James Fennessy started his career in sales at News Corporation in both Australia and Asia before launching his own sales consultancy that worked with leading multinational companies across Asia Pacific. His move to SMI in 2011 was fortuitous, to say the least. “I found myself in the SMI business following a hard to resist invitation from the founder and CEO of the business, my wife, Sue Fennessy,” he recalls. “We made the move from Sydney to New York just under five years ago.”
In this interview, Fennessy (a frequent contributor to MediaVillage) talks about SMI data and how it is used to help in strategy, planning, pricing, targeting and shareholder management and how quickly the media market is evolving with the impact of digital. He also looks ahead to see how the media environment will change in the next three to five years.
Charlene Weisler: Please describe your company's data offerings that are in use in the television sector – and include whether you own your own data and/or aggregate datasets.
James Fennessy: SMI aggregates data from the world’s leading media buying groups. We structure and harmonize data for them in 22 global