New Digital Age (NDA) in association with LiveRamp is spotlighting the men and women championing a data-led revolution in the marketing industry. The ‘Meet the Revolutionaries’ interviews focus on the efforts of the industry executives helping to drive digital marketing forward into a new era of data collaboration.
Here, Lee Sears, President International Advertising and Brand Studios at Paramount Global, explains the importance of clear communication, expert execution and data collaboration for successful innovation…
Tell us about your current role.
My job is overseeing commercial activity of Paramount Global outside of the US, which includes all of Europe, the UK, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Canada. The role covers all lines of business, including linear TV, broadcast, pay/cable and streaming, Paramount+ and Pluto TV, our social channels and everything in between. Essentially, anything where we have the ability to sell advertising inventory.
In addition, I also oversee Paramount International Brand Studios, which is our in-house creative studio. The briefs we receive are becoming more and more convergent, or ‘360’, where we are across everything from CTV to social to broadcast. That’s where the job gets really exciting.
The final part of my job is to oversee our events. That might mean something like the MTV EMAs, where we utilise our iconic IP and loyal fanbase to realise an experiential opportunity for a client and or agency.
It’s a broad brief but also really diverse and interesting. All international markets are different, with different regulations and different client demands. It’s really important to us, as Paramount Global, to take a global, integrated, co-ordinated approach to our activities as much as we can, but we also have to respect the local marketplace, from a creative, commercial and tech perspective.
Can you give an example of a time when you personally helped to drive innovation?
I can give you two examples that illustrate my job a little, from different ends of the spectrum.
From a creative execution standpoint and an innovation standpoint, at the EMAs event last year in Manchester, we worked with Compare the Market to have their Meerkat character, which is obviously not there in real life, interview Rita Ora on the Red Carpet. We then distributed that content across our channels and across social, bringing an animated character into the real world as part of the show.
At the other end of things, in the digital innovation space, we have spent the last 18 months creating a unified proposition with our ad server. FreeWheel is our ad server globally now, which means all of our video inventory, whether it’s in the US with CBS, Paramount+ and Pluto, or in all other markets with Paramount+ and Pluto, Network 10 in Australia or 5 in the UK, is now accessible in one ad server. That means we are able to deliver global campaigns from one point across all of that inventory and all of those platforms, which makes us much easier to do business with. It’s something that has taken a long time, because originally it wasn’t set up like that. It means that we can now operate at scale globally with advertisers, but we can also tailor campaigns locally. All in all, we have a much more seamless buying experience all around the world and it gives us a much better handle on our own performance as well.
What are the most common challenges to innovation?
Innovation can mean lots of different things, but it usually means ‘change’. Often, the main challenge is ensuring that your people are comfortable with the coming change, which means being really clear on why you’re doing it and what the outcome is going to be. One of the things that often gets in the way of innovation is the messaging. It’s important not to overcomplicate the rationale.
Sometimes innovation can be expensive but, if you’re doing it for the right reasons, expense shouldn’t be a barrier. It’s really about being able to execute on innovation and making sure that you’ve got the right people to facilitate that. We are living in a world now where innovation is the constant. People’s habits are changing, tech is changing, the opportunity is changing, and that brings with it so many different ways of doing things. In 2025, I think you have to be innovative in the way that you approach media, in terms of things like combining audiences and combining platforms. Those that manage innovation best will be the ones most likely to succeed.
What tips can you offer others hoping to drive innovation?
You need to be super clear on intent and try to make the rationale something that everybody can understand. It’s about empowering people to contribute to innovation. Also, make sure that you’ve got the right stakeholders. As things get more complicated, you need to have best-in-class people performing each function.
It doesn’t work if you give people responsibility for innovation as an add-on to their existing job, or ask people to just do this and see how it goes. If you want good results, you need experts in the field that can deliver on a holistic long-term vision.
How do you think digital marketing might evolve over the next few years?
There’s going to be more and more measurement, more and more data, more and more clarification. With that, people are going to be looking at different currencies and different tech that can provide that insight that’s required. There’s also going to be lots of new rationalisation, lots of new products, and really anything that can help surface content or drive awareness and intent is going to be at the forefront. The fact that we can know more about our audiences now is great, but it’s also becoming more complex. Audiences can access content in so many different ways that the consolidation of audiences is more challenging, so anything which can help with that is going to be really, really valuable.
There will also be changes that we simply can’t predict right now. I don’t think anyone five years ago would have thought the industry looks like it does now. The good thing about that is that we’re all going to be constantly learning. Our industry is constantly evolving, meaning it never gets boring.
Do you think ‘data collaboration’ will become more important to brand marketers?
I think so. It’s important now, and will continue to be important. We’re going to be able to find out more and more about our audience and about our content. We’re going to be better able to show the value of advertising with us.
Obviously, we bring a lot to the table as a first-party data owner but we also have clients that will be sitting on a lot of their own data. We’re always going to need someone that can help us talk to each other in that space. Everybody talks about clean rooms, and they’re obviously vitally important, but it’s that relationship and that dialog between the different parties, including the partner in the middle, that’s the most important thing.
We want to ensure that we’re getting the best return for our content and our advertisers. Collaboration is key, because without it, we wouldn’t really be able to harness the true power of the tools available to us. The more sophisticated we can get, the more we can do data collaborations in a way that makes everybody feel comfortable. In a role like mine, where you work across so many different markets, and the regulation around that data is so different, you need different partners to help you unlock the true potential of your first-party data.
