How Fox Is ‘Turbocharging’ Its Ad Sales Strategy Ahead of Upfront

As Fox’s audience continues to grow, so does its ad sales team.

On the coattails of Fox’s recent viewership and revenue success, which includes everything from breaking the ad sales record for Super Bowl 59—the most-watched Super Bowl of all time—to the company recently seeing a 20% bump year over year in quarterly revenue, the company is reinvesting in itself, and that includes expanding and realigning its ad sales team ahead of the upfront.

To that end, ADWEEK has learned that Fox has added a half dozen senior vice presidents or above in the last six months, including svps for client services, yield management, strategy, and partnership and research as it looks to augment and streamline the company’s approach to ad strategy and operations.

Among the key hires, Fox recently announced that it added Stephano Kim as chief strategy and operations officer, who the company viewed as a “huge get,” according to a source familiar with the matter.

Kim previously served in several roles at AT&T/WarnerMedia, including chief strategy officer of Turner Broadcasting, and has experience in e-commerce, data science and analytics, digital marketing and media, consumer marketplaces, and B2B software platforms.

In an effort to make its go-to-market strategy faster and more cohesive, Fox is combining several functions under Kim, with the executive overseeing advertising sales strategy, solutions, platform partnerships, and operations teams.

Kim reports directly to Jeff Collins, president of advertising, sales, marketing, and brand partnerships, and will look to build out new ad tech capabilities and experiences and increase operating leverage across the organization.

Meanwhile, the company also recently announced the addition of Julie Triolo as senior vice president of product marketing for Fox’s ad sales. The executive previously served as svp, global research and marketing, at Vevo, where she brought together the company’s research, ad product, and media and distribution marketing teams.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Triolo brings extensive technical experience to the position, which will be an asset for sales communications with clients as Fox adds more intricate technical capabilities.

“We see a lot of opportunity moving forward. We have best-in-class assets across the portfolio heading into this upfront. It’s been a healthy marketplace, so we feel good about that,” Collins told ADWEEK. “And I’m excited because I think these new hires really turbocharge our growth as we head into what should be another great year.”

The hires are the next step as Fox continues to realign its ad sales team, which started with a major restructuring announcement last October.

According to Fox, the realigned structure was meant to maintain sales executives for Fox’s content verticals in sports, news, entertainment, and Tubi while moving the ad sales to a cross-portfolio model for operations, technology, and strategy. The company previously noted its more unified approach across those functions drives scalability in its ad products, as well as advanced data and measurement capabilities.

These moves feed into Fox’s more cohesive approach to its OneFox platform, which allows advertisers to buy across the Fox portfolio. In closing its upfront negotiations last July, the company announced that OneFox grew three times in volume year over year.

“We’re fortunate to have really world-class IP, and now we can offer our advertisers the capability to tap into that IP in more advanced and unique ways than ever before,” Collins said.