Marketing veteran Lee Hunt and business development exec Lori Pate have launched CMOmarketplace, an online portal designed to link buyers and sellers of creative services.
Registration is free for the CMOmarketplace which during a global pandemic, can replace in-person interviews.
The site soft launched over the summer. More than 100 media companies have registered and the work of 22 creative agencies is featured..
“When you have an explosion of entertainment platforms, less time to market them and more and more creative agencies competing for that work, it can be overwhelming,” Hunt explained. “This listening tour gave us the opportunity to build in shortcuts for buyers that both flatten the world and reduce the friction of connecting with creative agencies. CMOmarketplace is simply the right tool at the right time.”
The portal uses search capabilities to help media companies and entertainment brands match up with agencies. Clients can browse agency showrooms and use direct messaging to view additional work samples privately.
“It’s been a long time in coming – a terrific resource for buyers and sellers of creative marketing. As the media world gets more complicated, finding the right creative partner just got a little easier,” said John Miller, chair of the NBCUniversal Marketing Council.
“I think CMOmarketplace is a really useful tool for my teams. Often, it’s hard to remember a new agency’s name, find their website and, once there, know what I’m looking at. This way, everything’s in one place and searchable for the expertise we're looking for,” added Robert Gottlieb, executive VP, marketing at Fox Sports Media Group. “I’d trust anything brought to our industry by Lee and Lori, and they knew exactly what was needed.”
While basic registration is free, creative agencies vetted by Pate and Hunt – can subscribe to feature their work using one of three fee-based subscription tiers that offer a range of exposure and analytics benefits, including personalized data, trends and traffic analysis by Lee Hunt at the platinum level.
“We’re really hoping to change people’s habits during this odd time, to get them used to this efficient, new marketing tool in the same way Zoom has become useful,” said Pate, who has been focused on enlisting agency talent to the portal. “When we conceptualized CMOmarketplace a year ago, of course we didn’t anticipate the pandemic. Connecting buyers and sellers via an online marketplace was something we felt was already needed. The current COVID working model merely amplifies the need to connect more efficiently, with new practices we should carry into the future.”
