Jo Ann Ross on Trying to Make a 60-Minute Paramount Upfront

Adweek's sitdowns with the ad sales chiefs who presented during upfronts week are almost at an end. Thus far, we've spoken with NBCU’s Linda Yaccarino, Fox’s Marianne Gambelli, TelevisaUnivision’s Donna Speciale, Disney's Rita Ferro and Warner Bros. Discovery's Jon Steinlauf. Now, Jo Ann Ross, Paramount’s president and chief advertising revenue officer, U.S. advertising sales, joins us for our penultimate upfront week postmortem. On May 18, Paramount presented its first in-person upfront since 2019's Viacom-CBS merger. To keep things concise, the company formatted the presentation as a live version of 60 Minutes, complete with the show's real-life correspondents, Scott Pelley, Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker, presenting everything from Paramount's EyeQ ad sales platform to its offerings of reality shows, sports and scripted franchises. Ross spoke with Adweek about putting the presentation together, bundles marketers can look forward to and whether or not she actually wanted to dance onstage with the cast of Ghosts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Adweek: Firstly, you performed a bit with the cast of Ghosts, running on stage just after their comedic musical number ended. Was there any thought to actually dancing with the cast?Ross: I clearly did not want to get out there and dance. Just historically, from my very first upfront, which was on the stage at Carnegie Hall in 2003, I have done what we would call a shtick or a skit, depending on how shtick-y or skit-ty it is. It's always a lot of fun. Kind of what the audience, clients and my colleagues in the industry expect coming from me because I've done it every year since 2003. So that's that, but it was a lot of fun, and that cast is so talented and telegenic. We knew it would be a hit. This was the first in-person upfront week presentation since the Viacom and CBS merger and with the new name of Paramount. How was it putting it together and what's the feedback you've heard?So to get it out there live and in-person on our upfront on the stage, I will say very humbly that I think we all nailed it. And I think that there were a couple of jokes leading up, but we set the flag on the mountain. And [the Paramount name] rolls off everybody's tongue very naturally now, and it's only been since mid-February. And it felt great to represent Paramount as the brand that we are now moving forward. So just really proud and humbled to be part of that, the first time we're in-person with all of our constituents, and it felt so great for me and also the feedback. And clients loved it. They loved being back in Carnegie Hall, as we noted. It was a long week, and it was the grand finale of the week. Again, props to CW [on Thursday morning]. They opened with Stevie Wonder, and they did a great job as well. So yeah, it felt great. I can't wait for next year. Paramount Spotlights Yellowstone Franchise, Attempts Live 60 Minutes at Upfront Event Was there any thought to not coming back to Carnegie Hall?In my mind, it was a no-brainer. We had delayed Carnegie twice [during the pandemic], and because of our long-standing relationship with Carnegie Hall as CBS being there every year, it was absolutely a no-brainer to be back on that stage with the new company. And again, to mark our territory, stick the flag in the ground. We are Paramount, and we are at Carnegie Hall. So for me, it was basically, of course, we're going to be there. Where did the 60 Minutes format come from?So give credit where credit is due; the 60 Minutes format was the brainchild of the two gentlemen that produced the Paramount upfront. Mike Benson, [president and chief marketing officer at CBS], and Josh Line, [evp and chief brand officer at Paramount], they've worked together on the past two virtual upfronts, going back to the first year of the pandemic when we did a two-day upfront, one day Viacom and one day CBS. Then last year, we combined the two into one day in the afternoon, and we had the Survivor theme. These two gentlemen are expert marketers, top of class, and they've been working together, so that was their brainstorm. One of the things that drove that was we knew that it was a long week. We know it's always a long week. But it was important to say to our clients that we value their time and understand it's been a long week. And we didn't know how the other presentations were going to go, so let's keep our theme quiet. But also post-event and [Friday] morning, still getting incredibly gracious and validating emails that we did it the right way. And obviously, we ran slightly over. But that's the good news because we just didn't put in enough time to the run of show for all the applauses and cheers that we were getting. So, [I'm] proud of that as well. Because of our long-standing relationship with Carnegie Hall as CBS being there every year, it was absolutely a no-brainer to be back on that stage with the new company.—Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer, U.S. advertising sales, Paramount Did it really go over time because of the applause?You know, I am not the right person to answer that question. I, to this moment, have not seen the entire presentation. I just think we needed to factor that in. But let's put it this way: at the end of however long it was—whether it was an hour and eight minutes, an hour and fifteen or a little bit more—nobody's complaining. Everybody was still very happy to be there. Adweek previously reported about some of Paramount's Yellowstone offerings, but what other entertainment offerings do you expect to have the highest demand?We're looking at building off what we've done with the Taylor Sheridan universe. And as I said in the presentation, we want to hear back from clients on what they're looking for. We want to be able to do bespoke packages if needed, if asked for. And the good thing about that, or the thing that makes us feel very confident that we'll be able to build off of the opportunities that we've offered with Yellowstone, is that we own so much of the IP that you see across our portfolio. They will feature if, if clients want, integrated marketing that's customized or bespoke. Obviously, they'll have time for their commercials there, but we'll also be able to do EyeQ packages or genres fitting to that. So more to come on that. I had a couple of calls this morning with two clients that are making some suggestions of where they want to go. I can't share that with you, but there is already interest in how we end up extending those franchise offerings. Nickelodeon is now doing a Christmas NFL game instead of the Wild Card. So what are the differences with that, and what are the packages marketers can expect?Traditionally, we're always excited about the two big holidays in the fourth quarter, that being Thanksgiving, lead up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Clients look for that in the lead-up to Christmas. So not everything will land on Christmas Day. It'll land starting with Thanksgiving weekend and then roll up to Christmas Day, and that's in the hands of our very creative people and the people that schedule, whether it's the cable brands or CBS, who've been doing it for years and who know where the sweet spots are for the holiday period. Paramount+ and Pluto TV were big topics during the upfront. How do those streaming services play a role moving forward?When you look at what we have with Paramount+ on P2+, which includes family viewing, we have the No. 1 share. When you look at Pluto, we have unbelievable growth there. It's the No. 1 service in the U.S., but globally, we have close to 68 million monthly active users. So obviously, with the EyeQ bundles that we put together a year ago, which is an asset, a product that we put together for our partners. And it speaks to the entire video ad platform and digital that we have. We have quality premium content, and we have the scale. People are really happy with the fact that we established EyeQ last year, and we've tweaked it this year, and those are the conversations that are taking place right now. Just full growth. It's a rocket ship up and to the right, meteoric. Since our launch, it's 80 million full-episode monthly viewing from Paramount+ and Pluto TV. And 88% of that is on the TV glass. They're watching it in a very entertaining environment. And we are just thrilled to have this. It's a great offering. We can control reach. We can control frequency. The content bundles with EyeQ bring new scale and brand impact. All the keywords clients are looking at when they're developing their KPIs. Hats off to our ad sales team across the board for both broadcast cable and digital. It's not just about upfront week, but we have a great story to tell. Our narrative is built on the strength of all of our iconic brands brought together.—Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer, U.S. advertising sales, Paramount Measurement is obviously a big question this year. Are there any alternative currencies you're transacting on or excited about?We are definitely talking to our clients. It's really about listening to what the clients want. As you probably know, we have VideoAmp we're in partnership with. We're in partnership with Comscore. We have OpenAP, which Viacom was one of the founding members of the consortium known as OpenAP. We also have our advanced advertising platform with Vantage, and we're hoping to announce a couple more down the road where we will be partnering. So the way it's been going is that we're having a conversation directly with the clients and the holding companies as to what they would like to look at, how would we be able to serve their needs, how will we be able to test and learn along with them in terms of alternative currencies. But they are going to be test and learn. I think in that aspect, we're ahead of the curve. Any message to marketers that maybe we didn't touch upon?For our clients, and, again, I want to point to the clients that we work with year in and year out. It's not just about upfront week, but we have a great story to tell. Our narrative is built on the strength of all of our iconic brands brought together, the fact that it is premium programming, that we have leading platforms across the board. We give them the reach that they want. We give them the impact that they want. And we are a very professional and trusted group of people. We want to help them deliver their message. And we want to help them create real value for their products and their brands. That's what we're here for.

TV Upfronts

Jo Ann Ross on Trying to Deliver Paramount's First In-Person Upfront in 60 Minutes

The ad sales chief talks streaming, measurement and missing out on the Ghosts musical number

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