Domenic DiMeglio, chief marketing & chief data officer at Paramount Streaming has been in the streaming business since it began almost 20 years ago.
His latest assignment: to make subscription-based Paramount+ and ad-supported Pluto TV top choices for viewers, whether they are looking for a horror series, a family movie or to watch their favorite sports team.
“At Paramount+, our brand mission is to entertain the planet,” says DiMeglio. “We take that to heart and we’re really focused on building lifelong relationships with fans. The way we try to do that is by nurturing their emotional connection to the stories, the characters and the worlds that we have the privilege to steward.”
Paramount+ has 77.7 million subscribers globally, owning about 9% of the marketplace, per Nielsen. And streaming continues to grow, representing 44.8% of TV viewership in May 2025, its largest share of viewing to date, according to Nielsen.
Paramount is leaning into building emotional connections through social content, as well as going big on experiential. The brand recently did a pop up at San Diego Comic-Con that included The Lodge, an immersive experience in the Gaslamp District featuring experiences around Dexter: Resurrection, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Landman, Mission: Impossible and more. The Dexter vault recreates a vault in a wine cellar curated with relics and case files. The Star Trek space offers an oversized Starfleet holodeck, academy campus and more for fans to explore.
“There’s really nothing like seeing fans connect with your IP, your characters feeling the energy in a room at a panel for a show that they love or a world that they’ve really immersed themselves with over time,” says DiMeglio.
Brand Innovators caught up with DiMeglio from his office in New York to talk about the streaming marketplace, connecting to fandoms through activations and why data matters more than ever. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk about the streaming marketplace and what you’re doing to make Paramount stand out?
We are focused on meeting audiences where they are and showing up and trying to connect with them in a way that feels native to the spaces that we’re showing up. What we’re also trying to employ is both building Paramount+ as a brand but also really driving awareness and interest in the titles that we’re bringing to market, whether it’s our blockbuster movies, our original series or our live sports.
We’re not just trying to break through in the marketplace to build awareness. We have to find ways to drive urgency. Everyone has a watch list of 15 to 20 titles long. It’s not just enough to build awareness but how do you have them move that up to the top thing on their list? We’re constantly trying to employ as much innovation as we can in our campaigns to do so.
We can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re a streaming service and a brand and a destination. Trying to build both the brand itself, as well as the linkage so that when the new season of a show like Landman comes back to Paramount+, people know where to go to find it.
How are you showing up in the marketplace?
Experiential is definitely an important thing. We really love doing fan-first immersive experiences and having the brands come to life in experiential. We’re fresh off of what we feel like was a very successful San Diego Comic-Con. We try to infuse intentionality and be genuine in what we’re doing. If we’re going to show up on the ground in San Diego for Comic-Con, we have to rise to the occasion and deliver something fans are going to love.
Can you talk about how you distinguish your paid and free offerings?
We build on what we like to call our free and pay ecosystem. We have the ability to deliver experiences that suit the moods of viewers for the moment. For example, fans love Pluto TV for its ease of use and its lean back experience. Pluto really delivers on that value proposition. Pluto TV is an amazing partner in terms of helping build awareness for what’s on Paramount+ and driving subscriptions. We will debut and sample the entire first season of a show on Pluto TV. We can build a moment around it, especially if it’s part of a franchise where we can bring that whole franchise to life on Pluto and really build synergy between the two services. For those moments, it also helps us create really good opportunities for our advertisers to extend their reach across both Paramount+ and Pluto TV.
Where do you see the streaming market going today?
There’s going to be a lot of competition in the space. I am really excited about the next phase of where we’re trying to grow both Paramount+ and Pluto TV. Certainly we’re seeing the space narrow in terms of the competitors that are standing out. We feel very fortunate that both services are within the top few services in each of their verticals. We’re really focused on trying to ensure that we continue to grow globally so that we remain two of the top streamers out there. The big thing for us is that space is going to continue to become more and more competitive.
Can you talk about how you embrace the fandoms to tap into loyalty?
We do the work when nobody’s watching, especially when it comes to social. Our team does a really good job of trying to build and nurture fandoms across a variety of social platforms, as well as, experiential. Being there for fans year round, engaging in moments that make sense. That really helps when you have something new to say or new to offer them. We don’t just show up when we have a new season coming out or a new series coming out. We’re really talking to fans, nurturing that relationship delivering content to them year round. We try to avoid being transactional in nature in terms of the way we engage with fans and that helps us. We’re really putting in that work year round.
You have data in your title. Can you talk about what that means in your role and how overall you’re using data as a marketer?
I absolutely love being able to oversee the data and insights organization here. As you can imagine, in a D2C service, that lives in the streaming world, data is infused in everything we do from across product, technology, distribution, content, marketing, and so on. Data really is one of the fuels that helps drive the business. It’s really infused in everything that we do from a process perspective. When we think about the life cycle of a campaign from planning and that upfront research, trying to understand how you’re going to market, what are the audiences that you’re trying to reach. As you’re building creative assets, you’re using insights to help shape as those come together, and then using data along the way through your execution and optimization phases.
Lastly, you’re going to assess how everything performed and then use those insights to help you be better the next time around. I’m saying data-driven but also we believe very much in the notion of creativity, meeting intelligence and that balancing of art and science. It’s absolutely something we’re very cognizant of and know that you need to have a good blend of both to really be successful.
Can you talk about how your experiences in other roles help you in your current role?
I am coming up on 20 years that I started at the company, first at CBS Digital Media, which became CBS Interactive. We were at the forefront of streaming at the time. In my first year at the company, we offered March Madness for free for streaming for the first time. We were able to make a compelling business case to offer full episodes of CBS primetime shows on cbs.com. We were the first broadcast networks to do that. From there, being at the forefront of innovation in the streaming space has definitely shaped where we are today. We launched CBS All Access and turned it into Paramount+, which is a huge part of Paramount Streaming today.
What key marketing trends will define the rest of the year?
I’m going to talk about AI as a force multiplier. It’s really hard for you to escape needing to lead your teams to adopt AI as best as you can across all facets of the world. From productivity to getting the best tech in the hands of your creative teams to how do we continue to improve our audience targeting, our campaign execution and optimization, you name it, just top to bottom, really trying to move the needle forward in terms of staying ahead of the curve.
But over time, it’s tech plus talent that really equals impact. Over time we see technology continues to get commoditized. There’s new tech. We’d love to have that first mover advantage, but it’s really that combo of the talent that you have on the field plus the tech in their hands that separates you. That’s something we’re really focused on. Otherwise, we fear we’ll end up in the sea of sameness trap. That’s something we’re trying to avoid. It does really come back to not over rotating for the tech.
What’s your favorite show in the Paramount ecosystem?
On Paramount+, I am loving Dexter: Resurrection. I’m happy to say longtime Dexter fans are loving Resurrection. In fact, in a recent episode there is what is known as “Praetor’s Vault” with Peter Dinklage who’s amazing. It is one of the highest fan-rated episodes in the history of Dexter across all series. It is so cool that a show that has had 20 years of longevity can still hit those high notes and really deliver for fans.
