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OzTAM’s new CEO: ‘I go in with my eyes wide open’
OzTAM yesterday announced the appointment of Karen Halligan as its new chief executive officer.
Halligan starts in late November, and brings over 25 years of experience to the new role, having worked as Coca-Cola’s media manager, as national commercial and operations director at SCA, as managing director of Zenith, and across senior managerial roles at Mediacom, Slingshot Media, and Bohemia Group.
She enters OzTAM at an interesting time, with the launch of the new VOZ metric in May — which combines broadcast viewing on TV sets and connected devices — and the expansion into VOZ streaming next year. Halligan spoke to Mumbrella about her plans at OzTAM.
First of all, congratulations. What attracted you to this role?
Great question. When I first heard the role was in market it really sparked my interest and, as I learnt more about the strategic vision, I felt there was a really strong alignment to my skills.
I feel very passionately that, as media fragmentation continues, we will always need a profitable and strong media industry that provides quality local journalism, news, entertainment and sport.
For this to continue, publishers need their audience to be accurately reflected, as it drives the revenue that fund this, the media industry has become very complex and many data sources exist but not all have rigour, accountability, and independence – that needs to change and I think OzTAM are leading in this space which made this very appealing.
What do you most hope to achieve in your first 12 months on the job?
For me there are some very clear priorities that will set OzTAM up for the future: effective industry stakeholder consultation and collaboration, getting VOZ recognised as the industry currency for the future, ensuring that VOZ Streaming is delivered to enable better ease of buying and true representation of the reach Total TV can deliver, and, lastly, ensuring that the critical CMO audience understands the value of this data. I am sure other things will come to light when I start and meet the team, but these are my initial thoughts.
You’ve got extensive agency experience – coming from that industry, what do you feel needs to be better expressed by OzTAM to help these agencies see “marketing as an investment and not just a cost”, as you put it.
I should mention that I didn’t reference that in relation to agencies specifically, I believe that agencies do know that — their business models are predicated around it — my view is that is more a representation of my exposure to boards and c-suite executives. Many times, over recent years, I have been asked by CMOs to demonstrate the value of marketing to their leaders and to help them navigate data for better decisions.
In addition, I have helped CEOs and CFOs to understand and evaluate marketing investments, as it has become so complex, in essence convincing them to spend to build their brands. During harder times, when the tendency is to pull spend, this is more critical, especially now due to the current economic conditions.
In relation to my extensive agency experience and its value, there is something to be said for walking in people’s shoes. I believe this experience will help me with tackling the changes required and for OzTAM to succeed into the future and effective change management and consultation will be critical.
OzTAM is interesting, much like ARIA, in that its owners are also competitors. Is this at all of concern to you, and how do you plan to balance their competing needs?
Like many of us, over the years I have seen first-hand how competitive the industry is and at times I have enjoyed watching this play out.
I recognise that there will be times where everyone won’t agree but I do believe there is alignment in certain areas – all want a prosperous industry, all want their fair share of marketing dollars, and all want to ensure that total TV is accurately measured, to name but a few.
I believe if we get the right strategy in place early, get agreement and stay focused then we can achieve a lot and have alignment where it makes sense. It is also worth mentioning my six years in consulting has grown my stakeholder management skills. I have been in challenging situations, dealt with complexity and managed stakeholders with different agendas, and I will draw upon these skills – but I also go in with my eyes wide open.
Can you tell us more about VOZ Streaming?
VOZ Streaming will be Australia’s first solution for multi-broadcaster programmatic BVOD trading using a single dataset. It also allows advertisers to anticipate and incorporate co-viewing on connected TV sets in planning and buying strategies. Programmatically-traded inventory can be post-analysed against the VOZ Total TV database, which will show the incremental reach that BVOD delivers to a broadcast TV campaigns.
It has been developed with the industry and for the industry as viewing habits evolve and is part of OzTAM’s mission to develop new tools and data that allow broadcasters to maximise their audiences, and advertisers to reach them.
VOZ Streaming is a new and complex initiative and is now in a testing phase, with broad industry consultation and feedback from broadcasters, media agencies, third-party software suppliers, and leading ad tech providers. It will launch next year.
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