iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel) has announced a partnership with Omnicom Media Group, the media services division of Omnicom Group, a leading global advertising company. The deal gives each company special access to assets, information, and technology of the other. RAIN News spoke to Jeff Howard, President, National Sales at iHeartMedia, to shine light on the goals of this alliance.
“We’re looking for companies that want to transform the industry. We see that here.” –Jeff Howard, President, National Sales, iHeartMedia
In its press release, iHeartMedia values the “multi-platform partnership” at $200-million, and notes that “technologies and insights” from both companies will be leveraged in the relationship. Of particular interest is a reference to “joint research to provide clients with more comprehensive assessments of their advertising campaign efficacy.”
We asked Jeff Howard about that Big Data aspect of the agreement. “The goals are to find and leverage new insights. We have an inordinate amount of data at our fingertips. There are opportunities to match that data with advertiser information. We want to see opportunities to change approaches in buy-side behavior. We’re big believers in evidence management. You’re going to continue to see this company push proof, and return on investment. We know we can prove, and we’re putting our skin in the game.”
“It goes back to a deeper relationship. We see the ability to work more closely with Fortune 100 companies and others, and prove that the medium works, our platform works.”
We asked Jeff Howard what consumers might see on the front end of the iHeart audio experiences. “We constantly have a whiteboard out with going to market with different products,” Howard told RAIN. “We have an amazing amount of feedback from our users about what they like. You’ll see continued targetability — that’s the goal. We need to transform the broadcast space into that. We need to make sure that [advertising] messages are relevant.”