This is the ninth installment of our ‘Rising Young Media Stars’ series, in which we profile the next gen media minds. Curious as to who these new thinkers were, and what they were thinking, strategy and Media in Canada canvassed the industry, asking media shops to single out their top innovative and strategic recruits. And we’re scouting for more of the same – so tell us about the hot talent in your shop.
Heather Loosemore
Media planner/buyer, Genesis Media, Toronto
Claim to fame: Bringing in banners, backgrounds and big boxes to create a high-impact, contest-driven campaign on wish.ca and betterthanbeer.com for Bacardi Breezers (a joint venture with john st.) ‘In downtown Toronto,’ she says, ‘you can’t miss the combination of wild postings and OOH, plus a viral online campaign to drive consumers to a unique URL to answer the question: ‘What is better than beer?’ This was for Bacardi MIXX and really spoke to the young, socially active male target. It was like taking that youtube feel that’s been so successful and putting it into a very unpredictable campaign.’
Background: Graduated from Sheridan College ad program; at Genesis Media for two years in a hybrid role as an interactive planner/buyer and part of the broadcast buying team, developing online strategies for almost all agency accounts.
What new marketing tool should everyone be aware of? ‘RFID. The transmitters can be placed in any product to gather valuable consumer data.’
What would you love to build into a plan, but haven’t been able to yet?‘Getting clients to participate in user-generated content – the myspace.coms and friendster.coms of the online world. The risk is that you’re turning over control to the user, giving them the ability to critique and praise the brand, which clients either fear or embrace. It’s going to take a while to bring people over.’
Which brand, other than your own clients’, would you most want to work on? ‘Sirius Satellite Radio. From an online perspective, there’s that great symbiotic synergy between Internet and radio. They both share vertical on-demand platforms customized by the user, and live and interactive apps that engage and challenge. And they both provide that experiential media that people are willing to pay for because it’s all about choice. I’d like to develop a proprietary direct response model to further clients’ understanding of which marketing channels are performing best and, even more importantly, finding the most profitable acquisitions and subscribers.’
Are opportunities being missed due to caution? ‘Everything has to be measured, so every new channel and media choice that hasn’t been proven is hard to sell without the metrics to support it. There can be relevance across the board, from magazine launches to podcasting. It comes down to environment versus metrics. If you don’t have the metrics to support it, does the environment support it and can you sell that through?’
What common industry belief would you love to whack? ‘That online investment should be 15% to 20% of the overall spend. It’s formulaic. Just come to everything from a media-neutral point and don’t use formulas. Something else that’s important to me is telling people just starting in the industry that there should be no timeline to your career, no set path to follow. Create your own job description and get involved in absolutely everything.’
