Our new VP of Agency Partnerships, Lars Feely, sat down with us to talk about his background and what he sees for the future of working with agencies at LiftLab.
Lars Feely is a veteran of the media buying industry having spent more than 20 years on all sides of the business. Starting his career at the low fares airlines Ryanair in the Scandinavian market, launching his own company with the help of Google search ads in Hawaii selling activities to tourists and finally settling in the NYC area where he spent 10 plus years at various agencies before moving to the tech side managing global agency partnerships, effectively turning his old colleagues into his clients of today. Most recently, Lars managed agency relationships for Oracle Ad Tech business. He is the father of two boys aged 6 and 8 and is happily married (ten years!) and lives in Westchester, above New York City.
Q: Welcome to LiftLab! To set the stage a bit, describe your new role and how you came to LiftLab?
Sure, they say timing is everything and our CRO Mike DeGagne reached out over LinkedIn the day that Oracle announced it was walking away from the advertising business. I will be honest that I thought Mike’s pitch was too good to be true. My wife is also a veteran of our space and is always my sounding board, I give full credit to her for keeping me talking to Mike and the team here at LiftLab. She kept saying to me: “What if?” and she was right…. What if LiftLab truly has what they say they have? And after 5 weeks of drinking from the firehose, we truly do have a massive edge on the marketplace.
As for my role, I’m responsible for the relationship with our agency partners, from the top six holding companies all the way through to regional independents. As we help them succeed our success will be guaranteed in partnership. It’s a distinction I like to make clear, I am invested in the success of my partners, I am not selling to clients.
Q: Your role is a completely new area that we’ve expanded into – what excites you about the future?
It’s three things at the same time, the first is easy. I validated in a heartbeat with a friend on the agency side that LiftLab did indeed have the full attention of one of the major Holding Companies, Dentsu. After that, I needed to know if the other agencies had heard of LiftLab. And well, no they hadn’t yet. That felt like an opportunity knocking right on my door. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place when in my first month one of the executives at another agency said something to the effect of: “Most people are talking about tying experiments into their models…. you’re actually doing it.” Those three things coming together makes every day a tingle of excitement in my bones. I can’t wait to get up and get to my desk.
Q: Given your expertise, what trends in the industry are you most excited about, and how will they impact the way agencies and clients collaborate?
There are two things here really. The first of which is that the agencies are telling us that they simply don’t get a chance to get the clients’ modeling business – it’s always a third party and it’s an output that happens once a year, twice if they’re super lucky. Neither are impactful to the actual process of media planning and buying (those two are separate and important btw… strategic planning and tactical buying units have separate needs)! LiftLab can give the agencies the chance, and better yet the right to win that business and bring it in house.
The second piece is that once clients have given agencies the chance to bring this in house, the efficiency gains for marketing spend and operations will skyrocket. I am confident that by the end of 2025, we’re looking at a new world of ad spend, one where the brand CFO is leaning in for an entirely new reason, because they will be so invested in what can be delivered to the bottom of line. This is going to be game-changing for both brand and agency alike.
Q: How do you plan to align agency partnerships with the overall mission & growth of LiftLab?
I have a saying with my kids that I use a lot and they will roll their eyes at me for. It’s a marine motto; “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. Don’t rush, do it right the first time and you don’t have to fix as many mistakes. My goal is to create a governance model with our agency partners. It’s a language they speak well and it’s not overly complex, aligning on four P’s: People, Purpose, Process and Performance. When we define those parts of a working model, we become invested in our mutual success, that’s the key to winning with agencies. At the core is a mantra I keep as a sticky note on my desk at all times:
“Seek to understand”
So, we’ll listen more than we talk, and we’ll support our agencies as if they were any extension of our business, because that’s exactly what they are.
Q: What do you see LiftLab as doing that’s really game-changing?
Giving an agency the chance to pitch for the modeling work that has typically gone to a third party and making that a win win for brand and agency alike.
Brands need a model that they can experiment with, more than once a year, they need it to actually tell them something worth knowing, which means it has to be actionable meaning details beyond channel level insights; LiftLab does those two things, and that’s game-changing for our industry.
That also circles right back to my original statement: The truly game changing thing is that agencies should now be put in the seat of strategic ownership of that modeling work because the outputs can have material effect on channel allocation and tactic optimization; both on a weekly level. That will help brands spend more effectively and position agencies as the strategic leaders they are.
Q: Outside of work, what are some passions or hobbies that help you stay balanced and motivated?
I am a sportsball guy – I know nothing and little at that. But I do know that my kids have loved baseball in all forms since they could hold a bat and ball. I’ve been assistant coach now for 4 years and watched both boys do OKish… but darn they love it, and darn do I love being their coach. This is me and my youngest Henry:
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to someone just starting out in agency partnerships, what would it be?
Go work at an agency, it’s a need to be successful in agency partnerships. My wife and I both grew up in what we loving refer to as ‘agencyland’. Working in “agencyland” has two massive benefits; firstly, it will give you a true sense of what part of advertising you like (if any) and give you immense exposure to that discipline. If you’re dedicated and hard working the ability to advance is seemingly endless. The second benefit is that you will gain an inherit knowledge of how an agency works, the politics at play and the stress and pressure those people are under. Nowadays when an old friend responds after 3 weeks apologizing for the slow response, I don’t let my ego get involved, if anything my empathy kicks in immediately with a response like; “darn… are you ok? How can I help?”
That may be the one biggest piece of advice I could give. Channel your inner Dr Goodwin from the TV show ‘New Amsterdam’ and constantly be asking: “How can I help?”
I know one thing for sure, companies do not do business with other companies. People do business with people, and Advertising is a shockingly small space, be kind, it will help you immeasurably.
