Meet The Disruptors: Disney’s Sylvester “Sly” Phifer On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

… Read Everything — My first leader at The Weather Channel was an avid reader and he challenged us to read the media trades, daily business news and as many books as we could consume. If you were not up on your current events, he would repeat over and over and over, Read Everything!! As a result of this good man, I am a voracious reader.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sylvester J Phifer.

Sylvester “Sly” Phifer, is Vice President, Self Service Platform Sales at Disney Advertising. In this role, Phifer leads the go to market sales strategy for Disney’s self-serve offering, empowering small and medium sized businesses and agencies to buy, measure, and optimize campaigns 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Working closely with the advertising platforms team on the product roadmap, Phifer serves as the visionary for the expansion of this emerging revenue stream across the Disney portfolio and broader advertising marketplace.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I was born and raised in New York City and I’m a graduate of Fordham University. Prior to leading the Self Service team at Disney, I spent the past 20 years launching, scaling and leading emerging businesses at The Weather Channel, the National Football League and ESPN.

At the National Football League, I was part of the team that launched the NFL Network and NFL.com, and kicked off the first Thursday Night Football package. During my time at the NFL I also brought the Direct Response business in-house, building and scaling the division from the ground up with an amazing team.

I spent my time at ESPN growing the Performance Marketing sales team, increasing marketplace visibility, expanding into new categories and driving revenue growth. When I reflect on my career, the times when I’ve thrived are when I was given the opportunity to grow a team.

Now I lead Disney’s Self Service business. Through our platform, Hulu Ad Manager, we are excited to level the playing field and democratize access to premium video inventory through automation to smaller brands and advertisers. We recently shared that both agencies and advertisers will have 24/7 access to a single aggregated dashboard for all of their campaigns, reporting, invoices and creatives through Hulu Ad Manager, the first stage of our Self-Service platform. This is truly unprecedented access and an expansion of our mission to empower SMBs, D2Cs and local advertisers with frictionless and increasingly automated media buying tools.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

In the past, buying TV has traditionally been associated with big brands that had a lot of resources. Through Hulu Ad Manager, we’re changing that. Our self service business empowers small to mid-sized companies and agencies to diversify their media mix beyond social and search, and think differently about the customer journey.

Small and local businesses, start-ups, and challenger brands are interested in streaming because that’s where audience attention is shifting. There isn’t a better vehicle to tell your brand story than on a TV screen in the living room with sight, sound and motion. However, Disney is a global brand and it can be daunting for smaller businesses to see themselves break through. With our Self Service platform, we’re making it easy for small to medium sized businesses to reach streaming audiences.

I’m also really proud of Disney’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusivity. We recently conducted research in collaboration with Advertiser Perceptions, to understand the needs of underrepresented businesses. I’m excited to share that we’re taking those learnings and converting them into a curriculum that will live as an extension of Project Elevate, an effort where Disney provides creative consultation, and comprehensive and custom advertising opportunities to underrepresented-owned small businesses.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

There was a funny and utterly embarrassing moment early on in my career when I called the Associate Director of an agency by the wrong name. It wasn’t until after I called him the wrong name several times did he correct me. From that day forward, I’ve made it a point to know and confirm not only the names, but the pronunciations for all of the people we work with. I’ve since realized that it’s not just about knowing the names, but also building meaningful relationships with our clients. Good news, it wasn’t all lost, he and I are now good friends.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

When Rita Ferro unified Disney Advertising under one proposition, I learned from her what it means to cast a vision, set clear objectives, and execute on a plan. I am big believer that great followership begets great leadership and I am a student of the leaders in my life. There is a long list of people who have supported and advocated for me along the way. Wendell Scott, Danielle Brown, Jen Hoffnagle and Greg Rossi have been my leaders and mentors since I started at ESPN/Disney. From them I learned to push the boundaries of what is possible and consistently deliver results. Renie Anderson and David Pattillo at the NFL showed me the value of integrity and following through on commitments, John Dokes at Meta and Rob Bochicchio at Marketsmith have been huge sounding boards and advocates allowing me to get clarity of intention. What I have learned from all of them is that people are our greatest asset. And as leaders we need to be skilled at identifying great talent, recognizing potential and tapping into their superpowers.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Disruption of an industry is a positive when it’s done with the intent of providing better customer experiences. Intention is critically important. Disruption for the sake of being lauded a disrupter does not always lead to the desired outcomes, especially when it’s rooted in personal or professional gain. We should be disrupting for the benefit of our customers. One of Disney’s core values is to put the customer first, and we encourage our people to challenge legacy ways of doing business. As an example, our focus on automation is not only about unlocking new value for brands by way of unrivaled access, convenience, and visibility, but it’s also about fostering more meaningful and creative engagements between Disney and its advertisers. The customer should always be at the center of the conversation.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Read Everything — My first leader at The Weather Channel was an avid reader and he challenged us to read the media trades, daily business news and as many books as we could consume. If you were not up on your current events, he would repeat over and over and over, Read Everything!! As a result of this good man, I am a voracious reader.

Slow is Smooth, Smooth is fast — My previous leader had a lot of great quotes but this one really stuck with me. When you are building and scaling, speed to market is key, but this little nugget of advice has taught me to balance speed with rigor.

Be comfortable in the uncomfortable — Transformation and disruption can challenge our comfort levels. But if we’re not changing, then we’re not growing. At Disney Advertising, we are constantly evolving to meet the needs of our customers so embracing change is one of our core ethos.

Find your voice — I encourage folks to speak up and speak often. We bring people into the organization not only for the work they do but also for their ideas. It’s critical that we are always thinking up new ways of doing things and sharing those ideas widely. I’m committed to listening and letting everyone be part of the creative and problem- solving process and giving everyone on the team the chance to develop, thrive, express and be the best version of themselves.

Opportunity in ambiguity — Leaders must to be prepared to rise in the face of uncertainty and adversity.

The landscape is constantly changing, consumer habits are shifting, customer expectations are evolving, which presents an opportunity for us to get creative and bring fresh solutions.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

By listening to our customers and anticipating their needs. You are right, we are not done; we have a lot of exciting work ahead but right now we are laser-focused on super-serving the customers currently using our Self Service platform and applying automation and addressability to their businesses at large. We think of this time frame as a hyper-care period where we are building and iterating with our customers and once we have hit certain milestones, we’ll look to scale the Disney Self-Service platform to the broader marketplace.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

I’m a voracious reader and podcast listener. I have a Kindle so I’m constantly devouring books. Among others, right now I’m reading Amp It Up, Zero to One and the Infinite Game. That said, an episode of the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast about the difference between one being goal-oriented and growth-oriented really stands out. John stresses that we should be growth-oriented because you can reach goals and eventually reach a peak, but when you are growth oriented, there is no limit and you never stop growing. That podcast episode had a profound impact on me because as I mentioned, I’ve always had a growth mindset; my career has been focused on growth by challenging the status quo, embracing change and leading through ambiguity.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I’ve learned the greatest life lessons from my father. He didn’t have a specific saying, but if I could capture him in a quote it would be “working hard for something you love is called passion.” My father is a contractor, and to this day, he loves to build and fix things. He does this work with incredible passion and pride. I remember going on jobs with him as a young boy where he would strip down a home to its studs and have the vision to reimagine and build it anew. He is in his happiest place when he is working on a job. His passion, drive and work ethic are second to none. That appetite for his work is something he passed down to me and I feel pumping through my veins every single day. I truly love what we do here at Disney and bring that passion to the work.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would focus on providing the best education and career opportunities to young people from underrepresented and rural communities, fostering a culture of growth. We have so much potential in this country and education is the great equalizer.

How can our readers follow you online?

Our self-service advertising solution is an automated and convenient option for small and medium sized businesses to start running their ads on Hulu. If you’re an advertiser or agency from the local, SMB or start-up marketplaces, we encourage you to follow this link to www.huluadmanager.com

You can also follow Disney advertising: https://www.disneyadsales.com/

And you can follow me:

Twitter @SlyPhifer

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvesterphifer/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!