With the industry in a constant state of flux, MiC has been periodically touching base with media agency leaders who are navigating those changes. Leaders like Caroline Breton at Involved Media, Samantha Kelley at OMG, and Karel Wegert at Media Experts. This week we spoke with Robert Jenkyn, president at Horizon Media Canada, about the work he’s been doing since he took on the role in March.

MiC: What is your vision for the agency?

Jenkyn: My vision, and the vision of the entire company, is to provide a scalable, transparent alternative to the Canadian agency market. Where everything we do allows us to focus on our clients and the business outcomes that matter to them. Horizon in the U.S. has a track record of business performance, and we want to be known in Canada for doing the same. We’re doing the same, but I think we’ve been pretty quiet and humble about it. We want to tell the world that this is what we’re doing now, and we’re going to continue to do. We have the ability to not just focus on the clients but also the freedom to innovate and to be thought leaders on things that matter to our clients’ business.

My goal is to create as many hero moments for our clients as possible. Richard [Ivey, who recently joined as EVP for the agency’s business solutions team] is already working with our client teams to improve how we do things and make more exciting moments for our clients, to create more value from the media that we are buying and planning. It’s not a matter of getting necessarily the cheapest rate, although price is important, but it’s also about how we get flexibility, better placement, better shows, the best OOH boards in the right place, the right time. It’s about amplifying what we do.

What areas are you investing in?

On some level, all media is turning digital, whether it’s video content, audio content or out-of-home. To that end, we’re continuing to invest in our market, in tech and Canadian data. We have a great data platform called Blu and we’re investing in Canadian data that’s relevant to our clients and gives us insight into a huge number of Canadian households – but also matches the privacy compliance rules here in Canada.

On top of that, we’re starting to invest to improve things like our e-commerce capabilities. We have a number of clients who are very e-commerce driven, like Shark Ninja as an example. We’re also investing in influencer marketing and sports marketing, and doing this with a lot of support from our U.S. counterparts. Event-based, live sports are very important for getting a large audience in one go and having a view beyond just buying spots within a particular game, but going beyond that, and seeing how we can have sponsorships and partnerships that go a little deeper.

What are you doing to develop talent?

In addition to external and internal training that we’re doing, we’re also looking at things like board certification across all digital platforms. We’re looking at partnering with some of our U.S. counterparts to learn from them. They’ve got a staff of over 2,500 who we can learn from and we’re taking full advantage of that. We are also supported by our HR teams in the U.S. and Canada. We want people to be able to build their career here, and learn, grow, develop and take it to the next level. That comes with training and also certification. I can’t tell you how excited people get around being certified on different platforms.