What Christine Saunders has planned for Publicis Groupe

The new head of marketing for Publicis Groupe Canada explains why her new role shows the continued blurring of between media and creative.

It’s rare for an agency’s marketing leader to come from the media side of the business, but it makes sense for Publicis Groupe, a network long known for having media play a central role in its advertising.

Media veteran Christine Saunders, CEO of Starcom Canada, was named to the new chief marketing officer role this week. While still leading Starcom in Canada, her added mandate is to coordinate and optimize growth efforts for Canadian agencies that include Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis Worldwide, Starcom, Zenith Optimedia, Spark Foundry, MSL Group, North Strategic, Publicis.Sapient, and Publicis Health. What the exactly looks like will vary depending on the client, but could include things like assembling tailor-made teams to address a client’s unique needs.

The importance of media to the agency began with Maurice Levy, now chairman of the Supervisory Board of the French-based multinational, who realized early on that media was the hub of the whole agency operation. In 2006, he said in a strategy interview, “The medium before the message – that’s what agencies must tackle if they plan to connect with the consumer.”

Saunders agrees because no one knows the consumer better than the media practitioners. She says media is a revenue driver right now for most holding companies and, while she doesn’t expect agencies to go back to the all-inclusive, full-service model, the model is evolving.

“It’s a pretty wacky landscape out there and marketers are a little nervous. There’s no delineation between where media, production or creative starts. I think understanding the right channels, and delivering smart and modern media plans and buys across that full funnel is one thing, but now you need to have the right message for that channel right across the funnel.”

She says she never talks about just media anymore. “In the last couple of years, it’s always been about ‘media plus.’ We can’t be in isolation anymore. I think we’ve been there, done that and I think we’re, we’re coming back into the fold, being a little less separate.”

Saunders sees her new role as one of a facilitator of collaboration, bringing the right mix of agencies together for each client, no matter what resource they need. Right now, she’s spending a lot of time listening to marketers to find out what they’re looking for in a communications partnership, and what they need to be successful. The job is about driving new business for the group in Canada but that’s easier said than done. To do that, she says it’s really working with all of the agency brands and capabilities, and the clients to find the right solution for them because there’s no one size fits all anymore.

She believes the third leg of the advertising stool is contextual and Saunders expects the importance of context to increase, particularly as we head into a recession. “Thinking about the right channel and the right message in the right context, is what we were talking about 10 years ago. It kind of lost its way and I think it’s back. I think a company that works together to deliver that is a powerful company.”