Jon Niermann Podcast Transcript

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Headshot of Co-founder and CEO Jon Niermann

Jon Niermann Podcast Transcript

Jon Niermann joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.

Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.

[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Jon Neirmann. With over 30 years of media, entertainment, and tech industry experience, Neirmann’s dynamic roles prior to co-founder and CEO of Loop Media include President, Managing Director of Walt Disney International, and Asia Pacific, President Electronic Arts Asia, and founder and CEO of Asia English Language Production Company, Far West Entertainment.

Nierman earned his BSBA from the University of Denver and his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. Loop Media is on the New York Stock Exchange, LPTV is based in Burbank, California.

Well, good afternoon, Jon. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:52] Jon Niermann: Brian, great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:56] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. This is so fun. We talk about meeting new people every single day and that’s what really drives me literally.

Sometimes I get up at 6 a. m. to do a podcast in Asia, for example that’s a real deal. I’ve been to 50 countries, but I appreciate you jumping on and getting to hear a lot about you. You’ve been in the media and entertainment, etc. So, I’m really, really excited. Jon, we’re going to jump right into the questions here.

My first one for you is let’s start with helping our audience understand exactly what Loop Media does, which I understand can easily be thought of as sort of a Roku for businesses. Tell our audience what Loop is all about in a few broad strokes and what makes it unique in the field?

[00:01:34] Jon Niermann: So, think of it as streaming television, not unlike what you have in your house with Roku or Prime or whatever you might use, Apple TV.

We provide streaming television. But for out of home, so businesses, public venues. So, if you’re in a bar, a restaurant, a dry cleaner, you’re getting your tire change, your oil change, you’re in an airport, any of those places receive public screen. That’s what we do. What makes it different is the content.

When you’re sitting at home, you’re choosing movies or television series, but when you’re in public, I hope you’re not sitting in a bar watching the crown or something like that. So, we have short form content, very visual, eye-catching stuff, music videos. For example, we’re the largest provider of music videos across the country.

TikTok channel. Again, just things you could look at that really enhance the atmosphere. That’s what Loop does.

[00:02:26] Brian Thomas: I love that. And I know that when people are having a good experience wherever they’re at, especially in a business setting, they’re more apt to be in a better mood to make that purchase or leverage that as a kind of the buying environment. So, I appreciate your share.

Jon, you’ve had quite a career in media, technology and entertainment, of course. Late night talk show host abroad in Asia. Saw some of that earlier. It was great, actually. You’ve had senior roles in Fortune 500 firms. And now you’re the co-founder and CEO of Loop Media since 2016.

As you push through these various roles over the years, what inspired you the most?

[00:02:59] Jon Niermann: So first of all, Brian, are you suggesting I should go back and become a talk show host again in Asia? Because sign me up, buddy. I’m going to I’m going to bring you with me. You understand it over there. So, that was a great time.

So, it’s what inspired me. Most was entertainments passion. I grew up Southern Illinois, rural town. Dad sold tractors. And we fell in love with Disney and our family trip became going to Walt Disney World every year. It opened in 1971 in October, and we started going in Christmas of that year.

Kind of went every year. And I knew when I wanted to go to college that I needed to get a job in entertainment. And fortunately, I got a job with Disney. I was with them for 15 years and then moved to Electronic Arts after that. Had great runs with both those companies as president of their Asia division.

And then moved on to my own thing. So really what inspired me was just really trying to have a good time, enjoy what I do and love the people that I work with. I think that was so important for me. I can look back with so many fond memories on each of these gigs and just recount wonderful times with my teams.

[00:04:06] Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And at the risk of sounding like it’s a cliche, right? Follow your passion or you don’t work a day in your life if you love what you do, and you’re truly an example of that truly, and that’s just awesome. So thank you. Jon, next question here in terms of recent loop news, there’s certainly a lot.

Let’s pick just two of the bigger recent items and tug at those a bit. Tell us about the partnership with Microsoft advertising and why that’s not only significant for Loop, but the entire industry of CTV for out of home?

[00:04:35] Jon Niermann: So, the best way to think about this is just evolution in stages of television. So, we’re educating people in many ways because people know about streaming TV.

But they really don’t know about streaming TV for business. And let me give you an example. If you look back at how TV started, all the way from terrestrial, where it went for decades, and then suddenly you had this thing called cable and why would people pay for cable? And what, what is CNN and MTV?

And then people got used to that and all of a sudden cable. Became the way to go. Well, after cable, suddenly there started in about 2007, this company called Netflix and Hulu, and they’re doing this streaming TV thing. And like, well, why would I want to watch Hulu? I’ve never heard of it. So what is the point?

And eventually, of course, people loved the choice they love to be able to decide when they watched what they watched how much they spent on it. It was very much became optional menus. So now fast forward to today streaming is the norm. So, then you’re talking to businesses and they’re kind of stuck where consumers were in 2007. It’s still largely 98 percent cable and satellite in those public venues because those services like Netflix, Hulu, Pluto, et cetera, don’t work in those venues for the reasons I talked about before where it’s movies and television. And that’s not why you’re going out to have a good time.

You’re not paying that type of attention. So, when we’re working with advertising partners, monetize our business. We give away loop for free. We give you the player for free. We don’t want to be an extra cost burden. So, we’re truly disrupting that model where you might normally have to pay for cables, satellite licenses for public performance, a giant computer to put in your AV rack.

We take that all away. Digital signage, menu boards, we’ll throw that in too. So advertising supports that. Advertisers don’t know exactly what we are. They look out of home and they think billboards traditionally, right? You’re thinking bus stops, you’re thinking these weird things that are just on the walls that don’t move and they’re not digital.

They’re not thinking TV. So, we had to work with a company and Microsoft, fortunately, through Xander, who they own, came up with this different category of connected television Digital out of home and really put it together. So now what it does is provide a clear buying opportunity for advertisers in their media mix to allocate funds towards that.

And that’s why it’s important for this evolution aspect and timing of the industry.

[00:07:05] Brian Thomas: I love it and the fact, you started talking about giving people choice, right? The evolution of TV cable, et cetera. That’s awesome. But the fact that you’re really selling the deal with the folks that run these businesses, right?

You’re throwing it in for free, giving consumers and business owners, something that really works for them and will add value to that purchase or sale. So, I appreciate the share, that’s so awesome, Jon. I’m a technologist. I’m a technology executive been doing it for years. I love emerging tech spent some time at MIT.

So, we Thank you. Don’t worry, we’re not going to get into the weeds here, but I love to ask people about tech, right? What you’re doing. So, you’re obviously leveraging some of that new and emerging tech in your business. In particular, I understand your team just completed a six month long total migration to the AWS platform for the Loop backend, which opened a lot of doors for you in terms of efficiency and helping the team get more done with less.

Right? So, tell us just a bit about that. If you don’t mind.

[00:08:01] Jon Niermann: No, not at all. And here’s how I handle tech, Brian. I hired one of the best tech guys that exist, Liam McCallum. I’ve had the good fortune of working with Liam since 2003 at Electronic Arts. He was just a young pup out in Asia. And I’ve been working with him ever since.

The guy is a genius. He’s fantastic. You and he could get together and really talk code and all that great stuff in detail, get in those weeds, he would love it. But I know that Liam’s one of those for most of us, right? Where I grew up on the business side, sales, marketing, et cetera. We flicked the switch and we expected the lights to work.

Liam is wonderful about how it all is wired together. So when we were deciding to launch Loop. We said, all right, Liam, how do we replace this giant Dell computer in an A V rack with a little streaming device like an Apple TV that works in public venues? It has that sort of bandwidth. It has that stability because the last thing you want when you’re out in these venues is to have things crash.

You can’t have those screens go black. So, Liam is brilliant that way. He’s worked with so many different companies and as you’re evolving through technology, you kind of work with who you’re used to. And then as technology grows, it becomes more complicated. You might want to upgrade, or you might want to consolidate.

And that’s exactly what happened with AWS. As you start to get these different components, like. Database management or core API services or encoding and bandwidth and media storage, Wi Fi. How does that all integrate? Liam was also able to do things like Bluetooth technology where through our loop player, we can actually count and identify how many people are in those venues at any one time around the TV sets because we know those phones that are looking for Wi Fi.

Let’s say there’s a dozen phones right here at 3 p. m. at Billy’s Bar and Grill. We know that those people are sitting there in front of that screen, which is great when you’re working with advertisers. So, you have to go to that depth of technology to make it successful and what we’re trying to do. And it again, it starts with the right people and Liam’s the right guy.

It’s not something I can do. But again, that goes back to working with great people, enjoying that and hiring the right people.

[00:10:10] Brian Thomas: I love that story. We talk about that at the end of the day. It’s people connections, who, you know and how people are treated that whole thing around that, that human contact, right?

That’s important, but to highlight the technology, you went with a provider like AWS that could quickly scale and service those needs as you described previously. So I appreciate the share.

Jon, last question of the day before we go, what nugget of advice can you share with our audience of technologists, founders and entrepreneurs, and what has helped you above all across your entire journey, if you could answer those two things?

[00:10:45] Jon Niermann: I think it is it’s trust yourself. It truly is because be true to who you are. And again, Brian, you talked earlier about maybe a cliche of being passionate about what you do.

There’s a reason. Some of these are cliches and it’s you don’t always have to reinvent a new reason. And I have found that there are so many people willing to give you so many ideas and tell you to do this, this or that, but they don’t have any stake in it. They don’t have any skin in the game. They’re not taking the risk.

Like, you are right. You’ve got a tremendous opportunity cost. In my case, for example, jumping out of corporate into entrepreneurial. And a lot of the same people on our team could go find jobs in a more stable, so to speak larger company, but this is what they enjoy doing. They enjoy building. So, you have to be true to yourself.

You have to trust yourself. You just have to believe in yourself because there are those bumps in the roads and it’s all true about persistence and luck and everything else. But I do find that don’t go change it. Think of that Billy Joel song, man. And that’s something that I always go back to is don’t go changing.

And if that’s who you are, we love you just the way you are. And that’s the way you should feel about yourself and your ideas.

[00:11:53] Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And great analogy, by the way. Great artist. Thank you, Jon. That was just amazing. I appreciate a lot of the gems that we pulled out of this podcast this evening.

And again, I can’t wait to share this with my global audience, obviously, with your permission, which really again, jazzes me every single day that I get to share an amazing story from every single guest that comes on.

[00:12:13] Jon Niermann: So, this is great, Brian. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. It’s fun talking to you.

[00:12:17] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And Jon, I really look forward to speaking with you again real soon.

[00:12:22] Jon Niermann: Okay. Same here. Take care.

[00:12:23] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.

Jon Niermann Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.

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