Explain It to a Teenager is a special interview series that brings leaders in entertainment together with students for a few quick questions. The following interview was conducted by recent High School Freshmen Jay Fagel of Chicago and Rio Damata, of Los Angeles, who also authored this blog post (without ChatGPT!)

TV is important but it is evolving and for as long as tv is around, people will find a way to advertise on it. We had the chance to interview someone who figures out how to help TV evolve for a living. His name is Adam Bergman and he is the Group Vice President of advertisement and data sales at VIZIO.

What does Adam Bergman actually do?

He leads a team of people that works with brands on finding new opportunities to advertise as well as selling those advertisement opportunities to possibly interested companies.

What is interesting about what Adam Bergman does?

I found what Adam Bergman does very interesting because it shows how as technology evolves, the advertisement does with it.

Throughout the history of TV, we have always utilized advertisement as a great way to spread awareness of a product and a great way to develop a profit for both the company in need of customers and the company in charge of advertisement. 

What’s interesting though, is how much advertisement has evolved and how we are still seeing it evolve, and Adam is on the front lines of the modern era of TV advertisement. 

What I liked about his message:

His message is to not forget that even though you are selling a product, you're still a consumer. He reminds the marketers that everyone they advertise to is a real person and to ask yourself “What is the advertising experience you would want to go through?” This helps simplify the work they do and reminds them to not focus as much on the masses but on the people.

TRANSCRIPT

JAY: What would you say is the favorite part of what you do like what is the favorite part of your job?

ADAM: I work at a television company. And everybody watches television. Whether you're watching cable TV with a big fat remote, whether you're streaming, whether you're watching YouTube or Netflix or VIZIO, we own a television service called Watchfree+, everybody watches TV. So my whole job is thinking about, what's entertainment? What do we all watch? And I get to think about myself, What do I like to watch? How do I like to use TVs? So that's my favorite part is that my job deals with real people and things that we all do together.

JAY: What are some common challenges that you face? Daily?

ADAM: I think, like a lot of industries. I live and breathe what I do. I work in streaming media. Every single person streams content. You, me, everybody, we all stream content. What's challenging is helping people understand A. Where do they find their favorite shows? How do they keep track of new apps new content? And for us, that means we're challenged to build a TV and a user experience that's really clean and really simple and people get it. Like how does a normal person turn on their TV and just get it immediately? So we're challenged by great design and great experiences.

RIO: If you could explain in a short summary of what you do at your job. What would you say?

ADAM: The shortest summary of what I do is, I sell advertising across streaming apps on VIZIO smart televisions. VIZIO owns a streaming app called watch free plus, it's a free cable service. So that means 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are hundreds of channels of free content and just like old OG TV, there's commercials. And so inside of that content, my team sells those commercials. And then there's a whole expanse of a bit beyond that. But that's really the crux of what advertising is inside of streaming.

JAY: What separates your style of advertising and your company style compared to other companies and firms?

ADAM: I think our style is how do we be forward thinking? How do we be innovative? How do we think about real customers First? My business is first and foremost, driven by a consumer product, a television, so real people use my TV. So the style of my business, the tone, the theme is, how do we make this simple to understand how do we be easy to work with? We don't try to be anyone we're not. Our focus and our theme is to be really good at the things we're really good at.

RIO: And then, as a final just a closing statement, do you have a message to any marketers out there?

ADAM: Don't forget that you're also a customer. Oftentimes, marketers like to overcomplicate and add more sophistication and complexity to what they're doing every day. We talk about audiences and data and users and ad impressions. These are real people. You sell a real product, and you want to find new customers. You don't need to overcomplicate it, remind yourself that you're a customer. What is the advertising experience that you would be open to going through? If you keep that mindset, remind yourself you're a customer, you can make it a very simple world.  

RIO: That makes sense. Thank you very much.

ADAM: Absolutely!