What’s one project, campaign, or achievement you’re most proud of in your career so far?

We have gone very deep with a few media agencies and helped them expand their digital advertising technology capabilities beyond anything they could have imagined with other partners. In doing so we’ve helped them win clients and then increase consumer engagement while helping decrease cost and increase their clients ROI. We have a number of examples where we have broken industry benchmarks for multiple KPIs such as: 120% increase in mobile orders Doubled engagement while dropped media cost. Drove 5 million downloads over 3 years Increased offer redemption by 130% over 2 years.

What’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve ever received?

Focus on the thing you do best and get better than anyone else at it. Keep focusing on that niche that differentiates you, and everything else will fall into place.

What excites you most about the future of digital advertising in Canada?

The ability to now produce and automate using no-code systems with AI. We can now use AI to start powering all departments without having to hire a ton of developers.

In your view, what’s the biggest opportunity for our industry right now — and what’s the biggest challenge?

The biggest opportunity is related to the biggest challenge. AI automation and the integration of AI into workflows to automate the mundane tasks and help power your people by far the biggest opportunity in existence for all industries. It’s also the biggest challenge to not only keep up with this insanely fast-evolving technology, but also to understand how to properly apply it in the right ways and mistake it for replacing the wrong tasks.   Things that this technology will help take to the next level are:  Measurement, Optimization, Reporting, Data and Audience Architecture, Creative optimization.

If you could change one thing about the industry overnight, what would it be?

Rid the industry of advertising fraud.

Which trends, tools, or innovations are you keeping your eye on this year? 

As noted, AI is something I will be watching, learning and keeping my eye on as much as possible. We will be launching in-store sales measurement as a media measurement solution this year and I will be keeping a close eye on measurement to utilize all tools that will help drive results based on purchase data. Advances in CTV and Audio will be something I’ll be watching out for as more opportunities for story telling. Where search goes and how AI content optimization plays into the new SEO space. The link between omnichannel opportunities and attaching market share changes as a metric to optimize ad spend against.

What role do you think collaboration through IAB Canada plays in driving industry growth?

Central training and education are keys to industry success as well as helping with oversight and I think IAB Canada plays a key role here. I want to work with IAB Canada as much as I can to help educate the industry as well as help the smaller players come into the industry and innovate advertising.