Toronto-based Nectar First has hired Dana Toering, former VP of Walmart Connect Canada, as managing director of commerce media.

Toering will lead the commerce media team at Nectar First, which launched in May 2022 by experiential agency Salt XC with CEO Jordan Bortolotti and partner Brett Moon. It works with brands to grow retail media by building custom in-house teams, offering technology and measurement tools and enabling first-party data collection. The agency also provides creative services through its acquisition of boutique creative and production agency Taylor Day.

Prior to taking on his new role, Toering spent two and a half years leading Walmart Connect in Canada before leaving the company at the beginning of the year. He has also had leadership roles at Accenture, Adobe, Addictive Mobility and AOL.

Toering says Nectar’s model for retail media partnerships benefits the retailers, the brands and the shopper. The model has been built specifically to be cross-functional and support the complexity of retail media.

“Retail media currently lacks a lot of standardization, although that’s starting to come together,” Toering says. “What we wanted to do was create a unified model that allowed us to service brands and retailers, and bring a solution in the market that tries to simplify the retail media environment as much as possible.”

Toering believes Nectar is taking a more effective media approach, not just for commerce media, but also for above the line, TV and all the traditional channels.

“When you start putting the customer and connections framework at the core of what you do, you really unlock the true power of all these different media channels to work together to impact sales,” he says. “And we’re already seeing the results with some of our partners. They’re leaning into this new approach and our core commerce media program. We’re excited that we’ve yet
to know what connected TV and shoppable ads can do.”