How NBCUniversal's Linda Yaccarino Drives Transformation | Connections Ep 8 | Salesforce

If you want to be best in your job, you have to always kind of be peeking around the corner or right. What's over there, what's happening over there. Because when you're in the media business or even in the marketing business, you have to know who your consumer is and you actually have to be focused on where they're going next.

Hey, I'm Sarah Franklin and welcome to Connections, where we hear from some of the most innovative leaders in marketing. My guest today is Linda Yaccarino, chair of global global Advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. Linda's a long time innovator in the media world and a visionary who sees how the industry needs to change and isn't afraid to say so. So let's start where it all began with your. With your mom. You say that she was an incredible inspiration to you.

She's a first generation Italian American immigrant. She didn't have the good fortune to go to Colle. She raised three daughters and made sure that each of her daughters focused on an education so we could each be financially independent. I continue to think that I owe her and it helps push me and drive me.

Three daughters, three things. You chose media. What drove you to media?

I know it sounds crazy. In college, I gravitated towards communications. I was very interested in content and content's influence on culture. And that's kind of what landed me in the business of content, which has become media and advertising.

And you started as an intern.

So I started as an intern, which is totally coincidental, but at NBCUniversal. So I show up for my first day as the bright, new, cheery intern. And I said, hi, I'm Linda Accurino, I'm the new intern. And they were like, linda who? From where? No record of Linda. What? So. So I went home. So, like downtrodden and upset and they're like, don't worry, we're gonna call you in a couple of days. We're gonna figure this out. And I ended up in the media planning department and that's where the love affair was born.

Your fourth time then at NBCUniversal, your job was to no small thing, but just transform the entire company.

I'm not exaggerating. Fifteen different sales teams. But the fascinating thing was, was all of those sales teams were calling on the same clients. So difficult to do business with. So we aggregated all of our teams for scale and become more like one point of entry and therefore drive bottom line revenue, which end of this year, end of 21, will be my 10th anniversary at the company. So we've been on a really good trajectory.

How did that feel? Were you lonely?

You learn very quickly that culture is everything, and the culture of your team, particularly in the face of change, and it's hard. It was scary for my team, so it was very difficult. You had to make sure that I looked confident to them, even when inside I was nervous, I was a little scared. I wanted to be a good leader. I also wanted to perform for my new bosses. So that's where the loneliness came in. Because when I went home from work at night, it was the only time I could let my hair down. And I remember it was the first anniversary of my tenure at NBC Universal, and I went out to dinner with my husband, and I burst into tears. And he's like, what's wrong? This is the loneliest job I've ever had. But it was also kind of provided like a breakthrough, because then you started having more good days than bad days. You started seeing progress. You started seeing your team kind of rally alongside of you. You know, little by little, the culture got better. And then you feel like, I have an army of people that were all really agreed on our vision, and. And it feels great. You have to invest in that every single day, because the culture is what defines the success of your team.

It's so powerful when leaders share those vulnerable feelings because people get intimidated. What advice do you have to marketers or business leaders looking to have those lessons that you learn?

It takes a point to get into your career when you feel comfortable enough showing that vulnerability. Many of us grew up in a time. There was this ad campaign that was. I think it was for a deodorant, and it said, never let them see you.

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Right, you remember that. So showing your vulnerability actually lets your teams see that you're human, and it actually invites them to share their advice. But seeing you as human is really important, too, because you don't have all the answers. And as a leader, and I talk to my teams about this all the time, you want to invite contribution, and you want to develop your plan together, right? So your whole team can lean in and contribute to the success. Marketers, you know, we don't have all the answers. And I know, like, NBCUniversal, particularly in the US is the biggest media company, but we can't give you everything you need. So help me learn what else you need. And that's where partnerships come in. Because we're confident enough in our own business and our partnership together, then we want to introduce you to partners of Ours. Because if I bring a partner along with me, it's like introducing you to a good friend, a mutual friend that you believe in and you trust in. And that takes a little courage too.

What are some of the most innovative things that you're most proud of?

We're about a week away from the one year anniversary of Peacock, our new streaming platform. It was probably about nine months in the making. Developed the strategic plan, the business case, pitched it to the then CEO, my boss, Steve Burke. It got greenlit in the room and that was a nine month project of my entire team. And to jump into a pool with Netflix or with Disney or with Hulu and say this is our stake in the ground, I burst. If you couldn't tell, I burst with pride that I was able to partner with my team and bring that to a successful launch in the marketplace.

Viewers are everywhere. How is NBCU using technology to help marketers reach their audiences?

Well, you're certainly right. Viewers are everywhere. And actually content is everywhere. We have the ability to reach consumers the screen in their hand, the screen or the tablet in their lap, or the big giant screen on the wall. But how do we connect all of those screens on their own terms to offer scaled opportunities to you? So how we use technology for that, It's a really good example of the strategic focus of our company, Comcast. NBC Universal is focused on three very simple things, broadband aggregation and streaming. So it's a technology driven content company. We're using our technology partners to improve the viewing experience. So when you're looking at the screen on your hand, you're getting the ads that you want when you're in that type of environment. And we wouldn't be able to do it if we weren't investing in the technology infrastructure to improve the viewing experience for viewers that have unlimited choice, feeding them the advertising and the content that they want.

You've said that we're all living at that intersection of media and technology. What do you mean by that?

People say, oh, that's a, there's a bunch of tech companies over there, or that's a media or content company over there. Consumers don't think that it's the consumer first. And if we're serving that experience right and the products we bring to the market are influenced by that intersection, then we'll be best in class because the consumers are very vocal. They'll tell you where they're going, they'll tell you what they want.

You've also said that consumers are just demanding innovation. How can marketers be innovating for the future.

Let's think about the change in consumption. In just the last 15 months, there's been such an acceleration of the viewing behaviors of consumers moving to streaming. So what I always talk to marketers about is how can we string all those things together? So in the past, we would have had a conversation just about your interest in sports or how you want to interact with broadcast television or cable television. We can't do that anymore. We have to stitch them all together to give you the scale that you need. And that requires technology. It requires data sophistication. So what I tell marketers to think about is let's learn from what we were doing in the past, but not let that legacy, process and behavior hold us back from thinking about what's new.

You drive big transformations, but you also have been one of the only women in the room. How hard is that?

Particularly earlier in my career when I first started noticing, sitting around the table, that I was the only woman, I took it as a very unique opportunity to be able to stand out because I thought that the chances were greater that someone would remember the studied, prepared, ready to go woman in the room as compared to the 10 or 15 men that were in the room. So it probably created typical of women that we prepare more, that we are more focused and specific on what we want to accomplish. But it also gave me courage to embrace my differences.

What advice do you have for people who find themselves as the onlys in the room?

Be confident to be independent and speak your mind. Who really wants to be like everybody else? Nobody should. Exactly. And conforming is boring, right? So embrace your differences. But what I also talk to them a lot about today is make sure you bring somebody along with you because it's lonely being the only woman at the table or the only person of your background at that table. Bring somebody else with you and change it.

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