“Economic uncertainty” has been a phrase that has haunted the boardrooms and financial statements of marketing departments and their agency partners for the better part of nine months. Between sky-high inflation and the looming fear of a recession that may or may not arrive, it makes for a very frustrating and confusing time for anyone that has to manage a media budget and respond to the changing spending power of their consumer base.

Media in Canada gathered a group of media agency executives and client-side brand marketers to get their insights on the best way to approach the uncertain times we are currently in. In the second part of the conversation, discussion touched on other subjects that are top of mind for the industry right now, from new and emerging approaches to data, the importance of working together and the vital opportunity in local media.

Present at the table were Tracey Cooke, SVP of marketing and commercialization at Nestle Canada; Adrian Fuoco, VP of marketing at Pizza Pizza; Devon MacDonald, president of Cairns Oneil; Lisa Mazurkewich, head of marketing at Subway Canada; Christine Saunders, CMO of Publicis Groupe Canada and CEO of Starcom Canada; Sarah Thompson, president of Dentsu Media Canada; and Dorothy Zarska, director of marketing channel strategy at Scotiabank.

Moderating the discussion was Josh Kolm, digital editor of strategy and Media in Canada and Mary Maddever, EVP of Canadian media brands and editorial director at Brunico Communications. Also in attendance were Penny Hicks, managing director of client partnerships at The Globe & Mail, Neil Ewen, associate publisher of strategy and Media in Canada, and Lisa Faktor, publisher of strategy and Media in Canada.

Check out the first part of their discussion – where they talk about which metrics actually matter, proving success and how media can support a brand putting out the right message – by clicking here.

Another thing that’s different about this period of economic uncertainty, compared to previous ones, is the new innovations, platforms and tools at your disposal. Are any of those particularly helpful in navigating our current situation?

Dorothy Zarska, director of marketing channel strategy at Scotiabank: We are farther along in having our data being clean, organized and usable. It’s more important and more valuable.

Devon MacDonald, president of Cairns Oneil: We have a ton of really valuable first party data, which can be more valuable than an individual transaction because of what it can tell you. Because of the discussions we are having around privacy, it is going to be the main input we have.

Sarah Thompson, president of Dentsu Media Canada: But we also have to be prepared for the future where we all have complete control over our identity, and it’s coming really soon. As a marketer, you need to start thinking about the value exchange you are baking into that process. We’ve tried a lot of that with loyalty programs, but we need to keep pushing and thinking of the next step that’s going to come beyond cookies and legislation. Where do you want to be as a responsible advertiser, because you need to start building that now?

If you are a brand that doesn’t have that direct relationship with a consumer, is that still a priority?

Tracey Cooke, SVP of marketing and commercialization at Nestle Canada: As a CPG, we’re beholden to our retailers. So we have a CBT, we have a clean room. We just did some pilots and the efficiency and receptivity on that data set is really powerful. It’s always been the scale for us, and this will help us point to other things we can do. It’s a huge priority for us, also because it’ll help us build to whatever is next.

Thompson: I think what you’ll see out of that is a lot more of, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. There will be a lot more interesting data models and co-ops.

Cooke: I’ve been wanting to do that for years, a sort of non-category specific co-operation. We’ve had initial conversations with some companies that will remain unnamed, but I think that’s a huge opportunity.

Would there be any resistance to that kind of sharing?

Cooke: Well this could get us to scale, which is the thing people are chasing. There’s no mass media anymore outside of the Super Bowl.

Christine Saunders, CMO of Publicis Groupe Canada and CEO of Starcom Canada: Scale and mass reach are difficult to achieve, not to mention frequency or refresh rates.

Thompson: We are not the U.S., and out of neccessity, new business models and partnerships will arise that will change the face of Canadian media all over again, faster than we expect. If you think about the walled gardens, what you’re missing is transparency. Now you can become your own media network, and that’s a massive opportunity. It can be a retailer, but it can also be a house of brands like Nestle.

Saunders: And that gives you control, which is important. And then we get back to the message. You have to honour the data and the consumer, and I don’t think we do that enough. We have to reframe how we approach production and creative, and have the message be part of the medium, because we don’t have that one big Super Bowl spot running all the time. We’ve got 1000 messages.

Adrian Fuoco, VP of marketing at Pizza Pizza: Pizza delivery is really interesting in that realm, because we historically have more data than we need, going back to the 80s and we had people’s phone numbers. But there are more challenges because deliveries are getting more expensive and more people are walking in, so that’s more effort to get data. And now so many of our deliveries are now going through a third party that doesn’t share its data.

It seems like connected TV and retail media, or some of the data things you’ve mentioned, are hitting the point where they are going to be big parts of media budgets. But these investments cost money, so if you’re looking at your budget more closely, what is the benefit in making a bet on something that is still new or emerging?

Saunders: Innovation will take a little bit of a nosedive. We’re all going to do the due diligence and fight the battle, but when you’re talking to a CFO and they ask if you can guarantee that a 10% innovation investment will generate revenue, they don’t care about revenue that is going to come next year. I think that’s going to be a tough battle.

Zarska: Look at the metaverse. There was a willingness to invest a bit and see what happened, but now that isn’t even a conversation anyone is having.

Cooke: It comes a bit down to culture. For our teams, pilots have helped us learn and scale, so we will still devote money to things like developing our ecommerce if the budgets make sense. But it’s important to have a culture of learning. If you’re on a strict budget, you do look at things a bit closer and stick with what’s proven to reach objectives, but we’ve built an appetite for innovation that isn’t going to go away.

Thompson: Innovation can also come from that partnership between the media and creative agency to come up with something. That is actual innovation, when great creative comes together with a great media plan. It’s a neccessity though. If your costs are being cut, you don’t want to spend $35,000 on meetings that don’t progress your business agenda. I hope we’re starting to look at that, instead of the competitive nature.

MacDonald: Retail media and connected TV are really going to change how we do things, though.

Cooke: Oh for sure. The retailers, especially grocery, have a lot of weight and power in Canada, and they’re all chasing that because they can get a 70% margin instead of 3%. So they’re all investing, and that’s going to put a lot of pressure on companies like mine deciding where to spend a dollar.

MacDonald: And there is really innovation happening there.

Thompson: And I also think it will create more innovation. You can only go through so many cycles of that where you don’t see it improve your business before you are out. And that’s where the brands will start to innovate on the periphery out of frustration. You are investing dollars and you should be able to see the outcomes.

Are there any channels or platforms that are smarter bets in economic uncertainty? I know I hear Subway on the radio a lot.

Lisa Mazurkewich, head of marketing at Subway Canada: One of our focus areas for this year is how can we leverage creative to support the optimal media plan. Media knows what they want to do, but there’s not always the right assets available. So how we do we shift to longer-term campaign so we can build optimal creative for each channel that still builds to a cohesive message that enables the right effectiveness. So much of innovation is getting the right people in the room together.

Thompson: There’s some underpinners of governance of structure that needs to happen between media and creative. I was working on a very large red telco for some time, and when we ended up having creative ideation and thinking about it, it required the media agencies to talk about variety and what you would need and started briefing the creative agency, and that required the two to come to the table as peers and building an infrastructure where, these are the media that work and the formats that work for different products, and these are the things you need. We need to focus on what the guardrails that govern that process are, an agreed upon set of rules that everyone agrees on so there is no uncertainty.

Mazurkewich: And it has to be centred on the consumer experience and need.

Zarska: It takes a lot more time, because more meetings have to happen with smaller bits of delivery, as opposed to the big “ah-ha” reveal where you hope the creative and media match. But it makes more sense to get everyone aligned instead of everyone being confused and re-iterating later to make it work.

MacDonald: Radio is having an interesting resurgence because it is one of those few mass channels available for most goals you might have. The fragmentation and reach in connected TV is huge. But radio has all the brand-building with all of the targeting.

Saunders: And it’s great for communities.

Does local media have more resonance right now?

Thompson: Absolutely. The dwell time is longer on a community story, so have a better chance of brand traction. There is no one misstep that got us where we are today, it’s so many things. But our industry is accountable for investing on behalf of our clients, and our planners have been put in positions where they are given huge responsibilities and making decisions based on the path of least resistance so they can go home to their families. If we change that, the support we can give to local news and journalism is huge, and it as powerful as anything else in your media plan. And it’s where the innovation is happening in terms of new products and new ways to reach audiences.

What kind of shifts have you already made to deal with economic uncertainty?

Fuoco: We operating on the assumption that the growth we saw last year is going to continue. Anyone who is going to be succesful will try to continue to grow. We are in a bit of a beneficial position in some ways, but I’d be concerned about any marketers were making big changes based on something that may or may not happen.

Mazurkewich: We are in a similar position. We had the strongest share growth in our segment. Where we will be looking is our messaging and being sure we are laser focused on saying the right thing and triggering the right behaviour in our consumer.