Building A Vertical Ad Network Powerhouse: Glam Media CEO Samir Arora (Part 6)

SM: My position on this dichotomy between content destination and ad network is that in the future, all media companies will have to do both.

SA: We believe we are redefining what a media company is. We epitomize what you just said. All media companies have to recognize that pre-web 2.0, you could own and control all of your assets. Today, fragmentation is so wide that you can’t. If you are a small to medium business, it is better to have a site you completely control. But major media companies must do both destination and ad network.
SM: I believe that over the next 18 months media companies will learn to manage both their own inventory and their network inventory.

SA: The ones that survive will. At Glam, we recently opened our business model to other media companies for the first time. We never want to be as wide as an Adify, but our model has its niche and value to many traditional media companies such as Lifetime and CBS.

SM: Will you remain focused on the women’s vertical?

SA: First, Glam is a vertical content network (VCN) and everything we do starts from the audience focus and content channels. In 2008, Glam will remain focused primarily on the women’s vertical. We started with style – fashion, beauty and shopping. We then launched women-focused living, which is home, food and entertaining. We also started health and wellness and then entertainment, which has a mix of women and men. Our channels are dominated by women, but we will carefully explore mixed channels. In addition, we can target within audiences – women aged 18-49, teens to a lesser extent, baby boomers and a multi-cultural audience. Next year we will look at the same vertical content network model for the male demographic.

SM: How many salespeople do you have?

SA: We launched the company with one salesperson, Jack Rotolo. He was followed by Carl Portale, the former publisher of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and other top magazines. Then we added Scott Schiller, one of the co-founders of IAB. He and Jack created our initial team, which had 18 people at the beginning of Q4 last year. We then added John Trimble, who ran all brand sales at Fox across MySpace, IGN and American Idol, and Joe Lagani, formerly the publisher of Condé Nast’s House & Garden magazine, and other key people such as Karin Marke and more recently, Matt Schulte from iVillage/NBC. Today we have over 70 people in sales. Glam has been able to attract incredible talent and is known for having the top brand advertising sales talent.

SM: What kind of quotas do you give them?

SA: It varies by level.

There are three levels: beginning/junior salespeople who are starting in the industry, direct salespeople, and group managers. Quotas range from the hundreds of thousands for to the multiple millions. Unfortunately, when the bubble burst in 2000, most people did not go into digital ad sales. There is a dearth of good people.

My goal is to create one of the world’s best brand advertising sales forces that has two different components – brand sales by verticals and a full-service agency ad sales force.

SM: Joe was from the magazine world, how does he adapt to being online?

SA: Joe Lagani came to me with a business plan, said this is what he wanted to do, and made compelling arguments for why we should be in the living channel. I agreed it was a good idea but challenged him that he knew nothing about the Internet. He countered by saying he was a fast learner and would hire the right people. He knew all of the brand advertisers, all of the decision makers. I took a chance and hired Joe – living has been one our most successful launches to date.

SM: If you look at the retail business and the fashion business, every brand that started in women’s clothing has gone into home.

SA: With Joe as a GM we are building out channel general managers who come from that business. We are doing this because brand advertising is still only 3% on average, although in some of our spaces it is as high as 6%.

SM: You are playing a bit of a balancing act between brands which are agency driven and channels which have demographic focus.

SA: I believe we need both brand level and agency focus, and we are organized this way. Here again our strategy is different because 100% of our revenue comes from agencies. Agencies do not feel we are a threat and have no reason to – we are in business to make the digital agency market managers heroes and help them make brands successful through online campaigns. In display advertising, you have to involve agencies for creative input and brand management across multiple sites.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Building A Vertical Ad Network Powerhouse: Glam Media CEO Samir Arora
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