Caroline Breton (left) with Andrew Bulmer, president and managing director of Active International Canada.

Launching a new agency brand into the Canadian market could be a daunting task, but industry veteran Caroline Breton has hit the ground running as managing director of Involved Media Canada, a standalone media agency unit introduced by Active International this week.

Active International is a corporate trade and media company. It provides media planning and buying services, though largely as an extension of its traditional area of expertise helping companies manage excess inventory and recover write-downs – with funding media budgets being one area where it does that. Across the 13 countries where it operates, it manages more than $1 billion in media buying annually.

But spinning media planning into its own dedicated division is meant to expand on its capabilities, which is one thing Breton is already looking at.

In particular, she is focusing on strategic planning and flexibility, with an overall goal to deliver exceptional service and results for clients. The agency’s approach is “egoless” or unbiased media.

“I want people to think of the agency, as your friend,” Breton says. “Somebody who will look out for you, and I will do what’s best for you and support you. We’ve tailored our offering, whether it’s to work directly with clients, whether it’s to work with agencies to provide bespoke work, or on a project-by-project basis. We are not tied to vendor deals or anything like that so our decisions will be in the best interests of the client.”

The new agency will focus on working with mid-market brands and as an extension of independent agencies in Canada such as its established relationships with Bob’s Your Uncle, BTI Brand Innovations and APT. It will also be also leveraging Active’s connections to handle global brands eyeing the Canadian marketplace.

Involved Media is operating in a hybrid model based at the headquarters of Active in Markham with seven media staff on board. In addition to Breton, that includes a number of long-time Active International staff who will now be working on Involved, such as SVP of media Mimi Salviato; VP of digital Karim Kanji; VP of strategy and planning Shawn Hall; VP of business developments and partnerships Stephanie Kinkead; VP of strategic partnerships Steve Muscat; media director Dustin Metcalf; and Mitch D’souza, who was hired as marketing manager last month. It also has a dedicated activation team to support the agency as it grows.

Looking ahead, Breton believes staffing and talent is a big issue agencies will be facing soon. During the pandemic, it was an employee’s market with a lot of open positions, but that resulted in a loss of experience and institutional knowledge.

“I think people were given titles that are beyond their experience and over the course of the next 18 months, the agency industry is going to have to readjust their expectations because at some point clients are going to say, I’m sorry, this person is not at the director level,” Breton says.

She also expects that, going into a recession, brand awareness and maintaining brand presence in the market will be more of an imperative, making television, especially connected TV and programmatic DOOH will regain importance in the market.