Favorite CTV Features for Advertisers | Jason Holmes

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Today's guest is Jason Holmes, a self-described serial entrepreneur. Jason is the founder and CEO of ThriveFuel, a marketing agency specializing in targeted digital advertising, promotion, and conversion techniques across all technologies. Jason has been in the digital marketing industry for over 20 years. Clients include a wide range of businesses and niches in local, regional, and national markets. Jason, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Jason Holmes: Hey. Thanks for so much for having me, Dave. David McBee: Absolutely. So last we spoke, I asked you what you wanted to talk about today and you reply very Simpli.fi TV. So let's talk TV. What's your favorite show? I like the Big Bank Theory reruns. Jason Holmes: My favorite show's probably Breaking Bad. David McBee: Oh, that's a good one. Jason Holmes: That's definitely a top three or so. David McBee: Yeah. But that's probably not what you meant exactly, is it? Jason Holmes: No. It's not, it's not. I'm thinking more along the lines of, we still call it TV, but it's really just video and basically where you consume it has changed so much. So that's a pretty interesting shift in my book. David McBee: Yeah. So tell me how that is impacting your life at ThriveFuel. Jason Holmes: Oh, sure. So at ThriveFuel, we've got a full video production team that fits really well into then offering our clients OTT through various platforms. And not just OTT, but pre-roll all over the internet and YouTube video and things like that. And I feel like between social video, which would include kind of YouTube, social video, and OTT and CTV and all the different places that you can get in front of people, it's really disrupted the broadcast model, obviously over the past few years. But it's allowed us to bring video to clients that thought they could never afford video, right? I mean, those small mom and pop shops with smaller budgets, they really couldn't buy the six o'clock news and now they can play in that same space. So that is a game changer for a lot of our smaller clients. David McBee: Can you share an example of a smaller client that has successfully implemented streaming television or online video? Jason Holmes: Sure. You don't usually see, I'd say TV spots for small single location bakeries. And no matter what the market is, and we've been able to offer that to those types of clients where they've got, it's a niche market, or not necessarily niche, but you're not always shopping for a wedding cake, you're not always shopping for those types of life event type things where you need a cake or something like that to celebrate. But we've been able to essentially target not only the people who might be in the market for that, but in the locations they're trying to reach people in and get a very, very specific ad in front of those folks on video that they never could before. And that's led directly to additional orders for that client and things like that. So yeah. David McBee: I'm really excited that you're doing that because I've been saying ever since the birth of CTV that it's really good for consumers too, because as I'm watching television, I would like to see more local ads for businesses that are right in my backyard rather than all those pharmaceutical ads or key commercials. Jason Holmes: No, absolutely. What's annoying as a consumer is if you're watching on the faster, fast type channels that are ad supported and you've got the same advertiser over and over again and it's the big guy and you watch the ad and then the next ad is the same ad and then the next ad, I've seen them stacked 4d, and that gets really annoying that'll drive you off of those channels faster than anything else. And then what also happens is when a small business that is seen in front of people that know them or know that they're that small, they start to wonder, 'wow, how did they get on "TV" like that?' How did they get on that? What they see as a big TV show, how they get their spot there. It really has more of an impact. It reminds me of 10 years ago when we started offering Pandora buys or Spotify buys or something like that. It was unique to hear a local commercial and you paid more attention to it because you weren't expecting it. David McBee: It's like when you're at the airport and all the announcements are going on and you're ignoring most of them, and then you hear your name- Jason Holmes: Sure. David McBee: And you just like, whoa, I feel like when a local commercial comes on, you just really pay attention to it. Jason Holmes: And then we've got the folks who can afford TV or can't afford local broadcast and have for years, they're then kind of migrating to CTV and OTT. So they test the waters a little bit, they get that same reaction. They start to hear from people, oh wow, I saw your ad on X, Y, Z streaming app on Pluto or Paramount or whatever. And then they come back and they're like, 'wow, that really works. I'm being noticed more because the community's not used to seeing me there'. So David McBee: Yeah, I feel like a lot of advertisers migrate to streaming TV because they feel like people are watching streaming TV, so they have to do it. But then they start to discover all the wonderful things that come along with that, all the digital elements of it. What are some of your favorite things that come along with CTV that aren't part of the broadcast world? Jason Holmes: Well, the fact that, I mean, it's truly measurable. I mean, you don't have an impression until it's watched. You don't have a view through until it's watched. You can see the brand lift in the reporting when you compare, usually they're doing something on the channel, so they're going to at least be doing display, plus CTV, plus a couple other things. And you see that cumulative effect, which you don't necessarily, you can't measure in broadcast. So that that's a big deal. And then just addressable, being able to a address those, to basically pinpoint the locations that you want to serve up a given ad. I mean, that's pretty mind blowing. People are always surprised when we start talking about that. Being able to basically pick out individual addresses and streets and neighborhoods and then measure that. I mean, there's nothing like that really. David McBee: Yeah. All right. So what are you most excited about as far as maybe CTV, maybe display any kind of technology that's coming along, and what are you excited to talk to your advertisers about? Jason Holmes: Well, one of the things we're excited about, and it is because of this growth in OTT and all things video, is the launch of our own channel. We actually launched a new streaming service called South Texas TV. It's currently live on Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV. So that's pretty exciting. We've got original content from Victoria and Corpus Christi and Further South, we're featuring local businesses on this channel and event shows and things like that. Really started on social media, started on Facebook as a pretty well produced local show, and actually that page gets between 70,000 and 100,000, or reaches between 70,000 and 100,000 people every month on Facebook and in Instagram. And so we thought with all that great content, we've got something like 30 or 40 shows in the can that are all about local businesses and organizations. We should do something more with it. We should get it onto the platforms that people are migrating to. And so that's why we launched South Texas TV and it's starting to take off. So we're really excited about that. David McBee: So you become a producer now. It's more of a content play? Jason Holmes: Yeah, it's a content play. It really does open doors because people want to be on our programs, they want to be on our shows. So from an agency perspective, we get a lot of businesses that are calling us that are like, 'Hey, how do I get on the show?' And if it makes sense for content, then absolutely come on the show. We're not going to charge you anything. You've got an event that the community's going to be interested in, or you've got a really unique business or organization we're going to feature you. And so not too many agencies have that kind of inbound lead flow. So we get a lot of consultations out of that. And some of it makes sense to work together, some of it doesn't. And that's okay. And really it's an emerging kind of space for us, and it's taken off a lot faster than we thought it would. So it's exciting. David McBee: Well, that sounds super cool. Congratulations on that. Jason Holmes: Thank you so much. David McBee: All right, well, we're about out of time, but I'd like to ask you my favorite question that I ask everybody when they come on Simpli.fi TV. Is there a book that was instrumental in your success or inspired you that you'd like to share with our viewers? Jason Holmes: Yeah. Probably it's had the biggest effect on my career and things that I've been interested in, but that's Clayton Christensen's The Innovators Dilemma, because almost all industries right now for the last 20 years have been going through some type of disruption. And The Innovators Dilemma has really a unique take on that disruptive innovation. And the most interesting part about it to me is that you can do everything right as a traditional or incumbent company and still fail if you're not paying attention to the right metrics. David McBee: Well, thank you very much for being here on Simpli.fi TV. I'm truly grateful for you. Jason Holmes: Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. David McBee: Absolutely. Yeah. And thank you guys for joining us on Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee, be awesome. And we'll see you next time.