear before it not so nice video on YouTube, and right, what consumers, we think that the brand has something to say relationship to what’s after In this video, I’m not convinced that it is the case. I think, I think this is more of a question of ethics. And whether we want to be seen as advertising as an industry to be sponsoring and promoting these things and connecting, giving them basically a stronger voice by funding them. And that’s probably where they’re bigger questions can have right now happening. And I think there’s definitely stop point to us between the pros and the cons of what should be on.

Adam Pierno 12:07
So let’s just make up a fictional brand, let’s say a bank, or something that has to be you know, have a, traditionally has a semblance of professional sheen to it responsibility. So if you’re doing a by cross platform by you know, full, whatever they call omnichannel ensures aware of you hate, but you would automatically blacklist you wouldn’t want them near pornography, you probably wouldn’t want them you’re gambling, you probably wouldn’t want them near certain kinds of violent content, you would make that list even before the things that are signaling context for prospective customer or recurring customer.

Shann Biglione 12:45
And that’s what most brands already do. sites which are blacklisted from from from targeting lists. And sometimes it happens that the systems don’t work. And you can still be seen there, which is usually not the very good news for the brand. For the people for the people buying this. But no, I mean, for sure there is there there are lines in the sand for lots of brands out there. And some of them are very easy to define, like pornography is something that’s, you know, in general, unless you want to be seen there. And I would like to even say like, sometimes I think we’re a bit too strong about it. But it could be roles for it to be there. Who knows. But yes, it’s an easy one for most brands to kind of, say like, Nah, I don’t want to be there.

Adam Pierno 13:28
Yeah. Well, I mean, you’ve seen Elon Musk just launched a account on porn hub. For Tesla, I mean, guys just got a different point of view. It’s, it’s, it’s hard to say it’s wrong anymore of the way that people accept it. I think you just have to be smart about what you’re saying. And, and again, it’s about context. And and,

Shann Biglione 13:47
honestly, for me, it’s more question of morality than it is a question of what is, is it really bad for your brand? Or good? I mean, if it’s a white space, you know, and as you said, me take the example of pornography here. You know, it’s just, it is one of those things where it’s very taboo, but at the same time, so widespread,

Adam Pierno 14:05
is just share voice, share voice 100%. There, right.

Shann Biglione 14:09
Yeah. I mean, he’s just like, I, if I wasn’t on Musk, I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is not where it started. But seeing how productive he is like, why not? I mean, I think there is, there are things in the goalposts and move and you could very well imagine that there’s going to be a day when you will see pornography related content a website would have with a much cleaner outlook than some of the current platforms have true, that would be great. That’d be good for us. Who knows? I mean, we might, we might get to a stage where we comfortable with that, and Brian will will be happy to appetizers.

Adam Pierno 14:42
Well, also gambling the way the attitudes around gambling are changing, that lotteries are grown across the US here. And around the world. I mean, in the UK, betting is not taboo betting is sports betting is everywhere in

Shann Biglione 14:56
here. I don’t see many advertisers say they don’t want to advertise as big as Yeah, right. Like, right there, over there. But we’re not finally here. So there’s definitely questions that can be, it’s never black and white. And I To be honest, at the end of that thing it is you have to respect how the brand feels about it, and where it wants to go and where it doesn’t want to go. But I think you know, we have to make sure we don’t treat those things as taboo, things that we’re discussing, and an informed decision can be made, whether we want to go there or not.

Adam Pierno 15:27
Yeah, and so a traditional advertiser, like I said, a bank or insurance company would be much more cautious, typically more conservative, but like Monster Energy, or Red Bull might be everywhere, they don’t care, they just want to get in front of the right young audience of males 18 to 34, maybe 14 to 34 that are going to buy the product, and they don’t care if they’re what they’re consuming.

Shann Biglione 15:48
I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, we’ll always have points of views on this. And and, you know, I see my company, for instance, which by the way, I do not represent specifically officially today on this on this chat, but like, you know, the definition guidelines that will be recommended for those brands, and if sometimes there are things that they want to try, they can I mean, it’s it’s I always say it’s worth discussing, and then we’ll figure out or won’t want to go. I will make just like my statements.

Adam Pierno 16:13
And what is so you said it’s about morality, moral judgments. And I agree. So taking it one step further, you know, not ruling out an entire subject matter, like pornography or gambling. But YouTube you brought up is a great example, because YouTube is a platform that has trillions of videos of every type of content. And who knows, it’s really a crapshoot of what you’re going to get. Although you’re but if you’re buying it directly, you’re having more of a voice in what type of content you’re around, but you could end up before after anything. Yeah. So what is your role as you’re placing those things about? You know, there could be some violent content that a particular brand might say, yes, it’s violent, but it doesn’t support a topic that or a side that we agree with, you know, it’s violent, but it’s women protesting for equality or an equal voice and their role in jobs. So we’re, we’re okay with that.

Shann Biglione 17:12
I think generally speaking, the guidance is to play safe. It is possible to put filters and kind of said, these are the kind of content we don’t want to be seen on. And I think that because we don’t have right now there is no system that allows for precise hand picking and just like read as a case by case and I don’t think there’s an AI system, I think Google will have not sold it at all, I don’t think many companies will be able to kind of go to that granular level of like, Oh, this is fine, where this is not fine. And you know, like, there is often you know, this thing about, you know, pornography is hard to define, but I know it when I see it a little bit, there’s that there’s a little bit of that, as well to you know, what is on the right line of you know, violence. And I think it’s just it’s it just makes sense for brands to go and say, Look, violence, in general is nowhere wants to go the same way. There’s many brands that decide I don’t want to be seen in politics. Because you know, this game. And I think, you know, sometimes it’s stressing because they don’t think of it so much as you know, what is the context of being said, as much as this think of it from a perspective of how the user is going to feel, you know, if someone is feeling very, very angry right now, because they looking at the talk show is like talking very vehemently about politics, maybe it’s not going to make them very receptive to a message. So I think, you know, thinking of those aspects of what mindset the user in is another dimension of brands think of, but from a practical perspective, and how they enforce their, their their guidelines. It’s mostly like, Look, we just don’t want to go there. Like it’s this is not something that we think is worth debating is worth the effort. And to be honest, there’s enough, there’s enough inventory, generally to not have to take that gamble and that risky,

Adam Pierno 18:45
right? You can you can avoid it if you if you want to,

Shann Biglione 18:48
you can avoid it. So why would you get into it get into trouble getting to PR and you know, these things, these things, even if they’re short lived, that take time and energy and effort. And I think brands not necessarily can understand that not really kind of have to deal with it.

Adam Pierno 19:01
Let’s talk about like, this is this will be a little bit dated, but the Howard Stern Show where for 20 years, he was the black sheep and he was controversial. And he was saying all kinds of things and getting fined by the FCC, you know, but pretty serious. There were brands that said we don’t care. I remember Snapple was one of them. We don’t care we’re in we we like it and what you just said, triggered this for me that it when it’s about politics, people will be emotional. And I think that’s a double edged sword. I mean, not a double edged sword. But there’s a I heard it as a negative. But there’s a positive to it to that if you are really pro really into politics and you hear something you can be really positively charged when you’re hearing it. How do you how do you navigate?

Shann Biglione 19:50
The anger is a reaction that can be helpful for the message you want to get across? I mean, you know, it’s like in Really? The course it depends matter a lot in these situations, there is no in parables to it, what is it you want to convey? Is it in line? Is your company ready to face the backlash? You there isn’t a backlash? You know, it’s just is the cost? Right? Are you going to reach the right people there? Like there’s so many unique things that come into consideration? And I think, you know, I mean, the Snapple example, I think, is a good one, it’s just the brunt of goes and says, I’m cool with it, you know, just I want I’d rather be there. And and very often the perspective is like, well, maybe it’s not my thing, but there’s x million people who actually really like it. Clearly, they’re choosing to watch it, why should I look down on it, like, you know, this is if this is their thing. I respect that point of view for brand. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I’m not wanting to set rules for that we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t. But I equally respected and says, You know what, this is not the image that I want to promote, this is not something that’s in line with the ethics of my brand. Therefore, I think it would be hypocritical for me to be there, therefore, I will not be sponsoring this show, like these are two sides of of the coin, which I think should feel free to be expressed. And I don’t agree with people who think that they should be black or white, and you should all choose to never just like, you know, take me out of the equation for moral reasons. Or likewise that you should be very specific about which ones you are he stops and doesn’t stop. Because, you know, where do you stop that?

Adam Pierno 21:23
Right? Well, that so I it sounds like this is a conversation you have with clients and brands you represent about where they’re comfortable and where the line is. Yeah,

Shann Biglione 21:33
yeah, we do. I mean, you know, it’s it’s one of the hot topics as being hate related media.

Adam Pierno 21:39
Yes, this is really

Shann Biglione 21:40
hard. This is something you know, that’s been very top of mine, there is a groups that have set up to kind of ask people to stop from the hate in the press, with certain extremist media, media media out there. And yeah, I mean, this this is definitely something bronzes, brush it off, and I met I don’t care or like you super easy, like, no, they asked the question, there is discussions, there’s debates, there’s pros and cons, and what can be do it can be done about it, what is what is also the effect of what we’re doing, you know, like he’s really helped him help it’s recently want to do is it isn’t an audience that we want to ostracize, you know, and it’s a real question.

Adam Pierno 22:19
It is, it’s a real, it’s a real minefield, and on on the web, you would say, okay, blacklist these sites, but in other media, where it may be print, or maybe you know, a hard editorial line in a newspaper or TV jet TV network, for example. It’s hard to rule out an audience of a certain size, if you’re, you know, a cable network that’s carried across the US or the globe, it’s hard to say no to that reach, because there’s so few places that you can get it.

Shann Biglione 22:47
Yeah, I mean, from a pure math perspective, it can be difficult, some of them are high reach, there’s some which are small, and frankly, you can live without it. And which is just like, you know, do you want to you know, not one there is there is a couple now named me directions, Fox, for instance, the big network that has been kind of polarizing, and has definitely got a lot of attention where it is the bigger questions and, you know, I generally speaking, you know, not having Fox and immediate plan will cost you reach now is it is just quite practical terms, right? competitors will get a competitive edge. If you don’t advertise there at all, I think, or, you know, it can be complicated to replace it, as people get addicted to those networks, or watch those networks primarily in the index is the wrong word. But and so do you want to reach those people and not?

Adam Pierno 23:36
And that’s one of the that’s the big challenge. I mean, that’s when decisions are easy until it cost you something, right ethics are easy until you have to make a decision. So for those people that are, you know, thinking and saying to their friends, I wouldn’t put my brand on Fox, Well, okay, but then you give up this reach, especially of this, this particular audience, it’s high income Men of a Certain Age, I mean, you’re not gonna be able to reach them. So for a lot of products, that’s really, that’s really a challenge. So how do you coach clients through that?

Shann Biglione 24:11
It’s a dialogue, I think, you know, there’s different levels of, of engagement there in terms of how you can go and respond to that. So if I take the example of Fox, there’s clearly the way it usually works, in my experience is that brands will decide not to go after certain programs.

I political shows over there, the talking

Adam Pierno 24:37
head shows I can avoid those programming where there’s journalist.

Shann Biglione 24:43
Exactly. So it is completely possible to do that. And some brands have already done it somehow somewhere and have done productivity because they don’t want to create a mess. Some brands have done that in reactivity, because something came up in the news and just came up that someone said X or Y and, and and and suddenly became like number six festival to kind of fund those, those groups. What is certain is that there’s different levels of reaction for the brands, and you can decide to not care, they can decide to block one part of the program, they can decide to grow the entire channel, they want to you know, it’s that that is ultimately a discussion that the brand needs to have it as a wider space. And you know, I mean, there are there are going to be considerations as well, like, you know, I don’t think it’s earlier than the agency to say done by their like, it’s not it’s just it’s it’s it’s not all money. For starters, it’s not, you know, we’re not voting with arms, I’m here, right? So the Brian has to be free online. And even beyond that. It’s not just a media manager, it needs to make that kind of decision. Because if it’s a if it’s a moral and ethical decision, then it becomes what does the company wants to say ethically, and is it does the line. So I think that’s going to go up quite high up in the in the stakeholder chain, to kind of make the kind of calls. And, and it’s important to remember that yeah, this is, you know, we, we shall do vote without money and they can have any back, we’ve seen people being fired, because well, there was too much backlash, and then the advertisers dry up and, and, you know, TV stations do work on ratings the same way websites do and so on. So if if, if if if the advertising dries out, you can have an impact. And so it’s, it’s fair to say to brands, you can make a difference if you want, I think this is a completely fair statement and expectation to set for brands to say, Don’t underestimate that your investments do fund certain ways of reporting, instead of ways of working all the way down to the way we buy media, we have quite literally transferred a lot of money from funding the press and journalism into other things. And at some point, we’re going to have to look around and think like, have we done the right thing from a societal perspective, you’re talking about putting money into campaigns, like on Facebook and Google and taking them away from news, anything. I mean, you know, Google and Facebook, kind of the tip of the iceberg is channels you can buy and and for a while a brand, we kind of find that, you know, we will get to put money away from those funds, you know, journalism, and they said, I can always have a job, you know, we were there in the first place. Because they were able to get us the eyeballs, once the eyeballs were gone. Why would we stay there. But it does, you know, what we do as an advertising ecosystem does shape the media world we live in. And I think it would be short sighted for anybody from agency to brands, I’m going to discard entirely the fact that we do have a role not huge, but we do have a role because ultimately with the customers that we pay with what we share with what we want.

And so do Brian’s want to play a role in this or not?

You know, I think it’s not an easy answer.

Adam Pierno 27:47
No, it’s not. Especially as, you know, brand purpose, which I don’t know, you know, I’m on the fence about brand purpose, it works for some it doesn’t work for others, I guess, like anything. Like if a brand comes out with some bold purpose and progressive purpose, want to make the world better. And then their media is all over these sketchy shows and our or sketchy properties, then you say, Well, I don’t know, are you really for the developing world when you’re all your money is going to these other places that tell me something contrary, you know, that the message might be right, but the media is telling me something different? I’m getting a message just from that. Yeah,

Shann Biglione 28:23
no, definitely. That’s what

Adam Pierno 28:27
you know, at, at in your role as Dennis, you are helping remind them help the you know, the brands and kind of making sure that the media that’s that they’re making are lining up with their brand and lining up with the creative that they’re putting forward?

Shann Biglione 28:42
Yeah, I mean, the team definitely think about it, um, to what extent do they get political about it? Or like, you know, it kind of varies. But I think, I think it’d be the, everybody should know that these are considerations. And it’s not like people just blindly you know, here’s my spreadsheet inches, by their Sure, we have an output of a machine that just looks at reach numbers as you go by those. And that’s it. There’s always going to be like, always going to be that there is very often a human analysis and kind of layers other things on top of it. To be fair, I say, 99.9% of the time, it’s fine. It’s there’s no big crash, it’s just we’re trying to maximize fit more than avoiding misfit, if you will. And, you know, a great deal of planning is spent trying to make sure we find the best place to be seen in, there’s not many places where we actually do not want to be seen it. It’s just like we’re trying to kind of maximize where we can gain rather than cut the places where we would not be losing ground. That’s that’s it’s still it still happens. I think the question, you know, that once things become more debated in society, or makes the headlines, then clients usually will colonize, they’re just going to be pressing on their independent minds. Hey, what do you think, you know, should we buy show you buying this talk show host? Is it worth being here or not? Like we get asked by clients when it’s when and which is why it’s good for debate? Because sometimes it raises the question, people went on this, we think too hard about it, and hold on a second. Should we be there? That doesn’t make sense for us to be there? Um, look, you know, it’s an offer and demand market. I’m a capitalist. Yeah. And, and I think, you know, it’s completely fair for brings money, she decided,

Adam Pierno 30:31
well, you look at the today show, which had, I don’t know, 30 years of supremacy of being number one until Matt Lauer gets called out for doing some terrible things. And then megan kelly steps forward and says some dumb things. And it’s, then people call you and say, I don’t know if we want to be there. But at a certain point that the the share voice and the availability gets so much that from that supply and demand point of view, well, actually, we can make a lot of noise there, because they still have viewers, we can we can be there, you know, be a louder voice there, then we could elsewhere on GMA, we’re now people are clamoring to get in.

Shann Biglione 31:06
And you know, it’s another debates.

point that I’ve heard is that, let’s say you have a message, let’s talk about let’s talk about if a talk show does something which is clearly has xenophobic, or kind of tones or something. And the question is, like, you know, should we have a dialogue there? Well, if your spot is about someone intrusive message, isn’t that a good thing? I mean, isn’t it good to go and preach to people who are maybe thinking otherwise, that this is the way the world potentially work? It’s a question mark. I mean, I don’t have a firm answer for it. I would say that not many brands doing pilots in general. I think one of the examples we saw was Nike last year with panic. Yep. You know, should they advertise this on the most heated anti campaigning talk shows in the United States? I think it’s an interesting question. Because in a way, maybe they should maybe it’s actually this is where you should be seeing make that statement, rather than going saying, seen in your Echo, Chamber of people or even it because if you really want to make an impact in society, this is the way we’re doing it. Question? Or are you really like to be seen the other way around, where some people say, Oh, look, but they’re giving that money? So they’re funding it, therefore they’re supporting is like, Oh, yes. You know, it’s that’s

Adam Pierno 32:29
what the conversation would be. Yeah. Why are you supporting those that other point of view by which is positive message?

Shann Biglione 32:35
Yeah. So it’s, I think there’s different ways to look at it. I understand people who asked to have some media channels to be considered more carefully, if not outright, not diverted from, I just think, you know, it’s, it’s always worth remembering that different markets have different expectations. I mean, I’m stoked about the work in China and friends. And so, you know, if I talk to you briefly about that, you know, in France, we have hate speeches, technically forbidden, you know, allowed to have, we don’t have free speech for hate speech, right? So you can go to jail for saying some of the things you’re allowed to say, here in the US. That’s a different set up, versus you go to China or China has very clear rules that you have to abide by what the government wants wants to say. Frankly, I think that this is here, where the media channels themselves are, you know, they’ve got the ducks in a row, and they know what is it, there’s, you’re not going to get close to the rail there. And it’s, it’s complicated to go to the rail, because usually the channels are very, you know, they kept kept in line, all the way to user generated content, which you know, wants to channel becomes too big and user generated content, the government looks quite directly into it and make sure that things can be moderated. And then you come to the US where well, not only is free speech completely open, or on top of that, you know, the rabbit ears that decided that media channels did not have to remain objective. You know, this is a role that still exists in Europe, but not here. So you have a host of news channels, quote, unquote, clearly, and I’m saying this left and right. channels are key parts in the way that they treat information. And and and so you know, it’s it’s kind of a it’s a debate of its own in the US in a way, because it’s a it’s a it’s a country that has institutionalized free speech, and the fact that people could have extreme points of view and that some channels could be open to it. Now, whether a brunch advertise there or not, I don’t think it’s anyone’s right to say other than the brands, consumers at also competing title to react to it. That’s it, I want to go and boycott the brand, because it’s in there. I think it’s there, right? I don’t think is the way it works that complete there. I think, I don’t think many, many people are going to be

boycotting your brand. Because that ties on that channel,

Adam Pierno 35:04
it happens in such a small volume that it doesn’t impact most most brands, people forget about,

Shann Biglione 35:11
you know, they still buy Volkswagen and go to get BP Oil and they just like, you know, it’s just, it needs to be pretty massive. And usually, most companies can survive it. So trust me, the fact that you your ad has been seen on set on Channel A or B has already been something that’s going to drag the brand down.

Adam Pierno 35:30
Yeah, I mean, I think when we started this conversation, I thought the the ethical challenge of you know, what type of programming you’re aligning with was the big question. But you you’ve got my attention when you talked about advertising and places that are taking money away from journalism and the the infrastructure of, of what journalism was 20, 30 years ago? And how it’s changed shape now, minutes? How do you commit a brand to that when nobody’s watching it? How do you it’s almost irresponsible to ask them to invest there.

Shann Biglione 36:03
Because advertising is not seen as a form of philanthropy. And I, I you know, it’s just, that’s the reality of it. And if it was, we would have a slightly different way of investing. The thing is, advertising is seen as a way to reach consumers, that is the core basis of it. And and I don’t think there’s many brands out there, some of them do, but most brands here just to make sure they maximize people they want to reach and those people are into different types of content, they go to other content. So do advertisers have a role to play in what the media and journalistic ecosystem looks like? Yeah, they do have a role because they pay with that money. And so they’re particularly fond one or the other? Do they have a responsibility for it? I think Is it is it is it is a more nuanced question. Right? Is it around to them? Is it down to the journalists system to be able to kind of soon attract people figure itself? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really, for me, it’s it’s not as simple and trivial question. And I understand people have strong points of view on both ends. I just think like, it’s there’s pros and cons to each approach.

Adam Pierno 37:08
I think you’re right. Well Shann, This was fantastic talk. I really appreciate you making time today for me, I know it’s late there so you probably want to get home to the family. But thanks for making time. Thank you. Hey, where can people find you online? Sir?

Unknown Speaker 37:24
They usual Twitter, LinkedIn, you know,

Shann Biglione 37:27
just like if they look for LeShann on on Twitter, they’ll find me and, and my, and not not possible to pronounce name. Shann Biglione.

On Twitter, this is where I’m the most vocal.

Adam Pierno 37:39
When you when you say that sounds a lot easier to pronounce the one I tried when in my mind, I got very freaked out about it.

Shann Biglione 37:44
I practice for 38 years.

Adam Pierno 37:48
I’ll talk to you in 30 years. Maybe I’ll have it down. Alright, man, this was awesome. Thank you. Again, I appreciate your time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai