B/R AD SUITE
FROM STATIC TO SPECTACULAR
Transforming Bleacher Report's ad ecosystem into a rich media powerhouse
THE PROBLEM
When I joined, B/R's ad environment was what you'd expect. Static banners, standard IAB formats, and a set of creative limits that annoyed our sales team as much as it annoyed the people buying.
I saw an opportunity to completely reimagine how we approached advertising both internally and externally.
MY APPROACH
B/R sat right where sports met youth culture, with an audience that actually showed up and converted. Advertisers were lining up. And then they got to our ad products, which were still banners.
Everything else the company made, from the social work to the live events to the branded content, was years ahead of what we could sell against it. The fix wasn't a few new ad units. We needed advertisers to be able to buy the idea, not just the traffic pointing at it.
GET SALES ON BOARD
Creative and sales weren't speaking the same language. We taught the sales team how to pitch the ambitious stuff so they'd stop defaulting to the safe stuff.
MAKE IT REPEATABLE
Standardized everything from pitch decks down to the PSDs, so the high-volume work stopped eating the time we needed for the interesting work.
NEVER CALL IT DONE
We shipped it as something we'd keep changing rather than a finished set of products, and then kept changing it.
THE WORK
A selection of interactive ad products I designed and built for Bleacher Report's direct-sold advertising business — from standardized units to fully custom experiences.
Standardized in-app placements with low asset requirements and quick turnaround. Optimized for high CTR and seamless integration.
Helped scale the B/R Ad Suite to over $100 million in annual direct-sold advertising revenue.
App-centric in-line placements delivering full-screen immersive experiences for mobile-first audiences.
Repeat business year over year. 12% of clients retained for 5+ consecutive years.
Interactive units with geotargeted store locators. Pivoted to online shopping integration during the pandemic.
Individual campaigns delivered every quarter through scalable production systems.
Full-page takeovers counting users down to major events with immersive branded experiences.
Engagement over industry average through custom Rich Media ad units.
House of Highlights, NBA Draft, NFL Draft, March Madness, and premium sponsor activations.
Fully tailored solutions—custom motion graphics, API integrations, and one-of-a-kind branded content.
WHAT ENDURES
It started as a few custom concepts and turned into the thing B/R sold against. The Warner Bros. Discovery merger ended the Ad Suite as its own product, which is how these things usually go. What carried over was everything else: the production systems, the standards we'd argued our way into, and the habit of building ad products that could take volume. It's the kind of work that outlasts the product itself.