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Episode 12
Building Agency 2.0
About This Episode
We sit down with Alex Panousis, CEO of Carat Canada, and discuss building agency 2.0 in the challenging pandemic environment to ensure continued growth.
Alex Panousis | CEO, Carat Canada
Transcript
Episode Introduction (00:00:00)
I think agencies weren’t in the best shape. You know, this is a low growth, lower margin industry. But the good news is, it’s the perfect time for change. So as we talk about the digitization of everything, what does that mean from an agency perspective, both in terms of delivery and also in terms of, you know, the skill set, the kind of people that we have, the systems that we’re putting in place? How are we really becoming more effective and efficient and helping clients drive growth? I think that’s one of the biggest opportunities now, it’s not even about advertising, like, what does that mean building awareness building? It’s like, how do you survive? And how do you drive growth? Right? So those of the things that I think are definitely in the forefront of our clients, whether they’re retail or whether they’re, you know, kind of a traditional bricks and mortar industry, legacy industry, new retail, I mean, I think they’re all kind of going through those two changes, how are they going to survive? And how are they going to grow? And how are they going to pivot to the new consumer behavior?
How Agencies Thrive Introduction (00:01:01)
Curious to know what industry leading marketers are looking to achieve and the ever evolving digital landscape. The How Agencies Thrive podcast by StackAdapt is dedicated to helping the new breed of forward thinking savvy, lean and mean marketers win in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Time to thrive.
Vitaly (00:01:29)
Welcome to How Agencies Thrive podcast. My name is Vitaly Pecherskiyi, and I’m the host of this podcast. Today’s episode is the final episode of our first season. And do we have a guest for you! Today we’re welcoming Alex Panousis, CEO of Carat, Canada. Alex has previously held roles as president of Hawas, and spent a decade as CEO of Starcom. She’s a passionate educator and serves as a community director of marketing TO, so I can’t think of a better person to join us for our closing episode and her. Alex, welcome to our podcast.
Alex (00:02:00)
Hey, Vitaly, thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.
Vitaly (00:02:03)
Great. Well, Alex, you’re definitely joining us at an interesting time, you know, when we’re conceptualizing this podcast, in the beginning of the year, I would, I would have never thought that we would find ourselves in the middle of global pandemic. So a lot of things have to change. And, you know, being in summer 2020, everything is changing and evolving as we as we go. So, I’d love to maybe before we dive into kind of the meaty part of our podcasts, just to hear from your perspective on how pandemic affected your clients, how your business is evolving during this time, and any interesting insights that you may have taken away from it.
Alex (00:02:38)
Yeah, I mean, look, I think, as you said, there’s no playbook for this, for this time in the world, right? This is a pandemic, I’ve never lived through a pandemic, I’ve lived through some recessions, but I don’t think the past necessarily forges the future. What I think is interesting is how quickly things changed in particular, you know, in the media world, and, and also, you know, with clients, when people stopped going to work, they stopped buying things, they stopped eating out, they stopped buying cars. And so there was, you know, we saw some massive shifts in, you know, purchase behavior, way more online, e-commerce than we’ve ever seen. And one of the things that I think is interesting is how much of that behavior is going to stick post pandemic? Because it’s like, did we build, you know, our usage of tik tok? Was that just like for validating? Or is that going to stick? Are we going to constantly be looking back at this time? Are some of those things going to change? I think our clients, there are lots of really broad categories. I think there is no same story auto, I think has gone through a difficult time. I think they’re bouncing back. CPG, I think is is doing, you know, better than expected. I think QSR is pressured? I think there were some service industries and businesses that have done well. There’s some luxury brands that have gotten, you know, a bit more buoyant with some revenge shopping. I guess that’s the word of agency, agencies. Look, I think agencies were weren’t in the best shape. You know, this is a low growth, lower margin industry. But the good news is, it’s the perfect time for change. So as we talk about the digitization of everything, what does that mean from an agency perspective, both in terms of delivery and also in terms of, you know, the skill set the kind of people that we have the systems that we’re putting in place? How are we really becoming more effective and efficient and helping clients drive growth? I think that’s one of the biggest opportunities now. It’s not even about advertising, like what does that mean building awareness building? It’s like, how do you survive and how do you drive growth? Right. So those are the things that I think are definitely in the in the forefront of our clients, whether they’re retail or whether they They’re, you know, kind of a traditional bricks and mortar, industry legacy industry, new retail, I mean, I think they’re all kind of going through those two changes, how are they going to survive? And how are they going to grow? And and how are they going to pivot to the new consumer behavior?
Vitaly (00:05:17)
Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. You know, this is definitely the time for for change. And, you know, the companies that would probably lose in the long term are the ones that just waiting it out. I think the companies that have been really rapid at responding, they’re ultimately winning, you know, their businesses that are doing even better now than before. COVID. Not necessarily, like B2B software, for example, that kind of powers this digital workforce, for example, but even some categories where you never thought they will be performing so well, like they do today.
Alex (00:05:51)
Yeah, I mean, Bloom zooms, market cap is greater than the entire automotive category. I mean, it’s a pretty astonishing shift, you know, when we kind of think about that fourth, dimension, fourth, you know, industrial revolution of information, and how quickly we’ve seen. If you look at the last year, just even the velocity of the downs and the ups and the companies that are winning, versus the companies that are challenged. It’s a fascinating time.
Vitaly (00:06:18)
Yeah. You know, the really, the topic of this episode is sort of building the agency to point out. So for the main part of our discussion, I’d love to take a deeper dive into the business of agencies and maybe speculate of what that model will look like in the future. But to start, maybe, let’s imagine you’re talking to somebody who’s been on the remote island for the last five years and had no access to the internet, and they were a marketer before they left. So what would you tell them now about sort of the state of agency business and how it has changed over the last five years?
Alex (00:06:56)
Yeah, it’s a great question. Look, there’s good news. And there’s bad news. Here’s I’ll start with the bad news. I think that there has never been more commoditization of agencies than there is today. Like we essentially, you know, media today is such a commodity as an industry, we’ve eliminated the differences amongst the outputs of our competitors. So whether you’re agency a or agency B, at the end of the day, there is very little little difference, like true difference, true differentiators. And I think that’s a challenge. So I think that’s one big issue, the differentiation part. The other part is growth for agencies, and margin delivery is harder to come from today. So thinking about, but what that looks like moving forward is a real is a real challenge. Whereas I would say, even five years ago, there were there was more buoyancy in the marketplace. Now, you know, the growth is, you know, what’s the latest report like we’re sort of the industry is growing at less than 4%. It’s certainly not robust. And in order to really kind of show velocity, you’ve got to move into different areas. So what’s the good news? The good news is that there are opportunities and vertical integration, there are opportunities in different sectors, the opportunities for data, lead media, creativity, offer up done right, offer up a significant way of having clients understand, you know, the return on advertising investment, the return on capital investment, if it can drive growth, and I think those are the things that agencies need to really kind of focus on. Whereas in media, you know, we used to be all about kind of buying and buying precision. Now, that seems to be table stakes, right? Pricing seems to be table stakes, we’ve got to get into industries that are consulting, we’ve got to get into tech and digital and enablement. We’ve got to get into more of the what’s the idea that’s going to help us grow, not the technology that will get there, what’s the actual idea? And then how can you through an end to end delivery system show up to the consumer in a way that’s actually going to drive the business? I think that’s that’s the good news. And I think we’re moving into a time where the talent pool that is now succeeding on the agency side is really you know, doubling down they’re doubling down in digital with W down in tak they’re recognizing that they need to learn skills like design thinking they need to take some of the kind of the things that some other industries engineering as an example has standardization and start to use that in a more systemic way in the advertising and media industry. So you know, I am nothing but optimistic. And today Vitaly, especially today because Ontario and Toronto Toronto specifically we to stage three, so I think, you know, the idea of restart. And the idea of, you know, kind of moving forward is, is a big theme.
Vitaly (00:10:08)
Yeah, you know, Alex, I would love to come back to the topic of talent low later in our discussion, because I think it’s incredibly important. But to your point about kind of data driven creative, I think, you know, in, in the past few years, especially with perhaps virtualization technologies, there’s been a lot of promise around pure data driven creative that drives results, that maybe in some ways automates sort of intervention from humans. But at the same time, that ultimately leads to potentially very similar predictable, creative, that a lot of brands like, it doesn’t really resonate with a lot of brands that have historically been really investing in really outstanding kind of meeting innovation. So yeah, where do you find that balance between really data and creative? And in our previous call, call, you mentioned the concept of the
Alex (00:11:11)
Yeah, I mean, I think the last few years, our industry has focused on kind of short termism, right. So the idea that a brand will show up right person, right place, right time with a message that, you know, it’s like five o’clock, it’s dinner time, you know, is that enough to inspire someone to actually go to Popeyes? Or do you need to have a more kind of holistic, more, I don’t know, I wouldn’t say interesting, but more kind of creative message, take some of the things that Burger King is doing. And so I think the we went too far into the data and nuances, lost a bit of the big picture. And then I think, to your to your point, some of the stuff that we used to talk about, like that was supposedly possible we really actually weren’t really activating against. So I think today, we’re now in an opportunity where the technology is there, we are able to personalize messaging, then the question becomes, what’s the right message to serve. And so thinking about that is really important. You know, data is only as good as the data you have. And I don’t think we’ve always had perfect data. I also think that the way that you motivate people to take action is an art. And so finding humanity and kind of building that bridge from what you say and how you say it. And where you say it is as important as looking at technology and data and delivery. And, and I think we’re now it’s almost like we as an industry, we were sort of toddlers, and now we’re maturing, and as the industry matures, we know better, and bringing that humanity into the numbers, the meaning in the math, right, I think is going to be a bedrock of how our industry moves forward, and delivers more value.
Vitaly (00:13:01)
So spend a lot more time probably with the end customer and really understand what is the what is the problem that the brand is solving? And really try to find it, how you solve that consumers problem in a way that’s definitely unique, but also in a way that really would make your brand stand out.
Alex (00:13:23)
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think, look, I mean, we know more about people today than ever before, like, in a nanosecond, we can understand where they are, we know what their preferences are, we have a sense of behavior, we know what they liked before. And they tell us more things about themselves. Right? So taking advantage of that, but in a way that actually demonstrates that we actually really understand them as people, you know, because, I mean, it sounds pedantic, but advertising, you know, we’re not, we’re not talking to Martians, we’re talking to people. And we’ve got to make sure that those messages are human. Even when I look at DTC brands, and, you know, just even some of the interesting ways that they’re showing up in, in various areas and social media, you know, they’re scratching an itch, they’re, they’re focusing on something that is, you know, to your point, a problem, and they’re offering a solution in a really interesting way. And those are the brands that are winning.
Vitaly (00:14:23)
Can you think of a couple brands that really stand out to you?
Alex (00:14:26)
Well, I mean, you know, to me, Harry’s is a great example. I think the ordinary is a great example. I think revolution is a great example clothing line. There are many, I mean, even I guess an older brand Allbirds Tesla, you know, Tesla doesn’t spend money in marketing like here’s a great example, right? They compete with GM and that whole and Toyota and Honda and what they do is they have a charismatic CEO that tweet something on, you know, on Twitter, and then that gets shared around the world and creates demand excitement and velocity. I mean, who would have ever thought that we could go from this legacy category of automotive to Tesla having more market cap Tesla’s bigger than Toyota? Like, it’s incredible. And I think part of that part of the digitization, or like the kind of what’s happened is more as possible. And those brands that have taken advantage of that are the ones that are winning.
Vitaly (00:15:28)
But do you think so to the point about Tesla, you know, with them, I mean, I’ve, I wish I had a Tesla, I’ve driven Tesla before. It’s amazing. But you know, in their case, it starts with amazing product, right? So do you think marketing team in general spends enough time with the product team, to really make sure that the product itself actually delivers on the promise, then ultimately, if you know, repeat, purchase, it all comes down to product actually solving the problem really well? Like if you, if you will, in the case of Tesla, maybe you don’t buy it every year, but you know, if you buy something more trivial, like Yeah, I don’t know, garbage bags, but they you know, they didn’t rip, the repeat purchase comes from really product itself.
Alex (00:16:23)
I think your points an interesting one. I mean, look at Tesla’s issue is it doesn’t have the level of recurring revenue you say that Netflix has or even a peloton like some, you know, you have three modern brands that are succeeding today. But you know, I think they’ve just started. So if I look at Tesla, to me, I look at, okay, who’s buying a Tesla? And what else can they buy? What services? You know, do birds of a feather flock together? I don’t know, is Tesla the kind of company like can you start a dating app with Tesla users? Like I you know, I don’t know. But I think there, could you start a Content Network for Tesla users, they’re forward thinking, they’re revolutionary, what’s the next TED Talk infrastructure that will appeal to a, you know, a group, a community of Tesla drivers that I think will be really unique? I think that those are the kinds of problems that we have to now solve in new and different ways that are, you know, to me, those are the the interesting, modern challenges. And I think, you know, our agencies doing that. I think the competition with consultancies is real. I think, to a certain degree, they are more capable of answering some of those questions, because some of the solutions aren’t media or advertising, they’re broader business. And so being able to understand the end to end offering from, you know, what your consumers looking for? How do you fulfill a car and what that experience is? And then what do you do next, after they purchased one, I think is a really big opportunity for us as an industry to kind of wrap our heads around.
Vitaly (00:17:52)
Yeah, and I think that’s, that’s ultimately, what I’m observing that more brands are looking really for sort of, you know, help across the board, right, they don’t need help. Only with messaging, they, they really want to tie everything together, you know, all their systems, they want to make sure that it really all this work on the marketing and properly funnels into their revenue projections. And, and I think that’s ultimately why consultancies have been successful. But I imagine there’s still so many things that agencies, marketing agencies can do better than consultancies, from your perspective, where what would be, you know, a strength of an agency that for consultancy would be really hard to replicate?
Alex (00:18:37)
Yeah, I mean, I think two things, I think the first one is really the the way that agencies think about solving problems and and looking at idea first, media lead idea, creativity, I think is different coming from an agency and the way that we approach it versus the skill set that a consultant would have. I also think as much as they’re moving into areas of delivery and actual media execution, I just don’t see the scale there. So they may have, you know, a team of I don’t know, 50 you know, search experts at Deloitte and the Deloitte Media Group, you know, but we have, you know, a density you have, like 10,000 that are global footprint. And so the ability then to inject and to learn and to iterate and to kind of understand best practices, I think is stronger. But you know, I mean, it’s, it’s fascinating, right, like Drogo, five got sold to Accenture, like people are like the things that are that are happening today are really changing the landscape. So I think the modern media agency, the modern agency has got to really double down on what’s the idea that’s going to drive growth through a client. And if you can come up with that in a really fresh, interesting way, using data and technology, digital, and everything that’s available to you, you’re gonna win.
Vitaly (00:19:56)
Yeah, I think you know that that has always been a philosophy for us. that StackAdapt You know, we’ve always looked at 8020 rule and double down on things that produce, you know, exponentially more outcome for the input. So with with agencies, I feel like because it’s fairly easy to add services, what is the next hottest platform? Okay, Pinterest, let’s start. Let’s spin out Pinterest consulting arm. At some point, you just doing everything, it’s really hard to differentiate yourself from other businesses because you you end up offering everything. And then you obviously cannot double down on one thing where you can probably recruit the best in the business. And really, really carve out that niche and really own it.
Alex (00:20:45)
Yeah, I think that’s the challenge, right. But if you look at a market like Canada, one of the things that we have, we have a lot of great agencies like the bar is really high. What I’m looking to do at Karis specifically, is to start to elevate their point of view in areas like content in areas like commerce, in areas like content, where we’re able to offer our clients a very distinct point of view in categories where we have expertise, automotive, retail, CPG, and we’re able to use that view on the landscape to help them differentiate from their competitors and grow. You know, so concepts like brand is commerce, I think, you know, that’s not just about Pinterest, it’s not just about Amazon, it’s also about how to use legacy media, like television and out of home to drive that conversation. So instead of having, you know, kind of, we’re doing a brand idea here on the left hand side, and then we’re going to do, you know, drive action and drive sales on the right hand side, we’re starting to think about that ecosystem in a more fluid way. I think, to your point, or to our discussion earlier, that does require a different skill set, it requires people that can come into media, that are also really versed in, in business, and that they understand how the sum of the parts come together, as opposed to just doing great job, you know, we’re 10 years ago, we were doing a great job buying GRPs or buying impressions, you know, we’re no longer outcomes are no longer the, the bar, we actually have to have to get beyond just the the clicks and the stuff in the, you know, the ways that we’re buying to actually really helping clients. Transform the business.
Vitaly (00:22:27)
Yeah, and, you know, on the topic of talent, I can speak about myself, you know, when I was early in my career, I, maybe I was not properly explained, during university, that when you join a company, it’s, it’s really, in many cases, not about just doing that one thing that you hired for, but rather, it’s like you’re doing that one thing, but the best path for career growth is really have deep understanding of what the company does, and finding ways to translate what you do to like the business growth. So speaking about talent, what have you seen younger staff look for in their job over what they look for in the past?
Alex (00:23:11)
I mean, the challenge advertising used to be, you know, it was like the place for the cool kids. And now it’s no longer the place for the cool kids, right? The if you’re the cool kid, you’re going to tap if you’re a cool kid, you’re going to places where the industry has more of a career accelerant. And so now that I think meat, you nail that advertising, you know, we’ve we’ve kind of, you know, kind of like we did it to ourselves, right? We weren’t investing, we were kind of milking the brands, we were sort of, you know, squeezing out the margins, and we weren’t kind of investing back in the business. Now we’re going back and saying, okay, so what do what does an entry level person wanting a career in advertising? Well, they want great training, they want great management skills. They want to learn how to solve problems. They want to know how to connect the real hard skills of how to actually connect with clients and come up with ideas. So part of that is very technical. Like I’m a big believer in badges. I’m a big believer in like, ensuring that the core competencies are there. And then it’s about learning the soft skills. It’s about learning, you know, how to be human and how to how to use technology to elevate ideas, and what is a great idea? And how do you differentiate between a good idea and a great idea and a great business building idea? And so our competition isn’t just other agencies or competition now is Google when I was at start calm, I lost more people in digital to Facebook like I have, I probably had like 1212 of my like, they come we train them, they would do an incredible job and then Facebook would call them and there was nothing I could do. I could there’s no way I could compete against Facebook. But what I wanted to do was I almost use that in some ways to my advantage is that listen, more of my people have gone to face spokesman we’re doing something right, retrain them in the right way we’re giving them and it’s like recognizing that they’re not going to come in like they did before and do 20 years at your firm, they’re going to come in and do you know, three to five, hopefully. And then I think that’s what we haven’t prepared for. And that’s another area for talent, like bringing them in showing them career acceleration, recognizing they’re gonna leave. And then instead of managing just the front end, manage the back end, I want to create alumni groups, I want people to know that, you know, when they’ve spent three years with my agency, that they talk about that as the best experience they’ve ever had, and that I am able to give them that experience in exchange for the value that they’re going to be bringing to our clients.
Vitaly (00:25:47)
Yeah, that’s awesome. I absolutely love that. I think that’s a that’s a great way to thinking about it. Because you’re absolutely right. You know, nowadays, people want to get a lot of different experience, recognizing that there’s a lot of value that they can create and investing in them, despite the fact that they may leave three years later. Yeah, I think it’s incredibly important. To the topic of education, do you think universities and colleges are doing a good job producing this young talent? Or do you think they’re their areas of improvement that they can do? Like, anything stands out to you?
Alex (00:26:23)
Yeah, look, I don’t know, I teach at Humber in the postgraduate program. In media, I think education is about is broader than just having a skill. And the problem today is it’s the expense of the practical reality. You know, if you’re going in and getting a liberal arts degree in something, and you’re coming out, you have, you know, you don’t have any skills, like you’re gonna have to decide like, what, what job are you going to do? And so I think we are shifting a little bit from this. And I think both sides are important, like, I want people to love the arts and, and and think about anthropology and philosophy and push us as a society, I think we’re better for it. But I also feel that there, there’s a grave need for technical skills, like hard skills, and those technical skills, whether they’re, you know, learning to code or knowing how to traffic an ad, like when you’re coming into an agency and an entry level job, there are some things like I think you need to have you need to be Google certified. I think you need to know how to traffic an ad, I think you need to understand the media ecosystem and be able to be fluid around it. I remember doing a session at marketing to on social influencers. And there was a there was a brand leader that said, well, the whole reason why we hire influencers is only because we ourselves don’t know the platform’s we don’t know Tik Tok. So we’re not hiring people, because we think it’s going to drive the business, we’re actually trying to learn on the backs of that talent. So I think that’s also interesting, right? It’s like, go into an organization and like, be an expert in Snapchat or tick tock or, you know, really understand how like, how do you like launch a Facebook campaign, like, it’s crazy how many people in digital today don’t know how to do that, like, literally take a small business, put them on Facebook do or something as simple as it’s simple, but you know, something is as critical as understanding how to, you know how to do schema, and managing the back end of SEO, those are skills that are critical today, as a leader, you need to understand them, because you need to be able to look at the you know, what’s available, and be able to make those connections. But as someone that’s going in, I think having that background, so as much as I think university, and College is great. I also think brain station is great. I also think some of the very sort of technical skills that you can get going to like a college like like a Humber or centennial, where you’re going to learn some of those things. And then the other thing that I wish was more buoyant, were internships where you’re actually mentioned, like a plumber, right, you’re interning to learn how to do something. So like, internships that actually teach you some of the fundamental basics of our industry is also an area of opportunity. And I think we’re getting there, but I think there’s ways away from production.
Vitaly (00:29:13)
Yeah, I think you’re right, you know, for for universities or colleges. It’s, it’s, it’s hard to adjust the program so quickly, to keep it relevant with today’s for example, technologies or tools. That’s why these programs like or schools, like brain station, like discontinuous, continued education are so successful is because there’s always something new. And I think maybe that’s an opportunity for for companies is really to almost think of themselves as that platform where a young talent can come in, and they whenever they leave, they will always look back thinking like that’s when that’s where I really honed my skills.
Alex (00:29:52)
Exactly. I think even myself like I like this year I took a product management course at brain station personally. If it’s just before COVID Everything Alex, I wanted you to, you know, to me, it’s like because I felt that there were areas of the language of that, like I ran a boss at the time. And we were an end to end agency. And so I had some exposure to it. But I didn’t know a deeply. And now that I know it deeply now, but at the exposure that I had the ability to work at best in class models, learn from people that it was the top of the game, like some incredible leaders in that field, right. So to me, that is what having a vital robust career really is like being able to find the space, learn something new, and then apply it to the solutions that are presented in front of you every day.
Vitaly (00:30:40)
That’s awesome. I, I’m sure a lot of people are inspired by by your career and everything that you do. You’re just you have your hands everywhere. It’s incredible. So, um, I My next question is really around. Maybe it’s somewhat an introspective question. Do you think media agencies are doing a good job reflecting today’s society? And maybe you can tell me more about that?
Alex (00:31:09)
Yeah, I mean, I look, I don’t know, I think we have, I certainly think the agencies that I’ve worked at, we have tried really hard to be diverse, diverse at every level. So in skill set, and the way people look and the way they show up and come across and different backgrounds and not hiring each other is it has been a theme. Do I think we’re there? No, we’re definitely not there. Is it perfect? No. But I think you know, Sunshine is the best disinfectant. The best thing, one of the best things, I think that’s happened during COVID. The conversations around Black Lives Matter the conversations around diversity, I just did a marketing to with a woman. Her name is Jessica, Joan Richards, who talked about look ism. And you know, is there a beauty bias in, in the industries that we work in? And the reality is that, you know, we are not perfect advertising was, you know, for the longest time a bunch of white men, if you think about Mad Men than a few women joined, then we had movements that said, women were being paid less than men. You know, there was a big movement a few years ago, less than 3% of creative directors around the world were female, let alone women of color. So I think we as an industry, we are we’ve got to recognize that when we have a problem. And then too, we have to figure out ways to attract and, and, and get people to join the industry that are more diverse. Look, I think I’m optimistic that we are better off now than we were a year ago. And I think that the issue can only make us stronger and more reflective. We also know that industries that are more diverse, tend to do better on the s&p tend to have better ideas tend to grow faster. In technology, that diversity of views allows us to make products that service more people because we have perspective, right? So I think all of those things, for me are positive. And I think agencies are becoming more aware of some of the gaps that they have.
Vitaly (00:33:20)
Do you think some of these protests translated into somewhat of a longer term conversation within brands? Or do you think it was more reactionary when they kind of addressed it back in June? Or do you see that more of them still discussing it? And actually taking steps to bring change?
Alex (00:33:43)
Yeah, here’s my hope. We used to believe that, you know, performance comes at any price, like I could buy whatever audience I want, whatever, longtail whatever, you know, it didn’t matter. So if I was a serial brand, I remember this story really clearly. My father was dying of cancer. And I was on a whole bunch of blogs, looking about looking at stage four, lung cancer and knowing I was a woman in my 40s and I was you know, I guess my behavior suggests that I was dieting you know, I don’t know. And I was getting these ads for like, diet cereal or more protein in my cereal here I am on a site where I’m reading about you know, someone dying and you know, a stage four test, a medical test, and I’m being served ads that are looking at my behavior now my intent. So that’s ridiculous, right, that that is and so as an industry, we’ve learned that, you know, that’s just not the right way of moving forward and then that that then creates a question of, you know, does media have meaning are you able to make a choice? That may not necessarily be the cheapest place to buy an audience but more more effective place to buy it on? Its we know that that’s today, we know that that’s the right thing. You’re better After paying more to get the right context to reach your audience, the Facebook question or the question around hate that’s been kind of brewing, you know, Facebook, and frankly, all social media that is consumer created, I think has caused brands to to step up and take a pause. It’s like, what’s the line we’re willing to tolerate? What’s the line? What’s good enough? And the only way that we can do that is to understand that we have less control in some of these environments, right? When, when social media is being curated by individuals, you can’t control content. So I think that’s one thing, despite the safety precautions, it’s not ever going to be 100%. And then, are you willing to use your dollars to make a statement? And we’ve seen many brands and many clients that are willing to do that? Whether that will be sustainable? You know, I’m not sure. But I hope it creates some really good conversations, both with agencies and with clients about what the future means. I’ve always said to clients, my classroom and people that I know, it’s just because you can doesn’t mean you should, you know, just because you can doesn’t mean you should and I do think, I don’t know, maybe I’m not like the full capitalist that I should be. But I do think that that there’s certain things that matter. And and I believe in a value based, meaningful way of reaching people. And I do think there are environments that you can do that in despite the challenges that we have in front of us today.
Vitaly (00:36:29)
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s a very important and certainly very difficult topic. You know, I would love to have more brands, not only introspectively ask themselves, like, what are they doing internally to actually bring change, aside from maybe supporting some causes on paper, but maybe even challenge vendors that they work with around like, what, what do they do to support values that they have? So I guess, time will tell what that future looks like. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, Alex, I think this is a great way to wrap up the podcast I I feel definitely inspired talking to you. I think you have so many great ideas. i I’m sure listeners of this podcast will will find your career, your views. Very enlightening. And I I’m very grateful that you joined us for for today’s conversation.
Alex (00:37:30)
Well, right back at you. I think you guys are doing a great job at StackAdapt. You’re one of the you know, highlights, Canadian unicorns, you’re just really changing the marketplace, and really adding a tremendous amount of value. Thank you for taking the time to do this. And, you know, at the end of the day, I think these conversations just elevate our industry. It’s like good for us to talk about these things. It’s good for us to have points of view. We don’t have to agree. It’s great that we’re able to debate and and I think that helps all of us. Move forward.
Vitaly (00:37:59)
Yeah, thank you very much, Alex.
Alex (00:38:01)
My pleasure. Thank you. Cheers.
Episode Outro (00:38:03)
Thank you very much for tuning into this episode today. If you like what you heard, it would mean the world to us. If you do these three things. Subscribe to the show and leave us a review. If you’re listening to this and know someone who would find this episode valuable. Please share it with them. And finally, please share it on LinkedIn. If you have questions or feedback or would love to learn how agencies or brands work with StackAdapt, find us at www.stackadapt.com Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
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