Samsung Ad Sales Vice President and Head of Marketing on Changing Digital Landscape: ‘We Really Lean Into Disrupting Ourselves’

Samsung Ads’ VP and Head of Sales & Operations, Michael Scott, says there is an insatiable appetite for content—something that the company’s streaming service, Samsung TV Plus, can help relieve.

Scott sat down alongside Melissa Wasserman, Samsung’s Head of Marketing to discuss marketing strategies and innovation at the Variety Studio presented by Canva.

“It’s a great marriage when you find the intersection of what really works well for your consumers and… what really works well for advertisers,” Scott said.

Wasserman said the company recently launched a new AI service for Samsung TV Plus to promote content discovery and expand the streamer’s content portfolio.

“[We’re] taking that connectivity to heart, figuring out our consumer, and then applying that to the business side of things,” Wasserman said.

Scott said he thinks it would be wise for marketers to step back from legacy models they’re holding on to and understand that their target markets have moved on from traditional content consuming.

“If you’re holding onto these models for some economic reason or some perceived value of cost-benefit, what you’re really doing is you’re really hurting your own business because you’re not investing in the places where your consumers are actually consuming their media,” Scott said.

Wasserman said she hopes companies can use cross-platform marketing to target consumers in a variety of ways. She and her team try to get to the heart of consumers when building marketing campaigns, making sure to get to know the people who build, sell, and consume the products to strengthen promotions.

Aligning around a common mission is the first part of building a great marketing team, Scott said. However, what defines Samsung Ads is: “We really lean in into disrupting ourselves. We understand if you don’t do it, somebody else is going to do it for you. We’ve seen a massive change every time we’ve done a disruption. Samsung TV Plus was a disruption…Every meaningful thing that we’ve had has come through disruption and there’s a DNA, internally, that embraces that..and recognizes that everyone can play a significant role in contributing to that.”