Bryce Putman visits Alma Mater

Bryce Putman is a recent Behrend Graduate who majored in international business and marketing. Bryce Putman came back to Behrend to share a little bit about his recent headway in the marketing world.

Putman was recently employed by the MullenLowe group a, “creatively driven integrated marketing communications network”.  At MullenLowe Uptman works as a media buyer, he works in a small team of six people. When broken down MullenLowe is comprised of  650 employee, 45 of which work with video, and six on a team with Putman.

As a media buyer Putman is responsible for searching for open spots that allow the campaigns he represents to make the most impact. This means they have to hit the right demographics at the right time.

Putman’s group works with companies such as Netflix, Viacom, and the Department of Defense.

 

 

In order to track success of ad placements, Putman and his team rely on Nielsen ratings to rate campaign effectiveness. The Nielsen company tracks viewer counts, and demographics and sells results to inquiring marketing companies.

Another way to track ads on TV is by knowing the which pixel to access. Each commercial has one pixel that tracks it’s exact location and time it’s being played so, marketers can tune into their ad. The best way to think about it is like an unseen bar code.

Putman briefly talked about the importance of ad placement and used the Penn State v. Ohio game as an example.  He explained that prime spots during foot ball games included right before half time and right before the end of the game. Then he shared that Netflix purchased all two minute pods in Saturday nights upcoming game.

 

He also explained that requests can be made to networks to separate advertisements from competitors. So if both Hulu and Netflix have ads running in close timing they can take liberties to separate the two to a certain point.

Finally Putman discussed organic advertising. A way to buy media on TV that isn’t a direct commercial. He gave an example using 13 reasons why a recent Netflix hit. He said organic advertising would be when every character listens to their tape they use beats head phones. 

After Putman finish he invited the class to add him on LinkedIn and thanked them for having him.

Putman is a great example of what a student with a marketing degree can do once they graduate.