Jonathan Peress 14:57
Yeah, so I would say that over the last eight to 10 years, we have definitely put ourselves on the map in a variety of different verticals. One, I believe that has been very significant for us is in the insurance space. And definitely one of the first groups out there that utilized a variety of different celebrities to endorse that company, and utilize the likeness of celebrity to be able to really lend a hand to our consumers to make a more informed decision and at least find comfort in the decision that they’re, at least initially approaching. We’ve utilized celebrity multiple times in multiple different campaigns and verticals, and have at this point, really strong relationships with a variety of different groups as well to not only break the ads and by the media behind it, but even facilitate sometimes the relationships with those celebrities, and even help out with negotiations and getting them to the right place as well too, just based on our experience and success in this space.
Jeremy Weisz 16:02
Talk about the process for choosing the right celebrity, because again, we’re looking at a blank canvas here. Where do you even start for a product? I don’t know, if you want to start with, I know you serve a number of things in the Medicare space, but you could start there. But how do you choose a celebrity?
Jonathan Peress 16:20
I would say that that process includes a variety of different factors. Of course, a lot of research internally. And a lot of times to the biggest part of success is just somebody’s availability and willingness as well, too. So finding the group of people that is willing to have the conversation, as well as finding people that have the right reputation and that can create the right reaction to the consumer to generate the response that we’re looking for. I will tell you that it’s not easy. And it’s not necessarily something that always works. So again, something like you don’t want to necessarily fall in love with because the people really tell you if the pic was right or not. So creating also relationships and understanding with different groups that align where everybody’s on a same playing field. And we’re able to follow the path of success and not necessarily be held hostage by the path of them.
Jeremy Weisz 16:21
With the, Jonathan, in the creative process, with the celebrity piece. You come in, like I’m just visualizing you in the teams around the table. And you’re thinking about who should be for this campaign. Are you thinking of certain genres, like, hey, let’s look in the sports category or this category? What are you thinking about, and like bucketing to get to kind of at least a final couple candidates or genres for celebrities?
Jonathan Peress 17:58
It’s tough, I think that each process has stood on its own in terms of identifying a longer list of people that we think makes sense from an age demographic standpoint, and also just what the individual might be within somebody’s brain space. And then obviously shoving that list down further and further based on then those additional factors like availability and willingness, opportunistic kind of mindset, and things like that.
Jeremy Weisz 18:35
You mentioned the example in the mass tort class action space where you could create essentially a national campaign because it’s under a separate brand. Talk about the Medicare space, a little bit of what you do there.
Jonathan Peress 18:52
Yeah, so we’ve been, I would say, at the forefront of the growth of the overall Medicare insurance explosion on traditional television linear television over the last eight to 10 years at different points in time and driven upwards of three plus million phone calls a year with people are interested in these different products or services. And I think that just speaks to our agency’s capability of being able to not only fine tune campaigns and optimize them, but also being able to scale to the needs of our customers and service a very wide range of the industry and to kind of just expand pass Medicare as well to, the same goals, like you said, for the legal space, different financial services campaigns as well too, when there’s an opportunity within this space, we know that we have the tools and the tricks to be able to grow and scale to our clients desires.
Jeremy Weisz 19:56
Is there a certain perception on certain channels or dead, and you have found otherwise, like I look at your, I’ll pull it up here actually, if someone’s looking at this, you could see that where the ProMedia website, fantastic domain name for us all promedia.com. That must have been hard to get. But what we do? Right? And so we can look at some of these things that you do as far as it could be a billboard, it could be radio, it could be, are there any of these channels that you people are like, Jonathan’s radio is dead. While we do that. But you found otherwise?
Jonathan Peress 20:43
Yeah, I think that right now, with the explosion of digital media and social media, there’s a lot of folks that like to look down on some of our more traditional media channels. But I would tell you that the numbers speak for themselves, television has become the soundtrack of a lot of affluent households, as well as just households in general that own their own homes. And they make decisions that advertisers are very interested in being a part of. Over the last few years, we’ve been responsible for driving millions upon millions of phone calls and responses just based on television and radio advertising. And if you look at radio, I would say that, there’s really a renaissance going on in that space, as well, too, with streaming audio and podcasts, which is bringing an entirely different approach to how the consumers are really digesting this content, and the way for an advertiser to really interact with that consumer. So I’ll tell you that we’re in a very exciting time. And furthermore, I will tell you that every single one of our customers tells us that television has an enormous impact on their other online channels, like social and digital channels. And the impact is so great, that many times when television budgets are lighter, or there’s a slowdown in television scale, that they will see their digital channels have immediate impacts to the detriment of those channels, both in efficiency, and scale and success. I will tell you that while people are consuming content in a different way, they still are consuming content constantly. And cable and satellite providers are also changing their game in their style as well to providing a more integrated approach and a more cohesive piece that includes different streaming pieces as well to making things easier for customers, and, frankly, puts us in a really good position to be able to still service a wide range of customers impact multiple channels.
Jeremy Weisz 22:56
You mentioned traditional radio, can you talk about print and out of home, and what that is?
Jonathan Peress 23:04
Yeah, I will tell you that print has expanded past the traditional newspaper and magazine ads as well to insert media, for example, when you are ordering a package from Amazon, or any other direct-to-consumer brand, that you find them on your social media, you’re going to have a variety of different inserts in there that are extremely high intent, and provide a lot of value to customers. And we look at a home as well to definitely something that is part of an Omni-channel approach, which is, of course, a major philosophy of not only ours, but really all successful advertisers out there and brought trying to provide your customers with a variety of different places to capture brain space so that people make informed decisions around that brand or that campaign. Really in a circular, recent approach.
Jeremy Weisz 23:58
Jonathan, what would be an example of a good use case, because I can see, I’m getting a package that I’ve ordered, whatever type of product it is. And it makes sense for what you’re saying there could be a partner that places an ad in for a similar type of product that I probably will be interested in also, what will be a good use case. So you example that you’ve seen work in that situation?
Jonathan Peress 24:25
Sure. So we do a lot of work in the medical service space as well too, we have a midsize franchise that we do a lot of work for, that provides a medical service to the adult 50-plus crowd and they are definitely somebody that believes strongly and has a lot of success stories around that Omni-channel approach where they’re seeing it in television, they’re hearing it in radio, but at the same time, both those pieces have a very clear direct response mechanism and at the same time we’re utilizing different print techniques like inserts, or for example, even postcards, so if somebody sees the spot, they’re immediately then getting fed with a postcard, if they didn’t convert on that phone call, for example, they’re immediately getting hit with a postcard two to three days later and in a medium that they understand and agrees with kind of within their ecosystem, to try to further capture their understanding capture more green space, more mindshare from them as well, too. And then, furthermore, around those locations as well, seeing different out-of-home opportunities, whether they be bus shelters, or billboards, to just further down the funnel, capture their attention and hopefully inform their decision.
Jeremy Weisz 25:43
Yeah, so seems like a very kind of multi-channel approach. It’s not that they see it and they buy but they may see it, they may get a postcard, they may see it on TV, they may get targeted on the website, or whatever the case is. I want to talk a little bit about what’s interesting about your journey is your kind of transition to CEO. So can you walk through just some of the evolution of your responsibilities and how that transition worked to CEO of the company and owner?
Jonathan Peress 26:16
Sure. So started out really, as the first employee of the company, very involved in just trying to bring in a customer base that was at that point in time mostly rooted around being an agency’s agency, and just providing almost a secret sauce to some of the largest agencies out there. And over time, then rolling that into acquiring more customers directly as well, too. And then in that infancy stage, as well too working with a lot of our media partners as well to being that, we had pretty much no staff. And over the years evolving until I started becoming a partner call it two or three years later, were still involved in all those same pieces as well, but then now became a much larger voice in terms of the buildings of the agency and what wouldn’t never really grow to a 35 plus person agency. So a lot of recruitment efforts, a lot of establishing and growing additional campaigns and bringing a lot of these other different pieces that we’ve done, like we talked about different celebrity endorsements, acquiring post-production and distribution technology, as well as other proprietary technology and growing that as well too, to the point where we are now at this point in time, I’m involved in lots of little bits of everything, but also very much so trust, the incredible talent that we have at the top of the agency that includes our COO, our SVP, our of media, our SVP of the agency, as well as all the other incredible leaders that we have on staff.
Jeremy Weisz 27:50
What’s the challenging piece of being CEO?
Jonathan Peress 27:55
Right now, I would say, over the last couple of years, recruitment has been very, very challenging, there’s been a drastic change in the expectations, understanding and desires of employees. So that has been something that I know that a lot of other business owners have shared their concerns with as well too. And then just as an overall, just trying to always stay ahead of the curve and continue to evolve as the rest of the industry does as well to always presents its challenges. It’s exciting, but at the same time, something that takes a lot of attention. And it takes a lot of growth and ideas and perseverance around to be able to do so. And I feel like we’ve done that very successfully.
Jeremy Weisz 28:38
Talk about balancing business and family. You have three kids, you’re married, how do you balance everything?
Jonathan Peress 28:47
Not perfectly, always, that’s for sure. But definitely try to keep priorities, and where life is at in relation and in perspective to things. I will tell you that spending time with my wife and my children definitely charges me up to be able to do the best possible job I can for the company and but like everybody else, you have your moments where you do great work and you have your moments where you struggle, and try to just keep that on perspective and balance. And just very thankful and feel very blessed that I have all that in my life.
Jeremy Weisz 29:26
Is there a certain things you do with your schedule or productivity-wise? Some people wake up early, some people stay up late. Is there certain items that you do, that just works for you.
Jonathan Peress 29:41
Yeah, I’m probably to lack of medical requests. I’m not much of a sleeper so I’m an early riser and a guy that goes to bed pretty late as well too. But that allows me to try to do things for my health like exercise and have a have a decent diet, provide the appropriate amount of tension to the business, but at the same time as well to be able to see my family and spend time with them, especially in the evenings as well, too. Whereas my evening hours are definitely reserved for catch-up work and trying to make sure that I can start the next day not behind, but hopefully ahead.
Jeremy Weisz 30:18
Where do you get your kind of the entrepreneurial spirit? Does it come from your family?
Jonathan Peress 30:25
I definitely think so. I’m a first generation American, Jewish on both sides. On my mother’s side, we are a Holocaust survivor family and my grandfather was in Auschwitz for six years, and my grandmother to this day, earns restitution from the German government on behalf of survivors all across the world. In the beginning stages of the company, I would spend the night in her office, sleeping on our couch and listening to the fax machines come in at 3:30 or four o’clock in the morning from Germany. As an 85, plus year old woman working six days a week speaking six different languages, I would say that work ethic was always instilled in me at a very young age. One of my earliest desires as a child was to work started out working as a 14 year old, originally a classical tuba player, though, started playing professionally when I was in high school. So instead of hanging out and messing around, I was usually playing gigs on the weekends, practicing my instrument, and working at restaurants, and retail stores, trying to do whatever I could to just try to further myself and we’re lucky.
Jeremy Weisz 31:36
Yeah, Jonathan, thanks for sharing that. One of the inspirations behind Inspired Insider is actually, my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor, as well. And I always thought of these interviews as helping people leave a legacy, because that’s what the Holocaust Foundation, and you interviewed my grandfather, and that that actually is on my website on the about page, you know, so when my kids are old enough of some brutal things that he talks about, so maybe they’re not ready for it now. But they’ll be able to watch it and future generations be able to watch it. What are some of the stories that your grandmother shared that are our most memorable?
Jonathan Peress 32:20
My grandmother was a child survivors. So she was actually hidden, really underneath a barn during Nazi checks. She was raised by a chief executive of her father’s company, her mother was killed right around the time of the war, was never given a chance. So she had a very difficult upbringing, to say the least. But obviously found prosperity in postwar Munich, when she met my grandfather. My grandfather lived in Poland. When the war broke, his mother and sister were both killed in front of him, his mother, I believe, was thrown off the roof of their house while she was pregnant with their third child. And my grandfather and his father, who was a doctor served five-plus years in Auschwitz. And it was there where my understanding was my great grandfather performed surgeries, and a lot of different survivors in the barracks. And he was eventually liberated by I believe the Americans in 1945. Several years later, he was able to meet my grandmother, and my mother I was actually born in Munich in 1951, and several other children after that, including my partner and my aunt Sharon, who was actually born in Brooklyn, as the youngest of the family. So a lot of struggle, but a lot of perseverance as well, too, which is really the amazing thing about that generation. And I’ve been very fortunate over the years to spend a lot of time not only with my grandparents, my grandfather rest in peace, but also with a lot of their friends who are also survivors, and just hear stories about death marches, and just the kind of unbearable hardships that they all have to go through, and really puts a lot of perspective around the things that we deal with in today’s world.
Jeremy Weisz 34:23
Thanks for sharing that. I mean, to say it’s a struggle is an understatement, obviously. It’s crazy to think about, how does it motivate you? What are some of the lessons that you think of when you think of what your kind of grandmother and grandfather have relayed to you?
Jonathan Peress 34:46
Yeah, I’d say it’s work ethic. It’s a belief in satisfaction with what you have and being grateful at all times for what you have and not taking it for granted. It’s something I definitely try to instill in my children as well too, for example, being grateful for food, my grandfather was used to tell me, food is not a privilege, and know what it’s like to be hungry, which he did was something that stuck with me as a very young child. So folks that know me know that wasting food is really not something that I have much of any tolerance for. Definitely something that’s probably a big quirk of mine, for sure.
Jeremy Weisz 35:35
Jonathan, I want to just thank you, thanks for sharing the stories. Thanks for saying the story of promedia.com and also your personal story. I want to tell people, they can go check out promedia.com to learn more, are there any other places online that we should point people towards?
Jonathan Peress 35:54
I tried to talk from here, they’re on LinkedIn and share stories about the agency as well. That’s something that we’ve been trying to do as of recent, and we are at a lot of different industry, trade shows, whether that is insurance, trade shows, legal trade shows, threat response, trade shows, internet marketing, trade shows, we try to make our presence known wherever we are, and more than anything else, I’m a phone guy. So I put my information out on LinkedIn, I’m happy to have people call or text or email anytime, because we’re always looking to bring business in that turn it away, we have no barrier of entry. And there’s no really campaign too small or no customer that is too unknown for us to take a look at because that’s how we got here. And I never want to change how we got here and just want to continue to provide better opportunities for our customers, as well as our employees as we continue to grow this agency.
Jeremy Weisz 36:51
You work directly with clients, but you still get agencies wanting you to work with them on behalf of their clients, too.
Jonathan Peress 36:59
Yeah, we’re very collaborative, and we have no problem being first, second, third or fourth fiddle. There’s no ego here. So for us, we love working with directly with customers, we will love working with specialty agencies that serve as a specific type of customer. We love even working with other ad agencies as well, too, whether they’re in our space or in complementary space, and we really don’t, again, have any barrier. We try to tear down all those walls and just look at everything as the worst thing it is it’s competition, and just be very open and opportunistic as it relates to just work and growing our customer base.
Jeremy Weisz 37:43
I just want to be the first one, Jonathan, thank you. Thanks for sharing your story. Everyone, check out promedia.com to learn more and more episodes of the podcast and thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, everyone.
Jonathan Peress 37:53
Thank you.
