WEBVTT - Shutterstock CEO on Small Businesses Going Digital 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.600 This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer and Jason 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.960 Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, so as we start 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.559 the final hour of this Monday edition, let's check in 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.440 with Stan Pavlovsky. He is the CEO, newly minted of 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.160 shutter Stock. He joins us on the phone just up 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.120 the road from me in Westchester. So stand first of all, 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.560 congratulations on your new job. Nothing like taking over as 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.600 the boss during a pandemic. So remind us kind of 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:32.280 give us a stay to play for for shutter Stock 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:37.360 right now. Absolutely, so thanks for having me. Very excited 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:42.040 to talk to you. UM. Shover Stock is a technology company, 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.680 a two sided marketplace where we have two million customers 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.720 of all sizes, whether it's a small or medium business 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.800 or a large enterprise or agency that comes to us 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.920 to get their stories told. We have the freshest, most 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.360 diverse content um and services, and we have over million 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:06.160 contributors worldwide that make our content library best in class. 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.040 Talk to me a little bit and we'll delve deeper 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.039 deeper into the business. But I'm just curious. You know, 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.040 you took over in April as president and CEO and CEO. 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.600 You were you were previously already the CEO. But did 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.319 you have like a dream that then you had to 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.480 adapt or put on hold because of the pandemic. Like, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:26.880 what is that like as someone in the C suite 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.960 that has to pivot really quickly to sort of stay alive. Yeah, 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.440 it's a great it's a great point. So interestingly, I 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.720 started on April one, so as the CEO. So it 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.640 was very uh, you know, very very telling for what 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.640 the journey would be for the next couple of months. UM. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.280 The good news is, you know, because it's a global company, UM, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.880 we have uh, we've been used to using video for 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.520 a long time, so we continue to, you know, to 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.760 to leverage that. UM. You know, a lot of my 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.520 sort of aspirations of visiting all of our offices and 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.560 really uh having that in person connection kind of had 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.280 to go by the wayside at least for the short term. UM, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.720 but we were able to kind of move quickly into 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.799 how do we keep employees safe? UM, how do we 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.680 pivot around our customers and what they need from us? Um, 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.160 not just from a content perspective, but you know a 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.960 lot of our customers, uh, you know, are struggling in 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.000 the small and medium business space. A lot of agencies 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.160 are are struggling at this point. How do we support 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.240 them and the messages that they want to give, how 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:41.560 do we support them from a from a deal perspective, etcetera. 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.639 So we pivoted very quickly to UH sort of our 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.320 our COVID UH swat teams UM, and I think you know, 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.080 over the last couple of months, we've we've now found 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.640 at least some level of the new norm UH and 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.880 operating in the new norm. So tell us more about 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.799 your customers and how they're doing now, you know, five 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.080 six months into this pandemic, Because, as you say, you 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.200 deal with a lot of small and medium sized businesses 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.840 and we know that they have been hit very hard 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.239 by this in general. What are you hearing from them 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.200 at this moment? Yeah, So on the small and medium 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.600 business side, what's interesting is there's kind of a tale 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.320 of two stories here. One UM, You're right, there's a 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.040 lot of businesses that are just struggling UM. And so 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.640 we definitely hear from customers that you know, come to 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.120 us that still want to be able to communicate with 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:38.200 UH with their clients UM during this time and need 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:43.760 solutions that UM, you know that fit not just their uh, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.720 their creative needs, but also their their budgets. Um. The 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.080 other side of this, and you know, you know, you 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.280 guys are probably seeing this as well, which is a 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.480 lot of small and medium businesses that did not have 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.920 a digital presence are now uh sort of really learning 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.240 what it means to have a digital presence. So interestingly 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.920 for our business from a revenue perspective, the small embedient 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.360 medium business segment has been one of the stronger segments 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.280 during the pandemic um and you can think about it 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.960 as kind of the Wix effect or the Shopify effect, 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.560 where a lot of these businesses are really looking for 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:22.560 solutions of how do how do I how do I 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.000 sell my product online? How do I talk to my 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.400 customers digitally? And we sit, you know, square in the 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.360 middle of that and just quickly and we're going to 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.240 take a break and come back and delve more into it. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.719 But how did you keep morale up? Because that was 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:38.839 that's a lot that you just listed and whether it's 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.840 your clients or your staff, like, how do you do it? Well, 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.120 we did it in a number of different ways, um. 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.480 And there's a lot of converging themes over this, you know, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.520 over this time. First and foremost, we started to do 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.400 a lot of virtual events. UH so a lot more 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.800 communicating with our both with our employees as well as 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.839 with our clients. So we send a lot more communications 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.279 of things that are happening UM, how they can participate, 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.359 how they can take advantage. With our employees, we have 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.000 a lot of virtual happy hours. We do a lot 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.400 of virtual events that each of the teams can take 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.200 advantage of. We gave them a budget to be able 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.599 to do that UM. But also, you know, uh in 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.680 dealing with the realities of what's happening from a diversity 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.279 and inclusion perspective. We've also made a lot of strides 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.479 UM in getting both our community UM as well as 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.000 our employees involved in how we can make a difference. 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.080 Let's dive a little bit into story your last quarter, 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.559 what was doing really well? I mentioned earlier that video 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.440 downloads were doing quite well. How are you structuring your 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.160 business for the back half of the year and even 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:50.080 based on where the demand is? Yeah, so you're right, 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.800 there's definitely the industry tell lies behind what's happening with 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.440 video on demand as well as social media use UM 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.120 where that's really helping us UM and you know, we've 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:07.279 launched several new subscriptions to respond to that, both for 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.360 the small and medium business segment, which we just launched 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.200 UM as well as additional subscriptions that we're going to 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:20.080 be launching later this year within our music segment as well. UM. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.440 So the way I think about our strategy going forward 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.479 is obviously there's a lot of industry tail winds digitally 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.320 that are helping us, but also UM. When you think 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.240 about the use cases for UM. For us, it's it's 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:39.159 very diverse, whether it's social media, websites, video creation, UM, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.240 you know, movie creation, but also some of the more 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:49.240 traditional media like print as well as merchandizing or direct mail. UM. 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.640 And we want to move from a company that is 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.280 entirely content focused UM to really being more solution focused UM. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.000 So what you'll see from us is the ability for 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.960 our customers, not us to uh kind of get the 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.000 raw assets, but really to be able to achieve what 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.440 they're trying to achieve by simply running you know, being 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.720 able to publish two social media or to run an 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:18.480 ad UM. We're also launching creative services for our larger 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:22.480 customers going forward. Video is a big one for us. 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.160 UM you know, especially right now when there's no uh, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.680 it's hard to produce uh, you know, large format videos. 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.320 What we're finding is what our customers are finding is 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.760 that we are a company because of our huge contributor 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.880 base as well as global reach, that we are a 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.160 place that they can come to to develop video assets 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:50.040 during this time. UM. So between between the content, the tools, 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.840 and ultimately a complete solution, UM complete marketing solution. That's 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.560 our focus going forward. So when you look across the 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.160 entire media landscape stand and you worked at Meredith for 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.120 at times, you understand both the digital and the and 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:09.440 the more traditional side. Having run the digital portion of 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.520 that well known publishing company. I do wonder. We hear 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.160 from Guess a lot that the pandemic has accelerated certain 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.480 elements of businesses, things that might have been underway. We 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.240 know that the media business we know firsthand, has been 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.440 under incredible pressure, a lot of disruption going on. What 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.840 has it accelerated in your estimation and where do we 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:34.640 sort of come out of this? What are some things 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.680 that we may see that are just utterly different when 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.320 it comes to the broader media landscape. Yeah, that's a 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.720 great question. You know what I think about it UM 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.960 and Meredith is a perfect example of this. UM. I 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.200 see three kind of primary trends that are shaping media 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.160 and advertising. UM. First, you have UM. You know, more 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.600 than ever, consumers want content on demand UM. So that's 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.080 first and foremost UM. And you're seeing a lot of 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.439 that through uh, you know, mobile usage, through social media 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:10.000 usage UM too. Because of what's happening right now, media 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.080 companies are realizing they can't just rely on advertising for 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.000 their business model, so particularly because you have the large 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.440 platforms like Google, UM and Facebook that are capturing a 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:25.719 disproportionate share of those revenues UM. And then the last 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:31.160 with the consumer privacy issues that are happening UH now 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.679 it's forcing you know, publishers and media companies to completely 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.520 rethink their data strategies. So what I see happening is 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.839 publishers and media companies are gonna really it's going to 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.400 force them to take back control over their first party data. 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.040 It's going to really make it's gonna force and it's happening. 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.839 Companies are developing subscription models because they need to have 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.640 that direct relationship with the consumer. They can't keep relying 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.960 on the platforms as intermediaries. So I think you know, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:07.079 what you're gonna see is actually, UM, while it's very 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.840 challenging right now, companies that do that well and develop 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.520 those relationships well are going to end up coming out 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.200 much stronger than they were before UM and and have 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:24.040 much more sustainable business models. So interesting. I feel like, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.360 you know, eight years ago, no more than that, ten 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.280 years ago, I worked at an internet company. It was 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.079 exactly the opposite. It was like subscription model dead. UM. 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.400 I have a really like nitty gritty, fun question to ask. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.760 I'm just really curious as to what UM your clients 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:42.240 are downloading, Like, what isn't high demand right now? Yeah. So, 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.840 over the last couple of months, it's really been, uh, 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.000 it's really been fascinating. There's a lot of you know, historically, 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:49.800 you have a lot of fun with this category because 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.520 you have a lot of fun memes and a lot 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.480 of you know, fun stereotypes that you can make fun of, UM, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.559 you know as part of uh you know, creative images 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.880 and and creative video clips, etcetera. UM. Over the past 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.720 couple of months, we've kind of moved away from a 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:11.800 lot of searches around face masks and covid uh too 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.520 much more work from home and home office. Now we're 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.720 moving into fall and back to school um, and different 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:25.000 types of yearly celebrations like graduation, um, etcetera. So, uh, 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.560 we're we're moving a little bit, I would say, more 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.920 into the norm around kind of the seasonal content that 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.080 that people are, you know, looking for. But as you 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.720 guys sort of had on the update around some of 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.280 the Zoom results, one of the one of the constants 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.679 for us is fun zoom background. So that, uh, that 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:49.600 looks like it's not slowing down anytime soon. Absolutely, all right, Well, 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.920 congratulations on the promotion. It's a big job, and eager 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.520 to see what happens with your business because, as you say, 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.960 you're right in the center of some mega trends and say, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.839 at least standup. L off Ski is chief executive officer 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:02.600 of shutter Stock.