Media agencies always have their eyes on the economy since they are not only managing their own businesses, they also have responsibility for managing their clients’ media investments. So, when we asked media leaders about their predictions for the year ahead, a recession was predictably something that was very top of mind.

Because of that, MiC decided it was worth giving extra attention to how media leaders were thinking about the looming economic downturn and the things they were doing to prepare.

Urania Agas, CEO, EssenceMediacom

As we move into 2023, economic headwinds are undoubtedly a concern across industries and verticals – especially as the situation is unique to previous downturns in a host of ways. That said, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney recently said that while Canada will likely head into a recession, our bounce back will be faster than others due to our strong economic fundamentals.

Of course, this POV is comforting and, while we don’t know exactly what the future holds, our priority at EssenceMediacom will remain unwaveringly people-focused, doing everything possible to assist our people both personally and professionally.

Axel Dumont, president, Cossette Media Canada

In my opinion, a recession is an invitation for simplification and focusing on the things that matter most. We’ve just been through, and are still living through, a pandemic where we were ambassadors for continuing to invest in the things that matter – like local media, local businesses, our talent – despite real threats to our business.

In times of uncertainty, it can be tempting to take the easy route, invest in the wrong places, and lose sight of our long-term ambitions. For 2023, my plan is to stay focused on how we continue to do the right thing for industry, for our partners, for our clients and for the people who support their brands.

Veronik L’Heureux, EVP, managing director, Spark Foundry Canada

As an outcome of the pandemic, the high inflation affects our business very similarly to what we’ve seen in 2020 – both our clients and our people are impacted. Many clients are still facing financial pressure due to their entire supply-chain being highly impacted by inflation, and as partner we need to support them through that challenging time.

Our talents are also personally feeling the impact of inflation, and after a volatile year in the workplace, they are now looking for job security while feeling supported financially. While the challenges with our clients and people manifest themselves differently in economic uncertainty vs the pandemic, our business challenge remain the same: find the right balance between investing in short term big bets while not losing sight of longer-term business performance.

Matt Ramella, president, Reprise

In a weaker economy, even if a recession is projected to be short and shallow, there is opportunity to be found. Brands that find ways to stay relevant with the consumer and continue to invest in marketing will be the most successful. Performance-oriented digital advertising is historically somewhat recession-proof, as it’s less sensitive to economic downturns than brand-building budgets and linear channels.

Given Reprise’s expertise in performance marketing services, we continue to double down on helping our clients futureproof by accelerating and optimizing their “customer flow” throughout the path to purchase. Leveraging our digital capabilities to reduce the cost of customer acquisition and increase repeat purchases will deliver even greater market share potential to our clients during a downturn.

Cynthia Steele, president, Mediabrands Content Studio

Futureproofing our business relies on three pillars – investing in our talent, delivering value to our clients, and bringing creativity to everything that we do. We are very purposeful in building teams that are not only diverse in skillsets but also diverse in backgrounds, perspectives, passions and personality styles. We believe this diversity delivers creative and content outputs that are greater than the sum of their parts.

When planning to deliver client value, our focus is on building products and approaches that deliver to their business needs. In the case a recession, every dollar spent on brand marketing is subjected to heightened scrutiny, so we will lean into our products that help clients assess the ROI of content, such as our content audit.

Scott Stewart, general manager, Glassroom

Our initial approach to inflation from a media investment perspective was to figure out how we were going to do more with less and we discovered that re-optimization vs. re-negotiation was the best way to minimize the impact of inflation for our clients.

The effects of inflation or recession historically on advertising have always been felt on the longer tail, so we had enough time to prepare and make good business decisions that were mindful of a potentially softer market in 2023.

From an employment perspective, we saw junior to mid-level salaries skyrocket this year due to a talent deficit in the industry. In response, we made the decision that we would rather grow modestly and in the right way and with the right people than subject our clients and company to the risks associated with overpaying under-qualified people. I believe that we will see this approach pay off as things tighten up in the marketplace. In terms of partnerships, we are lucky to have some incredible, long term client relationships and partner relationships in place that will ensure we land safely in 2023.